They are who we thought they were.

It has been a difficult season at the Yard. Our Spartan coverage of sports and other stuff has dwindled into the melancholic backwater created by average sports teams of our destiny. The fallow fields of Yard ramblings have been shunted by the championship fever brewing in the 415 soon to the 408. LA struggling and SF crooning is never a relaxing season in Yard lives. We can only hope that Deer Antler Velvet elixir is all SI says it is cracked up to be. We are not sure who made that leap of faith with the first deer antler extraction but Ray Lewis is playing like a young buck in the playoffs. We only hope that his final game is a victory for the much maligned player and his team. San Francisco winning appears to be the smart money and general unease engulfs Yard staff and their families. We will weather the storm but with the Lakers being the last hope for the foreseeable future our footsteps are in a quagmire of distressed hope. Ray Lewis has been loved and reviled by the press and the nation. Many are sick of his constant self-promotion and praise the lord let the devil be gone mantra. He was indicted and acquitted of murder charges following the Ravens’ Super Bowl victory in 2000. It was a hot topic at the time and Lewis’ future hung in fate until he agreed to testify against his old running mates who had not gotten out of the hood. That was twelve years ago when Lewis was 25. He ran with people most of us never hope to ever meet. He appears to be a far different person at 37 than he was at 25. Most of us hopefully are! Why this is all getting throw on his legacy now when it has not been mentioned in many years is surprising. It is old news and irrelevant to the current events. SF 49er cornerback Chris Culliver demeaning gays and saying he would not accept a gay player in the locker room is relevant. Players have their opinions about social issues that they should keep out of the press. SF is a bastion for its support for gays and gay unions. Culliver is as myopic as the fans who quickly forgave him lest he get beat deep on Sunday. Jim and John Harbaugh facing off in the Super Bowl brother against brother, east versus west and Cabernet versus crab cakes. It is a great story and we hope the game keeps up with the hype. Most times it does not. The Ravens have not faced a defense like the 49ers in the play offs. Denver and New England are nowhere near as tenacious as SF on defense. The Ravens did win both games on the road and had to rally to win. The 49ers have not faced a defense like the Ravens and had to rally to win on the road. Colin Kapernick has a much better Wikipedia page today than he did in September. It will be his game to lose. We hope he thinks about that often tonight and tomorrow afternoon and the rest of his life. John Harbaugh seems like way more fun than Jim if that counts for any edge. Jim is intense and seems almost humorless to a fault. He has a John Nash like look on his face most of the time that never belies the madness below the surface. John is more jovial and circumspect with a smile and a laugh. The Yard has invited him to join us for beers win or lose. Not sure anyone still believes that the Guggenheim Group overpaid for the Dodgers. They have been spending money like a drunken sailor but the deal that they just inked with Time Warner Sports Net is worth four times the value of the price they paid for the franchise. TW has guaranteed the Dodgers $280 million in television income annually for the next 25 years. The rest of the NL West paid $297 million in total salaries in 2012. The Dodgers will have almost that much coming in the front door every year before they sell a ticket of a hot dog. Money does not buy championship but it is a better place to start than without it. Money is something the Dodgers rarely had to spend before McCourt was sent packing with his $2 billion windfall. Baseball is risky and big money shelters big risk. Hopefully, it also keeps ticket prices down! Lance Armstrong finally almost sort of came clean with Oprah about doping his way to seven Tour de France titles. The Yard was surprised that people were outraged that Lance had done that same doping every cyclist on the planet had done. How could he have beaten them without doing that? As Dennis Green coined, “Lance Armstrong is who we thought he was!” He did not have most of fooled because most of really do not care about competitive cycling. American sports fan only follow winners and no American had ever won the Tour in the events first 83 years. Greg Lemond became the first American and now the only American to ever win the tour. Armstrong was a compelling story from the beginning. Lance was a cancer survivor with one testicle, banging Sheryl Crow, raising kids and winning everything. His biggest fault was his arrogance. He was respected and revered by the annual Tour fan. He was reviled and feared by his cycling peers. Many people were in on the scam but Lance aggressively silenced all of them. Armstrong was prick of diva proportions. He had the biggest bankroll and the best attorneys. Any who dared to confront him faced monstrous litigation and backlash from Livestrong Nation. In the end, he is who we thought he was. March Madness Notes: The Big 10 or 12 is the best conference in the nation. They are the SEC of College Basketball but with biology and math and stuff like that as well. The Big 10 has five teams in the top 25 with the top team in the country as well. The State of Indiana has produced 12 of the 60 starters in the Big Ten. The best of those players start for the Hoosiers. It is just what we are saying..

Fallen Leads

The fall season at the Yard had brought so much hope and promise. The Dodgers had not completely wilted since blowing up their clubhouse in August. The Giants were only up by a couple of games. The Bruins stormed into the top 25 in football which had not happened since the beginning of the Yard. The Lakers had signed Dwight Howard and the Trojans were on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The Dodgers were not going to win this year with that pitching staff regardless of the lineup. Dodger management wanted to make a statement and they did. The team that came out of Glendale, AZ in April was broken up in the early vestiges of a pennant race in August. The Giants were close with Lincecum struggling and NL batting leader Melky Cabrera just suspended for 50 games for juicing. The Guggenheim team doubled down on this season with the dealer showing five. The Giants flipped a six and took the NL west. The Dodgers started to heat up while winning six in a row. We came across that tidbit by accident when we had time to dig that far into the sports page. This Bruin season for the Yard had started so strongly with a huge upset of Nebraska and a 3-0 start for the first time since time began as calculated in Yard metrics. We had an opportunity to see the Bruins play Houston while spending the first half that same Saturday night watching the Dodgers rally to win at the Ravine. The Bruins were the most dominant that we had witnessed in the lapses previously asserted. We got sucked in like a politician with an intern. Full of optimism and Benjamin’s, the Yard took the Bruins while giving 10 to Oregon State. It was our first bet laid on the Bruins to win in many years. We had made some dough betting against them but betting with them was something new. Oregon State bitch slapped the Bruins at the Rose Bowl for most of the afternoon. Our parlay and our hopes were dashed that Saturday afternoon. The Bruins came back against the woeful Buffs last week but the Yard will be slow to return to that misguided fervor that rattled our psyche for a few weeks. The Lakers picking up Dwight Howard was to prepare of the passing of the baton from the aging superstar to the unproven one. The Lakers have engineered these trades for the past forty years dating back to bringing in Wilt to win their only championship of the Jack Kent Cook and Jerry West era. Kareem was traded to LA several years later and the foundations of Showtime were born. Jerry West went all in on the trade that brought Shaq from Orlando last century. West drafted Magic and Worthy to play with Kareem. West drafted Kobe to play with Shaq. The Buss family knows that all of the smiling faces paying $2500/night to mug on TV are there because of the stars on the floor not the ones in the seats. Dwight Howard will shepherd in the next star to carry the Laker’s star five years from now. USC making the Sports Illustrated cover was taken as a good omen by the Yard. The SI curse of being on the cover has more evidence for rather than against. It is rare that the SI pick to win the BCS championship ever does. Matt Barkley and his two heralded wide receivers mugging for the cameras and talking about coming back to win a title put a big target on their back that they do not have the horses to protect. Barkley might have considered what has happened to the last two high profile quarterbacks that opted to come back for one more year at the coaxing of their coach. Cason Palmer won the Heisman Trophy and he is now wallowing in Oakland going nowhere. Matt Leinhart stayed for one more year won the trophy and now he backs up Palmer for Raider nation. Neither won the championship that “they came back for one more season to win”. Barkley will not either. Barkley’s would have been a top five pick in April. He would be sitting on the sidelines for an average team learning his new profession. Andrew Luck is making $15 million over three years for the Colts. RG-3 is pulling down $14 million over the same period. Barkley would have been at least earning $11-13 million over the next three years. His stock is falling as fast as his coach’s. Barkley should have thought a little harder about the impact of playing one more year for Lane Kiffin would have on his future value. Kiffin knew the impact having Barkley come back for one year would have on his. He might not have another year at USC if Barkley left and USC struggled. What could Barkley possibly learn from Lane who still has so much to learn? Off Season: When the votes are in the biggest loser from the steroid era was not the fans it was the Baseball Hall of Fame. The fans had a lot of fun while all those homeruns were flying out the park and Roger the Rocket was winning seven CY Young awards. It was exciting even if it was enhanced. The long dreaded testing for PED’s outed the cheats and brought performance back into this galaxy. People are still taking chances but the Players Union and Baseball ownership saw their salaries and valuations spike because of this chemically enhanced statistics without taking a hit to their reputation. The real loser has been the Baseball Hall of Fame. To earn entry to the baseball HOF, a players needs to be named on 75% of the ballots that are cast. This past year, 520 votes were cast and Barry Larkin was the only player voted in to the HOF. Barry was a good if not great shortstop of his era but he had a career batting average of .295 with a 198 homeruns. He would not have sniffed the Hall in another era. Bert Blyleven got voted in last year. Blyleven won 277 games over a 22 year career. He won 20 games once and a career ERA of 4.74. He was outstanding serving up homerun balls. He gave up 430 for his career with records of 43 one year only to break it a few years later by giving up 50 homeruns. The Hall and its voters are working so hard to keep out the supposed cheaters that it is morphing into the Hall of Really good. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds might have inflated their statistics by juicing but everyone was. Enhanced pitchers were facing enhanced batters. The players were great already but they decided they would go the extra dark mile while baseball looked the other way and we flooded the turnstiles. No decision will be fair on how to filter these accomplishments but allowing good players to line the walls in Cooperstown among the truly legendary is a crime as well.

September Mournings

Living in Las Vegas presented the Yard with several reporting challenges this past week. The Extreme Midget Wrestling Federation was in town this week and their chant of “Half the size and twice the violence” was hard to ignore. The Beer Pong championships are right around the corner as well. But when the Frank McCourt era was finally sandblasted off the Chavez Ravine urinals this past week our attention returned home. There had been an uneasy Yard sense that the $2.1 billion deal that pried the Dodgers but not the parking lots from Snidely McCourt was a sham but what next for the new ownership? The Yard had wanted the McCourt’s put on trial for their sins against our collective history. There is no justice for the Yard when the worst owner’s in Los Angeles Sports history walks away with a profit of $860 million. Frank McCourt ranks right up there with Georgia Frontiere but he lapped her in both civic bile and financial cake. The O’Malley family shepherded the Dodger Brand for fifty years. The McCourt’s flushed it down the porcelain in eight agonizing years while pocketing $500 million more than the O’Malley family was paid for their lifetime of service by Fox in 1998. It is a crime that will never be investigated. The Guggenheim ownership doubled down on this year with the blockbuster trade last weekend. The Dodger’s took on more payroll last Friday than the McCourt run team took on during his last two miserable seasons as owner. It was thrilling for sure but what does $188 million really get you anymore in major league baseball? The Dodgers traded their unproductive first baseman, James Loney for superstar Adrian Gonzales. The Red Sox saddled the Dodgers with several other contracts that they no longer wanted to make the Gonzales deal attractive to them. The new Dodger ownership wanted to make a statement to Los Angeles and Major League Baseball that there was new ownership. You do not overpay for a team without overpaying for first year salaries as part of the investment tsunami. It is rumored the Dodgers are also getting two rows of seats from the Green Monster, the Ted Williams statue is still trying to clear waivers but the Red Sox refused to include the Pesky Pole to make the deal. Boston sports were fanatical from the beginnings of professional sports. Red Sox baseball is 111 years of exponential fanaticism from the initial baseline measurements until the endoscopic world players live in now. Highly paid Red Sox athletes are worshipped or loathed many times during the same game. Ted Williams was arguably the greatest Red Sox ever and he was not universally loved throughout his career. Hopefully, Beckett, Gonzales and Punto will thrive in LA and lead this town back to relevance in baseball. The Dodgers took on the payroll for three primary reasons which are all part of the same algebra. The Guggenheim partners are an investment group. They are in this to make money. The management team is committed to winning. Everyone wants to win rather than lose. It was the commitment to winning and making the sacrifice to win that was fleeting or non-existent if you are a McCourt. There are the usual egos that go into sports ownership but the current ownership showed their intent when they overpaid for the team and overpaid for this lineup four months later. The Dodgers valuation at time of sale was not based on the team and it’s potential on the field or the turnstile. It was based on the rights to future Dodger telecasts. Sports programming is the most valuable content available through your pay TV service. Viewers watch real time with passion. They do not go to Hulu or DVR to watch later and fast forward through the ads. This is important stuff not Mad Men. The new ownership team needed to build a lucrative product for the looming TV contract that will go out for bid soon. Fox was eager to maintain what they already had and were willing to snuggle up with McCourt and help him make payroll if he would renew with them. Fox was reeling after losing the Lakers to Time Warner. It would have been a great deal for Fox and it would have strangled baseball with McCourt indefinitely if that had happened. Bud Selig did something right and did not let that civic travesty occur. There is speculation that a ten year TV agreement could fetch the Dodgers $2 billion. $188 Million dollar payroll is not that bad when your TV contract guarantees $200 million before a ticket or hot dog is sold. The Yankees built the YES network the same type of lucrative deal. Few other cities have the density of fan base and market size to negotiate that deal. The Dodgers do if they have a quality or at least interesting product. The final objective is to win back Los Angeles sports mindshare. This objective makes the first two all that more valuable in this major media market that does not have an NFL team. The Lakers own LA and took it from the Dodgers during the Showtime era. The new Dodger ownership wants to reclaim the mantle of LA’s team from the Lake show. They even brought in the face of Showtime to sit in the stands at the Ravine to usher it in to our collective mindshare. It will be no easy feat without consistent deep runs in the playoffs and championships. The Lakers have won twice as many championships as the Dodgers since either team moved to Los Angeles. The Lakers have been in the NBA finals eight times and won four championships since the Dodgers were last even in the World Series. If you do not think that the Buss’ were paying attention to the Dodger hoopla Google: Dwight Howard. The Buss family seems like a perfect ensemble for reality television but this wacky group, in addition to ring master Mitch Kupchak, keeps re-inventing the team and remaining competitive for another generation of LA sports fans. The Dodgers have almost missed a generation since their last title. Guggenheim may be the sophisticated east coast hedge fund guys who roped in Laker Icon Magic Johnson to be their LA face, but Buss boy and his spawn have won over the town. It seems like Jed Clampett versus Mr. Drysdale but Jed always outfoxed the clever banker. Buss has always risked the required monies to remain competitive. O’Malley never had to, Fox never wanted to and McCourt could not afford to in their efforts to keep up with the Lakers. The initial results of this massive trade are spotty. Good pitching always beats good hitting in the playoffs. The Dodgers only have one pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, who can dominate a series. A team needs at least two to have a chance to win four of seven games. The Giants have three and that group does not include the struggling Tim Lincecum. If Timmy was having a normal year, the Giants would be ahead of the Dodgers by 7-10 games at this point. In the first game after the trade, Adrian Gonzales hit a three run home run on the second pitch he saw in Dodger uniform. Two games later in Colorado Josh Beckett gave up a home run on the second pitch he threw in a Dodger uniform. This team is trying to find out who they really are with an entirely new lineup injected into the clubhouse in a few short weeks late in the drama. The Dodgers have put a bulls-eye on their back with this trade with every team having extra mojo for beating them on the field. We hope they win out but we did not see that in April and we really do not see it now. Extra Innings: Forget this trade hoopla; the best news of the weekend is that Vin Scully will be back for another season. Current Dodger ownership will make it as attractive as possible for the greatest broadcaster in the history of sports to keep doing his day job. They will back up the Brinks truck for Vinnie. It is not because Vin was asking for it. It is because they are willing to pay it at his terms, his abbreviated schedule and his humanity. We are all in the bonus round of Vin Scully. He is a great voice, broadcaster and human. He has had one job and one loyalty since starting work with the Dodgers in his 20’s. Scully’s voice has been the only voice I have ever heard in my entire baseball memoir. He is a cultural icon as well. We shared him with the nation, Dodger haters inclusive. In 1982, Scully was there to call “The Catch” when the San Francisco 49’ers beat the Cowboys on their way to the city’s first championship game in any professional sport. Vinnie called the final round of the 1986 Masters as Jack Nicklaus stormed to victory at age 46. He was there making the call in the 1986 World Series when Mookie Wilson’s roller goal posted through Billy Buckner’s high tops ton continue the curse. The Yard hopes Vin will be here until he can call another Dodger championship. It is probably not this year but he is coming back as well as everyone else and maybe a #2 starter. Bullpen: A special Yard thanks to Giant “Panda” Timmy for the Yard’s new Dodger yard Gnome. The Gnome has become popular locally and Jo and I have taken on several trips of late. Photos can be found on the blog site and on FB.