The PGA Championship last weekend was the kind of elixir that can soothe and distract from the toxins around us. 23-year-old Collin Morikawa was the leader in the clubhouse with some of golf’s biggest names chasing his stunning final round 64. None of them caught him. His only mistake was lifting the trophy and dropping the lid. He gained $1.9 million GW’s and exemptions for the next five years to all the big dances with his victory. The Yard laid a Hamilton on Collin at 55:1. We were as nervous as he was on those last three holes. The eagle on 16 unclenched our sphincter. Collin was hardly ruffled. We wished we had laid a Jackson instead of Hamilton.
For months there were no sports. The Las Vegas sportsbooks have been punished by COVID. They were barely eking by with parlays on Korean Baseball and Table Tennis. Golf came back and golf got more action in the first week than in previous years. The action has remained high on golf but now almost everything is back. It is as exciting as it is frightening. Never before have the NBA and the NHL played games in August. The Las Vegas Raiders had their first practice in pads on their new practice facilities. The NFL is more adult than college football. Teams have more control but there is no NFL bubble. Baseball can makeup games with double headers, but an NFL outbreak is the end of the season for some teams. The 2020-21 NBA/NHL seasons are going to be truncated. The Olympics are a year out and looking shaky. We hope it all ends well.
Baseball seems to be teetering down the hairy line of truth. At this time, the Cardinals have played nine games. Miami has played 15 games. The Dodgers have played 23. The teams are all supposed to play 60 games in 70 days. The 70 days are still marching forward, but all teams are not on the same cadence. It is hard to imagine how it all the teams get to the playoff check point. Where do the Cardinals make up 15 games with teams that are off to other game locations? Teams might start to be dropped from the league into COVID DQ. It is hard to see how this ends well for MLB. The Yard sure hopes it does because the Blue Crew with Captain Mookie look like they are ready to launch.
1988 was the Dodgers last World Series title run. It has been a long time and we are reminded often by Giant fan. Baseball ownership was found guilty of collusion for the 1985 season and any of the free agents during that period got fresh look rights. Kirk Gibson was one of those who got this opportunity and signed a three-year deal with the Dodgers in 1988. The 1988 Dodgers were a good team but did not have a World Series champion in the clubhouse. Orel Hershiser would emerge as the bulldog that season on his way to the Cy Young. Gibson won a title with the 1984 Tigers. He was a champion. He was the straw that stirred the Blue crew punch. During Spring Training, in an effort to lighten up the prickly Gibson, Jesse Orosco decided to go old school and put shoe black in Gibson’s cap. Not only did Gibson not find the humor in these shenanigans, he stormed into the clubhouse and dressed the whole team down. He let them know there is no room for hijinks. He was there to win games not play games. He was the MVP of the NL with a pedestrian .290 average, 25 homeruns and 76 RBI’s. It was his leadership in the clubhouse not just his play on the field that lead to the honor. Gibbie could have been the MVP for the World Series upset of mighty Oakland A’s. He only had one at bat in the WS, but it was the historic game winning homerun off Dennis Eckersley with two outs in the 9th. Forever one of the greatest single moments in LA sports history.
In 2020, the Dodgers made the big trade for Mookie Betts. They traded among others the young talented Alex Verdugo to get Betts. Before Betts signed his monster contract, he came into Spring Training and asked to address the team prior to taking the field for the first time as a Dodger. Yard detectives cannot find a transcript of his speech, but he spoke for five minutes. He has since emerged as the leader of this young team. The Dodgers and Mookie put the rest of the league on notice when they agreed on a 12-year $365 million contract. Gibson never had another year like 1988. He was 31 and the downside after a decade of rugged play and battered knees. Mookie is a 27- year old witch of a player. He is a World Series Champion. Betts is a spright 5’9” housed in a slight frame. But when he flicks his bat at a pitch, the ball can explode off the bat as it did three times in a game against the Padres last week. He is now tied with Johnny Mize and Sammy Sosa as the only major leaguers to hit 3 HR in a game six times. This year, he has nine homeruns and 21 RBI’s while primarily batting leadoff. Mookie plays with a perpetual smile and singular focus in each moment. He has a lot to smile about with his game and 12 years of solid cake streaming his way. He will lead this young team and show them how a champion gets it done.
College football is a microcosm of how our nation’s leadership is handling the COVID plague. Certain conferences have already decided the risks outweigh the rewards and are shutting down while watching millions get sucked out of their depleted athletic department budgets. All of the multitude of sports network are going to be replaying “Classics” not live content. The SEC, Big 12, ACC and a few others are holding out hope they can play a conference schedule and have some semblance of a championship. The players are already playing a game with inherent risk, COVID is looked at as just another. Not sure if that is the smart science. These are college kids in a petri dish of parties and hookups. The libido is not a rationale organism. It does not look like it is going to end well.
It is ironic that villains these days are the ones not wearing their mask. Such a lightning rod masks have become in various parts of our country. We are a nation who was once revered for taking on dictators, sending our soldiers off to fight on foreign soil. Now that is difficult, and people signed up for that duty. Wearing a mask, not so difficult for most. Some 50+ loggerheads in Henderson are actually protesting in the streets without masks but with banners and placards. Not sure who has time to demonstrate regarding their desire not to wear a mask? Most of us are doing what is safe and trying to eke out a life, enough already.
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