Witches and Warriors

Donald’s witches opened a new coven in Atlanta this past week.  He has more witches after him than were ever burned at the stake.  His man crush, Vlade Putin, has his own swirling vortex of misdeeds and deceit.  In 2020, Trumpy tried to finesse the Georgia general election result into a victory for him.  He is the author of the Art of Deal, so he figured he was just trying to close this deal any way possible.  Do not surrender even when you don’t have the votes?  Putin has his own sorcerers stirring their cauldron since the Wagner dude went down in his private jet. Yard staff cannot spell his name so we will call him Curly.  Curly was the stooge that started the mutiny against the Kremlin.  All was seemingly forgiven until they blew up his plane last week.  Putin says he had nothing to do with it and the west is to blame.  In the immortal words of George Costanza, “Remember, it is not a lie if you believe it.”

 

Relocating to the PNW for the summer, has been a geospatial magical mystery tour on many levels. While 90% of the US witnessed climate change, on San Juan Island the windows are open, and the Rose is chilled.  Yard staff had no idea that Pete Carroll had drafted Zach Carbonnet to play for the Seahawks.  Zach is tearing it up as he did the past two seasons at UCLA. The Hawks also signed an undrafted Jake Bobo.  Bobo was a downfield warrior in Chip’s offense after transferring from Duke. Seattle still has a daily sports page and Bobo is getting some ink. PNW Little League made it to LLWS Semi Finals which enthralled the region.  The Yard was cheering for El Segundo, CA the eventual World Champion.  We worked in El Segundo for five years so this was not a bandwagon situation.  And not to be left out of the local sports discussion, the Mariners have stormed into the lead in the AL West.  These young Mariners vaulted the state of TX to tie for the lead at this moment.  Whether they can keep pace with Dusty’s Astros or Bochy’s Rangers will be their sojourn.  Houston and Texas were busy at the trade deadline.  The Mariners were not sure if they were buying or selling and ended up doing little.  September gets interesting.  The Padres wealthy starters will get extra rest this fall without the stress of playing for the championship.  The Giants and Arizona are keeping their fans marginally interested much like their teams.  In the AL race, go Mariners!

 

The Little League WS launches every summer in Williamsport, PA. It was first televised in 1963.  It is one of the Yard’s favorite August events along with the celebration of my birth.  ABC/ESPN has done a wonderful job sharing the games and the stories.  Cody Bellinger starred in the PSWLL.  Michael Conforto played in the Little League WS, College WS and MLB WS between 2004-2015! Harper, Joey Gallo, and Kris Bryant played LL in Las Vegas at the same time but did not make this little dance. George and Ken Brett both started playing baseball in El Segundo The long-haired lefthander from Texas was dynamic in defeat.  He will be a rock star when the next school year commences. Louis Lappe could be someone to watch in the next decade.  He hit 5 HRs in the LLWS including the walk-off World Championship winner. He lasered it right out on the second pitch he saw in the bottom of the sixth. Few of these youngsters will still be playing baseball a decade from now but this weekend is already beyond their dreams. All hail El Segundo no longer the second but now World Champions, real World Champions.

 

Extra Innings: Markus Lynn Betts aka Mookie is the MVP this year in the National without question. Mookie was having a pretty good year until the season got real.  At a time when the rest of the NL west is fading, Betts is a warrior. Betts was batting .279 on 8/1/23.  He is hitting .315 tonight.  It is not easy improving your batting average 26 points in August.  He does it with speed, power, and a megawatt smile.  Everyone stops whatever they are eating or drinking when he comes to bat because he is always exciting even when striking out.  Against the Padres this year, when the Padres were still a thing, Mookie threw out a runner at third in the 7^th in a flash.  It seemed like an optical illusion, but the replay proved out.  Then in the 9^th with the game in the balance, Mookie was moved to second base and made a brilliant pivot and throw to first base to end the game.  He would end the Padres season a few weeks later with a Grand Salami.  With Freddie batting .328 right behind him, he has ten leadoff home runs in 2023.  They are the best first two hitters in any lineup and boast a +152-run differential.  The playoffs will be exciting again for the driven.  Mookie has nothing to prove but he plays every day like he has everything to prove.

Charlatans and Huckleberrys

The sports fervor that is the foundation of the Yard’s publishing empire began with the Los Angeles Times Sports section in the mid-1960’s.  I devoured this legendary sports section every morning.  Jim Murray’s column was where the Yard witnessed literary genius at its pinnacle.  Forget Whitman and Hemmingway, Murray knew how to craft a story. Each morning, with the paper splayed out underneath my bowl of cereal, the sports result of the previous day was reviewed in granular detail.  Every box score was analyzed, and the daily standings absorbed.  Daddio would have to read national and local news before I would release this hallowed Section C for his morning constitution.  Those Dodger and Laker teams from the late 60’s were always in the national discussion and the LA Times was our fan portal. The Rams were the disappointment that they would be for the entirety of Yard youth.  The Kings were just the other tenant at the Lakers home court.

 

The sports section was beloved.  It was a sad day recently, when the Los Angeles Times announced that the Sports department would be cut back significantly.  The paper decided that it did not need to publish the scores and results of the day, each day.  There was a new cost-cutting directive to write interesting stories about sports and athletes but not the events that make them interesting.  Sure, this information is available on any number of sports apps.  Every time something happens Yahoo Sports, Bleacher Report, MLB, my son, and my nephew notify me.  The morning Sports was my ultimate morning app. The Sports page would open to two feet by three feet without twinkling ads competing for my eyeball.  There was never a risk that if I touched the wrong part of the paper I was going to whisked away to an unneeded ad. The page would be completely static except for the transfer of the ink to my hands and my mother’s walls.  It was the golden age of the sports page and The Yard origin story.

 

Steve Cohen was vetted by baseball owners during his quest to acquire the Mets.  He pledged that he would not blow up the Mets payroll.  Cohen is usually truth adjacent in his dealings.  The SEC does not fine your firm $1.6 billion and put two of your top advisers in prison if you are on the up and up. The SEC could not nail Cohen, so Cohen let his men go down.  He bought a new toy MLB team with his ill-gotten billions.  The Dodgers dodged his bullet when he tried to buy the team. He waited a full year before going rogue in free agency and giving huge salaries to aging pitchers among others.  The Mets payroll inflated to nearly $250 million for the 2023 season.  After 102 games with the Metropolitans twenty games out and failing, the payroll evacuation started.  The Mets were flushing payroll faster than Jeremy’s bowels after he ate a bad shrimp.  The Mets signed Justin Verlander to a stupid contract that the Astro’s would not match.  Cohen ate $35 million of that contract and then traded him back to the Astros.  The Astros got Verlander and Kate on the cheap thanks to little Stevie.  Cohen, the charlatan, runs the Mets like a hobby.  He kept his thirty pieces of gold but made a Faustian bargain for his soul.

 

The Padres ousted the Dodgers from the playoffs last year in a four-game sweep.  San Diegans everywhere cheered their moribund franchise’s slaying of the Dodgers.  The Padres went down to the Phillies but vowed they were the new sheriff in town.  Friar management continued to shower money and make trades to bolster this perception.  With the PED shamed Tatis reinstated, the Padres had a championship planned and the payroll to go with it.  The new sheriff in town has mutated into the Dodger’s Huckleberry.  Last week, The Padres’ rotated through their ghastly uniforms and the Dodgers demolished every iteration.  San Diego's starting pitching is decent, but their middle relief is lit gas.  They took a rare 5-0 lead on a rare Monday day game before losing 13-7.  Four games below .500 and 13.5 games out with 40+ to go?  San Diego is going to enjoy a most colossal failure if this continues.  Juan Soto is not going to re-sign into this malaise.  Hader is probably gone as well.  While the Padres spent money like they just got their first student loan, the Dodgers were patient.  They did not make any splashy signings or blockbuster deals for the 2023 season.  They let Seager, Machado and Bellinger leave without an offer.  Their prize is Shohei Ohtani.  Friedman has been storing his chestnuts for the 2024 free agent campaign.  Ohtani wants to stay in LA and play for the Dodgers by many reports.

 

On June 17, my sister and the Yard in-law purchased our seats for the Giants-Dodger game.  They were excited to attend a game.  The Dodgers lost 15-0.  They would have got mercy ruled in the fifth if that had been one of the new rules.  Giant fervor is not what it once was, but it was a beat down of a bitter rival. Giant has not had much to cheer for the past decade, so they had fun. It was also a harbinger for the future.  LA is 32-14 since that game.  On that June evening, SF was on a roll and back in the NL West mix.  Arizona was in first place and San Diego still had hope. Their fans were crowing to the Yard about the demise of the Dodgers.  Arizona has settled into their historical mediocrity.  San Diego is a dead man walking.  The Giants are thrilled to just be in the Wild Card discussion.  Everybody is looking up and seeing blue.  This Dodger team is more competitive than the fiscal miscreants in NY and SD.  The future's so bright I must wear shades. 

 

Pac-12 Obituary:  When UCLA and USC jumped ship to the Big Ten, the remnants of the conference should have taken heed.  College athletics is all about your television contract for football.  Basketball is more egalitarian because CBS pays the freight.  Football deals are all over the place.  The better the product, the more Benjamins for your school and all the other sports.  The Big Ten now covers every time zone with football programming.  UCLA and USC are getting three times what they were getting in the Pac-12 deal when it existed.  2023 might be the last year of the Pac-12 Network.  They do have bumping offices in downtown SF, which is kind of nice.