The Raiders of the First Half

When the Raiders sprinted to a double-digit halftime lead against the Patriots last Sunday, we knew the silver and black was in trouble. While middling through Josh McDaniel’s maiden voyage on the pirate ship, the Raiders have had five double-digit halftime leads in 2022.  One would think a team with five significant leads at halftime, the Raiders would boast more than an 6-8 record.  The Raiders never won any of those games, losing all five games in the 4^th quarter.  The Raiders had not lost that many games with that lead in team history let alone in one season.  McDaniel got the scary vote of confidence from Mark of the bowl cut. With their playoff backs against the urinal, they stormed to a 17-3 halftime lead.  The Raiders then allowed the Pats to score 21 unanswered points.  With under a minute left, Derek Carr tossed a hail Mary TD pass in the deep recesses of inbounds.  There would be overtime and a chance for salvation. Billy B’s New Englanders had thirty seconds, two timeouts and 50 yards to field goal range.  The unexpected happened when the Patriots did their Cal v Stanford routine and tossed the game to the silver.  A surprising win and cover for the Yard and the Raiders. We have heard from sources that the flight back to New England was chilly.

 

The World Cup was one of the best for the Yard.  We are not a soccer outlet.  We follow when the US team is respectable, which happens every few decades.  1994 was fun and WC was in the US with the championship at the Rose Bowl.  The US beat Columbia that year and it cost a few Colombian soccer players their lives. The US team made it to the knockout round then and again this year.  In between, the only thing we recall is Landon Donovan.  The 2022 final was as advertised except for the beer.  Lionel Messi playing in what would be his last WC and Argentina trying to find their first title since Maradona.  Messi delivered and there was scoring, drama and scoring. Soccer always has drama, scoring not so much. A bonus was rooting against France. It is always great to watch the French lose.

 

Baseball free agency has exploded with 10-year $300 million deals for all the big names. Trea Turner a Yard favorite, bolted for the city of brotherly love. He wanted to get back east and share some love with his bro Bryce Harper.  Trea got a title in Washington, but Bryce had already gotten his $300 mil and left before the parade. Aaron Judge turned down the Yankees seven-year $214 million deal before the season.  The oft injured Judge doubled down on himself and had one of the greatest years in American League history. His bet rewarded him with a nine-year $360 million contract.  Aaron is 6’7’ and that frame leads to some prodigious home runs, it also exposes lots of moving parts to strain or tear. The Yankees could not let Judge go to San Francisco. The spurned Giants set their sights on WS cheater Carlos Correa.  SF needed to make a splash to maintain relevance in Bay area sports.  The Warriors keep racking up titles.  The 49ers are back in the championship discussion. The Giants last title was 2014.  Attendance is down 27%. The homegrown talent has not blossomed, and the originals are getting old or gone.  Signing Correa would be noisy and bold for the franchise. They pulled the trigger and before the first news cycle had closed, Carlos the thief was off to the Mets and Steve Cohen.  The Giant nation lost a few more craft garlic fry customers with that disclosure.

 

Steve Cohen made his billions running the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisers.  Cohen was profiled on 60 minutes and downplayed his success story from its humble beginnings in Great Neck, NY.  He bootstrapped his way to the top while running his firm with tyrannical demands for his traders. SEC compliance was at the hairy edge for these traders and their insider contacts.  SAC Capital advisers went down in an SEC firestorm. $1.9 billion in fines and disbanding the company.  Two of his star traders went to prison but Cohen escaped with his billions.  Before the scandal hit Wall Street, Cohen was a finalist to buy the Dodgers from Frank McClown.   He lost out to Guggenheim and then the SEC turds splashed down in his crystal punchbowl.  Stevie was barred from building another investment firm and he retired to his $150 million compound in Greenwich, CT.  Cohen laid low while his narrative distilled down to retired billionaire hedge fund manager.  The Wilpon family had owned the Mets since the heydays leading up to the 1986 title, Mookie Wilson, Billy Buckner, and all of that. The Wilpons were heavy investors with Bernie Madoff and got out before the collapse.  The SEC tried to claw back on the Wilpons, but they also managed to escape with their billions and the wrath of vigilante investors. It was pirates selling their booty to barbarians.

 

The Mets team salary for 2023 comes in at $380 million.   The Padres projected payroll will be $241 million.  The Phillies are going to fork over $242 million. The Dodgers are poseurs at $223 mil.  The AZ Diamondbacks are working for minimums at $92 million.  The Nationals, two years after winning the championship are slumming it as well. The inequities in baseball are going to continue to diverge like the bourgeoisie and the proletariats.  Cohen told MLB ownership that he would not bloat his payroll to win a title.  When his payroll is $120 million more than the next highest bloat, he might have fibbed a bit to the MLB, but he is used to lying to investigators.

 

Final Seconds: The Raiders cannot afford to lose another game this year and their last three games are a gauntlet.  50 years ago, this weekend, the Raiders suffered one of the most tragic, iconic defeats in the annals of the NFL.  The game was a defensive struggle with Steelers leading 6-0 with 1:17 to go.  John Madden replaced Darryl the mad bomber Lamonica after the mad one threw his second interception.  The legend of Kenny The Snake Stabler would be born that day.  Yard youth loved the Snake. Stabler snaked through the Steel curtain for a 30-yard TD run.  The Raiders only needed to hold on for 77 seconds for a 7-6 victory.  What happened next is one of the most historic plays in NFL history.  The Immaculate Reception by Franco Harris lead to the winning TD as time and the Raiders expired.  There are no words to describe and lives forever on YouTube. Franco passed away this week and is remembered for his HOF career and that catch.  The Raiders return to Pittsburgh this weekend to try and save their season.  The ghost of Franco will be willing the Steelers to victory. Raider nation should be getting ready for 2024 and praying for Tom Brady.

Let the games begin

The College Football Playoffs, the CFP, are set for the opening round of games.  The CFP for D1 NCAA Football is still for the mighty teams not all the teams.  Nick Saban and Alabama did not make the elite four for the first time since 2020.  The Tide has been in the CFP seven times in the nine seasons the playoff has existed.  The NCAA and the Bowl organizers have struggled to design an equitable solution to crown a true champion.  D3 football figured it out decades ago.  They are rolling though their playoffs now with 16 teams at the starting line.  FCS football has hosted a playoff with 12 teams for decades.  It does seem that North Dakota State always wins.  The Big Boys of CFP can only figure out how to have the top 4 get to play and there is always controversy.

 

This year Michigan and Georgia are undefeated and the best in the land.  It gets a little murky from there.  Saban has been Saban rattling that his team would be favored in any game and gosh darn it, we should be in the CFP.  Sonny Dykes almost gambled the TCU Horned Frogs chances for the CFP by going for it on 4^th and goal in the Big 12 Championship OT and failing.  Sonny Dykes does sound like a gambler but that was stupid move when an FG keeps you in the game.  The committee slipped TCU into the dance despite Sonny’s dopey coaching and much to the chagrin of Little Nicky.  USC Nation had hoped to see the Trojans leapfrog into the discussion. The Pac-12 hoped for them to make it as well.  The Ute Nation had a different agenda and pounded the Trojans and King Caleb into submission. Troy fell into the Cotton Bowl against Tulane. Caleb should win the Heisman but not a championship. Ohio State snuck into the CFP after getting smashed in the mouth at home by the Wolverines.  It was Michigan first win at the Horseshoe since 2001.  Harbaugh seems to have figured out the next level.  This might be their year, but the Bulldogs are having another year of the way and their truth. Georgia has been the favorite since August, and nothing has changed.

 

The 40-year anniversary of Instant Replay first used during a college football game was on December 7, 1963.  It was used during the broadcast of the Army Navy game that year.  Roger Staubach led the undefeated Midshipmen into the game days after being awarded the Heisman trophy.  Navy was ranked #2 and Army had but two losses at kickoff before 100,000 at the old Municipal Stadium later renamed JFK.  The game had been delayed several weeks because President Kennedy had been assassinated on November 22, 1963.  The game helped the nation heal from the tragic killing of JFK.  Instant replay was the icing on the broadcast cake. Staubach was exciting to watch and looking at his spectacular plays over and over was exciting for the TV audience.  Flash forward to 2022, Army and Navy are playing this weekend in Philadelphia.  The total for the Army Navy game has gone to the under for 16 straight years.  There is report that if someone invested $110 in 2006 to the under and rolled the winnings over it would be worth $3.4 million today.  Of course, that would mean in 2020 this person would roll over $850K to the under followed by $1.7 million in 2021.  Those are some serious cajones to make those last two bets.  The Yard gets sphincter stress with a $25 parlay.  With Over Under at 32.5, Instant Replay probably will not be as exercised Saturday as much as it was in 1963. 

 

 

There was some history this week.  The UCLA Women’s Soccer team won their second NCAA title in school history.  It was the Bruins 120^th NCAA title across all sports trailing only Stanford and ahead of USC.  The Lady Bruins trailed 2-0 when they finally scored in the 80^th minute.  They scored again to tie the game with sixteen seconds left in regulation.  They outlasted the legendary NC women in two overtimes to win 3-2.  NC has won ten women’s soccer titles with their HOF coach Karen Shelton’s 42 years. At the same time, Andrew of the Yard’s school the University of Chicago won their first NCAA D3 Soccer title.  It was solid 2-0 for the Maroons over the Williams College Ephs.  The Ephs had been the Cinderella story of the D3 tournament until Chicago struck their midnight. The real story is Maroon head coach Julianne Sitch.  She became the first woman to coach an NCAA Men’s Champion in any sport.  Congrats to coach Sitch and the Maroons.

The Fall in Qatar

Last week, I was trying to buy Taylor Swift tickets using proceeds from my FTX Bitcoin account.  It was a race to the bottom.  Tay Tay shut down Ticketmaster faster than FTX went to zero. It was a cataclysm of cosmic proportions for both platforms. We bounced back to reality and decided on George Thorogood at the Pearl.  Classic rock at a vintage price worked better for the budget.

 

The Yard World Affairs director had forecasted the war in Ukraine would be over by now.  It appears we are now entering the obliteration phase.  Destroying infrastructure and driving Ukrainians from their homes is not sustainable even if the Russians prevail. It is a Stalin-esque move by Vlade. Upping the ante going into winter.  In 1932-33, it was food withheld from the Ukrainian people by Stalin. He brutally starved them into submission. Putin is using missiles and drones.  Without gas and electricity, he is going to turn Kherson into a Siberian death camp.  Russia has been exposed as a second world military enterprise on the battlefield.  Putin has become the new Rocket man. Kim Jung is jealous and stepping up his air show.  Whoever is running the dumpster fire that is Iran is cheering Putin on as well with Iranian drones.  Lunacy is a bonding thread for dictators. Xi is keeping his arms folded with his own protests blowing up across his country.  He is waiting for a winner to support. We hope they can still find a path to diplomacy.  Putin needs a win to save that Botox infused mug.  He lost his long fight after status as world leader last February. He should get shirtless back on the horse for his people when the weather warms up.

 

The NCAA transfer portal has changed the mechanics of building basketball and football programs for head coaches.  USC recruited Lincoln Riley to resurrect Troy from the ashes.  He brought his guy Caleb Williams with him, and they did rise from the ashes of the past decade.  Oregon did a quick upgrade bringing in Bo Nix from Georgia. Michael Penix decided to play a fifth year and left Indiana for Washington.  It was the best move of his career and he capped it with a big win against WSU in the Apple Cup.  He beat another transfer portal refugee, Cam Ward.  The Pac 12 had seven starting QB’s using the transfer portal in 2021 for the 2022 season.  Dorian Thompson Robinson turned in another great year. Yard staff thinks it is his 6^th year with Chip Kelly and the Bruins.  There was some COVID truncation, but DTR and the fan base finally benefitted with a nine-win season.

 

The World Cup is finally here.  It is usually in July, but it is 120 degrees in Qatar in July.   November is a more fan friendly month even if the country is anything but fan friendly.  Qatar has stressed to the world to respect their draconian, 12^th century culture.  FIFA has told the players to respect Qatar and not display symbols of LGBTQ. Instead look at all the shiny new things we built with our cadre of third world labor. Budweiser is a major sponsor of FIFA.  They were quite surprised when Qatar announced just weeks before the World Cup that beer would not be sold at the venues.  Alcohol in general is heard to come by in the country full of no fun.  The fact the World Cup is In Qatar at all is blasphemous.  Qatar is not a soccer power.  The only way Qatar plays in their first World Cup is to buy it and they did. They bought the tournament from FIFA.  The World Cup had always been for sale by FIFA.  FIFA leadership has historically lined their own pockets with meal, college tuition and Benjamins while pimping out Cup rights.

 

 

Night Cap:  West Coast college football is always more interesting when USC is in the national mix. USC is one of the OG’s in CFB. Chip Kelly has a good gig at UCLA.  Nine-win seasons to keep employed, beat USC occasionally.  The Rose Bowl or another New Year’s Bowl would be kind of nice.  UCLA has not competed for a national title since the 1990’s.  UCLA went down to wire with the Trojans a few weeks back.  DTR had his first mistake prone game of the season at a bad time.  The Bruins had a chance to win the last minute.  We hope Caleb Williams wins the Heisman and makes a Mark Sanchez straight to the NFL.

Season of the Witch

It is the season of the witch.  Halloween is just a week out and it seems my neighbors are all in this year.  After the COVID muted the past two years, every measure of demons and miscreants are inflated across their lawns.  Everywhere in the news there are mentions of Witch Hunts and the former president Trump.  The FBI, New York AG, the DOJ, and the Jan 6 committee among others are conducting independent Witch Hunts regarding Herr Trump and his miscreants.  The Yard is not sure if this is a seasonal or ongoing thing.  If the Republicans win the midterms, the witches turn away from the Trump family and towards Hunter Biden and his famous laptop.  The Yard is just hoping we have some extra Twix dark chocolate bars at the end of Halloween night.

 

The amazing regular season for the Dodgers ended in the calamity of a loss to the Padres in the NLDS.  The Dodgers have owned the up-and-coming Padres forever.  The only time San Diego was tough on Los Angeles was when they were awful and that was often.  Since they have tripled their payroll and relevance, the Dodgers have slapped them around like a rookie forward in the G League.  This Dodger team won 111 regular season games, the most in franchise history. The crew had a remarkable season with a winning percentage of .685.  They won over 50% of the 111 against their division rivals.  They won 80% of their games against the NL Worst and 60% against everyone else.  Walker Buehler never got started and got shut down in May until 2023. Dustin May got shut down in May 2021 and never really came back. Dodger “closer” Craig Kimbrel blew five saves in 27 chances. He had a record of 6-7 with a 3.75 ERA.  You do not want your closer to have thirteen decisions.  Kimbrel the closer was left off the playoff roster, say no more.

 

The Dodgers did not have a playoff series winning pitching staff all season. Julio Urias started slow but finished in Cy Young fashion and registered the only playoff win.  Kershaw was his usual uneven playoff self.  Gonsolin was a Cy Young candidate through mid-August with a 16-1 record. He has always struggled on the big stage and only lasted 42 pitches in game 4.  He gave up four hits and a run and Roberts knew the outcome by the end of the. 2^nd. The bleeding stopped in that game, but the Dodger bats remained holstered for the series.   After taking a 5-0 lead in Game 1, the offense never had another 2-run lead.

 

It is the end of an era with this Dodger team.  There will be some favorite sons who will be gone.  This core group has been through the Astro cheating scandal tainted loss in the WS.  The boat race by the Red Sox in 2019.  The bubble wrapped title in 2020 with the JT testing COVID positive during the game and getting yanked. But back for the celebration, the champagne and national outrage. Beyond their 2020 title, their best result was beating the great last gasp by the aging Giants.  That was a sweet victory even if it led to the defeat in the next series when all the pitching was exhausted. We can only hope the Giants continue to piss away salary on aging veterans to reclaim their fading legacy.  Joey Bart was their best prospect in years, and he is not an All-Star. Aaron Judge is just waiting to take San Francisco’s $350 million for ten years.

 

It appears that the Padres are now our Huckleberry.  With Fernando PED-tis coming back next season the Friars are going to be solid again.  Who are these upstarts, Padres?  It starts at the top of the organization.  Peter Seidler is the managing partner for San Diego.  Peter is the grandson of Walter O’Malley.  In 1997, when his father Peter Sr., sold the Dodgers to Fox for $350 million, it was a major deal.  Fox had enough with MLB ownership and sold the team to Frank McCourt for $420 million in 2004.  McCourt was a hated owner and eventually cashed out in 2012 for $2 billion.  Peter O’Malley realized he sold too early.  His investment group bought the Padres in 2012 for $800 million.  The O’Malley’s know what it takes to win a title.  There was an O’Malley at the helm for every Dodger Title before the 2020 title.  The Dodgers won six titles during O'Malley's tenure, but they lost eight as well.  There were delicious victories over the Yankees and A’s as well as disastrous losses to these same two franchises.  The Padres are making the moves for the long run mixing veterans with draft picks.  Their payroll would appear unsustainable given their market and current TV deal, but things could change.  The Dodgers have been making the right moves for decades.  It will be a battle for years.  Giants are going to struggle to keep pace, but they do have those garlic fries.

 

Tarnished Legacies: Brett Favre was a HOF QB for the Packers.  His exit was messy with Aaron Rogers waiting on the sidelines.  Rogers sat for three years while Favre worked to cement his legacy for passing yards and interceptions.  His passing yards records have been surpassed.  Interceptions is an all-time lock at 337.  The next closest is George Blanda at 277.  The closest active are Tom Brady 204 and Matty Ice 177.

 

Favre went to the Jets for a bit.  He was there long enough to make Page 6 because he was sending dick pics to a Jets cheerleader.  He denied all of it, but the texts were already out there. Now Brett is accused of soliciting the former Governor of Mississippi to divert Welfare money away from the needy.  Favre wanted the money for his alma mater so a new volleyball facility could be built for his daughter’s team.  He went back to the well to get money for an indoor practice facility to lure Deion Sanders' son to MS.  Favre denies any wrongdoing, but the texts are already out there.  He is being pilloried from one news cycle to the next.  We have seen this movie.

 

Trivia: Who is the only Hall of Fame Pitcher to never win the Cy Young award?

Legends and Legacies

The Yard has been observing a period of silence since the passing of the narrator of our origin, Vin Scully.  The first memories of the sports mania that would become our life’s work were reported by Scully. Scully was our hometown announcer, but he was also a national treasure. “In a season of the improbable, the impossible happened” is a favorite as Kirk Gibson’s HR landed in the RF seats in 1988. The radio broadcast is piped in the men’s restroom near our seats.  One might linger at the porcelain to hear Vin describe that moment of the game.  Beyond calling the Dodger games for over 60 years, calling the WS for a national audience and the MLB Game of the week, Scully worked other sports. The 1975 Masters is a legendary championship.  Jack Nicklaus held off Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller by one stroke to win his fifth green jacket.  As Jack is playing the final hole, Vin is making the call. When Joe Montana and Dwight Clark connected for “The Catch” to win the NFC championship in 1981, Scully was on that call as well.  He was an artist who painted with his words and wit. He was our humble servant until the end. He was a unicorn.  I was fortunate to enjoy him for the entirety of my life.  He is missed.

 

Presidential libraries are the on-going legacy of former presidents. There are six libraries in the president’s hometown. Ten libraries are in the president’s home state. Seven are located near pre-presidential workplaces.  Three are located near where the President retired.  Ronald Reagan’s is near his former home in San Ynez.  Air Force One is parked on the grounds and it costs $30 to walk around inside.  The mission of presidential libraries is to safeguard a president’s papers and to offer an impartial record of his or her time in office. Even Richard Nixon has a presidential library in Yorba Linda to burnish his positive impact beyond the disgrace of Watergate.  The Obama Library caused a brouhaha based on proposed costs on potential locations.  GW’s might have some finger painting.

 

Obama has raised $700 million and counting for his legacy project.  DT has some well-heeled friends who could lay that out to start his legacy although that process has not started.  In fact, there has not been a lot of discussion regarding the Donald Trump Presidential Library.  It is unclear what papers the Trumpster authored that need to be preserved.  His Twitter account is probably where most of his best work is stored in Tweets.  Maybe Elon or Jack Dorsey or whoever is running the Twit show could put it up in the cloud for future record.  The FBI took an aggressive start to repatriating some of the presidential papers with their raid on August 8.  It appears Trump had started his presidential library in the basement of the Mar-A-Lago resort.  Excellent location in Southern Florida although a bit cramped and not easy to find according to the FBI.  It is not on Trip Advisor yet, but let’s see how this unfolds.

 

College football starts in earnest this weekend.  2022-23 might be the last vestiges of traditional college football if it still exists at all.  Oklahoma and Texas are still in the Big 12 or whatever is left of that Power Conference.  They are looking to get bludgeoned in the SEC for next decade, UCLA and USC are planning to bolt the Pac-12 to the Big Ten which now has about 16 teams and $8 billion TV contract.  The Pac-12 network has not been a robust success and mostly because the product is inferior.  Without USC, UCLA and possibly Oregon, the PAC-12 is more like the WAC.  The network is on life support at best.  The Bruins and Trojans were getting $20 million+ this year.  The Big Ten is offering something in the $80-100 million per year range.  The BTN will be offering a coast-to-coast product.  No other conference can offer such robust programming.  It comes at the expense of other conferences.  The altruism and egalitarianism of college athletics has left the stadium.  The universities have learned well the money-grubbing ways of the NCAA to milk every dollar from their previously unpaid athletes.

 

Nation, Image and Likeness or NIL, have taken the players to getting paid NIL to getting paid millions.  The whole debate over NIL was started by Ed O’Bannon.  I watched Ed and the 1995 UCLA Bruins race past the Arkansas Razorbacks for the NCAA Title.  I got to watch the game with my good friend Paul. He claims I did not breath except during timeouts.  Years later EA Sports released a video game that included that title game.  Ed had 30 and 17 in that game while leading the Bruins to their only title since the Wizard retired.  In 2011, when viewing his performance inside the video game, O’Bannon was shocked by the real image and likeness with his name in the game.  EA Sports and the NCAA were making millions from licensing these images.  Mr. O’Bannon received NIL as in nothing for his efforts.  Finally in 2014 and with the support of Oscar Robertson, a judge overruled the NCAA’s self-serving rules and declared them anti-trustworthy! That ruling opened the doors to where we are today.  Not only college but high school athletes are getting in on the action.  At some level, it is great to see college athletes get their due and not at the expense of the university.  On another level, boosters have figured out how to manipulate the system for the benefit of their school.  Texas A&M apparently has benefitted more than others much to the chagrin of Nick Saban.  He has called out his former assistant Jimbo Fisher in the press for their NIL shenanigans and #1 recruiting class.  Tuscaloosa gets all the southern five-star recruits, but it is not the large media market where NIL branding prospers.  Saban does not need NIL revenue to win championships, but it levels the playing field of which Darth Saban wants no part.  The NIL market might get properly regulated in the future, but the fresh faces of college athletics has been permanently scarred.

 

GOAT The Serena Williams show dropped the mic last week at Flushing Meadows.  Serena is the GOAT of women’s athletics at all levels.  No other woman or most other male athlete has been competitive at an elite level for over two decades.  Serena won her first Grand Slam title at the US Open in 1999.  She beat her sister Venus to win her last at the Australian Open in 2017.  She has lost in four GS finals since the last title At age 42, she is more competitive than Jordan or Kareem was at that age.  Ausie Margaret Court won 24 GS Titles.  Thirteen of those titles were before the Open era.  During that period, professional players were not allowed to play in the majors.  Only the very best became pros so Margaret beat the best amateurs for most of her career, just not the best in the world. Hell, she couldn’t beat Bobby Riggs. Serena beat the best for every one of her 23 GS titles. She survived Will Smith, er ah I mean King Richard and conquered the world.  Serena may be done between the lines but we have not heard the last of this GOAT.

Open Memories

The Yard has always been huge fans of The Open.  St. Andrews is where it all began back in the 1500’s.  While the colonies were fighting for their freedom, the Brits were sipping whiskey and playing golf at St. Andrews.  St. Andrews is the origin of the rules, traditions, and evolution of golf. The Swilcan Bridge between the 1^st and 18^th fairways is iconic.  But the Yard loves that almost every bunker on St. Andrews has a name.  There are over 40 named bunkers on the links style course. A Descent into Hell is infamous just 100 yards short of the 14^th green. It took Jack Nicklaus four shots to get out of the ten-foot pit in 1995.  Miss Grainger’s Bosoms is a Yard favorite and apparently so was Miss Grainger in the 19^th century.  The bunker is on the 14^th hole and identified by two prominent mounds.  Cameron Smith raced past a conservative Rory McIlroy with five birdies on the back nine while Rory carded none.  The last Aussie to win The Open was Greg Norman in 1993.  No one remembers the Shark fondly these days.  He is working with the House of Saud to overthrow the PGA.  Offering guaranteed payouts with their causal 54-hole stroll and no cut, is a competitive joke.  Who wants to watch this meaningless exhibition where everyone gets paid for showing up?  Jim Nantz hopes an audience shows up in the next four years. Nantz burned his ships and went all LIV.  Regardless, we took Cam at 18:1 in The Open, which was kind of nice.

 

The MLB All-Star game is the best All-Star game of all the professional sports.  Professional league AS games in general are not that great but baseball was the first and still the most entertaining.  Yard youth attended the 1967 AS game at Anaheim Stadium.  That was back when the Angels were in Anaheim not Los Angeles by way of Anaheim.  The Yard was already a maniacal baseball fan at age nine.  Yard Daddio got the tickets in the left field bleachers, it was thrilling.  The stars of the game played most of the game.  Hank Aaron, Orlando Cepeda and Roberto Clemente all batted six times.  They managed two hits.  Clemente struck out four times.  Juan Marichal started for the NL followed by Fergie Jenkins and Bob Gibson.  The AL countered with Angel Dean Chance, Al Downing and Catfish Hunter. Brooks Robinson, Tony Oliva, Harmon Killebrew and Tony Conigliaro all got to bat six times and managed three hits amongst them.  Robinson’s one hit was a homerun.  The great Yastrzemski was three for four in that game on his way to winning the Triple Crown in 1967.  There were 17 hits and 30 strikeouts. It was a fifteen-inning game that ended 2-1 by way of three homeruns.  Don Drysdale got the win and Tom Seaver the save. We stayed until the end.   I got to see all my heroes that day and still tingles to troll the memories.

 

Shohei Ohtani is a unicorn talent for the Angels.  No player has pitched and hit like him since the Babe.  And Babe did not do what Ohtani is doing.  Mike Trout is arguably the best everyday player in all of baseball.  Ohtani won the MVP last year and is a favorite this year.  Trout won the MVP in 2019, 2016 and 2014.  During this period with these brilliant players on the Angels they have made the playoffs just once.  They have rarely finished above .500.  Arte Moreno bought the Angels from the Cowboy’s estate in 2003.  He hired Mike Scioscia as his first manager, and they went on to win the 2004 World Series over Dusty Baker and the San Francisco Giants.  It was the first and only WS title in Angel history.  It was the first World Series title in Southern California since 1988.  It was a low period for the Blue Crew and ad executive Moreno decided to lay claim on the larger market outside of the Magic Kingdom.  He rebranded the California Angels into the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, LAA.  He took out billboards all over the LA metro area and let us know the Angels were taking over Los Angeles as well as the OC.  Moreno jumped the shark with that attempted encroachment on Los Angeles Royalty, the Dodgers.  It took the Dodgers 15 years to win their seventh title in 2020.  The Angels have been hardly relevant since that 2004 title.  Arte has pissed franchise money away on Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols and Anthony Rendon.  He tried to bring in the Joe Maddon magic, but nothing has worked since that miracle in 2004.  Arte might have sold his soul for that title.  Gene Autry probably would have sold his for a title before he rode off into the sunset.  Moreno bought the Angels for $184 million so we think he will be alright even if they never sniff another title.  This year’s edition faded almost as fast as they started.  Trout and Ohtani are wasting away in Tomorrow land.

 

Reminiscing about that 1967 AS game this week was fun. Recalling the 2004 World Series when the Giants were attempting to win their first title since moving to the Bay Area was entertaining.  Dusty Baker’s three-year-old son almost getting run over at home retrieving a bat is a You Tube Classic.  The Angels roaring back to take the title after being down 3-1 was the most I have ever rooted for the Angels ever.  The Giants had their best record in 2021.  Better than any of the WS title teams.  They won the most games in SF Giants’ history and they lost to the Dodgers in the playoffs.  It was the best series of the playoffs.  This past weekend was the freshest and best memories.  Thursday night, the Dodgers storm out to a 5-0 lead against the hated ones.  The Giants blast back into the lead with Darren Ruff’s grand salami.  Then Mookie showed why he gets $30 million a season with a soul crushing three-run stinger into the left field pavilion. When the Giants mounted a 9^th inning rally Betts ended it horizontally outstretched in the RF corner.  Friday night Bellinger hit the game changing slam.  Saturday and Sunday, the Giants were in each game only to fail.  Giants are 16.5 back and fading back to their historical levels faster than forecast.  The Yard does like to kick the Giants when they are down.  They hung onto their faded heroes longer than the Yard’s 501’s.  With the lack of young talent, it will be a middling journey for the club the next few years.  Hang in their Gabe.  You look better in the dugout than Bochy.  He just coached better.

 

Extra Innings The Baseball HOF inducted new members this past weekend.  Big congratulations to David Ortiz, Big Papi.  His 542 home runs were his ticket to the ball as well as his leadership.  He led the Red Sox to their first titles in nearly 100 years in 2004 and then again in 2004 and 2013.  He was beloved and he still is.  Jim Kaat, Tony Oliva, and Minnie Minoso have the Veterans committee to thank alleged PED offenders.  Kaat won a respectable 283 games but lost 237 during his 25-year career. Noteworthy but HOF worthy?  Tony Oliva had some quality years and 1917 hits.  Noteworthy as well. Roger Clemens with seven CY Youngs and Barry Bonds with six MVP’s are still sidelined under the steroid cloud.  Yard Opinion it is time to get past the sordid history and recognize them for their partially tarnished accomplishments. They competed against similarly juiced talent.  Why do the baseball writers get to judge them? The fans are mostly past it. No one was prohibited from using the juice in the era.  It was illegal in most places except the MLB.  It seemed many were complicit, but no one was convicted.  With 27 states now offering legal sports betting, do we need to keep Peter Rose out of the HOF any longer?  Times are changing and so should our look back on history.

Happy Father's Day from the Yard!

As the lyrics go, “I heard the news today, oh boy!”  The news has not been delightful, and the Yard has tried to tune most out but it permeates.  Our blog that we hold to such middling standards had weighed in on the global malaise. Ukraine, mass shootings and the like is not a charitable space for the lighthearted Yard staff. It was hard to ignore these crises and focus on silly fecal matter.  Things are not getting any better.  Johnny and Amber got their court decision.  There was the fecal based Mr. Grumpy allegedly borne from Ms. Heard shared in testimony by Depp.  Jack Sparrow did not even attend his positive court verdict while he took a victory lap with Jeff Beck jamming through Europe.  Heard might have a harder time resurrecting her career. The jury did not believe her, and social media does not care for her much either. Her only gig she has right now is Dateline.  Keith Morrison and Andrea Canning are going to probe the murder of her career.

 

Sports betting is legalized in many states.  Las Vegas is the nation’s leader in the clubhouse for cash removed from patrons and lives ruined.  The Yard thought we had a healthy relationship with my sports gambling.  Then we bet the Warriors to win the NBA title.  The Laker’s bitter demise led to questionable decisions. We jumped on the GS bandwagon in February, so we had some upside on the runway.  Curry was injured, Thompson was struggling, and Draymond was a smoldering floor soldier. We took a flyer that Curry would get healthy, Thompson would figure it out and Green would not implode.  The hope was a US Open Morikawa type payday.  We were cheering the Warriors passionately with our cake on the line last night. Mrs. Yard was all in as well.  There was an epiphany this morning.  The rays of reason pierced the morning mist.  What are we doing? We are rooting for a team from the Bay Area.  It is a clear violation of all historical Yard protocols. It appears there could be a potential gambling problem.  Hate the message, love the cake.

 

The US Open is always one of the highlights of Father’s Day weekend.  It is thrilling to watch mighty PGA members get humbled by the USGA tricked up fairways and rough.   Since the USGA manages the US Open, the rebels that bolted to the Saudi backed LIV tour get to play in this year’s US Open while banned from the PGA tournaments.  The LIV tour has sparked outrage among the PGA and the public.  The Yard does now want to ignite the anti-Saudi rhetoric, but it is gurgling in our bile.  Rumors are that the Greg Norman led tour paid Mickelson $200 million to join the upstart.  Watercooler talk around the Yard has been any of us would have taken $2 million to play on the tour but $200 mil, whoa! Phil did spend his entire career building his reputation in the long shadow of Tiger.  When Tiger was ruminating in his self-destructive period, Lefty emerged as the solid family man hero to be applauded.  It took him 25+ years to establish that image and then he destroyed it in a single news cycle.  He basically said the Saudi’s are scary MF’ers, but they pay well. Phil was tone deaf about the optics in how he would be viewed in the after burn.  He has company in his camp.  President Joe Biden denounced the Saudis after the Khashoggi assassination.  But with gas prices over $5/gallon, Biden is headed to the Kingdom to get past these ugly crown critic dismemberment issues and on to saving the 2022 midterm elections.  It is quite the back pedal for the President but look at the polls.  It cannot get much worse.  It is always about the Benjamins.

 

Happy Father’s Day from the Yard!

BTW: Hustle on Netflix starring Adam Sandler is a fun Father's Day distraction.

The Souls of the Children

The Yard has staff that monitor all the major news outlets to bring stories to the production team.  Some days it is a tough slog but lately it has been a surreal one.  With Russian tanks still obliterating Ukraine towns and villages, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are stealing all the headlines. Ukraine is fighting a real terror in Russia but has been relegated to page six.  Depp and Heard are fighting a self-inflicted race to the bottom that neither will win.  There is a malevolent baby formula shortage that is layering more anxiety on already stressed families.  The Supreme court leakage on Roe versus Wade being overturned lit the protest on both sides of the divide.  The lack of formula and the abortion ruling are being hotly debated in the Senate and in public.  The protests have been warlike from both camps.  Strange bedfellows those two prescient issues. Stranger bedfellows are the ancient predominantly male judges who are deciding what a woman can do with her biology.  Most Americans, besides the religious right, believe in a woman’s right to choose.

 

The furtive debate about Roe versus Wade has been ongoing since its original passage. Why fifty years later this “abomination” needs to be overturned is unclear. There is precedent in maintaining a law that has been effective for women ‘s rights for five decades.  Why now?  So, parents can raise their children and send them off to school to be killed by a deranged eighteen-year-old gunman with an assault rifle.  There has been rabid debate about abortion since the Supreme Court leak, but 19 children got killed in Texas last week, but no productive debate on gun laws.  Bearded lizard Ted Cruz denounced the shooting but yelled that nothing the Dems were proposing would have stopped that shooting! Ted did not indicate what he is proposing besides dropping out of a keynote address at the NRA national convention in Houston.  Ted does not have any fresh ideas, but he knows how to avoid bad optics.  Why are we as a nation so eager to force women to have unwanted children but unwilling to create an environment where children can survive attending school?  When Yard was raising the Yardlets, school survival was never in question. We wanted our children to thrive!

 

The US diplomats take China to task on a regular basis over human rights abuses.  The Uyghurs and other Chinese Muslims are systemically having their human rights denied.   The Yard is not involved in this discussion, but we have never heard of a mass shooting anywhere in China.  The Chinese have denounced the US hypocrisy because our children are killed in their classrooms and minorities are harassed by police.  They have a point.  We throw stones at them half a world away and we cannot protect our children in our neighborhoods.  We are a country that allows an 18-year-old to buy an assault rifle on May 17, 375 rounds of ammo on May 18 and then kill nineteen children on May 25.  We cannot figure out a way to break that chain of events. Other countries have had mass shootings that lead to significant gun law changes and have had few if any future incidents.  New Zealand, Switzerland and Australia all dealt with their shooting crisis with swift government actions.  In the US, there have already been 213 mass shootings in 2022 in 148 days. There were 698 in 2021. We do not believe anyone finds this acceptable. How is the US a World Leader when we allow our children to be murdered in their classrooms in startling manner and numbers! We are the world leader in deaths in the classroom.  Our politicians cannot figure out how to feed our children before they are sent off to war in the classroom.

 

One of the loudest voices of outrage was NBA coach Steve Kerr.  He was more outraged than Ted Cruz or most other politicians.  Kerr is in the NBA Finals for the sixth time in eight years.  He has a lot going on, but he is also a father of three.  Gun violence ripped Kerr’s life apart when his father was assassinated by Jihadists while serving as President of American University in Beirut.  Malcom Kerr had done nothing wrong except to be an American target in a dangerous land.  It was not innocent children being killed but a 52-year-old father ripped from his family. Kerr was an 18-year-old freshman at University of Arizona when he lost his father to two shots to the back of his head.  Coach Kerr realizes that there are far more important things than the NBA Finals.  No child in Uvalde did anything wrong, either. The soul of our nation is under siege.

 

Mocking the Draft

 The NFL draft came to Las Vegas last week with the commotion befitting a Super Bowl. Blue Men, Ice Cube, Wayne Newton, and Marcus Allen all graced the stage with Roger. The most dominant performance was the Make a Wish youth for the New York Giants. He brought the house down and just may be the secret sauce the Giants have needed for decades. The Yard staff was all in for the first three picks and then Ms. Yard was like WTF is this? It was hard to defend because it is just a sports draft. With the Outlander season finale queued in the DVR or the prospects of watching Roger Goodell come to the stage 32 times? No brainer. We went for Jamie and Claire in hopes of gratuitous sex while being pursued by the British army in 18^th century North Carolina. Those two never disappoint. Goodell often disappoints.

The Mock draft industry is back to the fringe. Mel Kuyper Jr. will not be seen again for 6-8 months. Yard summer interns have not compared actual results with mock forecasts, but the correct guesses are very few. There are NFL draft discussions from the day after the Super Bowl until now ad nauseum but, everyone always gets it wrong. Mock drafts are more like tele psychics. The draft usually gets blown up with a positive test for weed or bong gas masks on Instagram or other lapses in judgement. The Patriots pulling second round prospect Cole Strange into the first round was strange. No pundit saw that one coming except Bill Belichick. The controversy came before the draft when Cleveland traded for Deshaun Watson. Watson signed a massive new  contract while 20+ lawsuits over his alleged sexual misconduct with multiple female massage therapists are pending. Houston PD did not pursue legal action against Watson, but class action size civil action is still pending. Gloria Allred is in hot pursuit of his assets. The much-maligned QB should have enough money to pay and still maintain his car collection. The NFL will suspend but not Bauer. NFL owner Robert Kraft has enjoyed the services of certain massage therapists and he still is beloved by Patriot nation. Baker Mayfield was not the franchise changing quarterback that Cleveland hoped when they invested the first pick with him. The Bake show was not bad, just not great. He did have a new coach and offensive coordinator every season. Those machinations do not help a young QB develop to his highest level. Mayfield did get multiple commercial endorsements and a viral feud with OBJ and his father. OBJ has a ring and Baker does not know where he is playing next year. He never had legal issues or massage issues.

In other related sexual miscreant news, Trevor Bauer has been suspended for two years for the medieval notoriety he brought to the MLB last year. The Pasadena PD refused to prosecute the case. Bauer felt this was akin to exoneration but that is not how Commissioner Manfred saw it. TB’s action might not have been illegal, but baseball is the most family-oriented sport of any of the majors. Baseball fans make generational passage of their fandom and folklore to their familial community. My first sporting event was watching rookie Don Sutton pitch a 2-hit shutout of the Red’s during the summer of 1966. Daddio got the company seats down the first base line. Sutton would go on to an HOF career while I imagined the Yard. Baseball fans do not need to explain to their young fans what Trevor Bauer was doing with another consenting adult in his home. He would be booed everywhere, every  time he pitched for the next two years. Bauer creeps in the ugly, dark recesses of human behavior and would soil anything he touches. A UFC athlete might still find fan support but not an MLB pitcher. The Dodgers are thrilled he is suspended. They paid him over $30 million last year for six starts before the self-immolation. They are now off the hook for $70 million with his suspension. At his best, Bauer was a difficult teammate with exceptional skills. We learned he is something far worse.

This past weekend, the New York Mets pitched the second no-hitter in team history. It was a team effort that required five pitchers throwing 159 pitches to get the no-no. The Mets have had majestic pitching in their history. Tom Seaver was the leader in the clubhouse, but he never got a no hitter as a Met. Nolan Ryan pitched seven no hitters but none with New York. Doc Gooden and Jacob deGrom could not get it done. The only other Met no-hitter was Johan Santana in 2012. Santana pitched his way into New York sports history with the first no-hitter in Met history. Manager Bobby Valentine fretted with each pitch. Not just for the no-hitter but Santana’s pitch count was climbing. In the end Johan got his gem with 134 pitches. The Mets and Santana nailed it and Santana’s career effectively ended that night. He floated around on his legend earning $3 million/year until 2015. Johan never pitched in the majors again after the 2012 season. In 2022, the Met starter had eighty-eight pitches when Bucky pulled him. It was the right thing to do in May. As was Dave Roberts pulling Clayton after 88 pitches while pitching a perfecto a few weeks back. The Dodgers did not need a perfect game to win that one, but they do need Kersh in October.

Winning Time: We have commented in recent Yard posts how entertaining “Winning Time” the HBO series on the Laker dynasty in the 1980’s. The executive producer Adam McKay writes and produces entertaining movies working for years with Will Ferrell. Winning Time is a fun ride, but it is not a documentary. Kareem comes across as stoic and difficult. We did not know Kareem that well, but we remember altercations with the public and his bitterness at the time. We did not know Magic and they showed him getting lots of Tookie before settling down with Cookie. He did say that he contracted HIV through having lots of sex. Magic and Kareem objected to their depiction in the series but it was in a chunk of the shaded area of reality's concentric circles. The most outspoken has been the logo – Jerry West. Jerry is characterized as an anxious depressed a-hole. He is never happy, and he battles with new owner Jerry Buss about everything. Back in the day West did resign abruptly before Magic’s first season. West was not all onboard for drafting a 6’9” point guard. Buss kept paying him as a consultant and relied on West for counsel but there was no mutual admiration. Buss was a swashbuckling winner who rose from poverty to amass a real estate fortune. Jerry was a humble West Virginia boy who became the NBA logo. West led the Lakers to the NBA finals nine times in 14-year career. The Lakers lost eight of those finals and West never got over it from all accounts. West claims he is sleepless over the series. He is threatening legal action. Kind of sounds like the Jerry they are depicting, right?

 

Motherless Russia

 It is an anxious melancholy that envelopes  the Yard like a shroud. The Dodgers are off to a nice start with the Giants in early season pursuit. The Lakers had the most monumental flame out in franchise history and certainly the biggest of Lebron’s career. The Raiders have had a tremendous off season. There is much to be excited about for the balance of the 2022 campaign. But with missiles raining down on Ukrainian cities it is hard to be excited about sports. Sports has always been a great elixir for our national unease with world events. Baseball took the symbolic lead only cancelling the 1945 All-Star game during WW2. Over 500 MLB players were drafted or enlisted for the cause most notably Bob Feller and Ted Williams in the prime of their career. The Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants had over a million fans pass through the turnstiles in the 1945 season. The tragedy of that war was half a world away as it is today.

Today, the tyranny of Vlad Putin has pushed a free nation to the hairy edge. Ukraine has battled heroically against the current day Darth Vader and his imperial forces. Russia may have planned to occupy Ukraine, but they are destroying it. Missiles are not only taking out military targets but also schools, apartments, and hospitals. They are driving civilians from their homes while ensuring they have nothing to come home to except a new regime. The civilians caught in the open have been savagely executed indiscriminately by Russian troops. When the Russian Warship Mokva telegraphed demands for Mariupol to surrender, Ukraine telegraphed back “Go F—yourself, Russia.”  A week later, they sank the Russian ship with two of their own missiles. Putin was none too happy about that. He removed his field general and replaced him with his butcher of Syria. Syria subcontracted out their civil war to the Russians. The Russian contractors brutally crushed the Syrian resistance with the same tactics soon to be unleashed on Ukraine. Vlad’s Russia has always towered over their former states, but ruthless obliteration is not just unprecedented, it is a criminal in the world theater. It is our woebegone mental struggle from afar to process these calamities.

Putin got his Olympic moment with Sochi in 2014. The Russian leader was not the Soviet Union leader, just the Russian leader. Mike Gorbachev had broken up the empire while Putin was in the KGB. Putin always wanted to play another round of Risk with the region. At Sochi on the world stage, VP beamed at Fisht Olympic Stadium for the Opening Ceremonies. A record 88 nations qualified to compete in these games. Putin was pushing for the best results for his uBer nation to show the world. In January 2015, it was uncovered that there had been Russian State sponsored doping schemes for decades leading up the games. Russian scientists were working as hard as their cyber hackers to find masking agents and sleight of hand with tests. Russian test samples were a back alley three card monte with the negative test sample always being the one turned over to the authorities. Russia was banned from competing as a country at future Olympics, but the ROC athletes were allowed to participate. The destruction of Ukraine will change all of that for Russian Athletes for the rest of their lives. They will be a world pariah right beside their Putin.

The Sochi Olympics were February 7-23, 2014. Russia began their annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea on February 27, 2014. Putin has always played the long game through each of his invasions and the five US Presidents he fretted a response. This is not Crimea, Chechnya or Georgia. The world watched and forgot those incursions. Ukraine is a shining democracy in post-Soviet Union history. It has built a national identity and a robust economy. Russia’s actions have solidified the world’s rebuke of Putin. He will not be able to wait this wickedness out. He will be the Kim Jung of Europe.

And now back to our regularly scheduled diatribes.

The Laker season was lamentable. Tapped as an early favorite the Lake show did not even make the playoffs. The HBO original series about Showtime was more interesting than the 2022 team. Anthony Davis has only played seventy-six games since the 2019 bubble championship. The Laker’s are paying AD $32mil a season. That works out to $895K per game or $39,000 per point. The Yard has not filled our sabermetrics position yet, but we do think that those are not sustainable metrics for any franchise. The King did play 101 out of the 153 scheduled games. The Lakers got Karl Malone and Gary Payton old fast. James is getting old, and Davis is playing old. The Lakers owe the failed Russ Westbrook experiment $91 million. The fourth highest payroll in the NBA is watching the playoffs from their expensive home entertainment systems. The Lakers are the oldest team in the NBA and with all of Rob Pelinka’s shrewd trades the Lakers are left with no draft picks in the 2022 draft. With no draft picks or cap space, the Lakers are a legacy platform that needs a hard reboot. Firing Frank Vogel was a start, but the Lakers will not be a championship threat with this troupe regardless of the conductor.

After a slow start in Colorado, the Dodgers are starting to hit as forecasted. Cody Bellinger is batting 7^th or 8^th depending on the pitcher. This stout batting order has the 2019 MVP in the bottom three. The pitching flamed out last year with key starter Dustin May needing Tommy John surgery. Kershaw and Scherzer ran out of gas while Trevor Bauer self-destructed. An all-star pitching rotation was nullified, and last season ended prematurely. Clayton came back on a one-year deal and pitched a perfect seven in Colorado. 21 Rockies up and 21 Rockies down with thirteen Ks of the 21 outs. People were shocked with Robert’s pulling him on a potentially historic night. There are only 23 perfect games in MLB history. Kershaw may or may not have gotten to that finish line. He had eighty pitches in his first start with hopefully another thirty-one starts for 2022. Roberts made the right call at the right time.

The NFL draft comes to Las Vegas for the first time. The NFL had great disdain for all things LV for decades but now embraces the fervor of a fan base with scratch on a player or an outcome. Las Vegas knows how to put on a show and the 2022 draft will be legendary. There are NFL fan venues being created all over the resort corridor. The main stage is being built on the Bellagio fountains. Several LV acts including “O” will be performing throughout the three-day event. It can be hard to get excited about any draft but this one should be lively.

Yard Boost:  Baseball has been able to lift the spirits of a nation as well as an individual fan for over a century. Babe Ruth famously promised a sick Johnny Sylvester during a hospital visit that he would hit a homerun that day in 1926. The Babe did not disappoint. Last week, Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Brett Phillips extended an invitation to cancer patient 8-year-old Chloe Grimes. Chloe was fighting her second battle with cancer. Phillips is her favorite player and he provided her with a make a wish game moment. He brought her down on the field before the game. She gave him a signed softball and a fight for Chloe bracelet which he wore during the game. When Phillips was coming to bat in the third inning, Bally sports was interviewing Chole live to discuss her special day. In the middle of the interview, Phillips smashed a homerun. Chloe was distracted by the interview and missed the shot but not the moment. She is a superstar.

Baseball and the Azaleas

 The Oakland A’s management has been visiting Las Vegas with a player’s card regularity these past several months. The A’s have been fighting for a new stadium since moving from Kansas City to Oakland in 1968. They have never gotten any traction on building  a new stadium and they play in the worst facility of any major sports franchise. The Giants have blocked all their efforts building anything in Norcal outside of Oakland. The Giants claiming sovereign markets. No surprise, they claim LV on my MLB App for local blackouts. The Pumpkin squad did arrive a decade earlier, but the A’s have had more success than their Silicon Valley elitists from across the first bay bridge. Oakland is trying to hang onto the A’s with a $3 billion pipe dream development including a ballpark as the anchor tenant. They are facing stiff opposition from all fronts for the massive spend with other pressing social needs. Defending the complexity of the situation, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said “It is going to be more complicated, and you have got to be much more environmentally focused when you are developing on the precious California coastline than in the gross desert of Las Vegas. So, yes, it is more complicated, and it is totally worth it.”  There was immediate backlash from Las Vegas for the gross mischaracterization. Yard staff has been searching Google Earth to see where the precious California coastline interacts with Oakland. We have checked our social media contacts, and no one is bragging about their beach house in Oakland. Las Vegas is not certain we want the rebuilding A’s either but we have seen some gross street scenes in Oakland so please no stones, Libby.

What a glorious April day when the first round of the Masters and the MLB Opener occur on the same day. Two of the Yards most treasured pursuits baseball and The Masters all at once. The Masters happens every year on this weekend, but baseball had to orchestrate a 99-day labor strike to get the timing right. We wondered why 99 days? Baseball is driven by stats and a hundred days seemed more statistically relevant. Transcending all of it is Tiger Woods making his triumphant return to Augusta. El Tigre might have never walked again after wrapping his corporate sponsored Genesis SUV around a Palos Verdes Estate pine tree.

Woods is not only walking Augusta he is +1 after two rounds of his first competition in over five hundred days. It is magnificent to see the GOAT back on the grass. Woods has never missed the cut at the Masters as a pro. He will be playing this weekend. The Masters is Tiger’s home track. He has played in over 25 Masters in his career carding five green jackets. Tiger has more Masters moments than any golfer in history. It is a Ken Burns ten-part series. CBS certainly hopes he is in his red Nike best on Sunday afternoon.

Augusta is perfect for Woods’ return besides its lack of diversity. The Masters is the only Major that is played on the same course every year. The greens crew has moved sand traps and tricked up the Azaleas for the tournament, but it is the same 1930 Georgia real estate. Tiger knows every nook, cranny, and whoop dee do around Amen corner through Rae’s Creek. He will be formidable if still in contention Sunday afternoon. His 46-year-old body may not let him get there but it is thrilling to see him playing again with today’s best.

That baseball is almost opening on time is an extraordinary accomplishment. With completion of the 2021 World Series, the owners immediately locked the players out when their Collective Bargaining Agreement expired. Rather than risk a mid-season work stoppage, they were not going to let the season start at all without a new CBA. Mid-season strikes are still painful reminders for many fans. In 1994, the Montreal Expos were on their way to the World Series. The New York Yankees were tracking towards their first title since 1981. San Francisco Giants slugger Matt Williams’ had forty-three home runs and Seattle Mariners star Ken Griffey Jr. had 40. Both had a chance to break Roger Maris' then-season record for home runs of sixty-one. This was before Barriod and McCreatine smashed 70+. San Diego Padres star Tony Gwynn had a .394 batting average and a chance to become the first player since Ted Williams in 1941 to bat .400 or higher. On August 12, 1994, baseball stopped and then wiped out the 1994 WS. The Expos might still be in Montreal if they had made the WS that season. Much more than games were lost that year, fans and history disappeared with them.

Public opinion on Major League baseball is divided regarding the current relevance of our national pastime. The NFL dominates the sports landscape even outside of their season. The NBA has some of the biggest individual stars on the planet in any sport. Hockey is exploding across the US and baseball is well the national pastime. The Yard has heard it before and often. There are too many games, they take too long, the hot dogs and beer are too expensive. All are valid points and baseball has tried to address some of them. Yard staff doubts there will ever be a reduction in the number of games or the price of beer and hot dogs. We do believe the pace of play can change with tweaks. We like the Ghost runner starting on second base in extra innings. It is not a fun start for the close to start with a runner on base. But on a Tuesday night with the beer shut down three innings earlier, let’s get it done. It is a school night. The NL DH will cut down on pitching changes and put another bat in the lineup. We love the history, the nuances, and the Dodgers.

Back at the Club: If you grew up in LA during the Magic Johnson Laker era, Winning Time on HBO is a fun ride. John C. Reilly as Jerry Bush is brilliant. The swashbuckler outdueled Jack Kent Cooke for ownership of the team and a legacy that far surpasses him. The personalities and the stories are brought to life by Adam Mackay with his original cadence. It is based on the book Showtime, but HBO could not live with that title.

Breaking News: Shout out to Stuart at the Payroll for breaking the Steve Lavin hire at University of San Diego. The Yard got caught up in the second season of Emily in Paris and missed the notification. Former Bruin coach Lavin was the first UCLA coach ever to lose to USD, so it is fitting that they have now hired him. USD Alum Stuart is our point person for that market. Go Toreros!

This is the new normal, right?

 It is devastating to see the once robust Ukrainian cities reduced to rubble and smoke. In the decades since their independence from the USSR, Ukraine has thrived. This horror is prescient and has been forecasted since Crimea. What is surprising for the rest of the world is the ineptitude of the Russian “Special Operation.” Ukraine resistance is stiff, but the Russia war machine is a shit show. Putin thought this would be over by now and he would be drinking Stoli in Kyiv. Putin is exposed as the despot he is with a second world military farce. His rhetoric about the demon Ukraine state is getting stale even in Russia where everything is stale. As a KGB legend, he watched in rage, while Gorbachev dismantled the “great” USSR and was reduced to the pitons of just Russia. He has been waiting for this long game and he is not going to retreat without negotiating real estate. China has refused to take sides. They are wondering if it might be time to make a move on Taiwan, with everyone focused on Ukraine. Not to be forgotten, Kim Jung has been launching missiles daily in a constant “look at me” attention grab. The rest of us are just trying to find normal while standing behind Ukraine from afar. Ukrainians may never again enjoy normalcy.

The Academy Awards returned with their self-congratulatory aura. The Red Carpet, the celebrities, the dresses, and  whatever the hell Timothee Chamalet was wearing was normal, right? It all seemed light and normal until Chris Rock made fun of Jada’s dome and Wilbur got on his high horse and stormed the castle. Yard interns have studied the brief clip for days and it appeared neither Rock nor Smith knew what was going to happen while the Fresh Prince was making his way up there. Rock was smiling and having a “really?” moment, then boom he got bitch slapped. Will did not even go Ali on him, it was a celebrity slap. The Academy immediately announced an investigation into the celebrity slap violence. I would suggest the Academy ask ABC for the footage. There would seem to be other violence issues in this country rather than actor vs. comedian that require attention. Letting Smith stay in his seat and then win Best Actor 40 minutes later was surreal. They should have relegated Smith to the balcony and made him wave from up there when he won.

The gateway to the new normal for the Yard seems to be the same wormhole that snapped shut in March 2020. March Madness was the Yard path back through the COVID labyrinth. The ingress back to convention began on March 17^th with eight NCAA games followed by eight more on the 18^th. There were full crowds, magic moments, and the vivid energy to our viewing experience. Sister Jean could not work her celestial magic and the Ramblers went down in the first round. Then the St. Joseph’s Peacocks flew into the Elite Eight. They took down the Kentucky Wildcats and Purdue along the way as double-digit underdogs. Having grown up with peacocks in the San Gabriel valley, they are loud and obnoxious but amazing in moments fleshed out for all to see. The Peacocks played the role until the Tarheel whopping at the precipice of basketball folklore of a 15^th seed. It would have been historic. Cinderella fulfilled the nation’s love of the underdog. In the end, basketball royalty bashed the dreams of the high seeded and returned normalcy to the Final Four. St. Joseph’s entire budget for D1 basketball is $1.6 million. UNC basketball coach Hubert Davis’s salary is $1.75 million. In the end it is still all about the Benjamins.

With the conclusion of the NCAA tournament, the Yard enters our annual sports doldrums. There is little wind in our sails as the NBA meanders towards the finals. Baseball has Opening Day and then relevance about 120 games later. The NHL has the same trajectory as the NBA with the opening playoff rounds being ordinary. The  NFL Draft is the main sports highlight of April besides March Madness bleeding into the first week. The NFL draft will be exciting this year because it is in Las Vegas. This city can put on a show and the draft will be a wonderful platform for all to witness. It is a draft, 15 minutes on the clock, put on a team hat, tell a backstory, and speculate about the future. The NFL drags it out for three nights with commercial spots, but it is still just the draft. With mock drafts and ceaseless discussions about NFL team needs, it underscores that there is nothing else to report unless another athlete screws up. If you are an athlete, you do not want to “use poor judgement” in April. You will have the whole news cycle for your sordid tale. October is a better month for transgressions.

The Dodgers were silently stalking Freddie Freeman during free agency. Dodger GM Friedman and the team knew Freeman would stay with Atlanta if the numbers were in line. The Braves numbers were not in line and Freddie packed his flip flops and headed to the west coast. His presence should offset the loss of Corey Seager substantially. Corey is a special player, and we wish him well in Texas. If we remove the COVID bubble, Corey averaged playing 111 games a season for the past five. Freeman averaged 150. The Rangers famously overpaid for A-Rod decades ago, we hope it works out for Seager. We just thought he was interested in titles and that has never happened in Fort Worth. It seems like the Dodgers will be competing for titles for next few seasons with the roster and payroll. The Rangers are more than a Seager away from competing.

The curious case of Trevor Bauer will play out over the next few months. He has an oversized spot in the Dodger payroll and has not pitched since last June. He has not been charged with battery or sexual assault, but the optics were never good for TB. Bauer admitted that he punched and choked out a woman for their consensual sexual gratification. Most baseball fans cannot grasp what that is all about and Pasadena PD would not prosecute. MLB will suspend Bauer for games in 2022, but he will be back in the Dodger clubhouse this summer. Trev has never been beloved in any of the clubhouses he has hung his uniform on. Even back to his days with the Bruins, he was a talented A-hole. He has not changed but he will pitch this year. He might be a difference maker or a major distraction. The Yard thinks both but winning changes perception and he can pitch even if he is weird. Grienke was a strange one but not a sexual miscreant. Deshaun Watson is getting all the love in Cleveland, and he has twenty-two women coming forward about his predilections. Bauer almost seems like a poser compared to Deshaun. They are now both hashtag brethren forever.

Playoff Time:  Kyrie Irving is the man who said the earth was flat and vaccines were not to be taken. He backed off the world being flat, but he won the vaccine battle with NYC.

The Tournament Edition

 It is hard to maintain the mirth and folly that are Yard staples as Russian tanks roll down Ukraine highways. It is a shocking scene to see Vlad the Bad ordering his forces to overthrow their former satellite state. COVID isolated Putin is displaying the patience and anxiety of an adolescent wearing a face mask. He is sitting so far away from his people in news footage he must think they have Ebola. Putin spins misinformation better than Facebook. Or in addition to FB and Twitter with Russian sponsored campaigns to discredit Ukraine and its leaders. It is hard to understand the justification, but Ukraine is not the poor stepchild Gorbachev spun out of the Soviet orbit decades ago. Ukraine is a prosperous nation with famous people and other trappings. Hell, they paid Hunter Biden $500,000 a year for who knows what. No one stateside is paying the artist formerly known as Hunter that kind of cake but Ukraine’s Burisma did. God bless, the Ukrainian people! They are fighting hard with the world watching in disbelief. We hope they all get out on the other side of this travesty.

Madness has already erupted in the Yard Board room. Tournament white boards and newspapers are strewn haphazardly while ESPN illuminates the room in the background. Gonzaga is everybody’s favorite after making the championship final last year. They barely beat the 11^th seed UCLA Bruins in the national semifinal. The Bulldogs got scorched by Baylor in the championship game. They lost serious talent from the LY team to the NBA. Head coach Mark Few got a DUI over the summer and they are now led by a 7-foot first-year student, all 197 pounds of him. Everybody wants to see the Zags finally bring a title home to Spokane. Thirty-one percent of the brackets have the Bulldogs doing just that. They are the leader in the locker room. Lots can go wrong on the road to New Orleans. Historically, most of Yard experience has been things can go awry once in NOLA. It is madness.

The NCAA basketball tournament erupts each March except 2020. We all know what happened that year and we have been living a Groundhog Day existence since. In 2020, team bids had already been awarded. Every team had played a full season, but the COVID wolves were circling and before a single game, the tourney rug was pulled. Teams that had built their squads for that tournament in that year, it was devastating. The 2020 Dayton Flyers had one of their greatest teams ever. This year they did not even get into the tournament. Everyone got a bonus year of eligibility. There are a lot of sixth seniors playing important games. Experience is usually a big advantage at the dance, both in life and in hoops. The Mid-Majors have shined through the madness these past several tourneys. Bluebloods have thrashed about during the uprisings although it did seem to affect Illinois or Kansas primarily.  

Baseball broke through the loggerheaded logjam. The fans hardly knew there was a strike going on and, in the end, it was just noise. The owners and players get a bunch more dough and the fans get $12 hotdogs and $20 beers. The money is flowing with massive contracts for Corey Seager and Max Scherzer as they exited LA. We hope that Freddie Freeman is on his way to Dodger town now that Atlanta cut ties from their post Chipper legend. Freddie led the Braves over to the Dodgers and their first title since the 90’s. Do not let the door hit you, big guy. Come on over, the weather is nice and with you, Muncy, Trae Turner and Ginger in the infield, another title could be on the horizon.

The Lakers this year are one of the bigger disappointments in not only the NBA but the entire sports continuum. They were the favorites at the beginning of the season and now are not even going to make the playoffs. Lebron is playing hard most nights, but the Lakers got old fast. They traded their best young talent Kyle Kuzma for a square peg in Russell Westbrook. Westbrook plays hard but now he hardly plays at all in this aging round peg of a team. King James finally got to play with his friend Carmelo and Anthony is chipping in thirteen points a night. Melo never has played defense and 2022 is no exception.

The Laker docudrama Winning Time is a fun ride. There have only been two episodes so far but well played. John C. Reilly is fantastic as the open shirt, womanizing swashbuckler Jerry Buss. Jerry West cannot be happy with his portrayal by Jason Clarke. West always had a love/hate relationship with the Buss family. He was already in the job when Buss bought the team and they butted heads from the start. Even with all of years of service, Jerry never paid him big dough. Magic, Kareem, Norm Nixon, and the rest of the Showtime era are starting to emerge week to week. It was the best era of Laker Basketball and only surpassed by Jordan’s Bulls of the modern era. It was more fun than the Lebron era. We thought there would be more than a bubble title but here we are.

Go Bruins!