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..