Happy New Year from the Yard

Yard resolutions are in heated deliberations with procrastination emerging once again as a major theme element for 2015. We have decided to delay that implementation at this time. Yard blog production has dipped this past year. Our feral resources have been allocated towards creating sustainable income outside of the Yard and the blogging part suffered. We fully intend to shift that paradigm when greed is no longer achievable. Yard postings are forecasted to be a monthly experience in 2015 if you are trying to firm up your own calendar. We cannot commit to that number until late Q1. For now, a monthly posting is the number we are socializing with the investment community. Since our first posting in 2007, to this our 126th posting, the Yard has strived to cheer, taunt, revile and enlighten our teams and their enemies perceived or otherwise. The enlightenment part is always on the, If we find $10,000 in the sofa cushion kind of goal. It did not make it past the 2015 Yard appropriations committee but we have forecasted that potential in our brochure. There was a ton of excitement early this holiday season as the Bruins dismantled the Trojans for the third straight year. It is a rare elixir when Yard allegiance blends with Yard pride on the rocks with a twist. It was sweet that Saturday afternoon in Pasadena. The Bruins raced into the national discussion with their fifth straight victory for 2014. There was the Trojan laden PAC holiday dinner to look forward to in the coming weeks. Enthusiastic banter was already nuanced into a Yard piece that was follicles away from being posted. But with Stanford still coming to the Rose Bowl that last Friday of November, like handguns, the Yard maintained a “cooling” period between finished and posted. Yard staff has engineered complex algorithms comparing blog levels of vitriol, humility, and pathos against acceptable purgatory posting guidelines. They also attempt to forecast unforeseen contrition which can be time consuming when heart felt. The post was sullied when the Bruins got bullied at home by a 7-5 Stanford Cardinal. The Bruins lost 31-10 in a game that was not that close. Stanford played big boy football with basic blocking, tackling and execution. It was painfully, remarkable to watch and to the archives went 1252 words that will never be seen at the Yard. Our research team has been poring over the data and we are about break an important post, probably Q2, about the rash of domestic violence cases that are racking the NFL. Apparently, many of these massive, aggressive athletes who throttle each other on the field of play display similar tendencies in their family lives whatever that might be. These athletes are the exception not the norm in the NFL but the stories are shocking and frightening. The haymaker that Ray Rice rained down on his beautiful wife Janay, is not an “I made a mistake moment”. Adrian Peterson taking a switch to his four year old son is not a lapse in judgment. These are not mistakes, they are crimes. These are crimes that define who you are until you prove you are not. There is no apology infused hall pass when you display that you are a person that will beat a woman or a child. Adrian Peterson is trying to get back to the NFL and every fantasy football geek has an AP story for this year’s league. Peterson should be required by the league to get a vasectomy before he is further allowed to play in the NFL Peterson is the Poster Boy for birth control. He received a huge public outpouring of support when he raced to be near his two year son who was murdered last year. The two year old was killed by his mother’s boyfriend. Peterson saw the boy for the first time in a coma at the hospital right before he died. He barely knew the mother. The switch incident that has made recent headlines was with a different adolescent son from a different mother. He still might have been confused. See Adrian has another four year old son from an entirely different mother as well. Apparently in 2010, while racking up 242 points for Fantasy Football owners, Peterson’s zygotes were doing well scoring with the female egg population. It is alleged that Peterson has as many as seven total children. It is not a great combination to have a person who should not be around children creating them at an alarming pace. At 29 years old, the NFL is a tough place to make a living. Everyone in this food chain is eager to keep their primary source of revenue back on the field. With so many counting on you, AP, good luck with that but get fixed. It was magical this year watching the Derek Jeter’s farewell tour. It was too bad that the Yankees did not have a very competitive team for this alpha competitor’s final season. Jeter got his moment in the sun at each Yard and handled it all with the genuine humility that is so scarce in all of our celebrity. Jeter actually did things and other stuff and he should be revered. He never shamed the game or had a public moment of impropriety. Yard staff contends that Jeter had many improprieties with loads of starlets but could not find a single TMZ entry. The Yankees and MLB went the extra mile by getting A-Rod suspended for the entire season. Jeter hated that disingenuous tool of a one tool player that was A-Rod. Rodriguez disrespected the game and the pinstripes with his deceit and outrageous denials. The media did not have to speak with Rodriguez about Jeter’s remarkable career and pretend to care each night. Baseball and the Yankees just had him removed for the season. Good luck next year, Alex when all of the Yankee fans who were cheering Jeter will be booing you. It was a championship season for the Pac-12 Conference. It has been well reported that SEC finished 7-5 in bowl games but the SEC ranked teams were 2-5. The unranked SEC squads went 5-0. So in the SEC this year, the crap was the cream. The Pac-12 finished at 6-2 but 5-1 for the conference teams that were nationally ranked. The best Pac-12 teams performed and the much discussed SEC legends tanked against lesser opponents. Stanford had five losses, UCLA had three and USC four. Ten of those twelve losses were in conference. That hurt their national ranking but not their game experiences. The conference rolled into the bowl season and rolled most opponents. The average score of any bowl game with a Pac 12 team was 40-24 Pac-12. That tally includes two losses and it would have been really nice if USC could have held on to a 20 point lead and covered the darn seven! The Pac-12 got to show their wares outside of the evening time slots when the east coast has already gone hipster and the south has gone front lawn. Hopefully, it helps for some national respect. Oregon is going to roll Ohio State. Plus One: It was strange to watch all of the important bowl games over the New Year on ESPN. It was weirder when Fox tried to take over in previous years. Fox was terrible. ESPN knows how to televise a college football game and has great announcers. College Game Day is the greatest sporting telecast ever conceived and executed to perfection. Back in our day, every major network showed the Rose Parade and then at least one New Year’s Day bowl games. The Cotton Bowl was on CBS in a tragically cold Dallas morning. NBC displayed the Rose Bowl on a sunny, gorgeous move to California kind of day. ABC and the Miami Orange Bowl were always begging us to stay late and defy wives, mothers, girlfriends and children to watch more football. It was tradition not some sick football obsession. On New Year’s Day it was disappointing to see those NFL networks were carrying the Doctor’s, Ellen, and Movie Classics while ESPN handled the heavy lifting. Happy New Year from the Yard