5-at-10: NBA protests, NCAA buffoonery, Playoff baseball, Rushmore of movie series

Protests

The NBA preseason has started. Normally that ranks somewhere between grass growing and paint drying on the scale of interest.

Especially now that football has started.

Sure, Joel Embiid making his debut could be worth a This and That reference. OK, maybe the fact that Ben Simmons, the No. 1 overall pick from last year, may miss several months and even the season with a broken foot could be a note somewhere. But the action and the results are as meaningless as split squad scores in Jupiter, Fla., in March.

In today’s oft-controversial, oft-puzzling, and oft-discussed marriage of sports-social issues, we are starting to see the first ripples of the protests started by Colin Kaepernick during the National Anthem.

Los Angeles Lakers center Tarik Black said the Lakers will lock arms during the anthem “as long as there’s an issue.” So the Lakers are going to be arm-in-arm until racism is over? Cool.

Here’s Black’s full quote: “It’s something that we really stand behind and advocate for and we show respect to both sides. We show respect to the police, our forces, and we also show respect to the victims. We’re mutual in it, but we’re going to stick with it as long as it’s an issue and as long as it’s going on.”

OK, a lot of things here.

First, who will be the first true star to risk the backlash of insulting the flag and our soldiers.

Yes, Kaepernick and everyone else have every right to do whatever they dang well feel. The brave men and women of our armed services fought, sacrificed and died to give them that right as they earn millions of dollars. But they do not have the right to tell me and millions of others how to view that protest. And no matter what Kaepernick says his intentions are, there are a lot of Americans who are offended by the decision to do it during the anthem.

That said, the Lakers are not exactly the Showtime version and the names making the protests are far from household. That’s not a shot at them as much as it’s a statement that a back-up quarterback and some Lakers center who most have not heard of are not exactly one-name stars.

Second, the NFL viewer numbers are down double digits this year. Say whatever you want, but it’s not an Evil Knievel Snake River jump to think at least a chunk of that decline is because of the backlash to the protest.

Will the NBA react? Will it have a similar effect on NBA ratings?

We’ll see.

NCAA

Is there a bigger collection of buffoonery than the NCAA?

Seriously. Is there a bigger group of disaster and distraction and deceit?

Now, because of potential concerns with NCAA eligibility, Louisville is now having its athletes, especially quarterback Lamar Jackson stop signing autographs.

Read that again. Here’s the story.

So we have now gotten to the point that the entirety of college sports makes money in the billions (with a ‘b’) and coaches are making money in the tens of millions. But these athletes can’t even signing a program because of the potential that someone could compensate them for it?

The NCAA needs to be blown up and restarted.

From scratch.

Baseball postseason

Former Lookouts star Edwin Encarnacion hit a walk-off three-run homer to push the Blue Jays by Baltimore in the AL Wildcard game Tuesday night.

It was just the fourth walk-off homer in a win-or-go-home playoff game in baseball history, joining Aaron Boone’s shot in the 2003 ALCS, Chris Chambliss’ homer in the 1976 ALCS and Bill Mazeroski’s Game 7 winner in the 1960 World Series.

Cool list right?

Now know this, the home team in winner-take-all playoff games that go into extra innings are now 9-1.

The talking point this morning was Baltimore manager Buck Showalter not going to his shutdown closer Zach Britton with runners on the corner to face Encarnacion. We think baseball managers are overrated in today’s parlance. The game has become an mismatch of numbers and analytics and theories about mixing walks and homers.

Numbers – and the results of particular moments and matches -rule the day and the game more than ‘The Book’ and the old-school rules of lefty-vs.-lefty or what have you. With that knowledge in hand, and the baseline fact that baseball managers are more clubhouse morale officers than the old-time image of skippers of days gone by.

But in the playoffs, moments like this are why the managers are cashing checks.

Showalter left his best reliever sitting in the final game of a long season, meaning he went into the 15th round of a heavyweight fight and did not use his best weapon. (Britton, an All-Star the last two years, has a 0.54 ERA this year and has allowed one earned run since June. The last time Britton allowed a run, college football had not started yet.)

And for those folks saying the “Hindsight is 20-20” well, duh. Yes, we get to ask questions knowing the results, but that’s part of the deal.

This is professional sports, and Showalter and every other coach or decision maker or big-time star in sports gets paid huge money to make decisions and plays in moments like this.

(Notice we said pro sports, and we have always been a little more lenient on college athletes and a lot more lenient on high school athletes because they are far from getting the seven-plus-figure compensation. Coaches are still getting paid at those levels, though.)

And when those plays or decisions are boneheaded, then, the questions and second-guessing is not only fair.

It’s part of the reason we love sports.

This and that

– Noah Syndergaard, who will start for the Mets tonight against the Giants, has thrown 158 pitches of 100 mph or faster this season. That was more than 26 of the other 29 MLB teams.

– In case you are hunting entertainment, we love Georgia Southern on the road laying 7 tonight. (Buy the half, of course.) As we have discussed in this space before, finding losers is every bit as entertaining as picking winners, and this year, Arkansas State is on the short list of most bookable losers. The Red Wolves are 0-4 overall and 0-4 against the spread against the not-that-daunting slate of Toledo, Auburn, Utah State and Central Arkansas. Yes, please.

– Interesting that folks have somehow found it strange that the Republican Party declared Mike Pence the winner of the VP debate before the debate actually started on the GOP’s website. OK, someone on the IT team put the wrong time stamp on the story. Whatever. But in truth, what did anyone expect? No matter how the debate played out, each side was going to say they won, right? Seriously, what would it take for the Ds or the Rs to say their side lost the debate? Multitude of F-bombs, followed by someone ripping their shirt off and punching the moderator? (Although Lester Holt certainly could have used someone getting his attention last week.)

– Speaking of the debate, neither of those cats on the stage last night were close to the lightning rods atop the ticket for each party, but Pence and Tim Kaine each looked more presidential than the two you know who’s.

– And speaking of moderators, well, is there a written rule that the Democrats get to interrupt at any given time? Yes, we lean to the conservative side of the political scale, but as anyone who has read these ramblings on a regular basis, we’re certainly not an overwhelming Trump fan by any measure. But these two debates have become unwatchable because of Hillary and Kaine chiming in over and over and over again.

Today’s question

Feel free to wade in among the water of topics we have before us.

The water is fine. (Also, thanks again for all the kind words about the week. You folks are aces.)

If you need a Rushmore, well, how about this one: Dr. No, the first James Bond movie, was released on this day in 1962. What are the movies on the Rushmore of series with more than four entries? Yes, the Bond movies and the Star Wars epics are taking half of this.

What else you got?