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“Bolts-For Real or Real Fraud”

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Is it time to get excited about what the Chargers have become, a playoff contender?

Or is the hurt-hate still too strong for fans in San Diego to express any compliments towards their once favorite team.?

Or do we need to take a closer look at how an (0-4) team has gotten to (7-6)?

The Bolts play for first place next Saturday night in Kansas City against the Chiefs. Yes they are both (7-6) but the Chiefs have the edge, because they beat the Chargers early in the season in Carson.

If you watch every one of these games, you have seen marked improvement in most every facet of the team.

Philip Rivers has thrown 8-TDs and just 1-pick in the midst of this 4-game winning streak Anthony Lynn’s team is on.

Keenan Allen continues on his crusade to earn respect as a big time star in the mold of Antonio Brown with another 111-yard performance.

The defense continues to make plays all over the field, if not just the pass rush, but the heavy hitting of Denzel Perryman, and the continued success of a secondary, stretching from the Pro Bowler Casey Hayward, to the development of Desmond King.

The long standing crisis in special teams has taken a break. They are on their third field goal kicker in Travis Coons, and he has converted mostly short-order kicks. The feeble punt return game has shown like with the work of Travis Benjamin.

Clock management issues are gone too, as the staff has grown together.

And the black cloud of injury, that has plagued this team for 3-years in a row, is not part of this years team. They have survived the loss of two offensive lineman, but injuries beyond Matt Slauson and Forrest Lamp have been few and far between.

All positives for sure.

But there are nagging issues. They don’t run the ball very well at all, and sometime before this is all over, they are going to need Melvin Gordon to put together a 100-plus yard rushing day.

And more important than anything else is this.

The Chargers have beaten only two teams with winning records, despite this (7-6) ledger. They beat Buffalo with the panic-stricken rookie Nathan Peterman at quarterback. And they won in Dallas in the midst of the Cowboys shell shocked skid following the Ezekiel Elliott suspension.

They are (2-4) against winning records, with losses to the upper echelon teams, the Chiefs, Eagles, the surprising Jaguars and the ever dominant Patriots.

When you get to post season, you don’t play the teams ripped by injuries, or starting rookie quarterbacks, or teams with inexperienced head coaches.

So we see what transpires in Arrowhead come next Saturday night.

And of course the people infront them, still have key games they have to play, and can win, Baltimore, Tennessee and the Bills are not done with their schedules either.

Winning the division is a possibility. Making it as the wildcard might make it a bit tougher.

I guess getting to the playoffs would be an accomplishment, but are they a complete enough team to do anything more than show and get knocked out?

They started the season with the 3rd easiest schedule in the league. And they haven’t beaten anyone of note yet.

I am still a doubter, surrounded still by a lot of haters. How about you?

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“Big Stories-Big Despair”

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It should be a great sports weekend, and it probably will be around the country, but not in San Diego, not in the so-called ‘America’s Finest City’.

..San Diego’s North County Burns…

It’s Heisman Trophy weekend, and I wish they had given respect to the Aztecs once-in-a-generation do everything RB-Rashaad Penny, but he didn’t get invited.

..Houses-Buildings-the San Luis Reyes Horse Farm burn to ground.

It’s Army-vs-Navy, and a game that means so much to America dating back to the early 1900s. You respect the teams, both bowl bound, but you respect the players more, for what they are going to do when this game is over, serve in harms way as commissioned officers, protecting all of us.

..Helicopters and planes fly endless hours dropping water and retardants.

An interesting NFL weekend ahead of us. Can Kansas City stop the bleeding and win against Oakland. Somebody’s playoff hopes take a hit. The Chargers seem on a mission and could win again this weekend. Denver might not win a game the rest of the year and John Elway’s history as a GM is now being questioned.

..Painful to watch panicked horses break loose and run thru the raging fires, some to their death.

The firesafe in Miami begins with the Marlins trading of Dee Gordon and his big contract to he Seattle Mariners. That to be followed by the likely trade of slugger Giancarlo Stanton.

..Devastating looking at the 40 mile an hour winds speeding the Lilac fire from Fallbrook west to Oceanside.

Another day, another LaVar Ball moment, signing up his 2-sons with a player agent, who wants to be place them on teams in Europe or China. Next stop, next year, NBA-G League.

..Looking into the eyes of the exhausted Cal fire officials, on the lines in 12-hour shifts, hoping the get a break before they get hurt, respecting their courage going forward in the heat and blazes in a thankless job.

Watching the NHL get excited with the announcement that Seattle is their next expansion location, beating the NBA back into the vibrant market in the Pacific Northwest.

..Privately praying that the terrible fire does not turn south and head to where I live, Rancho Bernardo, where I never forgot the trauma of the 2007 fires that destroyed 1100 homes in the North County.

Looking forward to the next two items in baseball, where Shohei Ohtani decides to sign, and where Giancarlo Stanton winds up getting traded. Then of course, to be followed by the Winter Baseball meetings

..Could get excited, but cannot, because of the sadness, the carnage and the devastation so many people, North County residents, are dealing with the sadness, the loss of their houses.

San Diego-America’s Finest City, but not last night, not this day, not for a while to come. Heartbreak in our home town.

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“This-That-Some of Other-on Thursday”

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PADRES…Waiting game now for Shohei Ohtani….Money will not be the deciding factor….So it’s down to Dodgers-Angels-Mariners-Padres in all likelihood…..Seems to me he is a better fit in the American League, where he could DH and still do his between start practice regimen.

PADRES II…Don’t know what to make of these Eric Hosmer rumors….Makes no sense to commit some 20M a year to him since he is not a game changer, good player,s but not a game changer…Think there are too many other teams that could outbid Friars on this one.

PADRES III…Baseball people tell me once the Ohtani-Stanton decisions are made, trades and free agent signings will come in waves, with the Winter meetings starting next Monday in Orlando….I’d be concerned if that means Joulys Chacin and Craig Stammen defect elsewhere as free agents….Thought the Padres would have them signed by now…not sure what the urgency was to sign Clayton Richard and Rob Erlin so early in off season.

DODGERS…A decision is coming quickly on Giancarlo Stanton, to LA, San Francisco or St Louis…he controls it all right now with that no trade contract….the other intangible is the price you pay to get him…because he also has an opt-out clause in 2020…would a club trade a ton with the risk he could walk after 3-years….maybe a club gets him to ‘waive’ that as a condition for a deal.

DODGERS II….LA also has to ask itself if the price is too hight, not the 10-years left at 285M that is very much back end loaded, but whether they should give Miami what it wants, Yasiel Puig, Joc Pederson and Alex Verdugo for the 59-home run hitting MVP?

ANGELS…Strange winter meetings ahead of us….Arte Moreno’s team has payroll luxury tax issues…has big money still owed to Albert Pujols and his aging bodies, and has 7-pitchers coming off arm issues and surgeries. Wondering if they get aggressive and try to do more from the outside.

CHARGERS…They may be hot, 6-wins in 8-games, thank goodness for the garbage schedule, but they got roasted again this time in a column by “Ringer”….talking about the fan experience at Stub Hub Center in Carson…Among the quotes..
..Football team without a home
..LA is constellation of plastic people
..Everything in LA is manufactured
..Team has no identity
..Gloom-visiting mass of fans for other team in stands
..Chargers..unwanted football team

CHARGERS II….Wonder what it is like to be the Spanos family…forever hated going forward in the city they left San Diego, and either mocked or ignored, by fans in their new home, Los Angeles, the home of the Dodgers-Lakers-USC-UCLA and more.

AZTECS…Strong rip job by Offensive coordinator Jeff Horton on the Heisman snub of RB-Rashaad Penny….”I guess I didn’t read the fine print-this award for players only from Power 5-schools”.

AZTECS II…Defensive guru Danny Gonzalez on the Penny snub…”Guess we’ll find out on NFL draft day in the first round-whom they think is the top running back in football”

AZTECS III…Yes you can go home, so Bobby Hauck heads back to Montana as the Grizzlies new head coach, where he was (80-17) the first time around….Always thought he would be the head coach in waiting if Rocky Long retired…Watch for him to take a couple of more SDSU assistants with him on his Big Sky Conference staff.

AZTECS IV…Basketball is banged up, but (7-2)…but here comes the start of the conference season too…..SDSU faces Cal…Gonzaga and then Wyoming.

USD…Another step forward for the Toreros with that road win at New Mexico State at the usually tough Pan American Center…The Blue are now (6-2) with WCC play about to start…a big jump from where they have been the last couple of years.

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“The Olympic Rings-Lots of Stain”

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Russia, it’s always something with Russia.

Joe Stalin and his stalag way of life.

Kruschev banging his shoe on the UN table.

Putin, bombs, threats, Snowden, tampering with elections.

The wall may have come down decades ago, and the USSR as we used to know it, was broken up.

But all is not well in Moscow, and now surely, all is not well either with the International Olympic Committee..

In a historic move, they barred Russia,its teams and all its athleetes, from the 2018 Olympics in South Korea, the aftermath of a 3-year ind depth probe by the World Anti Doping Agency.

End result, a state-run drug test tampering program, put into place by Russian government leaders, executed by Russian IOC officials, that stained at least the last 3-Olympics, and spread out at least 8-years in all.

WADA determined that Russian drug testing labs, which controlled the tests for the Sochi 2014 Olympics, were infiltrated by corrupt Russian Olympic officials.

They tampered with at least 204 Russian urine samples of athletes from all sports. Some urine tests were swapped out. Others disappeared. Paper work falsified.

Over 100 different athletes were implicated in the scam.

That then followed by a siege of intimidation and threats against athletes doctors, coaches, who might have had knowledge of what was going on.

And now the end result. Russia as a country will not be allowed in the Olympics. Not in the opening ceremonies, not in events, not in closing ceremonies.

Each of their winter teams banned in February.

Any athletes, who has tested clear, can participate ‘unattached’, but will not be allowed to carry the Russian flag. They must petition for a hearing to be included in the games as an AOR….Athlete of Russia.

The cross country ski teams, and the biathlon teams have been expelled en masse for blood doping.

No one yet knows the status of the Russian hockey team, those playing in the KHL league, who would have played.

The Russian federation forfeits 15M in shared Olympic money. The President of the Russian Olympic Committee was expelled from Zurich and the IOC Council.

President Putin has yet to respond.

You also wonder what this does to the World Cup of Soccer, set for Russia next year. I cannot wait for that ‘fiefdom of honor’, FIFA, soccer’s governing body, to see what it does to check all this out.

The US boycotted the games during the Jimmy Carter era, robbing so many athletes of once in lifetime opportunities. We had the terroists of Munich and the killings in the rescue attempts.

This does not quite top that horror, but this is as bad as it can get. But now it is over in Russia.

Maybe they should salute the ‘clean’ Russian athletes, the Russian coaches and doctors, those with conscience, who became ‘whistleblowers’ in this case, to clean up the sport.

Those Russians deserve the Gold Medals.

It never ends, cheating, corruption, shame and stain on the Olympics.

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“Padres-Missing the Opportunity–Again”

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AJ Preller, with a new 3-year contract extension in his pocket, is getting ready to head to the Winter Baseball Meetings.

He spoke to the media for the first time on Monday, since the end of the season, but said little, and especially nothing, in regards to the biggest baseball story out there.

The impending bidding war for Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese superstar, who this week can officially begin meetings with clubs about a free agent contract.

They call him the Japanese version of Babe Ruth, which might be a bit of an exaggeration.

He is a 22-home run hitting…323-hitting outfielder, when he plays in the outfield for the Nippon Ham Fighters.

He is a 100-mile an hour pitcher, with a (42-15) record, when he has pitched in Japan.

He wishes to do both with the MLB team he signs with in the next couple of weeks.

The Padres, who have boat loads of money to spend to big on Ohtani, refused to talk about him, different than Mariners GM-Jerry DiPoto and Yankees GM-Brian Cashman, who both talked this weekend.

Obtain says the Padres will be one of 7-clubs he will grant a meeting too.

The Giants-Mariners-Angels, Dodgers, and Texas and the Cubs are the others.

The Padres gave us a 90-loss season again this past summer, with a young team, and a small market 38M payroll, all while paying 35M of salaries to players no-longer on the team.

Some of that Melvin Upton type money becomes available to use on Ohtani, and they hope to use that 20M cap space to place a bid, and use their 300,000-slot to sign him.

Ohtani is limited by the new International cap rules, and the max money he can make is limited to at most 3M a season going forward.

But he is coming anyway, rather than wait till age 25-when he could be an unlimited free agent with no cap restrictions.

Preller missed a golden opportunity to tell one and all, why San Diego, of all places, is a great spot for Shohei’s big bat and big arm.

He could have extolled for the national media to gobble up and then write about, the enormous success of the Padres farm system.

He could have talked about the special relationship the franchise has developed with all its international signing. About the International blueprint they have developed teaching language, education, history, financial help, health and culture for all their international players.

He could have talked about the special things his lead assistant Logan White has done in the international venue in Japan.

Could have talked about Hideo Nomo and Takashi Saito, the former Dodgerts pitchers, and the relationships they could develop now that they work for San Diego.

Describe Petco Park, a pitchers park, but a haven also for left-handed hitters.

The team told us “no Ohtani” questions.

Too bad, because all those answers, put out in public by the national media, would have helped spread the word of what the Padres have accomplished in a short period of time.

Yes Ohtani will hear from the Padres, but the Mariners have already extolled their past track record with the likes of Ichuro Suzuki and their Japanese ownership.

The Dodgers history is well known dating back to the Jackie Robinson days of all they have accomplished.

The Cubs have a world history and now Rings being the thing.

Preller could have said so much to help his “national media coverage cause”, but he didn’t want to help sell the beauty of San Diego, baseball and more..

Missed opportunity to expand the Padres small media market image….again.

Make yourself a ‘player’ and maybe you have a better chance to ‘be a player’ for that player..

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