Legends of the Fall

On September 29, 1941, Ted Williams would become the last major league baseball player to hit .400 for a season.  A batter hitting .400 for a season has always been a mystical thing for baseball fans.  There have been thirteen .400 seasons in the World Series era.  Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby each accomplished it three times. George Sisler did it twice. On this day, Williams defined his legend. The Red Sox had to play a doubleheader on the final day of the season against Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s.  The Red Sox were 17.5 games out and nothing was at stake except Williams hitting .400.  New York Giant Bill Terry in 1930 was the last player to achieve the milestone before Williams. Statistically, Ted had already qualified with his average at game time .39955. Baseball now rounded statistics up.  Williams could have sat and secured .400.  The tempestuous Williams would have none of that. He played both games and went 6 for 8 for a final average of .406. It has never happened since.  Tony Gwynn .394, George Brett .390 and Rod Carew .388 all gave it a run in our era.  Pitching dominates today’s game. The Splendid Splinter will be the last .400 hitter in baseball history.

 

Williams' exploits have stood the test of time and so will Shohei Ohtani’s.  He cost a billion but so far it looks like a great investment.  He is a unicorn.  The first 50/50 person in baseball history is a ridiculous stat in a career full of them and he is only 30.  Any team would love for their leadoff batter steal 50 bases but to hit 50 home runs also WTF?  Ricky Henderson never did that. After the season, he will be named MVP of the National League, becoming only the second player to win the award in both leagues. Next year, he starts 30 games on the mound and bats leadoff.  Who has ever done that or will ever do that in the future? This is a generational player for generations to come. Shohei is not done for this season or with his legend.  Fans will be discussing his exploits for decades after he is done playing.

 

After the first 150+ games, baseball becomes a must see for baseball fans.  There are many outstanding regular season games and an evening at Chavez Ravine is special.  Baseball in the fall is where heroes are revealed. Exploits and errors are exaggerated.  Billy Buckner could never get that squibbed roller between his legs back.  Carlton Fisk willing his walk off homer fair in 1975 will never get old.  David Ross hitting a game 7 homerun in the last at bat of his entire career is ridiculous. Madison Bumgarner trotting out to pitch five innings of relief to help the Giants win the 2014 WS title is legend. There will be stories in the coming weeks that will be told for years.

 

Padre fans are all clamoring with the second half play of San Diego.  They have the best record in baseball since the all-star break.  They played the Dodgers tough and swept them last year in the playoffs.  They will be a handful for any team this postseason.  The Yard forecasted this when the sons of O’Malley’s bought the franchise in 2012.  The Padres have been middling for most of their history.  Dodger fans would go to see the Blue play at San Diego because the tickets were cheaper and more readily available.  Those games were like Dodger home games. The Padres have won one WS game in franchise history in nine tries.  The city is a proud one but has suffered the ignominy of having the Clippers and Chargers both leave for the verdant pastures of LA.  The city is eager for their first championship in any professional sport. The Padres won’t ever match the Dodgers six titles, but this might be their best chance for a first.  The Yard is rooting against it but won’t begrudge them if it comes to pass.

 

Billy Joe Armstrong called out Las Vegas from the stage at whatever the name of the place the Giants play is.  He laid some serious expletives on LV about being an accomplice in the A’s moving to the desert.  Since his outburst, Green Day has been banished from the airwaves in Las Vegas.  They will never play another date or festivals in Las Vegas. Rock and Roll bands generally want to play dates here. And Armstrong could not have been more wrong.  The real criminal in this story is the San Francisco Giants.  The Oakland Athletics had several proposals over the decades to relocate the team to the San Jose/Santa Clara area.  The SF 49ers got that deal done. But every time the A’s started to get traction on a new stadium, the Giants cried sovereign market and the A’s could not close the deal.  MLB supported the Giants claim and forced the A’s to make a deal with Oakland or leave.  The investment in the Raiders has been great financially.  Allegiant Stadium is the most profitable venue in the world.  That Yard does not care about those metrics because the team sucks.  Good for the city, not so great for the fans and we are not sure if we are one?! The jury is out on the ROI on a baseball stadium and this version of the Oakland Athletics sucks also.  Mark your calendars, The Tropicana is getting imploded on October 9, 2024, at 2:00 AM.  This might be the last LV hotel implosion in our lifetimes.  There will still be personal implosions in the casinos nightly.

 

Local News: UNLV football has their best team in 40 years.  One must go back to the halcyon days of John Robinson coaching the Rebels to recall such football success.  Head coach Barry Odom has done an outstanding job of building a team in his character.  After a 3-0 start, starting QB Matthew Sluka resigned from the team declaring the team had reneged on promises.  Sluka contended the offensive coordinator told him UNLV would get him $100,000 to transfer from Holy Cross.  The NIL money did not materialize and Sluka left the program to pursue his last year of eligibility somewhere else. Casino owner Derek Stevens offered to pay the $100,000 but that was against the rules. With the transfer portal and NIL money, rules are being broken faster than they are written.  Barry Odom’s UNLV football team crushed Fresno State with their second-string guy.  With the transfer portal and NIL money, rules are being broken faster than they are written.  Story for 30 for 30.

The Olympic Edition

The Yard and our loyal staff have always held the Olympics atop our Mount Olympus.  Legends and goats, heroes and villains, triumph and tragedy are spread across 16 days every four years.  COVID truncated 2020 into the 2021 Olympics so it has only been three years since last we gushed.  It is truly a world stage for 205 delegations from around the world to send athletes to compete in mainstream to obscure sports, some with weapons.  With traditional television and streaming platforms so much content is available to every possible device. With war going on all over the world, the Olympics persists.  Iran, Iraq and Israel all have delegations at the Games.  Fortunately, the flag ceremony is not in alphabetical order or there could have been trouble.  Afghanistan has athletes in attendance and surprisingly none are women.  Haiti is a country without leadership and violent gangs are running the place, yet they have a delegation.  The Olympics can’t solve the world’s problems but at least it can keep the Russians at home. No one else has been able to do that.

 

After WW2, Russia retained “influence” in eastern Europe for decades.  This influence was ensured by Soviet troops and tanks. One of these satellite countries was Hungary.  The Hungarian People’s republic was a shadow government of Russia. Nikita Khrushchev was the Putin of the 1950’s.  When the Hungarian people revolted against their puppet government in 1956, Nikki released the Kraken just like Vlade in 2021 against Ukraine.  NK KO’d Hungary quickly killing 2000+ and seeing 200,000 flee the country.  Putin is still trying to figure out how to claim a W with his incursion of Ukraine.

 

 The 1956 Olympics were held in Melbourne, Australia commencing in November in the southern hemisphere.  This was approximately 60 days after the Hungarian rebellion. The Hungarian men’s water polo team were the Olympic defending champions winning the gold in1952.  The Russians studied the Hungarian Water Polo teams training methods and strategies while occupying the country. Hungary and Russia would meet in the semifinals.  This epic match was immortalized with Ervin Zador’s blood in the water.  The Hungarian team's plan was simply to taunt the Russians and force them into fouling. The supremist Russians lost their composure in their battle against their subjugated foe.  Hungary won 4-0 and won the gold medal the next day over Yugoslavia.  The iconic picture of Zador standing defiant in his speedo with blood streaming down his face will forever define an Olympic hero.

 

The 1984 Olympics still burn brightly in Yard folklore.  The Games were in Los Angeles and were forecasted to host a biblical traffic jam and financial black hole for city coffers.  The Yard was a fledgling downtown sales rep watching the preparations in rapture. Lanier BP afforded us tickets to see several events. Peter Ueberroth was the chairman of the Los Angeles Organizing committee that was going to oversee this potential municipal fiasco. The 1976 Olympics left the city of Montreal with a $1.5 billion deficit that took 30 years to pay off.  In the end, Saint Pete delivered the goods for the city.  The Los Angeles Olympics generated a profit of over $233 million. It was the first Olympics completely funded by the private sector. The city planning for work schedules and traffic patterns was amazing. It was the easiest time ever to get around Los Angeles during those Olympics.  It went right back to road rage immediately following the games.

 

Beyond the logistical and financial successes, the US athletes delivered feats of greatness.  The Russians petulantly did not participate because the US did not attend their show in 1980.  The US did not attend because Russia had invaded Afghanistan! The US had righteous indignation back then, go figure. Anyways, it was good not to have those douches there.  They would always win gymnastics and volleyball gold medals.  The US won Men’s and Women’s gymnastics team gold.  Mary Lou Retton and Peter Vidmar lead the way.  US men won their first ever volleyball gold medal with a sprinkling of Bruins and Trojans leading the charge. US women’s Olympic volleyball coach Karch Kiraly was the fierce leader of the squad. Michael Jordan led a dominant men’s team to the title.  Head coach Bobby Knight famously clashed with Charles Barkley and cut the basketball HOF star from the team.  The women’s team lead by Cheryl Miller would win their first Gold medal in the sport and have won every one since 1984. Flo Jo, Carl Lewis, Jackie Joyner, Edwin Moses dominated the track and field when the Coliseum had a track. The US won 174 total medals, 83 of which were gold.  With the gold Peter U generated, Los Angeles had a financial windfall that is still felt to this day.  Bring on the games in 2028. Peter will be 90, I hope he can be a part. Was Katie Ledecky in the 1984 Olympics?

 

Alas, what has become of the Dodgers? It seemed that starting pitching would be a strength at the beginning of the season.  Now, we are not sure who is pitching daily.  Buehler is trying to work himself into form, but the current one is not for the MLB.  Kershaw’s first start was a disaster.  Dustin May ruptured his esophagus and is lost for 2024.  Yamamoto is out for now.  Muncy has been missed all season. Mookie should be back, but this pitching is not getting out of the first round of the playoffs against anyone.  Then Freddie Freeman’s young son Max was stricken with a rare neurological disorder. Suddenly, baseball is not that important. #Maxstrong!

Good night and Good luck.

The much-ballyhooed Pac-12 network went dark Sunday night.  It was a media experiment of arrogant proportions led by former chairman Larry Scott.  The network was launched in 2012 when college athletics transcended into their pimp daddy phase.  Their unpaid athletes were their product and misguided sense that there was an endless desire for that product.  The PAC-12 was not in the basic cable plan; they were an add on. Collegiate sports networks sprung up across America during this period.  Comcast was the underlying network for the PAC-12.  The league and Uncle Larry built magnificent facilities right in the heart of downtown SF.  They were in the same area as Twitter, Salesforce and all the fast-growing companies.  They built a state-of-the-art broadcast facility. As a media startup, the nascent Pac-12 built their own 30 Rock without the rocks to pay for it. The rent was exorbitant for the product and the revenue it created.  The location was completely unnecessary.  But the PAC-12 was printing money they thought they had.  Larry Scott had a 12-year media deal, but he only signed an 11-year lease.  The league has since abandoned their Taj Mahal for San Ramon on the AT&T campus. And besides living outside of their means they were overpaid $72 million per year some of the years by Comcast for their product.  Comcast figured this out in 2022 but Larry and the team knew about it as early as 2015.  Since everyone has left except OSU and WSO good luck collecting Xfinity. Larry Scott was paid $50 million for his efforts from 2009 until his hasty exit in 2021.  Good work if you can get it and you don’t even have to be that good.  WSU and OSU are sitting on the $65 million bankroll that is left of this debacle.  Good luck trying to recruit the Mountain West to the last reiteration.

 

There was mild outrage that Caitlin Clark was left off the Women’s Olympic basketball team.  Clark has been the national darling since leading Iowa to the NCAA finals this past March.  She broke every college scoring record, both men’s and women’s during her collegiate career.  Because of COVID, Clark could have played one more season, but she graduated with her class and was the first pick in the WNBA draft.  The Indiana Fever has sold out all over the country as fans clammer to see this generational talent.  How could she be left of the Olympics?  Many have suggested that there would be tremendous marketing potential to have Clark on the team.  That could be true, but the reality is Clark is not one of the best 15 players in US women’s basketball.  She could be some time but her numbers in the WNBA are down.  She shot 47% from the field and 40% from 3-point.  In the WNBA, she is shooting 40% and 35%.  She averaged 31 points a game in college and now 16 in the pros.  She is good and will get better, but the players on the US team are bigger, stronger and more experienced than Clark.  Caitlin has better shoe deals than all of them.  We hope to see her play on the 2028 team in Los Angeles.

 

In our last blog, we lamented the passing of many sports heroes in the past year.  It is impossible to keep up but say hey?  Say it ain’t so, Jo?  The OG of five tool players died last week at 93.  Willie Mays stole home and slid into the great beyond.  Willie came up with the Birmingham Black Barons playing at Rickwood Field.  MLB scheduled a tribute game at Rickwood between the Cardinals and Giants.  Mays died a few days before the event, and it became a tribute to him.  Say hey was promoted to the New York Giants in 1951.  This was just four years after Jackie Robinson broke the MLB color barrier.  Let’s just say it was not Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood yet.  There was still a virtual color barrier, but the great negro athletes could not be ignored any longer.  They brought fans to the ballpark even if they would not share a bathroom with them.  By the time Jackie was finally “allowed” to play for the Dodgers he was already 28.  Willie was one of those generational talents and he made it to the show at age 20.  It took Jackie eight seasons with the Boys of Summer in 1955 to win Brooklyn a pennant.  Mays led the Giants to their first WS title in 21 years over the heavily favored Cleveland Indians in 1954. The then Indians had won 111 games in a 154-game season for a .720 winning percentage.  The Giants swept them with Willie making “the catch”.  Mays moved with the Giants to SF but would never win another title.  He was the first player with 3,000 and 600 home runs.  He led the league in homeruns four times and stolen bases four times.  He was a 24-time all-star.  God bless, Willie.  The Baby Bull is on his way, keep an eye out. In the Field of Dreams, a power hitting first baseman is important.

 

The major league baseball season is a battle of attrition.  Baseball is not as physical a style of play as the NFL or NBA. But those leagues don’t have a rawhide rock that gets thrown at 98 mph at their players and can leave the bat at 114 mph.  The NFL and NBA do not keep exit velocity stats.  Hard balls batted hard at players without pads running bases on dirt surrounded by grass the opportunity for injury is exponential.  Losing key players and injured pitching can derail any season.  The Dodgers lost Mookie for 6-8 weeks, but they are hanging in there for now.  The Phils just lost Harper and Schwarber to soft tissue injuries which can linger longer than a clean break.  Kershaw is supposed to be back soon but for how long?   Every team in first place is ahead of the second-place team by at least five games. All will all be revealed with deliberate precision. Go Dodgers!

 

Epilogue The conference that produced the UCLA basketball dynasty, Steve Prefontaine, USC football dynasties and eight Heisman winners, Stanford Women’s basketball dynasty, Jackie Robinson, Reggie and Cheryl Miller, Oregon State baseball championship and many others have left the building.  Tiger Woods golfed for the Cardinal.  Who can forget Pat Tillman? John Elway and Aaron Rogers never won an NCAA title, but they did win three Super Bowls. The Pac-12 won 561 national championships, 200 more than the 2^nd place conference.  The Pac-12 women’s water polo won all 23 NCAA titles.  Men’s water polo won the last 26 in a row.  The Stanford Cardinal Women’s golf team won the very last of those titles in May. The UW Boys of the boats won the last Pac-12 Rowing championship. So much great history is now history.  Thanks for the memories.

Happy 4th of July!