Super Bowl Sam and the Tigers of Summer

There have been many iconic moments in Super Bowl history with LX looming in Santa Clara. The original two SB were called the World Championship until KC founder Lamar Hunt coined the Super Bowl in 1966.  It became official in 1969 just in time for Broadway Joe and the NY Jets to storm the Orange Bowl on January 12. The heavily favored Colts were still in the NFC and residing in Baltimore. Who knew it was the Jets last moment in the sun? The 1970 KC Chiefs showed the World that the AFL was no joke blasting the heavily favored MN Vikings 23-7 behind the mastery of Len Dawson. Many future HOF athletes played in the Super Bowl.  Some famously did not like Dan Marino, Dan Fouts and Phil Rivers. Trent Dilfer has a SB Ring, so does Jeff Hostetler and Nick Foles. The most surprising QB’s missing from Super Bowl lore is one from USC.

The rich Trojan legacy has produced many heroes in Super Bowl history. Lynn Swann SB X MVP, Marcus Allen SB XVIII MVP and Malcolm Smith XLVIII represented the U well.  USC is among the leaders trailing Michigan with six SB MVP’s five go to Tom Terrific and one for Desmond Howard.  USC has never had an alumni QB start in the Super Bowl.  Carson Palmer got the closest. Pat Haden got injured and Vince Ferragamo got the nod in 1979.  Matt Lienart thought pro football was supposed to be like the pool scene in 1969 with Broadway Joe lounging in a bathing suit talking to reporters.  Mark Sanchez was a Jet and a sportscaster with a bright future once. John David Booty was booted out of the NFL before an opportunity arose.  Sam Darnold will be the first USC QB on the main stage. UCLA has had two in our less storied history.  Troy started 3 and the ageless Billy Kilmer started SB VII for the Washington Redskins. Darnold has had a remarkable two seasons after an unremarkable start of his career.  The Jets will do that to you.  The Yard is rooting for Sudden Sam and the upstart Seahawks. Yard disdain for the Patriots has not diminished since TB moved to the booth.  With Belichick’s recent HOF snub, we are not the only ones.

Indiana’s mythological charge to 2026 Natti happened fast.  Fernando Mendoza is a rare talent, and Curt Cignetti is an exceptional coach. Mark Cuban’s investment via NIL into Indiana University cannot be understated. The Indiana Alum partnered with Cignetti to leverage his financial largess into a national champion.  USC has been funneling donor money to athletes for a millennium. Reggie Bush and Joe McKnight were cashing NIL money 20 years before NIL became a thing.  The Trojan alumni have been conducting research on this slippery slope for generations.  Their results with legitimate NIL graft have been middling. With Will Ferrell, Spielberg, Lucas and the rest of the Trojan oligarchs, USC should be dominating the Big Ten not losing in the Valero Alamo Bowl. Oklahoma State had T-Bone to fund their rise from obscurity in the SWC.  Phil Knight made the Oregon Ducks into a powerhouse. We are waiting for Sergey Brin, and the Google boys to put the Stanford Cardinal back in the mix.  Nick Saban bailed from Alabama when he realized there were not many billionaire Tide fans to support the tectonic shift in college recruiting.  He could compete in the recruit’s living room but not their checking account. 

Tigers of Summer:  After being swept in the 1966 WS by the Baltimore Orioles, the Los Angeles version of the Boys of Summer had fallen with the leaves. They finished 28.5 games behind pennant winner STL Cardinals in 1967.  Those Cards were stacked with Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Tim McCarver, Curt Flood, Lou Brock and the Baby Bull Orlando Cepeda.  Managed by the legendary Red Schoendienst, STL would win the 1967 WS over the then still cursed Boston Red Sox.  The Dodgers would finish 21 games out in 1968, and the Cards would return to the WS as defending champions. Yard yearling was just getting their legs underneath them when the Dodgers went to the WS in 1963, 1965, and 1966 winning twice.  It seemed that this is how sports fandom rolled for the inexperienced LA fan.  Pain and suffering would be revealed during this period.  This would last 16 years and beyond. The Cardinals were our demons then.  The Giants were not on our radar, and the Miracle Mets were a year away. 

We rooted fanatically for the Detroit Tigers in the 1968 WS. The Fifth grade at Incarnation was in an early testosterone phase and sides were taken that fall in Mrs. Dawson’s class. The Tigers would counter the Cards with our new heroes. Denny McLain and his 31 wins with 28 complete games.  HOF Al Kaline was coming off the bench with Norm Cash at first and Bill Freehan catching. Our favorite was Jim Northrup. The 28-year-old RF had 21 home runs in the regular season but four of them were Grand Salami’s.  On June 24, Northrup hit GS in consecutive innings on consecutive pitches. He would hit another GS in WS Game 6 to blow a hole in the Cardinal’s mystique at home forcing game 7. Mickey Lolich hit the only HR of his career to lead to Game 2 Win.  He was given the ball facing surly HOF Bob Gibson that final Thursday afternoon in October in 1968. They both had won two games in this Series. Mickey would prevail as both pitchers would go the distance.  Lolich would be the WS MVP.  He would pitch seven more seasons for the Tigers and won 217 games in the majors.  He is in the Yard HOF but not the MLB HOF.  He is one of only 14 pitchers to win three WS games in a single series. The most recent Dodger Yoshi Yamamoto with only Randy Johnson with DiamondBacks in 2001 in between.  Mickey Lolich is a name forever etched in Yard lore.  Mickey passed away last Wednesday at age 85.  RIP ML!

The Christmas Bowling Edition

Tim of K-State has hosted an annual Bowl Battle for nearly two decades.  It is a fun cashless challenge to pick the most outright winners during the bowl season.  No point spreads need to be considered just victory. The Yard sealed victory with 27 winners in BB VIII. The Winner gets the golden toilet seat.  It is like a Masters green jacket. I gotta keep it for my victory year, but Tim gets it back at the end. It has gotten much more complex picking these bowl winners. First, opting out by star players became all the rage.  Coaches changing jobs before their bowl game and taking people with them has become very popular. And this was before NIL. Arch Manning can make more money staying in Texas for now. They expanded the CFP to 12 teams and Notre Dame still could not get into the thing. It is not your father’s Rose Bowl anymore.

In 2025, Lane Kiffin was on the first bus leaving Ole Miss to take the LSU job. The Yard couldn’t blame Kiffin; he is making $3 million a year more in Baton Rouge.  Ole Miss is a nice job with modest expectations.  The LSU HC is a bigger job than the governor of Louisiana.  Kiffin never gets a dinner and a proper send off when he departs.  It is always a shotgun divorce. Raider owner Al Davis got out the 1967 overhead projector to fire him in 2008.  Knoxville, TN still serenades Kiffin with boos every time he visits because of his sudden departure to USC in 2010.  USC AD Pat Haden met Kiffin’s return flight at LAX to remove Lane from the job at 2:00 AM five games into the 2013 season. Kiffin joined up with Darth Saban in Alabama as his OC. Apparently, Saban’s daughter and Kiffin got along great.  Not so much with Nick who sent him packing before the 2017 Championship game. Kiffin’s wife packed up and moved on as well. Ole Miss took a flyer on the Little Kiff in 2019 after his penance at FAU. Kiffin has delivered Ole Miss into the CFP playing in the grueling SEC. This season he was brilliant and he could have coached in Oxford for another 20 years, but he opted for the Bayou. Ole Miss fans are genteel southerners; LSU fans are rabid Tigers. Those Ole Miss genteel fans chased Kiffin’s exodus convoy all the way to the plane. It will not be pleasant if Lane does not meet LSU expectations which are National Championships.  If the LSU gig goes south, he won’t be chased to the airport; he will be driven out into Blue’s Bayou.

The Irish were ready to fight when they learned they had no ticket on the CFP Tour Bus.  Notre Dame had won ten straight games by double digits leading up to the selection show.  The football independent Irish got leapfrogged by the ACC dependent Miami Hurricanes.  Neither team played the weekend of the show.  Somehow the Hurricanes moved up a spot ahead of ND while everyone was watching at home.  Notre Dame is an ACC member in all sports except football and hockey.  The Yard is not sure on the hockey holdout. Football ND kept their lucrative TV money but needed a conference for basketball.  When football ACC Miami needed to rally votes over ACC lite ND, guess who won that battle.  Las Vegas books have ND being a favorite in any CFP game except Ohio State. The Hurricanes will be in College Station playing Texas A&M as 3-point underdogs.  The Canes will be underdogs in every game. Notre Dame will be at home in South Bend playing Scrooge this Christmas.

The Raiders are working hard to secure the first pick in the NFL draft.  They have a lot of competition with the dreadful NY Giants and the woeful Tennessee Titans.  They are all at 2-12 in this dogfest. Arizona, Cleveland and the NY Jets are in hot pursuit at 3-11.  The Yard is hoping the Raiders do the right thing and lose the rest of their games.  They would end up with the number 1 pick because those 3 losses would include one at home to the NY Giants. The Raiders have not had a franchise QB since Kenny Stabler in the 70’s.  Derek Carr holds most of the records thanks to increased games per season in pass happy times. Carr was released and disappeared into the NOLA wasteland. A QB does not solve all the Las Vegas, but it will get them closer than Geno Smith ever would. This biggest obstacle in the Raiders mission to lose is Pete Carroll.  Peter is not going to be here next year, so he wants to go out with a few wins.  His legacy is scratched but not tarnished.  He is not the guy for a rebuild.

OMG Michigan: University of Michigan is a top academic institution and sports powerhouse. Academic light Ohio State has been their football Huckleberry since 1897. Bo vs. Woody was the Civil War.  Michigan Alum Jim Harbaugh was hired to bring Michigan back from being a perennial 9-3 team that always seemed to lose to Ohio State when it mattered. It took Jimmy awhile to beat the Buckeyes but once he did, he would never lose to them again. The Wolverines would go 38-3 in Harbaugh’s last three years and win the National Championship in 2023. Michigan was thrilled with the results while gradually removing many compliance guardrails to accommodate Jim.  He pushed every boundary to bring greatness.  The NCAA investigators were in hot pursuit those last three years. Michigan athletics was losing faith they could keep not taking their calls.  Harbaugh finally burned the house down after the National Championship.  He resigned at the end of January when all coaching candidates had found their chair and the music stopped.  Michigan was left standing. UM was left with few options to save the recruiting class.  OC Sherrone Moore became the HC.  Moore had already been head coach for four games when Harbaugh was suspended for his NCAA shenanigans. Moore was already in the system, so he was not vetted like a new hire.  Well, here is another nice mess you got us into.

Merry Christmas

We have a lot to unpack Toto!

During the Dodgers first 65 years in the National League, they won the pennant ten times.  They lost nine times in the WS, six to the Yankees. Their only WS victories were The Boys of Summer in 1955 who finally beat those villainous Yankees.  Yankee Don Larsen returned the title perfectly in 1956. NY City Planner Robert Moses had allowed the house that Ruth built for the Yankees to rise along the Hudson.  Walter O’Malley and the Dodgers were afforded no such consideration by Mr. Moses.  First term LA city councilwoman Roz Wyman heard of O’Malley’s and Moses' mutual disdain.  Their stern stalemate was documented in the press. She reached out with a deal that forever changed the trajectory of the Dodgers. O’Malley dragged Horace Stoneham and the NY Giants with their wagon train west.  The Willie Mays led Giants won the 1954 WS. NY lost both championship franchises because of Robert Moses' singular clout. In 1962, he allowed the Mets to build on the land O’Malley had originally desired. The move paid immediate dividends for the Los Angeles Dodgers with three WS titles in their first decade in the City of Angels. The City was eternally invested, and Yard youth was infected. The Giants had to wait fifty years for their titles but with better stadium concessions.

Tony at the Yard was launched in October of 2007. Dr. Jerry was still running the Lakers with his crazy kids. They were on the cusp of their second repeat and fifth title of the decade. Pete Carroll was pursuing championships at USC with his latest Orange County stud QB Mark Sanchez. The Karl Dorrell experience was limping towards its delusion.  Ben Howland was about to lead the Bruins to three consecutive Final Four trips sans titles.  The Rams were still in St. Louis dancing with Georgia Frontières’s minions.  The Rockies swept to the World Series only to be swept by a historic Red Sox team.  Grady Little had just resigned as Dodger manager after guiding the team to 4^th place in the NL West. The steroid era was being exposed. It was fertile ground for this cub writer. 

The Yard has never cloistered our rabid Dodger demons.  In 2007, the Dodgers were not our lead story.  The Lakers were always relevant with Kobe on the floor.  The Dodgers were a boring mix of young Matt Kemp, ordinary Russell Martin and Brad Penniless. This was the Dodger period of extreme averageness. Tommy Lasorda managed the team to finally beat the Yankees again in 1981.  Tommy conjured up the improbable impossible 1988 championship over the mighty A’s. It would be almost 30 years before the Dodgers would return to the WS. Our Dodger fanaticism was skewered with trey Giant WS titles during the bitter interlude.  We were tortured by the 2017 trashcan Astro ball.  Clayton continued his regular season mastery followed by postseason misery. Red Sox Mookie and company crushed the Dodgers 4-1 in 2018. Our affliction was suppressed with the 2020 COVID title in the Texas bubble but not exorcised.

In 2024, the Dodgers were vindicated with a second title in real time. This time we got the parade with the tee shirts!  The Yard boldly predicted that last year’s championship was the end of the beginning. Andrew Friedman had moved the pieces into place and Dave Roberts maneuvered them with precision. Padre Manny and the steroid kid pressed the Azul to the edge of the barranca. The Mustard and Brown clenched while the Dodgers clinched for two straight years. The Padres were the anointed before they were the quieted. This year they were just quiet. The Yankees' misfortunes are best told by others.  

There is a lot to unpack with these 2025 playoffs. The Dodger stumbled through the season.  The vaunted starting pitching would have but 33 victories.  Kershaw and Yoshi had 23 of those wins. Max Muncy would only play in 100 games.  Mookie Betts would have his worst season since joining LA.  The bullpen was the strength in 2024 but a liability in 2025. The pen’s ERA in September was 4.90 and 6.16 in the postseason. Relievers had 43 saves with 27 blown saves. They were ranked in the lower half of MLB all season. The expectations for the WS were aflutter.  Toronto had a better record in the more competitive AL East with comparable well-paid talent.

In the main event, the Blue Jays matched the Dodger pitching; they had more hits and runs than the Dodgers.  The Dodgers had three more homeruns. It was those last three home runs that mattered most. To snatch victory from a Toronto franchise that had never lost a WS, in Toronto before 50,000 pissed off Canadians was Yard shattering. They don’t like Trump, Ohtani or the Dodgers. After surviving the protracted 18 inning death march, the DTSS Dodger Traumatic Stress Syndrome reached DEFCON 2.  Every game was a sofa grind of anxiety snacking malaise.

 The Dodgers have played in consecutive WS three times all versus their New York nemesis. The PinStripes won two and split with Jackie Robinson’s teams. For a team to repeat as MLB champions is Big Red Machine stuff.  The Dodgers are the only team in the last 25 years that has a chance to Three-Peat TM Pat Riley.

Game three was a cross section of the entire series. It was essentially a doubleheader.  The first game was a slugfest ending in a 5-5 tie. The second game was a pitching battle ending with another Freddie WS walk off 1-0.  Ohtani getting on base 9 straight times is timeless. He would walk five times, four of them intentional. Seven players were thrown out on the bases. There were manager challenges at every base. There were over 200 baseballs used. 25-year-old Will Klein came in to pitch the 15^th inning. He was the last available pitcher in the bullpen. Will joined the Dodgers in July and was just added to the World Series roster. The most innings in any game that Klien had pitched was 1.3 all season.  He needed to go four on this night and he did with 5 K’s and a WS W.  Not a lot of major league pitchers have one of those WSW’s. He will be forever remembered in Dodger lore.

The 2025 team is largely intact for 2026. Ohtani will pitch more.  Mookie will probably hit better and might win a Gold Glove at shortstop. Freddie and his special sauce will be penciled in at first most nights. Yoshi’s greatness has been revealed which questions the loser Josh Reddick’s intelligence. Snell and Glasnow will start and win more games. The bullpen will get figured out. There are lots of salaries going away with Kershaw retiring and Conforto getting kicked to the curb.  Tanner Scott is a glaring liability.  The Giants are rebuilding.  They are .500 since their last title in 2014.  They are going to give it the old college try in 2026. The Padres have a clubhouse that scowls off managers.  The Diamondbacks can’t decide if they are in or out but mostly out.  The Rockies are an embarrassment to the MLB. The team that led to the gentrification of downtown Denver lost 119 games and finished 50 games out. When we launched Tony at the Yard, the Rockies were in the World Series and Mark Sanchez was a first round pick.  Hope Pete gets the Raiders back to being competitive. How far have we come, Toto?

Our prayers to Alex and Kayla Vesia’s for their tragic loss of their newborn daughter Sterling Sol. Class act with Blue Jays bullpen staff stitching Vesia’s number in their hats to show support for one of their brethren in arms.

Interesting facts: Shohei Ohtani set a record with the four intentional walks in Game 3.  Three of the walks were with the bases loaded.  Ohtani has intentionally walked 88 times in his career.  In his MLB career, he has never issued one as a pitcher.  Congratulations on your 4^th MVP in five years.