Best Didn’t Play Like the Best”

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The nations two best teams didn’t play like that in the Monday night NCAA championship game.

North Carolina and Gonzaga put on a show for the ages…bad show…of offensive basketball.

Winning ugly beats losing, so in Chapel Hill, they will celebrate the trophy. In Spokane they will feel awful that they had 2-chances to win and they didn’t.

The best players didn’t play their best either in the (71-65) UNC verdict, but that probably had more to do with the number of explosive athletes playing defense.

Nigel Williams-Goss took two bad shots on the final two possessions, playing on a gimpy ankle, as he tried to drive to the basket. Driving and dishing to an open man would have been a better choice.

Przemek Karnowski, the man-mountain Gonzaga center had an awful night around the rim, shooting (1-for-8), again probably intimidated by the Heels jumping jack baseline players.

UNC hero Justin Jackson, who scored 5-vital points at the end, a layup..a free throw..and a slam dunk off a turnover, was MIA for much of the night.

Joel Berry had a struggle shooting, but did finish with 21 in the win.

The winners shot 35%..the losers 33%. Between them (4-for-27) and (8-19) on 3-pointers. A combined 44-fouls, with all the bigs in foul trouble.

Mark Few has done a spectacular job over 18-years with the Zags. Roy Williams was coaching his 100th NCAA tourney game in a great career.

Maybe fatigue took too much out of the teams to get here. It just wasn’t a pretty game to watch for two champions, but the defense caused the offenses to stagger all night long.

Up next, waiting to see who stays, who goes to the NBA from both teams.

Waiting too for the long coming NCAA sanctions for the academic scandal probe that has gone on way too long at North Carolina.

They are champions, but it’s obvious they were cheats for a long time too,with bogus course credits for players to keep them eligibile.

Gonzaga, goes home, with lots of respect; the little engine that could. The Zags are really something special.

North Carolina is the royalty of the sport, and wears the crown, dented as it might, their reputation tainted as it should be.

The best didn’t play like the best last night. Carolina wins NCAA Trophy. NCAA, time to do your job now.

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“Baseball Opening Day-Welcome Back Old Friend”

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Baseball is back – 2017 style. It’s green grass, blue sky, baseball under the sun, domed stadiums and designated hitters. Remembering all the history and records of the games, the stars and years gone by.

Baseball is the personality on the field. Teddy Ballgame (Williams)…Stan-the-Man (Musial)…Duke of Flatbush (Snider). It’s the M & M Boys, (Mantle and Maris), Sey Hey (Mays), Jackie (Robinson) and Charley Hustle. (Rose). It’s the Bambino (Ruth) and the Iron Man (Gehrig), the Georgia Peach (Cobb), Reggie Bar (Jackson) and the Wild Horse of the Osage (Pepper Martin.)

Baseball is all about the teams. Murderer’s Row (Yankees)…the Gashouse Gang (Cardinals), the Gints (Giants) and D’em Bums (Dodgers). It’s the Lumber Company (Pirates), the Big Red Machine (Cincinnati), the Running Redbirds (Cardinals), and those Fightin Phils (Phillies). Its “1st in War-1st in Peace-Last in the American League (Senators), the Bronx Bombers (Yankees) and the Amazing’s (Mets.)

Baseball is places too. The House that Ruth Built (Yankees Stadium)….the Green Monster (Fenway)….the 8th Wonder of the World (Astrodome)….the Stick (San Francisco)…Coogan’s Bluff (Polo Grounds)…Ivy covered walls (Wrigley Field) and the Fans in Flatbush (Ebbets Field.)

Baseball is also about owners. The Boss (Steinbrenner)….Charley O (Finley)…The Muhatma (Branch Rickey) Veeck as in Wreck (Bill Veeck) and Cornelius McGillacuddy (Connie Mack).

Baseball is about managers. The Major (Ralph Houk)….Smokey (Walter Alston)….Casey at the Bat (Stengel)…Billy-the-Kid (Martin.)

Baseball is about the broadcasters too, Vin Scully, Mel Allen, Jerry Coleman, Jack Buck and Harry Caray.

Baseball is about opening day, when Bob Feller of the Indians threw a no-hitter; Ted Williams hit .446 in career opening days and they threw snowballs not fastballs at CNE Stadium in Toronto.

Baseball is teams of days gone by, the St. Louis Browns, the Washington Senators, Montreal Expos, Philadelphia & Kansas City A’s, the Boston Braves, and Seattle Pilots.

Baseball is numbers: 60 (Ruth-HRs)…61 (Maris-HRs)…714 (Aaron-HRs)…254 (Hack Wilson-RBIs)…76 (Barry Bonds HRs)…401 (Ted Williams batting average)…4,256 (Pete Rose hit total).

Baseball is bubble gum and trading cards. Father’s taking sons to their first game. Foul Balls, hot dogs and autographs. Rainouts and beanballs and out of town scoreboards. It’s lying under the covers late at night listening on a transistor radio. It’s learning to keep score. Playing catch with your dad, grand dad or uncle. It’s the smell of the ball park, the crack of the bat, the cheering of the crowd.

Baseball is back, and every team, every fan, starts on opening day, feeling good about itself. It’s the new look at Dodgers Stadium, Angels Stadium or the gem that is Petco Park.

Angels, Dodgers, Padres, great to see you.

Baseball is back. Welcome back old friend.

“Farewell-His Own Man-But-Like So Many Others”

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Tom Brokaw called them the best and the brightest…the “Greatest Generation”.

We lost one this week.

He was an individual, a free spirit, a thinker, a creator. He was small, wiry, tough, courageous.

He joined the army before high school graduation. He went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, then to Fort Benning.

He was a soldier who decided to become part of the newly formed Glider Brigade. He became a paratrooper, because he was a leader, he was young, he was fearless, and he would be paid more.

At age 22, he jumped into the middle of the night over Normandy. As planes were being shot out of the sky, men were dying in the air, and as they hit the ground.

Spread across the French farmland, no one knew where they were, how many made it, how many perished. All they knew was the gunfire and fear all around them.

Fires everywhere, the anguish of death, the movement along the hedges, the gunfire, and the total chaos..

He survived the first night, as groups of the 101st and 81st came together. He would be wounded twice in fire fights. From medics tents and then hospitals, he would always wind up going back to the front and the fighting.

He would fight for months in places named Bastogne, Cherborg, St Lo and Sainte-mere-Eglise. Names on a map, that meant nothing more the next objective.

It would be 50-years later, upon his return, that he would see where the slaughter took place on Omaha Beach. And then as he walked thru the Bayeux Cemetary, and the one at Colleville, the enormity, of what he experienced, hit home.

His life spared in Europe, took him to the Pacific.

He jumped again, into the Phillippines, into the mountains, then into New Guineau. Search and destroy missions in the horrors of the heat, the hate of the Japanese, and the understanding, they had to win here, so they could get ready to jump there, in Japan.

He survived months of jungle warfare and horrid living conditions to get the job done. He was preparing to move to the third theatre, when they dropped the bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kobe and ended it all.

He was no different than anyone else. A college teacher, a high school dropout, an auto mechanic, a baker. All walks of life, all ethnic backgrounds, all living in the same hell, hoping to survive, rather than be buried in a green bag in a hole on some foreign soil.

They came home, and never spoke of the killings they took part in. Kids were told never to bring it up. They never made it a conversation, unless they were with their buddies at some military reunion, remembering those who never came back.

They came back to jobs, colleges, sweethearts, careers and families. They put thoughts of Okinawa, Guam, the Ardennes Forest, Buchenwald and places like that in the back of their memory bank.

It’s only now we think of them, and what they went thru, when we bury them.

They weren’t ‘soldiers of fortune’ seeking fame or fortune. They were Americans, GI-Joe’s, doing what was expected of them back home.

We lost a good one this week, and there are not many of them left.

My god-father has left us at age 94. Taking with him silent memories, longtime friendships from a couple of those paratroopers still alive, who jumped with him.

We are left with his bronze star for heroism, the purple hearts, the combat medals, and the memory of a life very well lived, after his past life was stored away in hand written memoirs in a bank deposit box.

My dad was a fighting sea-bee taking sniper fire at age 22 on the islands in Japan while building run-ways.

9-uncles went and fought. 1-died at Bataan, 1-in a B-17 over Regensberg. A third badly wounded at Anzio. 1-came home from the Pacific theatre never ever the same again, his life and career forever impacted.

I buried another at age 99 last fall, a tank commander, who survived Kasserine Pass and El Alamein in North Africa.

And now I will lay to rest the last of the family, who never forgot Normandy, the ones he jumped with, those who died, those who survived.

I say farewell in a military funeral tomorrow.

For this day I forever remember the greatness and the courage he displayed in 1944 and 1945, so we could enjoy what we have today in 2017.

He was his own man, but he was like so many others of that era. Truly part of the ‘Greatest Generation’.

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“Baseball Discipline–Zero Tolerance-Zero Teeth”

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He’ll miss the start of the New York Mets season, for what he got involved in.

So what, it’s just 15-games, probably on 5-of which he would have pitched in.

He loses some pay, but so what, when you are making the kind of money he is to be a closer for a pennant contending team, it’s peanuts not filet mignon.

His wife is still married. They still live in a mansion. He still has his kid.

Just doesn’t have much of a reputation right now.

Neithre does Major League baseball, the aftermath of the back-hand slap MLB gave to Mets closer Jeurys Familia, the Mets bullpen ace.

Keeping score on this one, he gets a 15-game suspension to start the season and loses 493,000-dollars of his 7.4M-contract for the suspension.

Oh you can extoll all the virtuous things baseball has done to clean up the game, steroid-HGH testing, the elimination of cocaine and amphetamine use, the move to try and limit smokeless tobacco.

But lots more work to be done on domestic abuse. Just ask his Latin American wife.

Drunken rage incident in their home at the end of the season. Facial cuts, bruised chest, some blood, knives on the floor. Drunken rage incident. She and the child put at risk.

Of course, she refused to prosecute him, for probably a wide varietyof reasons.

Loves her man. Didn’t want to wreck his career. Does not want to lose a sugar daddy marriage. Maybe hoping it won’t ever happen again.

Hard to believe an act so violent to tear up a condo, gets only a 15-game suspension price tag attached to it.

Of course he can converse with his teammate, Jose Reyes. A year ago this week, bounced off the Colorado Rockies roster, despite his talent, for his court appearnce on throwing his wife thru a plate glass door at a hotel.

He got 60-games, and the Rockies got rid of him and his 14M salary.

Guess where he wound up. In the New York Mets clubhouse, once the suspension was served, and he still got more than half his salary.

This stuff happens around baseball, like it has with other sports You just wonder when pro sports, working with the union, will come up with a plan for stiffer sanctions on violent acts.

Date rape, assaults and other sleazy crimes are all under the baseball discipline umbrella.

You just wonder where the line is drawn between strong discipline vs zero tolerance.

MLB hasn’t figured it out yet. The teammates in Mets-clubhouse, Reyes-Familia are probably glad they haven’t yet either.

“Final Week of Spring Training-What I See”

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They’re breaking camp in the next 24-hours, the Padres-the Dodgers-the Angels.

We’re ready for opening day, I am not so sure all our team is .

Sports Illustrated just dropped a bomb on all the optimism about Padres baseball, the Latin America blueprint, the young players on the roster today.

“The worst rotation in baseball”…referencing the starting pitching that has Luis Perdomo and four other #4-starters on the mound. Perdomo has hand a very strong spring, finising up where he left off at the end of last year, with a good rookie season.

Trevor Cahill has been second best of the guys in the rotation, and seems to have re-discovered his stuff, after getting shunted to the bullpen by the Cubs during thier World Series season.

Clayton Richard will give you everything he has, but does he have enough to take the ball 31-times a year?

Jered Weaver is trying to manage his way thru lineups with very little velocity, but he competes with moxie and no-how, but not much else.

Jhoulys Chacin seems healthy, pretty competitive, and has strung together some good outings in the WBC and in the spring. No telling what we have here, but we’ll find out because he is the opening day starter at Dodgers Stadium.

That’s your rotation, and that’s not much.

Yes they have a deeper bullpen, but be wary of overuse, and answer for me, how many games will they actually get a chance to save, when you look at how bad the rotation is?

The Padres every-day lineup, even with the infield shuffling, looks stronger, has hit better than last couple of weeks.

Wil Myers is a rock at first base. Hunter Renfroe has hit in the spring, and now we see if he gets many strikes to swing at in a turly learning curve season.

Travis Jankowski has established himself at the top of the lineup with his grit, flare-hitting and base-running.

But there just does not seem to be enough talent on this roster, and this is who Andy Green will go to the war with a week from now.

The defense looks as good as it has in years, but they will probably be chasing lots of balls this year, hit to all fields, all over the yard, because of who is in the starting rotation.

We know the game plan, the blue print, the low payroll, the big investment in the farm system.

We also know that this team could lose 100-games easy this summer, and that’s without wondering what happens, how bad it gets, if someone good, goes down with a bad injury.

“Absolutely they will lose 100-games this year” blurted out an anonymous GM to SI.

But we will have beer blasts, and jersey-cap-giveaways, beach blanket days, and a good time at the yard.

We just won’t have a winning team, not this year at least.

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