“This-That-Some of the Other”

 

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Is the correct phrase, ‘it’s always darkest before the light’, or is it ‘it’s always darkest before the storm’? Ever seen anything as hideous as Chargers football right now.

The Ryan Leaf era was pretty bad.  So was the Kevin Gilbride era.  This team is as bad as some of those teams, with the exception of #17 at quarterback, and even he is showing wear and tear.

The Bolts get bashed at home again, their fifth loss in a row, getting pounded by the Denver Broncos defense.  Philip Rivers, last man standing, takes 4-sacks, 10-pressures-11 hits, and get pancaked by Von Miller and none of his offensive linemen come to his defense.

Melvin Gordon ball protection remains an issue.  2-more fumbles, another one lost, and benched.  He also missed a blitz on a Rivers sack.  Team in front of him not good, he’s not playing well either.

Hard to believe any team with Philip Rivers would lose 5-in a row at home, they have, and have no offensive touchdowns in their  last 11-quarters, covering 3-games at home.  Rivers and company have not scored a TD since the first quarter of the Bears game, November 9th.

Hated to see the neck injury to WR-Dontrelle Inman.  It was not intentional, but helmet to back of the neck.  The Brandon Flowers knee injury was a fluke, flying bodies, but damage done.

Sorry, I like the edge Jahleel Addae plays with, but I don’t like helmet hits, and he does that, and ditto for Melvin Ingram, who will be getting a letter from the NFL this week about a fine.

Tom Telesco gets a 3-year contact extension in the midst of a (3-9) season.  Don’t know why.  Similar bad move by owner Dean Spanos a group of years ago, as AJ Smith and Norv Turner drove the team off the road, he gave them extensions.  How’d that work out?.

It surely looks like changes are coming to that coaching staff.  Just tough to decide whether this is the result of injuries, a woeful roster, poor schemes, bad coordinators, or Mike McCoy leadership.  The only thing we know is a horrid season with an owner who wants to take the team to LA.

If I hear Mike McCoy say we’re working on a good game plan for the next game, I’m going to vomit.  His good game plans have gotten this team 9-losses this year, and 12-in their last 15-games.

Don’t you love the color Orange-San Diego.  First it was the brazen Giants fans in the Barry Bonds era, and now it’s Broncos fans taking over Qualcomm Stadium.

Three of the next four are on the road.  Cannot believe how far this franchise has fallen.  The Telesco-McCoy tandem inherited a near playoff team three years ago.  No playoffs this year, and maybe not for awhile.

Next up, Arrowhead Stadium, where those guys, the Chiefs have ripped off 6-wins in a row after a (1-5) start.

Chargers football, it’s pretty dark right now.  that’s probably a storm coming.  I don’t see any light for better times.

 

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“Changing the Game-for-it’s own Good’

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The Baseball Players Association had a nice time out here in LaJolla at their off season meetings.

They played a round of golf at Torrey Pines, had great dinners at fancy restaurants, and tried to find a way to make the game better, for the players, the fans, maybe the owners, and the game itself.

Tony Clark, the former Padres-Tigers 1st baseman, who turned a career in the game, into a post playing career as head of the Union, says he’s willing to talk about alot of things in the offseason with Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Baseball is flush in money from the mega-television contracts.  Salaries keep going up.  A year from now the collective bargaining agreement ends.  Where we once feared the wars  of  work stoppages, now we deal with the prosperity and the growth of the game.

The injury factor in baseball is staggering.  The disabled list contains as many stars as the active rosters do.  The wear-and-tear quotient onthe players, the travel, the time demands, need to be changed.

Baseball plays 162-games in 182-days.  It’s been all about the income for owners, which is also tied to the huge pay increases for players.  But it comes at a price, players immediate health, and long term capabilities.

The rumblings are, take the game back to where it used to be, 154-games.  No don’t give us Sunday doubleheaders, the kind we used to see while we were looking at our baseball card collection in 1957.

But find a way to give players more open rest days.  Make Monday a mandatory day off.  End the overnight flights from one city to another.  Rearrange road trips, and starting times, so there are no 4am hotel check ins, followed by early game times.  Change getaway days for teams on the road.

It all sounds easy to do, until you realize, that in the real world of the CBA, everything is a bargaining chip when the Union and the Commissioner come to the table.

Of biggest questions to be answered, there is lots of lost revenues, if you go from 162-to-154.  The owners lose TV money, gate receipts.  One would then think, if there are less games, then the players have to take less money too.

Not necessarily.

Take a closer look at the schedules.  Maybe we don’t need 32-to-37 Cactus League and Grapefruit Circuit games.   Maybe we start the regular season in late March, not early April.  That gives you additional dates to play with, on top of the 8-days that come available when you go to 154 from 162.

How do you handle the revenue issue?  Simple, look at the calendar.

You take the Wildcard playoff play-in game, and make it a best of three playoff series, and you start it a week earlier.  The pot of gold stays the same, with the money available in post season play.  You might make even more in a Best of 3-first round.

We know wha the tension and excitement has been like the final days, and weeks of the season.  We’ve seen 6-and-7 teams all have wildcard chances the final weekend of the year.  We saw one wild card slot filled at 11:45pm on the final Sunday night of the season.

Now you carry that into a Best-of-3 wildcard series to kickoff the postseason.  Marvelous.

There are so many other issues, many of them economical, you could tie in also.

Increase roster sizes from 25-to-27, that’s 60-more major league jobs for Tony Clark’s clientele.  You look at the DL lists of every club,  you’d find every manager who wants access to more guys for his lineup.

There will be adjustments too, in the September call-up number, again another bargaining chip, maybe a 40-man roster the final month, but just 30-active any one night.

Lots of bargaining chips to throw on the table as you try to lock down a 154-game schedule..

There are ways to do it, to help the players, make the game better, and grow the revenue stream, now that September-October in baseball has become even more electric.

Tony Clark and the Union will bring their lawyers to the table to face the Commissioner.  I hope they bring lots of ideas with them too.  154 wasn’t bad in the days of Hank Aaron, Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle.  Wouldn’t be bad in this era either.

“Padres-Good Man-Bad Controversy”

 

 

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He brought us one of the great moments in baseball, in a time when the game was trying to recover from the stainful shame of all the work stoppages.

You remember that time don’t you? Close your eyes, and see them congratulating each other at home plate. See the high fives with the fans. The love affair with everyone of his at bats. The special hugs with the family of Roger Maris. September 7th of that year was special that year of 1998..

Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and the home run derby they race they shared was really special, at the tail end of the 1998-season. They were chasing Roger Maris’ single season record of 61. McGwire wound up at 70, Sosa at 68. .

Of course we all suspected they were doing steroids, and they were. Big Mac, to Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro to Roger Clemens. And Bonds followed years later with 73 in a record setting steroid stained single season mark, a summer of disdain and discomfort for the game..

McGwire came back to baseball after retirement, years after what looked to be a terrible exile. He came back and worked for the only ones who liked him, Tony LaRussa and St. Louis. Now he is the bench coach with the San Diego Padres, after a tenure as hitting coach with the Dodgers, and before that with the Cardinals.

McGwire, part of the home run hitting core, the Bruise Brothers, of the Oakland A’s back in the day, with the other cheat Jose Conseco. Taking things that baseball had yet to test for. MLB had stopped cocaine and marijuana and amphetamines, but steroids, and then HGH would take years to get tests put in place.

Big Mac appeared before Congress in its steroid probe. But unlike the others, he spoke. About yes, using steroids to get healthy from all the injuries he had early in his A’s career. Steroids, at that time were not tested for in the Grand Old Game.

But he admitted he did, and he testified he wished he had not. Unlike the others who lied, pointed fingers, filed lawsuits, refused to testify.

He came clean about being dirty, but talked about the reasons. And because of that intellectual approach, he came back to the game, and has been respected ever since, because of that honesty.

He’s turned out to be a pretty good hitting coach, in St. Louis and in LA, and now he accepts the challenge to become Andy Greene’s right hand man as the Padres rookie manager takes over in the dugout.

The 583-homers are tainted. The baseball record book, the bible, is stained by all those who cheated. But how he handled this, and how open he has been about talking about it, has brought a bit of respect back.

He loves the game, and he is giving back, after taking records and money, and a needle.

I don’t know if baseball fans will forgive and forget. But I remember what that instance with Sosa meant to a game that was in so much trouble. And having interviewed him 3-times since he returned to the game, I came away impressed with his candor and his work in the batting cages..

Hopefully the work he does with Padres hitters will be impressive too.

Farewell Tour on Failing Franchise”

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Kobe Bryant has begun his final road trip thru the NBA, his career farewell tour, after 20-years of greatness wearing the Purple and Gold of the Lakers.

Pick any word you want, from brilliance to greatness, from grace to glory, from style to sizzle, and it all become synonomous with Kobe.

If the ‘ring is the thing’, then he accomplished lots, by being the superstar on 5-championship Lakers teams. If it’s about the bling, then he cashed in too finishing his run with a max 25M-contract.

His career was indeed full of explosive first steps to the basket, pull up jumpers, long range three point bombs, and every type of dynamic baseline drive, and push it into the paint baskets there are.

Kobe’s 81-point explosion is one for the record books, far more impressive than the 100-point night Wilt Chamberlain had for the Philadelphia Warriors back in the day.

You knew, any time, any night, any where, any opponent, he could go off for 50-or-60 points.

He was about the smile, the scowl, the finger wag, and the finger pointing.

The greatness of the man will be remembered, but the gall of the player is also part of his biography.

The years of back and forth with Shaquille O’Neal, and ‘who’s team was it really’? the struggles with Dwight Howard. the ugly coach issues, the freeze out by Karl Malone and Michael Jordan and others in his first All Star game, and of course, “Colorado”, the extra marital scandal that carried front page news forever.

He will be accused of running off Shaq, ending an era, that should have been allowed to go forward forever. His early battles with the intense and ever demanding Phil Jackson. The mess with Mike D’Antoni and Mike Brown and Rudy Tomjanovich too.

It’s sad to see what Lakers basketball has become. Yes you can reflect of the specialness of the player, but some feel the selfishness of the player hurt the club, as he took his last contract extension of 2Y-50M, in effect ending the hopes the Lakers could lure any free agents to help him finish out his career.

He’s not to blame for the (2-15) record his franchise was dragging around the night he decided to write his “Dear Basketball” letter, announcing his decision to leave. But his poor play, bad shooting, and suddenly laissez-fiare attitude about playing defense and heaving up shots, makes everything seem so much worse.

It was a bit unprofessional, as his team blew a 14-point lead, he was laughing on the court after missing shots, as his team lose to a 76ers team that was (0-18) and had dropped 28-straight NBA games over two seasons.

He’s not to blame either for breaking down, 3-injuries in 3-years, after all the minutes and the games he played for 20-seasons.

It may be awhile before we ever see this type of talent again in a Lakers jersey.

Farewell to something fabulous, even if it now plays on a failing franchise.

But in the tradition of Wilt and Jerry and Elgin, in the style of Magic, King James and Alcindor, Kobe Bryant was always part of the glitter that made the Purple and Gold special.

“Everyone Comes from Somewhere-Even at USC”

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USC has a new head football coach, the interim coach, nobody really knew, who replaced the fired head coach, and proceeded to go (5-2) in place of Steve Sarkisian.

Clay Helton stepped in and returned leadership to the program, and even ended the losing streak against UCLA. A different breed of guy, lower profile, more business than pleasure.

Surely not a self-annointed brainiac in the lines of Lane Kiffin.

Surely not a dynamic salesman with the constant charisma of say Pete Carroll.

More of a Ted Tollner-Paul Hackett football intelligence and personna, but someone who did better than Hackett, and can match Tollner..

There is howling being directed at AD-Pat Haden. Insinutations he botched the last hire, Sarkisian and his baggage at the University of Washington, so therefore his judgement must be questioned going forward everyday..

Trojan Fan is caught up in yesterday, the great run by Carroll. The tremendous run of John Robinson. And prior to that era of John McKay, though that was decades ago.

The screeching today involves who was out there, who might be available. Chip Kelly of the Eagles, Sean Payton of the Saints, even Nick Saban of Alabama.

There is an attachment to old Trojans too, from Jack Del Rio, to the love affair with Jeff Fisher, or even Ed Ogeron.

USC fans fail to remember, that McKay wasn’t one of them. Neither was Robinson. Both PAC 8-guys from back in the day coming off the Oregon Trail. Pete Carroll was a Pacific guy, with an NFL background of pink-slips.

It is easy to roast Haden right now, but people assume he took the easy, cheap way out. But in the 8-weeks with the sinking of Sarkisian, bet on this. The proud Trojan quarterback-alum-and AD, has been looking at the field. Guys might not be available. Guys might come with baggage. Guys might have unbelievable buyouts. Guys might not want to move from good jobs to take on a new job.

No-one knows how Helton will work out. When Cody Kessler leaves, as well as a few of these other talents right after the bowl games, we’ll really find out how good Helton can be, coaching them up, and recruiting new ones to coach up..

He may not be a big name, but I guarantee you, neither was McKay nor Robinson upon arrival. The one thing he is, is familiar, with the staff and the roster and the program.

Yes, everyone comes from somewhere and Helton has proven himself in the volatile environment he inherited. That fact, plus the fact he already wears Cardinal and Gold, is as good a choice as you can make, especially if Haden tried but failed to convince the other big names he called, that Heritage Hall should be their next mailing address.

 

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