Yard Truancy

The Yard has been truant these past many months. We felt it was appropriate with Jo at the Yard celebrating her upcoming high school reunion in the seminal city of Glendale, CA. Truancy was an elective class back then. Since your last irregularly scheduled missive and the truancy of the early 1970’s, the rock stars of our youth have been dropping faster than window pane on School Street. David Bowie was weird and androgynous when no one else was. He bent the rules with random precision. This Yardling signed up for the Lad Insane early. Ziggy Stardust is the greatest rock myth and one of the best albums ever. His craft found him releasing his final studio album during the week of his passing. Artists like Bowie, Michael and Prince seem tortured by their brilliance. Like John Nash in a Brilliant Mind, they were nearly driven insane with the chatter in their mind coaxing them to the beyond. Prince was the most brilliant and innovative artist we may never see again. To have a constant imagination coursing your brain with sounds, lyrics, vision is a blessing and exhausting. The Dodgers have surprised and enthused our staff. First year manager Dave Roberts has done a remarkable job under ridiculous circumstances. The Dodgers are surviving because management built the team to survive the season. Replaceable parts at modest prices have circled in and around the high priced talent. The high priced talent that was no longer part of the long term plan were sent packing. Roberts is a Yard Favorite for being a Bruin, a Dodger and a Red Sox in that order. He has made an impact everywhere he has been. Players are playing and those that are not are in OKC. If Kershaw cannot make it back before 9/1 it will be 911. Roberts has played the right cards in the regular season to keep the team competitive. Seven games series with left handed pitching facing the Dodgers lefty heavy batting order, is not ideal either. The Giants have been reeling since the All-Star break with one of the worst records in baseball since the break. The Giants were built for the playoffs not the regular season. Unfortunately, the Dodgers have the opposite composite. If winning the NL West was the bar, the Dodgers are the minor league batting champion. Winning world championships is more relevant and the Giants have slapped the Dodger nation into obscurity these past five years. It has been humbling for some and hopefully they are in Dodger management. The Dodgers have made a lot of middling trades while the Giants have gone large. Only time will tell but the Giants made moves for this year while the Dodgers are looking at the next five. Case in point, who trades their outstanding 3rd baseman that they are paying $537K a year for another left handed arm earning $6 million a year. Third baseman of Matt Duffy’s class are not easy to find. He was injured a bit as happens with that position. He was gritty, tough and home grown. Matt Moore, the $6mil lefty, is 0-3 with a 4.70 ERA since going Halloween. Giants are 7-13 since trading Duffy. What does Justin Turner mean to this Dodger lineup? Never bet against a Leprechaun in his prime. The Dodgers have recalibrated their spending while inducing their competitors in the NL West to pony up. The Giants have had a great farm system that lead them to three titles in five years. They have mortgaged their future this year. They went all in with Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija. Joey and Jeffery are guaranteed $220 million over the next five years. Jake Peavey and Matt Cain were already pulling in $15 million and $20 million per year. The lowest paid starter is Madison Bumgarner earning $9.9 million per year. The Giants are paying $85 million annually for their starting rotation and this is with Bumgarner being grossly underpaid. On another note, D’Backs, how is the Grienke overpayment going? He was the last piece, right? He is 35% of your payroll for six years and you are 20 games under .500. The Raiders coming to Las Vegas is looking more realistic. The NFL has long taken a dim view of an NFL franchise in Las Vegas. There have been few credible situations that have been able to test the resolve of the NFL in standing in the way of Mark Davis and the Oakland Raiders. The Las Vegas metropolitan area is the 29th largest in the nation. The Yard’s home town metro is larger than Indy, San Jose, Kansas City and Jacksonville and growing at 8% a year. But what really makes Las Vegas unique is the 250,000 additional people that come to our fair city each weekend. Is there not a better place to go see an NFL game in November than Las Vegas? It is hard to get Monkey Survey type information on which people come to Las Vegas to gamble on sports, drink, go out and have fun but we think it is large percentage. If the Raiders are playing on Sunday in Las Vegas, their opponent is bringing a crew in for the weekend like no other town in the AFC West. With eight home games, the NFL will be a huge hit in Las Vegas for those weekends. If the Raiders commit, there is money in town to build a stadium. The NFL has taken a hard stance on gambling for many years. Hall of Famer Paul Hornung was suspended for a season for gambling associations. The Black Sox scandal of 1919 has put a strong message out to athletes in all professional sports just ask Peter Rose. The common thinking even through the 1970’s was that if athletes gambled they would be subject to manipulation by bookies to cover their losses. Our Survey Monkey is not to up on the money organized crime is pulling down versus a current professional. But it is safe to say, there is not enough money available to change the outcome of an NFL game. Tennis, Cricket, Soccer are vulnerable but not the NFL. The NFL is a gambling hypocrite. The NFL seems to feel that this remarkable explosion of interest is organically grown through the quality of the product that is put on the field each week. The NFL points to their efforts to schedule games in London to promote the sport outside of our borders. The NFL only has one organization to thank for their impressive growth-Fantasy Football. Fantasy football took the interest off the team and focused on the individual and their results. Football fan follows their team. Fantasy Football fan follows his team and every team where he has a player playing. The NFL did not get in the way of Fan Duel and Draft kings it was local municipalities that threw the flag. The NFL has steered clear but Major League Baseball has invested in fantasy leagues. NBS Sports and Comcast are also investors. Draft Kings has a $250 million deal with ESPN. Of course, fantasy things are just that fantasy. No one loses money, right? The NFL is pushing their product into the UK with some success. In London, you can gamble on anything. Famous stories like Rory’s dad betting large on the boy to win the Open are of British legend and folklore. There is an unseemly underbelly in the international world where anything can be bet on. It is possible in those murky worlds to affect outcomes with appropriate monetary incentives. Scandals have bubbled to the surface in Cricket and tennis. The NFL does not seem to concerned about this betting culture as they build Roger’s theocracy. At the stadium the NFL plays games in London, one can bet right inside the stadium at other events not at NFL games. In deference to Roger the magnificent, they moved the betting across the street. There is plenty of money to build a stadium in Las Vegas right now. Sheldon Adelson is the billionaire owner of the Sands. Steve Wynn is the billionaire owner of the Wynn. Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta are the newly minted billionaires who own the Stations Casino Group. These are titans clashing over vested interest, building sites, personal conflicts in Las Vegas. There is not much going on for the moribund stadium the A’s and Raider’s share. Oakland does not have an economic savior. The Warriors are headed back across the Bay as soon as they can shed the Golden State name and become the San Francisco Warriors. Their only previous championship before the recent outburst was as Golden State. Teams playing in Oakland have won as many titles as teams claiming to reside in San Francisco-8 apiece. It would seem the well-heeled tech mafia in San Francisco would be light years ahead of their gritty cousins across the bridge. The Raiders situation is exasperated by the A’s. The Giants lay claim to the Silicon Valley as their fan base and have blocked any efforts for Oakland to relocate to Santa Clara. The 49ers moved down but the A’s cannot so they can move to where? No stadium is being built for Oakland. Neither team can go it alone in the bay area. Especially with their complete lack of pretense! The Raiders have a viable option. The Fertitta family owns the Stations group which includes Red Rock and Green Valley. Just like the town, they have had their ups and downs but now would most likely be categorized as up. Red Rock is a Yard favorite and many key decisions are made at our named restaurant there. Tell them you know me. They recently acquired the Palm. They also purchased an 80% interest in a fledgling enterprise called the UFC for $2 million in 2001. They recently sold their share for $3.2 billion. We are not allowed to handle the money at the Yard but it looks like they did ok on that one. Mark Davis is as weird as his father with worse clothes and hairstyle. Al rocked a shimmer suit and never rocked a bowl cut. We welcome Mark and whatever his nation is with open arms. Hope to see the rest of you somewhere. Last year when teams were waving Cole Hamels and David Price to the Dodgers, they all wanted Corey Seager. The Dodgers did not buy into that. It appears that may have been the most important decision the Dodgers have made in years. A few weeks back it looked like Adrian Gonzales was having kind of an average season. It is amazing how contract years can unfold. Another Bruin, Chase Utley is having another solid year as he always has. Fun Fact: The Dodgers hit four homeruns in an inning this week for the first time since 2006. The Yard was at that game against the Padres. Those homeruns were in the bottom of the 9th when the Dodgers were losing by 4. I was in the restroom ahead of the exodus when Vinny announced the first bomb to me right above my favorite urinal. Best place in the stadium to hear that velvet voice is while in the bathroom. I was waiting for my other attendees when the second after shock hit. We were back in our seats when 3 and 4 were hit of HOF Trevor Hoffman. The Dodgers won with a homerun in the 10th. We were in the same seats we will be in tomorrow night. Dave Roberts watched the events of that night while playing leftfield for the Padres. Sorry to reference Survey Monkey so much but the politicos do. Is that an Oxy Moron with this election, Survey Monkey? Who are the Monkeys and how will they use them? We will be at the Giants game Thursday night with first daughter, the coconut king and Jo. Cubs game with Dr. Phil and T-Dog on Friday night. Stop by 26 FD Row F.