Seasonal Greetings

Mornings at the Yard have always been best. Our best efforts and thoughts occur early with the caffeine rather than late with the cabernet. In 1992, in an effort to lose the weight gained with the birth of the Yard lineage we joined the Pasadena Athletic Club. Five AM was the only time that was allowed under the domestic conditions at that time to chase such efforts. At the PAC, those AM hours were inhabited by a unique group of friends who have remained friends long after the PAC was demolished. UCLA was in the midst of a historic run of bitch slapping USC during the 1990’s. Humility was a guideline not a strict policy. The Yard was a neophyte and less humble in that role than required based on our zip code. My brethren at the club were part of the Trojan pride that inhabited the neighborhoods and mindshare in the community. It was a time when UCLA’s success overshadowed USC and our belligerence overshadowed both. We were welcomed and tolerated with teeth clenching disdain. During the Pete Carroll era, we were forced to change our philosophical tenets with one more consistent with our team’s declining results. UCLA’s victory of USC a few weeks back was timely for many related to these musing. UCLA saved USC from having to hire Ed Ogeron. Ogeron is a great asset to the University and beloved by the players. He finished a solid 6-2 record after Kiffin got canned. Those two losses were the bookends of an ND loss, six wins and then closing with a beat down by UCLA. If USC had somehow beaten UCLA, the calls to hire Ogeron would have been hard to ignore. The Bruins saved the Trojans from themselves even it meant exposing the decay that was hidden during the winning streak. You are welcome. UCLA’s victory was also extremely timely because the annual PAC dinner is this week in Pasadena. The Yard is the only Bruin most of the attendees know. Bruin fan is not indigent to the Pasadena area and sightings are rare in this historic city. It is nice to not just have won the game but to walk tall among the Trojan loyalists who have scant rebuttal. We cannot save Troy from mining the past to save the future but we can graciously remind them over dinner, drinks and banter. If USC had beaten the Bruins or even made it a game USC would have had a more difficult decision. With the Bruins beating down the Trojans Saturday night, USC could hire Steve Sarkisian the following Monday while underscoring but not highlighting the losses to ND and UCLA. Ogeron revealed his real intent when he was not hired for his coveted job. He was all about the team and the fun until it was not his team. Then it was no longer fun and f---u! It was surprising that USC raced to hire Steve Sarkisian as their next head coach. He seems like a nice person and he mentioned winning championship about a half a dozen times in his initial press conference. USC’s urgency to hire Sark was strange given no other school was really pursuing him for their opening. We were surprised USC did not ask for permission to speak to Jim Mora as they did the Bruin baseball coach. They actually may have asked for permission during halftime of the November massacre at the Coliseum but those reports are unconfirmed. Sark did take on a Husky team recovering from a 0-12 disaster season. He did not win a championship of any sort at UW or was ever in contention. He was an offensive coordinator during the Trojan heyday but working for Pete Carroll is not the same as trying to channel Pete. USC keeps trying to recapture that lighting first with Kiffin and now Sarkisian. That magic now coaches on Sundays. Saturdays on Exposition could be troubling for a while for the Cardinal and Gold. As the dominoes cascaded, UW circled back to see if Jim Mora was serious when he gamely mentioned that was his dream job many years back. Those erstwhile comments cost him his head coaching job in the NFL and they reverberated through the UCLA athletic department last week. Mora got a new contract, more money for his assistant coaches, and a $50 million football only facility. UW then hired Chris Peterson from Boise to replace Sark. Peterson had turned down about 35 different opportunities including USC and UCLA over the years. USC fan was outraged that the Trojans did not get Peterson this time and settled on Sarkisian. It was more of a settle than a hire for USC. See you all in Pasadena again soon! It will be the best of Holidays for another year.

Lane Memories

It has been a scary week at the Yard. We had cancelled our USC acid reflux prescription when we friended Lane Kiffin on Facebook in September. USC has never fired a coach in mid-season and as miserable as USC had played, our Kiffin seemed safe for the balance of the season or at least through Thanksgiving weekend. Lame felt the same when he met Pat Haden on the tarmac at LAX that fateful fall night. His passing did not seem fair to Bruin nation without a moment of silence and reflection. Kiffin was our hero and many would have expected USC to digress into diffidence and malware. Kiffin disappeared as he had at every other job. Interim head coach Ed Ogeron was never expected to right the offense and Traveler VI. With all of the Obamacare capitulations we felt we could cut back on that med until the Republicans regained control and did who knows what. Alas, we digress...we need our USC meds this week and it does not appear that we can log onto the website in a timely manner to receive these gastrointestinal medications prior to kickoff. There was only hope for persistence when the Yard gladly embraced the Lane Kiffin era at USC. USC AD Mike Garrett raced by private jet to lure Kiffin back to USC from Tennessee when Pete Carroll bolted ahead of NCAA sanctions. Kiffin was foolish to leave USC for the Raider job and short sighted to leave TN to return to USC. Garrett promised the keys to an Emerald city that Kiffin would never govern from behind the curtain. It was always the poppy fields in black and white just prior morphing into color for Kiffin. Lane was trapped with the winged monkeys not the ruby shoes. When USC AD Pat Haden fired Lane after the debacle in the desert, USC looked done and stuffed in that order. Ogeron was a Trojan Loyalist but a caretaker in waiting to close out the misery that had already been predicted. Ogeron rose above the task and flipped the game board for this team and their rabid following. The Raging Cajun is not the coach Haden has in mind to take Troy back into the national championship discussion. He was never in the consideration for a micro second when the job was open at any time when Ogeron was the team’s best assistant coach. He finally left and took the Ole Miss Job in 2005 and tried to recruit Kiffin as his offensive coordinator. Kiffin demurred and then declined. Ogeron hired Noel Mazzone who he fired before being fired himself in 2007. Ogeron has now replaced Kiffin and Mazzone is the OC at UCLA. The Yard hopes that USC retains Ogeron. He deserves the job and his team is playing out his resume. They are fighting to ensure Haden hires their head coach, father and mentor. The team sent a message loud and clear when they played better after Kiffin than before him. USC may have to hire Ogeron with the outcry of support from current and former players. Even Kiffin has given his endorsement. Ogeron might not have wanted that one. If USC hires easy Ed as the man, they will probably be firing him before his contract expires. But he deserves the job now. We can only hope Haden stays the course that Garrett outlined. . Regardless of the outcome on Exposition on Saturday night, there is a basketball season that follows. For Trojan fan, not so much. Troy has a better basketball arena than the wretched coliseum but an inferior product that plays there. UCLA’s rival in basketball has not been USC since the early 1970’s. USC does not really have a rival in hoops because you have to win something to have a rival. Again, we tug at the low hanging fruit. UCLA hoops have been a surprise this year. Ben Howland’s termination was not a surprise but hiring Steve Alford sure was. The ink was barely dry on Alford’s ten year deal at New Mexico when it was announced he had been hired as the Bruin’s new head coach. We are no legal experts but the timing of those two events has an air of inconsistency about them. UCLA AD Dan Guerrero kept Bruin fan in the dark as he sourced a replacement for Howland. Ben of the Scowl had worn out UCLA fans with his plodding offense, average defense and never having a timeout in the last five minutes of any game ever. He did lead three teams into the Final Four and had a solid reputation for fundamental basketball training. The NBA loves Howland’s players and many are thriving from those teams at the next level. Ben just did not make it fun and compelling for the kids at his level. Guerrero may have hired Alford because he saw the steady stream on Howland recruits finish their careers at New Mexico under Alford. Kendall Williams and Drew Gordon were part of the exodus that led to Alford’s rise and Ben’s demise. Ben’s detached, constrictive style of coaching did not allow talent to blossom. Howland was a better coach at lesser programs where talent was thin but earnest was huge. At UCLA, talent was huge and needed freedom to become earnest. In Howland’s last season at UCLA, the Bruins topped 100 points once and 90 points three times during the entire season. In the first seven games of Alford’s tenure, the Bruins have topped 100 points twice and 90 points two other times. Granted it is the cupcake portion of the schedule but Howland had basically the same team and the same pastries last year. The Bruins are averaging 91 points a game so far this year. With the same leading scorer and senior point guard Larry Drew III, UCLA averaged 69 points a game last year for a similar seven game stretch. Last year’s team had arguably better talent than the current roster but was boring to watch and performed to those levels. This year’s campaign has been fun to watch and Jordan Adams and Tony Parker are going to forces to reckon with throughout the season if they stay healthy. It is 109 days until selection Sunday. The Yard is hoping for a favorable outcome on this Saturday but there will be many more exciting games for UCLA for months to come. USC’s whole sports campaign comes down to this Saturday. It is the myopia in which we have basted for most of our lives in the city of the angels. Still staring at the spinning wheel on the web site, tick tock. Extra Innings: Alex Rodriguez stormed out of his arbitration hearing regarding his doping this past week. A-Rod has been in MLB’s cross hairs since his first lack of self-awareness. It persists. The Yankees have their collective fingers crossed in the abject hope that he is suspended for more than 211 games. 211 games would save the Yankees $38 million that they would prefer to not pay A-Rod. They have few avenues to avoid paying that nut to an overpaid 3rd baseman that looks at himself too much in the mirror. The Yankees were probably the source of most of MLB’s evidence against A-clod. MLB has emails and personal medical information which Rodriguez likens to a witch hunt. The witches are in pinstripes and they hope to keep the caldron boiling in their quest to rid themselves of the Rod of their indignation. Yardbits: Last Sunday the NFC Central had a record breaking week. Although every team in the conference played, not one team won. That is and of itself is not remarkable but it is considering that two teams in the conference played each other. The Packers and the Viking played to an error filled tie while the Bears and Lions lost as well. Another scintillating week of NFL parity. Happy Thanksgiving!

Angels and Demons

Apparently, the vapid pace at the Yard was not originally anticipated by our investors. There was some expectation of consistent creation of new material. Since the original round of Angel financing, the Yard has been under constant demands for more content. These are dystopian days of social media awareness and anarchy. There are Yard Everywhere expectations. The Yard has never tweeted, friended, liked or poked. This is not lost on the industry titans who monitor our every move. The Yard navigated a clever lowering of the fiscal bar a few quarters back that we thought had settled in nicely. Those pesky accountants always expect transparency. When the Dodgers faded in the Midwest, the Bruins stumbled through in the Northwest and the Lakers are descending into the Pacific, we have had time to consider other storylines and maybe expand the Yard horizon. This whole brouhaha with the Miami Dolphins and NFL bullying had merit. We are a bit late to the party on that one. It does seem absurd to overlay societal norms on an NFL locker room and those dynamics. We also are having a hard time wrapping our collective minds around the fact the main antagonist is a 6’3” 319 pound tattoo sleeved beast hurling N- bombs with a last name of Incognito. You cannot make that stuff up. Richie is many things but being incognito is not one of them. He was bullying a 6’5” 312 OT Jonathon Martin. This is not junior high, this is the NFL. They both will end up on Oprah having a love fest and be back in the NFL in time for the 2014 campaign. Riley Cooper of the Eagles was thrilled to hand off the “Athlete Misbehaving on Camera Phone Video” baton to Incognito. Ciao! We also pondered why the Sacramento Kings who were valiantly saved by Mayor Kevin Johnson from moving to Seattle play at the Sleep Train Arena. It was a noble effort by KJ to save the only professional team within the 916. The owner had to be found and naming rights sold. But the Sleep Train Arena? It just does not sound like a home court advantage to play at the Sleep Train?! The Staples Center does not sound like a name that puts fear into the hearts of men but you can conjure in your mind an attack stapler with special powers. The sleep train is about getting on the train and sleeping. Sometimes we do win in our sleep but results while awake are the only ones that show on the scoreboard of life. The Kings are 2-7 while riding the train this year. The Dodgers and Yankees have never sold their naming rights. It does not mean that they never will. It just means they never have. There is only a Dodger Stadium and a Yankee Stadium. Fenway will always be Fenway. The Cubs in all of their century of frustration still give naming rights to Wrigley while Wrigley pays nothing for those rights. Wrigley will always be Wrigley. All of the other baseball stadiums are named for their corporate sponsors not the team that brings the sponsors. The Giants have played at Pac Bell Park, SBC Park and now AT&T Park just in the last ten years. We are not sure if these points are germane to the story but it sounds slutty. The Dodger season was a miserable miracle. It started like a train wreck. In the middle, they caught Puig inspired rocket fuel. They were the Boys of Summer but then came the fall. The Guggenheim group shook down Time Warner for a massive TV contract guaranteeing that Clayton Kershaw would be a Dodger forever. They ensured that the Dodgers could pay for 4 top quality outfielders. They ensured that the Dodgers will be a financial force for the lifetime of the Yard. They did not just do it to beat the Giants. They did it to beat the Lakers and win back Los Angeles. They did it at the right moment. It all could have been far different. Guggenheim was the most aggressive bidder for the Dodgers when Los Angeles and MLB was trying to vote the McCourt’s off our island. SAC was the number two bidder. Stephen A. Cohen Capital was competitive with Guggenheim on the Dodger deal and on Wall Street for many deals. The Posse and Magic leap frogged SAC with a $500 million “press hard third copy is yours” close. McCourt grabbed the pen garnering his greatest deal ever while sticking it to the ex-wife. He was delusional and brilliant. Jamie was just pissed. It was the Game of Thrones without the Imp. Frank McCourt got more money than he ever dreamed and more importantly more than Jamie McCourt or her attorney ever dreamed. Jamie and her legal team figured Frank was going to be either bankrupt or make $460 million. She settled for all of the homes and a $131 million guarantee. Frank sold the team for $2 Billion. We are not sure how many zeroes Frank finished ahead but there is comma between some of them…ouch…miss you guys…not! The Jamie and Frank debacle could not have happened to two worse people whose place in LA history is duly noted nowhere. SAC could have won the beauty pageant. They were equally financed and vetted. Since losing their bid for the Dodgers, SAC has had the SEC three vertebrae up their colons with insider trading allegations and indictments. It was not in play during the Dodger negotiations but in this past year Cohen’s firm has seen eight executives plead guilty to insider trading charges. Cohen is still in the government’s cross hairs but so far all he has paid $1.2 billion and agreed to stop accepting new accounts. He has his ill-gotten $ 7 billion so more than Parking Lot Frank but shadier. We can only imagine the turd storm that would be swirling around the Dodgers if SAC had won the bid.

The Grove and beyond

San Francisco and all points north of SLO breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Dodgers flamed out in St. Louis. The Yard fielded calls and emails from delirious Dodger haters who were pleased that our pool got pissed in this time. The Yard night crews were flooded with texts after each pitch as Ulysses Kershaw was battling and losing magnificently to the Cardinals. Giant fans were thrilled that they could still claim the last title between these bitter rivals. Finishing ten games below .500 sixteen games out of any playoff game was not going to be any speed bump in their myopic joy. The Dodgers had succumbed and the Bay Area could cling to their chipped mantle and diminished swagger. The Yard did not watch a single pitch during the Friday night debacle. We had much more important work on our agenda. The Dodger October demise had been anticipated. The Dodgers had spent much of their embedded mojo rising vaunting from last to first. It all looked good on the brochure but the Dodger playoff fever was just that and then it broke. Yard staff tried their best to insulate their mercurial leader from his forecasted demons. It is never easy and the demons are not always clearly defined until they become those demons. The lost decade of UCLA football had already telegraphed some of the warning signs but not all or their degree. The Yard follows the Animal House Universal Truths as often as medically possible. When the feces are circling, a Road Trip is best for Otter and the Yard. A road trip to Oxford, MS to see the Ole Miss Rebels face the LSU Tigers never included the Dodger debate when it was planned. It was a great diversion when the Dodgers became relevant for a time and UCLA was getting humbled at Stanford. We did not waste a moment watching a pitch or a pass in either game. The Yard road trip was legally blind before the first pitch of the debacle in the STL. Unfortunately, Giant fans feverishly watching the Dodger game kept us posted for no apparent reason. Surprisingly, vetting all of the post-game bile, we never heard from a single fan with a team in the play-offs. Filtering the bile is why we have interns. On this Saturday, we were too busy tailgating at the historic Grove at Ole Miss to be troubled by a silly baseball playoff game or some UCLA game in Palo Alto. We were attending the Hotty Toddy Party on the campus of Ole Miss. We knew our intentions were diversionary but attending a tailgate at Ole Miss should be on the bucket list for every adult American male. It is tailgating like no other college in the Union. The Grove is a ten acre parcel of land surrounded by ancient trees in the center of this 165 year old campus. The genteel southern Rebel nation rolls out large to their party. The loyal Rebel fan base parties with color and style and is 40,000 strong on six Saturdays every fall. The fans dress with respect to their history and party to their ritual mayhem. The mass consumption of alcohol is tolerated by the ever present Ole Miss police as long as no one sees a can of beer or bottle of spirits. Coolers and red cups are all the subterfuge that is necessary to baffle the law and let the party reign on. The police are pleasantly baffled as long as the revelers maintain. Dan at the tailgate set up the tailgate as he should. Ole Miss Brian welcomed us to his seven tent nation of friends and family. Bacon wrapped stuffed pork roast only starts the feasting rotation with comfy theater style seating while deciding which game to watch on the two big screens. The most difficult aspect to the festivities was the self-loathing after the third pass of grazing at the buffet. We got past it on the fourth. After the day at the Grove, Ole Miss could have lost to LSU 47-0 and our day would have been nationally ranked by our internal BCS Poll. Ole Miss Brian and company would not share that same sentiment about such an outcome. Ole Miss Fans are more about the day than the game with the understanding that the day is about the game. They are all in on the game and want the Rebels to win but that is not going to ruin the day if they do not. Their slogan is “We may lose some games but we never lost a party”. It is not just a slogan, it is. Rebel Fan is gracious, engaging, optimistic and pragmatic. LSU was the favorite. The beasts from the Bayou were omnipresent in garish colors and false hope. Ole Miss jumped on the favored with favorable results. They hung on to send LSU home in defeat. We have the tee shirt. Best Video from the Grove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3qYPGeoA7w

Pride and Pestilence

It looked like the Giants were going to pull off a first to worst run to the bottom of the NL West this season. The Yard was supporting their futility with biased enthusiasm. It was that rare moment when the Bay Area and the Yard were in the shaded area of intersecting concentric circles. But the Giants nutted up and closed the season with a blistering 6-4 run to nose ahead of the woeful Rockies. The Dodgers dash to brilliance and the Giants race to despair have both been equally compelling at the Yard. Once of the more pretentious moves in recent Los Angeles sports history was USC AD Pat Haden asking for permission to speak with UCLA head baseball coach John Savage immediately following the Bruins national championship run through Omaha. The Bruins and their vaunted pitching did not lose a game in the double elimination tournament. The Bruins brought home the school’s first national championship in baseball and 109th overall. Before the charter touched down at LAX after the championship game, USC was announcing to the LA times that they were planning on speaking with Savage regarding their vacant position and had a “spectacular offer” to make him. UCLA had little choice but to allow the discussion. USC felt that Savage had a special place in USC lore because he was their pitching coach for a few seasons seventeen years ago. The Trojans felt entitled to poach the UCLA coach because they are the LA University with the 12 national titles in baseball albeit none since 1998. College baseball is not a profitable college sport. USC was reportedly offering Savage $1 million to take over a baseball program that never makes a profit. The highest paid baseball coach in D1 makes $675,000 and that is in the SEC. Title IX ensures that women’s and men’s athletics have the same budget. Title IX takes into account the inherent cost associated with each sport not the revenue and net profit. College Football and basketball pay for all of the other college sports. The allocations of those revenues are divided 50/50 between women’s and men’s sports. NCAA women’s athletics is to be supported and shines at the Olympics. It generates no money to offset their 50% entitlement. Savage is worth the dollars and UCLA showed their appreciation with his new contract. UCLA would have shown Savage the love regardless but USC raised everyone’s bar for sports that are rarely seen on TV. Pretense is part of the double helix across town but that request was unprecedented. USC could have hired Savage back in 2005. They hired Chad Kreuter. Savage built UCLA into a powerhouse. Kreuter never had a winning season in four years. The Yard was similarly outraged that USC fired Lame Kiffin on the tarmac at LAX this past weekend. It was bad enough that the Trojans got pasted in the Arizona desert but then to have UCLA’s savior get sacked upon his return was disappointing. At the Yard, we had hoped that Kiffin would struggle along for a few more years while the Bruins rebuild. The best coaches UCLA ever enjoyed were USC head coaches Larry Smith, Johnny Robinson Part Duex and Paul Hackett. During their storied trifectas, USC’s futile run encompassed UCLA beating USC a rivalry record 8 straight times. Their leadership led USC into football obscurity for over a decade. We had only hoped that Kiffin would at least be able to finish his contract. Outgoing AD Mike Garrett was in such a rush to hire the unproven Kiffster that we only wished incoming AD Pat Haden would give him as much time as he needed to prove himself. USC is probably going to ask UCLA for permission to speak with Jim Mora next week.

Hammer of the PEDS

Baseball’s long anticipated hammer finally slammed down on Monday. Alex Rodriguez has been in Major League Baseball’s cross hairs ever since the Yankees begged them to investigate the crap out of their bizarre $252 million investment in A-Fraud. In addition to A-Rod and Ryan Braun, thirteen others were outed. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig showed the iron fist that he has ruled with since after he was an owner. The Dominican Republic was well represented in the Dirty 13. It is disappointing but at the end of the day the Dodgers are in 1st Place NL West and the Giants are in last! Really, how upset can one be? It is day watch number 13 for the San Francisco hopeful that their team is in last place. The Giants even made the pilgrimage to the Oval Office for a séance with Barry O. That did not stem the tide. It was so painful at the Yard to watch this two out of the last three champions fade away like Tiger Woods at any major, not really. We just hope that they keep chanting about the 49ers who will be playing in Santa Clara soon enough. The Giants picked a bad time to win 13 out of 39 games while the Dodgers were winning 32 out of 40. Once again, it is painful new math for our well-heeled compadres from the north. Giant fan better keep the newspapers, the tee shirts and the pakalolo. There is a new sheriff in town and he has sicker money than the Yankees. If you want to get past all of the PED suspensions that are rocking baseball, please do. The Yard has not allocated any of our interns to research the cause and effect. We get the cause and the effect is indeterminate. Who is the perceived victim? The baseball fan who thought they were observing “pure” skill without the taint of a steroid or some other supplement? In the history of baseball have players not taken every angle available to them to perform to the dollars paid? Baseball rewards statistics because they were rewarded at the turnstiles. Baseball has always turned a blind eye when it benefits baseball. Bud Selig fancies himself as J. Edgar Hoover to the rescue now because he cashed out at the height of the PED era as an owner. Again, Bud makes $20 freaking million a year to do what he does after selling the Brewers for a $100 million profit during the PED era. Eight out of thirteen PED offenders were from the Dominican Republic. All of the accused were from south of the border except A-Rod. We are with the Yankees in trying to deport him back to somewhere off the payroll. With MLB up and coming stars like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and Buster Posey, US baseball is on the uptick. A sport that was launched in the US and exported to the world still comes home every year to Williamsport, PA. The US is the founder but the rest of the world-ROW- has caught on quickly. Latin America players now make up 28% of the rosters of Major League Baseball. For US athletes, baseball is an option. For Latin athletes, it is the only option. Years back, I went to a baseball game with a rocket scientist; yes a real one. It was proffered that night that baseball players were not real athletes because baseball was such a pedestrian sport. Real athletes were well more athletic and could leap over tall buildings in a single bound and stuff like that. Baseball has a special place in the Yard’s foundation. Attempts to diminish the core are met with stiff resistance. Yard retorts were quick and not well received. In the US, the star baseball player at any high school In America does not only play baseball. He is a sports icon at that school. The baseball guy can play any sport size permitting. Hitting a pitched ball is the most difficult of all professional skills. Success can be highly rewarded. Hand eye coordination is God given and enhanced by practice. A ML player who can hit a pitched ball three times out of ten will never starve. Does anyone reading these musings max their comp plan while being successful 33.33% of the time? Being a six foot three inch lefthander is also highly valued. In the Dominican Republic, there are not those options. Soccer is not even an option. If a Dominican baseball player makes the show, they will make more money for one game than their family will make in their lives. PED’s are a huge risk for these players but the reward is so ridiculous who would not take the chance with the same opportunity. Many of the suspended offenders will still be owed money when their suspension ends. The Yankees will still owe A-Rod $68 million. Ryan Braun will be owed $100 million. All of this being said, my good friend Brian pointed out to me an interesting fact. He suggested that is there really only one PED clinic in the entire US that broke the code and that these 13 players found it and that they are the only ones? Bud wants us to believe that scenario, hammer the Latin’s and get past it. In a country built on free enterprise illicit or otherwise, is it plausible that this is an isolated incident for these rouge players? Did they out Braun first so they could hammer the Latin’s solo? Baseball is near and dear to the Yard. The PED era does not diminish that. It was a fun era. Balls were flying out of the park, records were broken, pitchers were performing super human miracles and the turnstiles were flowing. Who suffered besides the abuser’s bodies? We came for the game and the games were good. Purists suggest that records were tainted and children could no longer look up to their heroes. We would suggest that children with professional athletes as their role models are in trouble. Following athletes is our passion but it will never bypass responsible parenting. Responsible parents will never let their children experiment with PED’s. It is not something that can be hidden on School Street. Records will always be tainted over the decades. All of the records that are and will ever be are distilled by their era. Every major league record holders set a record that is indigent to that era. Ty Cobb was an absolute racist who never played a night game. Cobb is part of the inaugural Hall of Fame Five. Babe Ruth never had exposure to PED’s and he never faced an African American pitcher? He is part of the same class. Which issue is bigger in the history of baseball? The color line or PED’s? Both issues are huge and neither can be ignored in their time and place and the resulting statistics. Bob Gibson readily admits that he was so competitive that he would have used PED’s. He did not have the chance and he was glad he did not. Barry Bonds did and where is he now in our collective history of baseball? Baseball is our Nation’s seminal sport. It is revered because of this history and the ridiculous statistics that have been kept since its gestation. We have not only followed baseball’s course, we have recorded it. The history cannot be changed even by those who wish to change the accounting. Barry, Roger, Mark and the rest of the PED poster boys should be in the Hall. They have the HOF statistics regardless of the circumstances. They were not rouge athletes. They were competitive for their era. They played by the rules they were handed not the moral compass the media portends now.

The Ides of Nebraska

The Yard has always taken great pride in tackling the issues of the day. Distilling the topics out of the daily excretions is no easy feat and rarely fulfilled. Regardless, our cynical self was outraged by the slight leveled against our new city. This egregious action that draws our ire was brought on by no other than Yard icon and sports commentator of the day-Dan Patrick. We love Patrick. His humor, banter and sidekicks are good radio at many places that we travel. We were looking for information on stations carrying his signals in Nevada. One of the interns was tasked to go to the website and find the stations in Las Vegas. The index was listed by state and Mr. Patrick has some major following nationally based on the breadth of the list. To our shock and dismay, Nevada did not even have a listing in the rolodex of states. We scoffed at the notion that the intern proffered about Nevada not making the DP Web Site. How could that be? The Dan Patrick show is carried in Nevada on the Fox Sports affiliate. The issue was escalated to senior staff for further investigation. Upon deeper review of the Dan Patrick website, we found Las Vegas and Reno both listed as being located in Nebraska. This is not just a slight it is an outrage. We suspect a potential conspiracy. We have seen many Nebraska types frequenting the Las Vegas strip. With their clever tee shirts, Wrangler Jeans and waist lines, they have gotten our notice. These cornhuskers might have planted a mole in the DP Web Services department with some crafty geography. We hope it is not the Dan Patrick show coming up with their own geographical alignments and it was NE came before NV? It is a slight of geographic proportions. Anyone reading this except Dr. Jay aka Spuddy, would be outraged. Spuddy might be in on the fix as well. He is a Yard legend for winning the basketball pool but a cornhusker nonetheless. You should voice this opinion to the Dan Patrick Show and make sure your state is not similarly betrayed. Thank you for your prompt attention-www.danpatrick.com. In related news, the baseball meander that the Dodgers are navigating in the west was not unforeseen. Too many players signed to fat contracts by other teams traded to a new team run by management on fat salaries. Everyone is getting plump before a ticket is sold. The passion to compete is more ego driven and not an inner fire. After a particularly bad stretch, the alpha male getting paid $85,000 a game will get his head on straight and come up with a clutch hit. There has not a collective effort to succeed. There are just these bursts of pride for a game or two that peek at the potential but highlight the demise. It is the Guggenheim vortex of financial gain regardless of Dodger ruin. All of these big names and salaries are the cast that they need next year when they launch their new network with Time Warner. Fans hope to see Champions play Dodger baseball. Guggenheim is just filling in reality programming time without Kardashians. Don Mattingly is not the issue but he is probably not the answer either. The group he started with three seasons ago is far different than the team he is failing to manage today. Ned Colletti and Joe Torre had built the franchise back up even with the cash flow issues of McCourt. Donnie Baseball worked under Joe Torre during his three years apprenticeship. Mattingly was handed a young team that had been to the playoffs two of those years. The 2008 team lead by Chad Billingsley, Matt Kemp and an emerging Clayton Kershaw won the city’s second playoff game in nineteen years. In 2013, Kershaw has emerged as a leader but he in the land of misfit children. He will be lucky to win ten games this year and he is going to be paid like the best in baseball. Kershaw is doing his part with a 2.03 ERA despite a 5-5 record in his sixteen starts. Billingsley and his $11 million salary are done for the season and most likely his Dodger career. Matt Kemp and his $20 million salary are on the DL for the 3rd or 4th time since signing to earn his financial largess. He had the longest active games played streak at that time. Not so much now. The Dodgers added three more $20 million a year players who were gleefully dumped on the Dodgers while other teams shed payroll. The Dodgers have $82.5 million dollar payroll of their $220 million annual payroll on the disabled list. The $82 million that is not playing is more payroll than ten team’s total payrolls. The salary math is even more ridiculous when computing the cost per win. All is not lost. No team is running away with the NL West but there will probably not be a Wild Card from the west either. It is win the NL West or go home. A sudden surge by the team is not inconceivable. The pieces exist today. It looks more like a Picasso than a Rembrandt but the pieces are on or near the canvas. The brush strokes are forced and erratic. The Dodgers longest winning streak all season is three games. That was first and last accomplished in the first week of the season. They have never strung more than two victories together since April 7. They have lost six in a row and eight in a row since their premature rally. The eight game skid started with Los Doyers losing two of three at homes to the Rockies. Their futile whine and cheese tour got swept for three by the Giants in SF. They hustled home to get swept by the D’Backs and losing to the woeful Marlins before rallying to win the last two. The Dodgers can beat the crap but not the cream in baseball. The Dodgers are tied for the league lead in errors. Kershaw has been the most victimized by the shoddy defense. The Houston Astro’s are trying to hold the Dodgers off for the error title. It is their only title hope this year with their $21 million team payroll. The Astro’s are a scrappy bunch while committing sixty errors in their first 77 games. The Dodgers are hanging tough with 56 in their 74. The Angels and Cubs are also in the mix for this title of fielding futility. The Dodgers will have a tough time catching the Astro’s for the error title. It is one race we will follow as the season progresses because the Dodgers might not be included in any other of the loftier races that will be occurring this fall. Deadlines: This will be the big free agent week in the NBA. It is always amazing how the NBA has this no tampering or discussions until 7/1/XX or any NBA free agent signing period. After the NBA Finals and 7/1, there is a litany of deals that are leaked to the news. None of these deals can be officially consummated until 7/1 but there is not even supposed to be a discussion going on at this time. Then suddenly, these complex deals involving millions of dollars and hundreds of terms and conditions are announced by 12:01 AM on 7/1. It is remarkable the hours these people work in the minutes before this important NBA deadline. Overtime: There has not been much for LA fan to root for since our last cell phone upgrade. The Lakers, Dodgers, Angels have been miserable. The Clippers were enchanting until game three of the first round. If I was Chris Paul, I would worry more about the owner than the axed coach. The Trojans and Bruins are middling in the income sports. UCLA baseball is a surprise and a wonder. They were the lowest hitting team in the College World Series in Las Vegas home state of Nebraska. They still have the lowest BA but they are 4-0 and in the finals. UCLA has never won a baseball title. The team is not exciting to watch if you want heat and homeruns. It is a fun team to want to watch if you want to watch how baseball is supposed to be played. Good pitching, sound defense, timely hitting with a rock star in the bullpen. The Dodger should pay attention to that model.

A Shark's Tale

The Yard did not endorse Barack Obama for President but we do expect our leader in chief to hit at least one out of thirteen jump shots that he took on this past Easter Monday. Barry wanted to show his game for the national media and the Washington Wizards who were there for some reason. The Prez rolled up his sleeves, as he does often, and missed every shot. With all due respect, his campaign promise was not his ability to hit the three but come on 0 for 13? In a related story, North Korean President Kim Jong-un stated that he hit 11 of 13 three pointers and beat Dennis Rodman in a game of horse. In breaking news, The Yard has a scoop on reported abuse of players by Rutgers Head basketball Mike Rice. We also are chasing down a story about a Louisville player apparently breaking his leg on national television but have not been able to confirm through normal channels. In the Rutgers story, administration was aware of the abuse when the existence of the incriminating tape was revealed last November. School President Robert Barchi saved his own job by forcing Athletic Director Tim Pernetti to resign from his in the lack of oversight in the aftermath. College administration turning a blind eye to college sports running off the rails is becoming too common in these days of regional television money and imploding conference alignments. It seems like the only winners in this particular situation is Penn State who was pleased to hand off the College’s running amok baton to Rutgers for now. College Presidents spending the athletic department’s largess is a common as the sacking of the AD to save their own skins. College basketball is dominating the Yard-scape these days. March Madness is not just Yard madness it is a pleasant psychosis that infiltrates the heartland and the mainland. The communities of Syracuse, Ann Arbor, Wichita, and Louisville will be joined by the rest of the nation rooting for their student athletes this weekend. Those cities will not just root harder than most of us next weekend; they root harder than us every weekend throughout the college season. These are not NFL cities; these are communities who generate the passion on which we tailgate. Their fans will be in cheap seats in Atlanta while the sterile corporate fans take over the best seats. The Yard has watched from our luxury sofa box suite. Kentucky Fan is not embracing this NCAA playoff season so much. The Wildcat nation expected to be in the finals every year after John Calipari took them back to the title last year. They never expected to miss the whole dance this year let alone lose in the first round of the frigging NIT. All was good as long as Louisville went out early. With the Cardinals looking like the favorite to win the title this year, the state of Kentucky is looking ahead to the Derby not a Louisville title. Coach Rick Pitino is making his redemption tour for his family, the Cardinals, and the family restaurant he had sex in with someone other than his wife in August 2003. We are not sure if his wife had wanted to bang him in that diner but she was not consulted prior to the incursion. She has stayed by her man but they are eating elsewhere these days. Rick did get voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as well. It is a mean season in Lexington, KY for sure. With the announcements of the 2013 inductees into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the proud city of Las Vegas applauded their three local residents who got into the Hall. One was a first ballot; one was a wrong ballot and one maybe on his last ballot. The Glove Gary Payton was defensive specialist who learned to score. He had a Ray Allen snark before Ray Allen was in the NBA. Spencer Haywood was the poster boy for fighting the establishment. He fought the NCAA, the NBA and the ABA at different times early in his career. He ended up having a championship career but the establishment that acquiesced to let him play kept him out him out of the hall in the twenty plus years he has been eligible. He was elated as it was widely reported on Friday that he would be inducted. In a sad bit of irony from a city paved with broken dreams, Haywood was informed Saturday that he was not inducted. Old grudges do not die easy. Just ask Jerry Tarkanian! Tark finally made the Hall what might be the last chance of his lifetime. Jerry Tarkanian, like Spencer Haywood took on the big bad NCAA who doggedly pursued him throughout the last 20 years of his coaching career. The NCAA looked with disdain on Tarkanian's style and recruits. Constantly, harassed by the NCAA over any questionable new athlete and investigating the program constantly finally forced Shark to resign following the 1991-92 season. Tarkanian was victimized for taking chances with troubled youth. The recruitment of Lloyd Daniels was the tipping point when Daniels was arrested buying crack cocaine before enrolling at UNLV. Daniels had been seen cavorting with known gamblers in Las Vegas. Apparently, there are gamblers that live in this town! These were not Mafia and gambling is legal in Nevada. And these gamblers followed the talented local team with gusto…go figure! Tarkanian resigned and sued the NCAA for their two decades of harassment. It was uncovered that NCAA “due process” was no process at all with the deck stacked heavily in the favor of the NCAA investigators. Tark was awarded a $2.4 million out of court settlement in 1998 before the case would go to trial and the NCAA’s draconian measures exposed. Jerry Tarkanian hopefully finally receives the recognition that he deserves. Tarkanian not only changed the face and pace of college basketball, he was a Hall of Fame coach. He was not a pariah that needed to be investigated. He was a Father Flanagan at a Boys Town for basketball. He brought in “at-risk” athletes and gave them an environment where they could not just win basketball games but maybe create a chance to win at life. For every Lloyd Daniels that he took a chance on and failed there were 50 other players who succeeded. You cannot always take the hood out of the kid but he took many out of theirs and out to the desert to play hoops for him. And play they did, they all became the Tark’s Running Rebels. He took a school that had only been playing D1 basketball for two years in 1973 when he arrived, to a Final Four in 1977 and three more in the years that followed. Tarkanian has the highest winning percentage of any coach with more than 600 wins. He is ahead of both coaches in the Final Four who are part of that club. He is ahead of the Saint who coaches Duke. He is still revered in this town and hopefully Monday night, the rest of the nation. The Basketball Hall of Fame maintains a shadowy voting process for election. It is for all of basketball, not the NBA, College or International. It is everything basketball. There are 24 votes cast each year by unnamed voters. Potential inductees have to survive preliminary elimination that are as invisible and unknown as the final ballots. The winners must get 18 votes to be elected. Then the winning names are dribbled out to the public over the week prior to the College Basketball National Championship game. At halftime, this year’s inductees will be trotted out a halftime. Inductee Pitino will be coaching his most important basketball game in 20 years. He may not come out for the ceremony but the rest will share in the spotlight. The Yard wishes there was more spotlight on how the Basketball Hall votes or does not vote. How Rick Pitino with his 621 wins and one national title gets voted in at the height of his career and The Tark of the 729 wins and one national championship has to wait until he is 81 year old broken down shell of his former Sharkness is insidious.

Sequestering and such.

Apparently, the great “Sequester of 2013” hit a week ago Friday at the witching hour. President Obama foretold famine and pestilence that would reign down if the sequester were to occur. Janet Napolitano echoed her Commander and Chief’s pronouncement with TSA ending overtime and airports waits ballooning to hours from minutes. The locust are not far behind as they always are during these biblical moments. I am not sure about everyone else but having stared down a frigging “Fiscal Cliff” a “Sequester” sounded a bit more innocuous. We share the common fear that a cliff announces whatever adjective emphasizes the importance. Sequester? We got your stinking sequester, Willis. Wall Street and Main Street seem less concerned than the President. That could all change tomorrow. If we had the answers we would charge for this blog! Fortunately, neither the Dodgers nor the Lakers have any sequester plans or fiscal cliff challenges. Time Warner has bank rolled both of their marquis products for the next 25 years. TW paid a fortune for the rights for the Lakers. Once TW signed the Lakers, they had to have the Dodgers to have a broadcast channel package. They will be passing the cost+ right along to the video service providers like Charter and DIRECTV and they will pass it along to us. Sports programming is one of the last bastions of real time television viewership. People watch the game and the ads live and with passion. Sports programming is less likely to be DVR’ed for later viewing or on demand. With the plump Jack Nicholson looking on while Jeremy Piven is high fiving Kobe, most of us would rather stay home with a better seat, beverage and remote control rather than attend a Laker game. Dodger games are still an event to be attended. Even with the bulbous payroll the Dodgers have not raised ticket prices in three years. Imagine also a time when we do not hear about Frank and Jamie in the news. It is not that hard if you try. The Lakers might not make the playoffs but they are playing better. They have cobbled together a roller coaster season while lowering the bar with each dip. The double helix of this season can be traced to the hiring of former coach Mike Brown under the cover of darkness by Jim Buss in 2011. It was the mullet based son of the owner’s first water shed moment as heir apparent. The Lakers struggled last season and then opened this season 0-4. Mike was fired, was paid well and smiling at Burger King later the same day. Sports fans were surprised but the Lakers did not win a single preseason game prior to the winless start. The team had not won in a month. He needed to go with that Hall of Fame lineup failing badly. With Phil earnest and willing, Jim Buss hired Mike D'antoni. The rationale being that Kobe loved him from his days in Italy and D’Antoni coaching Bryant and Howard in the Olympics as an assistant coach. His fast paced offense would be the elixir for this star studded team. Jimmy was never going to hire Phil and have him save the season. D’Antoni has gone 29-26 since taking over as coach. That is better than 0-53 if that where the Lake show was heading if the thought process is they may never win again unless a change is made.” This Laker march to the 2013 Championship was then interrupted by firing the coach in the first two weeks of the season because dammit, someone has to pay for getting boat raced by OKC in the playoffs and then losing the first four games of the following season. A change was made and now the Lakers are not a .000 team, they are .500 team. They should have kept interim coach Bernie Bickerstaff who was 4-1 while Jimmy John Buss found Mikey D and almost saved the season! If the team makes this playoffs, it will be a one and done. Jim Buss knew his father was not going to make the NBA Finals even if the Laker’s did this year. Jerry was very sick and it was not common knowledge. Jerry wanted to still be the face of the organization and protect Jim while he matured into that face. With Jerry gone, Jim may never fully evolve into that epidermis. He is trying too hard to do something his father did effortlessly. Jim is threatened by Jeannie Buss’s fiancé, Phil Jackson. It gave him no greater feeling of power than to lure Phil out of retirement to talk about replacing Mike Brown and not hire him.. Phil never thought he was the only coach in the mix but he was candid about the poor way the process was handled by his brother in law. Jeannie Bush should and will be running the Lakers in the future. She is of sound mind and fine body. She has been the pragmatic and fan facing voice of the Lakers for years. Jerry Buss tried to keep his bad self out of the news either by design rather than DUI. Heir apparent Jim is a relative unknown. Hedrives better while his mullet and cap are usually stylishly creepy. Jeannie is on local LA sports talk all of the time. She promotes the team with articulate candor and humor. She is affable, approachable all while banging our legendary coach Phil with love and affection. She would hire the right people to run this legendary organization without getting her ego or mullet in the way. If there is a better representative of our ownership may they step forward or forever hold their peace. Play in Game: March Madness is within our headlights. This year will be one of the most competitive in recent history. The Pac-12 is back and should have at least four teams in the dance after last year’s embarrassment. The Mountain West is one of the well- kept secrets in DI hoops. The SEC not so much except for Florida. The Big 10-12 is the best basketball conference in the Union. Indiana will be the overall #1 seed but the conference will have seven teams sharing single digit seeds. Final Thoughts: USC Fan, please support the continued employment of Lane Kiffin by your University. He seems to be a fine lad even if he had to fire his father to save his own job. He seems as a myopic as the rest of you. The Trojan franchise just needs a re-tooling and all will be good once you get past this obtrusive probation loss of scholarships nonsense. Fight on your bad selves! Jim Mora will never stay at UCLA so there is time.

They are who we thought they were.

It has been a difficult season at the Yard. Our Spartan coverage of sports and other stuff has dwindled into the melancholic backwater created by average sports teams of our destiny. The fallow fields of Yard ramblings have been shunted by the championship fever brewing in the 415 soon to the 408. LA struggling and SF crooning is never a relaxing season in Yard lives. We can only hope that Deer Antler Velvet elixir is all SI says it is cracked up to be. We are not sure who made that leap of faith with the first deer antler extraction but Ray Lewis is playing like a young buck in the playoffs. We only hope that his final game is a victory for the much maligned player and his team. San Francisco winning appears to be the smart money and general unease engulfs Yard staff and their families. We will weather the storm but with the Lakers being the last hope for the foreseeable future our footsteps are in a quagmire of distressed hope. Ray Lewis has been loved and reviled by the press and the nation. Many are sick of his constant self-promotion and praise the lord let the devil be gone mantra. He was indicted and acquitted of murder charges following the Ravens’ Super Bowl victory in 2000. It was a hot topic at the time and Lewis’ future hung in fate until he agreed to testify against his old running mates who had not gotten out of the hood. That was twelve years ago when Lewis was 25. He ran with people most of us never hope to ever meet. He appears to be a far different person at 37 than he was at 25. Most of us hopefully are! Why this is all getting throw on his legacy now when it has not been mentioned in many years is surprising. It is old news and irrelevant to the current events. SF 49er cornerback Chris Culliver demeaning gays and saying he would not accept a gay player in the locker room is relevant. Players have their opinions about social issues that they should keep out of the press. SF is a bastion for its support for gays and gay unions. Culliver is as myopic as the fans who quickly forgave him lest he get beat deep on Sunday. Jim and John Harbaugh facing off in the Super Bowl brother against brother, east versus west and Cabernet versus crab cakes. It is a great story and we hope the game keeps up with the hype. Most times it does not. The Ravens have not faced a defense like the 49ers in the play offs. Denver and New England are nowhere near as tenacious as SF on defense. The Ravens did win both games on the road and had to rally to win. The 49ers have not faced a defense like the Ravens and had to rally to win on the road. Colin Kapernick has a much better Wikipedia page today than he did in September. It will be his game to lose. We hope he thinks about that often tonight and tomorrow afternoon and the rest of his life. John Harbaugh seems like way more fun than Jim if that counts for any edge. Jim is intense and seems almost humorless to a fault. He has a John Nash like look on his face most of the time that never belies the madness below the surface. John is more jovial and circumspect with a smile and a laugh. The Yard has invited him to join us for beers win or lose. Not sure anyone still believes that the Guggenheim Group overpaid for the Dodgers. They have been spending money like a drunken sailor but the deal that they just inked with Time Warner Sports Net is worth four times the value of the price they paid for the franchise. TW has guaranteed the Dodgers $280 million in television income annually for the next 25 years. The rest of the NL West paid $297 million in total salaries in 2012. The Dodgers will have almost that much coming in the front door every year before they sell a ticket of a hot dog. Money does not buy championship but it is a better place to start than without it. Money is something the Dodgers rarely had to spend before McCourt was sent packing with his $2 billion windfall. Baseball is risky and big money shelters big risk. Hopefully, it also keeps ticket prices down! Lance Armstrong finally almost sort of came clean with Oprah about doping his way to seven Tour de France titles. The Yard was surprised that people were outraged that Lance had done that same doping every cyclist on the planet had done. How could he have beaten them without doing that? As Dennis Green coined, “Lance Armstrong is who we thought he was!” He did not have most of fooled because most of really do not care about competitive cycling. American sports fan only follow winners and no American had ever won the Tour in the events first 83 years. Greg Lemond became the first American and now the only American to ever win the tour. Armstrong was a compelling story from the beginning. Lance was a cancer survivor with one testicle, banging Sheryl Crow, raising kids and winning everything. His biggest fault was his arrogance. He was respected and revered by the annual Tour fan. He was reviled and feared by his cycling peers. Many people were in on the scam but Lance aggressively silenced all of them. Armstrong was prick of diva proportions. He had the biggest bankroll and the best attorneys. Any who dared to confront him faced monstrous litigation and backlash from Livestrong Nation. In the end, he is who we thought he was. March Madness Notes: The Big 10 or 12 is the best conference in the nation. They are the SEC of College Basketball but with biology and math and stuff like that as well. The Big 10 has five teams in the top 25 with the top team in the country as well. The State of Indiana has produced 12 of the 60 starters in the Big Ten. The best of those players start for the Hoosiers. It is just what we are saying..