Welcome to the party pal
OK, nothing makes a Thursday flow than a theme show. Who's with me?
In a summer that looks like it will be absent of blockbusters, let's go with one of my favorite summer blockbusters, "Die Hard."
Yippee-ki-yay, indeed.
Here's CBSsports.com columnist Dennis Dodd, who writes a lot on college football, offering his view on the growing likelihood of the Power Five breaking away from the NCAA.
Here's our view on that subject two weeks ago.
Dodd's timetable is even quicker than my forecasts, however, as he quotes a CEO of an Atlanta-based sports and entertainment marketing firm saying, "I'm telling you, if you or I were going to place a bet on a stock you could double down on the Power Five being a separate entity now within two years."
Two years? Glass? Who gives a (bleep) about glass?
If two years is truly the time frame, take a look around friends, and the divide between the Power Five and even the Group of Five, which is cutting sports on almost a daily basis is staggering.
The Iowa State AD said bluntly that without football, we would see a modern "ice age" for college sports.
And for the programs in the Group of Five and below, this quote is most troublesome for a security guard."We're going to lose institutions," Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick predicted. "We're going to have a number of member institutions who won't be involved in college education in 3-4 years."
And as the dollars come crashing to a halt, the NCAA's worth as a governing body has never been more irrelevant.
They consistently wave a hollow hand toward all the corruption in college basketball, because the tournament is the NCAA's ATM. They are terrified of the power programs in football because the NCAA knows the Alabamas, THE Ohio States, the Clemsons, et al., do not need the NCAA.
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And, with the NCAA asking Congress to regulate the NIL on a federal level, it's clear the NCAA even knows it's as relevant as a butter churn and as impactful as a month on your windshield.
Wow. This is a lot bigger than just a fly in the ointment, Hans. A monkey in the wrench. A pain in the (bleep).
This is game-changer, and for a lot of athletes, a program killer.
MLPA players' swings
I guess Has was right, and all Americans are alike Well, this time John Wayne does not walk off into the sunset with Grace Kelly.
Baseball's season, by most expectations, needs to have some sort of framework by early next week to try to have baseball by July 4. That could lead to roughly half a season punctuated by an expanded postseason come the fall.
But, the owners' first offer may as well have been Sgt. Powell asking, "Want a breath mint." It featured sliding scales of dramatic pay cuts on top of the prorated pay cuts over an 82-game schedule.
The players simply said, "We're going to count to three. There will not be a four."
And Max Scherzer went full-blown Hans, Tweeting bluntly "there's no further reason to engage with MLB" about more pay cuts for the 2020 season.
To stay in theme, if we called him Max Gruber he would have said it this way: "We can go any way you want it. You can walk out of here or be carried out. But have no illusions. We are in charge."
So the players' counter offer has 100 games with what they believe was the original agreement with ownership for prorated salaries comparable to games played on current deals.
Yeah, the detonators are somewhere, right John?
Corona sports victims
We'll start with the always-needed caveat: This is small potatoes to the more than 100,000 who have died and the more than 1 million in this country alone who have contracted COVID-19.
(Side note: At best the optics of this are strange. A professional gambler took $10,000 bets on Twitter that the death toll in the U.S. would go over 100K before Sept. 1 and won Wednesday when that daunting number was sadly reached. He claimed the origins of the bets were in part to raise awareness to the early stages of The Corona, and he cashed those bets, saying he's giving the money to charity. So there's that.)
But in our daily review of the ever-changing world that seems more stagnant than ever, the impact of The Corona on the sports we love has multiple tangents.
The Corona has changed our fandom, maybe even in ways we won't even realize until the games actually return. Whether it's what you truly missed or the comfort level we have reached without the daily distractions from the sports world.
And we have collectively acknowledged multiple times that our hearts ache for the student-athletes, be them college, high school or even rec leagues, who lost their season before it ever really got going.
This morning though, as baseball's power brokers continue to self-sabotage with selfish wheel-spinning that is going to cost them way more than they could ever imagine, I saw an image of one of my favorite baseball players of the 2000s.
And it dawned on me that Clayton Kershaw is on the shortlist of the athletes most impacted by this shutdown.
"Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs" Considering that the Dodgers were the prohibitive favorites - and man, that monster deal for one season of Mookie Betts looks riskier by the day - and Kershaw has battled a history of postseason mediocrity that taints an otherwise all-timer career, this was a chance for the Dodgers as a group and Kershaw specifically to exorcise those October demons.
Yes, I still believe there will be baseball - despite the efforts of ownership and labor, it seems - but the lingering unknowns for Kershaw, who seems to have aged in dog years the last two seasons, and the Dodgers are undeniably frustrating.
Here are four more athletes other than Kershaw losing the most professionally to round out a personal top-five:
> LeBron James, and it's not close. James and the Lakers were humming and closing in on the 1 seed in the West. In the wake of the The Last Dance (Jor)documentary, a fourth title - and taking a third different franchise to the promised land - would be huge for his résumé. Now, even if the Lakers win, the anti-James gang will poo-poo it because of the short season or whatever.
> Tiger Woods. He looked healthy and great in The Match. And every missed chance at a major as he races against Father Time hurts his chance to catch Jack's 18.
> Cam Newton. This one is practical and understandable, but as long as Newton can't get in front of teams and prove he's healthy, he will still be the best quarterback on the planet without a playbook. For Pete Rozelle's sake, the artist formerly known as Joe Flacco has signed with the Jets people.
> Every member of the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks had the best record in basketball and were a front-runner to win it all. And no team's collective clock ticks faster than the Bucks, who have reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo signed through the end of 2021. And does anyone really expect Giannis to re-ink with the Bucks rather than exploring the monster markets - and monster contracts - in free agency?
This and that
- We're dealing with some heavy storylines around the country. How about this soldier who saw a gunman firing at random victims, so the soldier hit the shooter with his car? Kudos sir.
- This is a staggering stat from Forbes, as 0.6 percent of the population in this country live in nursing homes or assisted living facilities, yet that fraction of our country has accounted for 43 percent of The Corona deaths.
- Here's do-it-all TFP sports ace David Paschall with an interesting look at the reality facing Lookouts ownership that AT&T is going to have to do for the foreseeable future considering the economics of our situation nationally and locally.
Today's questions
Today is national burger day. Let's do this.
We're all in support of the burger, right? RIGHT!?!?!
OK, some basic burger questions, if you are limited to four additions to your burger, what are you adding? Hmmmmmmm. How bout a Fresca?
What about if you only have one addition to the burger? I'll start with cheese and figure it out from there.
One more: If you go some place new, is the burger your fall back order? It is for the Mrs. 5-at-10.
Discuss.
Also on this day in 1830, U.S. president Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which set the stage for the Cherokee's Trail of Tears, which cuts through our area.
Jim Thorpe would have been 133 today. Wow, a second Diff'rent Strokes reference in as many days. Ten years ago Gary Coleman died at the age of 42.
What's on the Rushmore of most famous 'burger' ever? Be creative and remember the mailbag.