Angels and Demons

Apparently, the vapid pace at the Yard was not originally anticipated by our investors. There was some expectation of consistent creation of new material. Since the original round of Angel financing, the Yard has been under constant demands for more content. These are dystopian days of social media awareness and anarchy. There are Yard Everywhere expectations. The Yard has never tweeted, friended, liked or poked. This is not lost on the industry titans who monitor our every move. The Yard navigated a clever lowering of the fiscal bar a few quarters back that we thought had settled in nicely. Those pesky accountants always expect transparency. When the Dodgers faded in the Midwest, the Bruins stumbled through in the Northwest and the Lakers are descending into the Pacific, we have had time to consider other storylines and maybe expand the Yard horizon. This whole brouhaha with the Miami Dolphins and NFL bullying had merit. We are a bit late to the party on that one. It does seem absurd to overlay societal norms on an NFL locker room and those dynamics. We also are having a hard time wrapping our collective minds around the fact the main antagonist is a 6’3” 319 pound tattoo sleeved beast hurling N- bombs with a last name of Incognito. You cannot make that stuff up. Richie is many things but being incognito is not one of them. He was bullying a 6’5” 312 OT Jonathon Martin. This is not junior high, this is the NFL. They both will end up on Oprah having a love fest and be back in the NFL in time for the 2014 campaign. Riley Cooper of the Eagles was thrilled to hand off the “Athlete Misbehaving on Camera Phone Video” baton to Incognito. Ciao! We also pondered why the Sacramento Kings who were valiantly saved by Mayor Kevin Johnson from moving to Seattle play at the Sleep Train Arena. It was a noble effort by KJ to save the only professional team within the 916. The owner had to be found and naming rights sold. But the Sleep Train Arena? It just does not sound like a home court advantage to play at the Sleep Train?! The Staples Center does not sound like a name that puts fear into the hearts of men but you can conjure in your mind an attack stapler with special powers. The sleep train is about getting on the train and sleeping. Sometimes we do win in our sleep but results while awake are the only ones that show on the scoreboard of life. The Kings are 2-7 while riding the train this year. The Dodgers and Yankees have never sold their naming rights. It does not mean that they never will. It just means they never have. There is only a Dodger Stadium and a Yankee Stadium. Fenway will always be Fenway. The Cubs in all of their century of frustration still give naming rights to Wrigley while Wrigley pays nothing for those rights. Wrigley will always be Wrigley. All of the other baseball stadiums are named for their corporate sponsors not the team that brings the sponsors. The Giants have played at Pac Bell Park, SBC Park and now AT&T Park just in the last ten years. We are not sure if these points are germane to the story but it sounds slutty. The Dodger season was a miserable miracle. It started like a train wreck. In the middle, they caught Puig inspired rocket fuel. They were the Boys of Summer but then came the fall. The Guggenheim group shook down Time Warner for a massive TV contract guaranteeing that Clayton Kershaw would be a Dodger forever. They ensured that the Dodgers could pay for 4 top quality outfielders. They ensured that the Dodgers will be a financial force for the lifetime of the Yard. They did not just do it to beat the Giants. They did it to beat the Lakers and win back Los Angeles. They did it at the right moment. It all could have been far different. Guggenheim was the most aggressive bidder for the Dodgers when Los Angeles and MLB was trying to vote the McCourt’s off our island. SAC was the number two bidder. Stephen A. Cohen Capital was competitive with Guggenheim on the Dodger deal and on Wall Street for many deals. The Posse and Magic leap frogged SAC with a $500 million “press hard third copy is yours” close. McCourt grabbed the pen garnering his greatest deal ever while sticking it to the ex-wife. He was delusional and brilliant. Jamie was just pissed. It was the Game of Thrones without the Imp. Frank McCourt got more money than he ever dreamed and more importantly more than Jamie McCourt or her attorney ever dreamed. Jamie and her legal team figured Frank was going to be either bankrupt or make $460 million. She settled for all of the homes and a $131 million guarantee. Frank sold the team for $2 Billion. We are not sure how many zeroes Frank finished ahead but there is comma between some of them…ouch…miss you guys…not! The Jamie and Frank debacle could not have happened to two worse people whose place in LA history is duly noted nowhere. SAC could have won the beauty pageant. They were equally financed and vetted. Since losing their bid for the Dodgers, SAC has had the SEC three vertebrae up their colons with insider trading allegations and indictments. It was not in play during the Dodger negotiations but in this past year Cohen’s firm has seen eight executives plead guilty to insider trading charges. Cohen is still in the government’s cross hairs but so far all he has paid $1.2 billion and agreed to stop accepting new accounts. He has his ill-gotten $ 7 billion so more than Parking Lot Frank but shadier. We can only imagine the turd storm that would be swirling around the Dodgers if SAC had won the bid.

The Grove and beyond

San Francisco and all points north of SLO breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Dodgers flamed out in St. Louis. The Yard fielded calls and emails from delirious Dodger haters who were pleased that our pool got pissed in this time. The Yard night crews were flooded with texts after each pitch as Ulysses Kershaw was battling and losing magnificently to the Cardinals. Giant fans were thrilled that they could still claim the last title between these bitter rivals. Finishing ten games below .500 sixteen games out of any playoff game was not going to be any speed bump in their myopic joy. The Dodgers had succumbed and the Bay Area could cling to their chipped mantle and diminished swagger. The Yard did not watch a single pitch during the Friday night debacle. We had much more important work on our agenda. The Dodger October demise had been anticipated. The Dodgers had spent much of their embedded mojo rising vaunting from last to first. It all looked good on the brochure but the Dodger playoff fever was just that and then it broke. Yard staff tried their best to insulate their mercurial leader from his forecasted demons. It is never easy and the demons are not always clearly defined until they become those demons. The lost decade of UCLA football had already telegraphed some of the warning signs but not all or their degree. The Yard follows the Animal House Universal Truths as often as medically possible. When the feces are circling, a Road Trip is best for Otter and the Yard. A road trip to Oxford, MS to see the Ole Miss Rebels face the LSU Tigers never included the Dodger debate when it was planned. It was a great diversion when the Dodgers became relevant for a time and UCLA was getting humbled at Stanford. We did not waste a moment watching a pitch or a pass in either game. The Yard road trip was legally blind before the first pitch of the debacle in the STL. Unfortunately, Giant fans feverishly watching the Dodger game kept us posted for no apparent reason. Surprisingly, vetting all of the post-game bile, we never heard from a single fan with a team in the play-offs. Filtering the bile is why we have interns. On this Saturday, we were too busy tailgating at the historic Grove at Ole Miss to be troubled by a silly baseball playoff game or some UCLA game in Palo Alto. We were attending the Hotty Toddy Party on the campus of Ole Miss. We knew our intentions were diversionary but attending a tailgate at Ole Miss should be on the bucket list for every adult American male. It is tailgating like no other college in the Union. The Grove is a ten acre parcel of land surrounded by ancient trees in the center of this 165 year old campus. The genteel southern Rebel nation rolls out large to their party. The loyal Rebel fan base parties with color and style and is 40,000 strong on six Saturdays every fall. The fans dress with respect to their history and party to their ritual mayhem. The mass consumption of alcohol is tolerated by the ever present Ole Miss police as long as no one sees a can of beer or bottle of spirits. Coolers and red cups are all the subterfuge that is necessary to baffle the law and let the party reign on. The police are pleasantly baffled as long as the revelers maintain. Dan at the tailgate set up the tailgate as he should. Ole Miss Brian welcomed us to his seven tent nation of friends and family. Bacon wrapped stuffed pork roast only starts the feasting rotation with comfy theater style seating while deciding which game to watch on the two big screens. The most difficult aspect to the festivities was the self-loathing after the third pass of grazing at the buffet. We got past it on the fourth. After the day at the Grove, Ole Miss could have lost to LSU 47-0 and our day would have been nationally ranked by our internal BCS Poll. Ole Miss Brian and company would not share that same sentiment about such an outcome. Ole Miss Fans are more about the day than the game with the understanding that the day is about the game. They are all in on the game and want the Rebels to win but that is not going to ruin the day if they do not. Their slogan is “We may lose some games but we never lost a party”. It is not just a slogan, it is. Rebel Fan is gracious, engaging, optimistic and pragmatic. LSU was the favorite. The beasts from the Bayou were omnipresent in garish colors and false hope. Ole Miss jumped on the favored with favorable results. They hung on to send LSU home in defeat. We have the tee shirt. Best Video from the Grove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3qYPGeoA7w

Pride and Pestilence

It looked like the Giants were going to pull off a first to worst run to the bottom of the NL West this season. The Yard was supporting their futility with biased enthusiasm. It was that rare moment when the Bay Area and the Yard were in the shaded area of intersecting concentric circles. But the Giants nutted up and closed the season with a blistering 6-4 run to nose ahead of the woeful Rockies. The Dodgers dash to brilliance and the Giants race to despair have both been equally compelling at the Yard. Once of the more pretentious moves in recent Los Angeles sports history was USC AD Pat Haden asking for permission to speak with UCLA head baseball coach John Savage immediately following the Bruins national championship run through Omaha. The Bruins and their vaunted pitching did not lose a game in the double elimination tournament. The Bruins brought home the school’s first national championship in baseball and 109th overall. Before the charter touched down at LAX after the championship game, USC was announcing to the LA times that they were planning on speaking with Savage regarding their vacant position and had a “spectacular offer” to make him. UCLA had little choice but to allow the discussion. USC felt that Savage had a special place in USC lore because he was their pitching coach for a few seasons seventeen years ago. The Trojans felt entitled to poach the UCLA coach because they are the LA University with the 12 national titles in baseball albeit none since 1998. College baseball is not a profitable college sport. USC was reportedly offering Savage $1 million to take over a baseball program that never makes a profit. The highest paid baseball coach in D1 makes $675,000 and that is in the SEC. Title IX ensures that women’s and men’s athletics have the same budget. Title IX takes into account the inherent cost associated with each sport not the revenue and net profit. College Football and basketball pay for all of the other college sports. The allocations of those revenues are divided 50/50 between women’s and men’s sports. NCAA women’s athletics is to be supported and shines at the Olympics. It generates no money to offset their 50% entitlement. Savage is worth the dollars and UCLA showed their appreciation with his new contract. UCLA would have shown Savage the love regardless but USC raised everyone’s bar for sports that are rarely seen on TV. Pretense is part of the double helix across town but that request was unprecedented. USC could have hired Savage back in 2005. They hired Chad Kreuter. Savage built UCLA into a powerhouse. Kreuter never had a winning season in four years. The Yard was similarly outraged that USC fired Lame Kiffin on the tarmac at LAX this past weekend. It was bad enough that the Trojans got pasted in the Arizona desert but then to have UCLA’s savior get sacked upon his return was disappointing. At the Yard, we had hoped that Kiffin would struggle along for a few more years while the Bruins rebuild. The best coaches UCLA ever enjoyed were USC head coaches Larry Smith, Johnny Robinson Part Duex and Paul Hackett. During their storied trifectas, USC’s futile run encompassed UCLA beating USC a rivalry record 8 straight times. Their leadership led USC into football obscurity for over a decade. We had only hoped that Kiffin would at least be able to finish his contract. Outgoing AD Mike Garrett was in such a rush to hire the unproven Kiffster that we only wished incoming AD Pat Haden would give him as much time as he needed to prove himself. USC is probably going to ask UCLA for permission to speak with Jim Mora next week.