Field of Cash: Baseball Has Been Relegated to the Rich

The annual debut of Major League Baseball (MLB) came and went with as much lackluster fury as was found in this year’s Major League Baseball free agency. This year’s prized free agents were Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.  Prized or not, their associated “bidding wars” were practically not only nonexistent, but due to their prolongment, almost forgotten.  Finally, their signings, once they finally did happen, were anti-climactic. Like its free agency, baseball’s opening week would start and end with the same level of tedium. By the end of the week, talking heads weren’t discussing who they think will win the World Series as much as they were discussing how to keep the World Series, well, alive.

If the saying “bad publicity is good publicity” holds any truth then Major League Baseball isn’t lacking for publicity. The Cincinnati Reds were able to break their record low, in terms of attendance, at their 17-year-old Great American Ballpark in just their third game of this year’s campaign. According to Dave Jablonski of the Dayton Daily News, “[t]he announced attendance was 7,799. The previous low was 9,087 in 2009.” Although being early April in Cincinnati, the weather may have played a role in deterring fans from coming out to the game. However, that is no excuse for the Toronto Blue Jays, who play in a dome, from managing to reach a decade low in attendance.

Granted, both the Reds and Blue Jays are not, currently, premier baseball teams and neither is picked to win their divisions. Still the Los Angeles Dodgers have won the National League Pennant in the past two years, yet they may start see dwindling crowds as well. Houston Mitchell from the LA Times reports, “Here’s the problem the Dodgers have: A lot of people feel unsafe going to Dodger Stadium.” Mitchell writes this after a man was assaulted as he departed Dodger Stadium following their loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on March 29.  The victim was put on life support with a fractured skull. In the American League, on April 1^st, the Cleveland Indians, the reigning AL Central Division Champions, started their home opener off with a protest. The protests were not in angst against the Cleveland Indians logo, which is no longer in use starting this season, but rather about the Indians needing to change their team name.

There are three factors that Major League Baseball must solve to avoid the same fate as American department stores – once prominent statures of American society left to wither away on the surfaces of vacant parking lots.

First, the MLB must somehow help its stars gain popular awareness. Currently, the most well-known Major League Baseball stars aren’t familiar to the average American. In the NFL, quarterbacks are well known both to football fans and non-football fans alike. In nearly each NFL division, not just conference, there are nationally recognized stars – mainly quarterbacks. Average Americans know who Ben Roethlisberger is, even if they never watched him play. However, ask these same Americans who Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale, or John Lester is and it’s like asking an average American who the starting left guard on the Patriots is. That’s baseball’s issue - its big-name stars have the same level of national familiarity as that of an offensive lineman in the NFL. The difficult aspect of a player’s “brand” awareness is the level of impact or lack thereof that individual hitters may have on a team.

Take for example all the accolades that the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (say that ten times fast) outfielder, Mike Trout, has received and yet he and his team lack any sort of deep postseason run. Trout’s Angeles made the postseason once in 2014 and were promptly swept. That’s not good. To have a player who is a 2x American League MVP, and a 7x All-Star never have a playoff win, let alone win a playoff series, is terrible for the brand of baseball. Trout, for all his accolades, is a hampered baseball ambassador because he isn’t around when most people tune into baseball – during the playoffs.

The second issue, and one that is harder to fix, is the fact that the game of baseball is long and, at times, dull. To the enamored fan, baseball is layered with strategy. But to the average person, it is nothing more than a lot of winding up, throwing, and maybe once in a while, a hit. Whereas football and basketball have constant motion, constant action. Even on a one yard running back handoff, there is more action than in three innings of baseball. In other words, it is easy to watch football because there is always something going on. It is sad to state but war sells in America. Why else would people spend money going to see war movies or spend money playing warlike video games? It’s because for some reason war is entertaining to the average person and that’s what football brings to the table. Football is the “battle on the gridiron” and baseball just isn’t.

Now Major League Baseball has started to create initiatives to speed up the game. This season the time between innings, regarding commercial breaks, has decreased for locally televised games from 2:05 minutes to 2:00 and will decrease from 2:45 minutes to 2:25 for nationally televised games. Mound visits have also been reduced from six a game to five. Finally, in 2020, all pitchers must face at least three batters before they may be switched, unless that pitcher incurs an injury before facing three batters. This rule is to help reduce the amount of times a pitcher comes into a game for a certain situation and reduces the time of the game. Although the most controversial rule proposal, the pitch clock, has not yet been instituted, the MLB Commissioner, Rob Manfred, said “the clock is coming to the majors soon.”

But will the pace of play rule changes have any effect on gaining more baseball viewers? It seems unlikely. The average NFL game is actually longer than the average MLB game and yet the NFL’s viewership has been growing. In Aaron Gordon’s Sportsonearth.com piece, “baseball games average 2 hours and 57 minutes and 33 seconds.” The average NFL game takes 3 hours 10 minutes and 34 seconds. There is also the very fact that although a baseball game takes a smaller amount of time to complete than a football game, football season is far shorter than baseball season. The NFL regular season is a measly 16 games, which are usually played on Sundays, whereas an MLB regular season consists of 162 games all scattered throughout the week. In short, pace of play is not baseball’s issue as much as one might think.

The issue with baseball is that it is a game that was prized as America’s “past time” because everyone, boys and girls, played it. However, now with the onslaught of so many more organized sports and entertainment options, baseball gets lost in the mix.  What was once an American rite of passage – neighborhood kids playing baseball at their local park - is becoming a piece of Americana nostalgia. The issue with baseball is more an issue with the need for kids to find hobbies that they “must” excel at. The casual for fun hobby is becoming bygone. Marc Fisher, of the Washington Post, wrote, “David Ogden, a University of Nebraska at Omaha researcher who focuses on youth baseball, says selective teams produce better-trained players for high school and college teams but diminish baseball's appeal to the casual player. The high cost — about $2,000 a year in many cases — limits opportunities for lower-income families, and the high level of play leaves more broad-based organizations such as Little League and YMCA teams with ‘a lot of kids who can't get the ball over the plate, so the game is less fun and kids drop out,’ Ogden says.”

In other words, baseball, at the youth age, is taking the egalitarian aspect of baseball away. In its place   ushers in not necessarily “the most skilled players” but those players whose parents can afford the high costs to play youth baseball. In Shane Thomas’ RegalMag.com article, which sources the “Chicago Tribune,” states that these rich parents start to try and keep up with each other, which increases the cost of baseball for everyone else. “To keep up with the cream of the crop, extra training is necessary with private pitching or hitting coaches outside of team practices, running a player at least $40 a pop once or twice a week.  A quality baseball glove can cost up to $100 or more, aluminum bats run into the hundreds of dollars and name-brand cleats start around $150.”

What was once the sport my grandparents relished is now a sport that is economically in the same realm as golf, hockey, and lacrosse. Baseball was once a sport that kids would play in local neighborhood leagues, at grassy fielded municipal parks or even backyards. Now, with the extent of hyperactive rich parents increasing the pressure on their sons/daughters to be the next Mickey Mantle, it decreases the chances of an average middle/low class American having the ability to taste what was once a genuinely egalitarian and pure American past time. Baseball was so great because it was never as physically selective as, say, football or basketball. Unlike basketball, it’s okay not to be the tallest player on a baseball team; unlike football, being a behemoth of a man isn’t required.  Baseball in America today is being sucked into the modern gilded age.  What is  now required to play baseball isn’t as much a bat and glove as it is the depth of your parents’ pockets. Baseball is an entirely American sport, and it is dealing with an entirely American problem.

A Uniquely Stupid Man - Mike Brown

If Jerry Jones is the most outspoken NFL owner, then Mike Brown is the most stupid.  At the NFL’s recent annual meetings in Arizona, it appeared that Mike Brown was both acting as though he was Cincinnati’s Moses who would rescue the city from its years of mediocrity, while also lambasting its fans for acting too “spoiled.” It would have been in Brown’s best interest, for once, to do what he has been doing with his football team for the last decade – nothing.

Brown admitted in Paul Dehner Jr.'s article in the Cincinnati Enquirer that the hire of Zac Taylor as the new head coach “was the biggest change in one year in the history of the franchise.” Considering this is Brown’s now eighth head coach since he inherited the title of “Owner of the Bengals” from his late father, it wouldn’t appear that the hiring of a new head coach would constitute the greatest change in the history of the franchise. Then again Brown is eighty-three years old.  Although he is not the oldest owner in the NFL, he does appear to be the one owner who may have the highest probability of being deemed incapacitated.

Now Brown may also believe that the hiring of Taylor is the biggest change in the franchise’s history because, for nearly the past two decades, Brown has been comfortable putting a bag over his head and letting Marvin Lewis run full roughshod with the organization. What caused Brown to “part ways” with Lewis is a bit of mystery. If it was because of Lewis’ third consecutive year of lackluster seasons, then it would have seemed plausible that Lewis would have been let go after the 2008 campaign in which the Bengals, for the third straight year, failed to muster a winning season. On the other hand, it may be that Brown set, like his team in recent years, mediocre goals. For instance, the only reason for which it appears Brown never made a head coaching change was that in nearly half of Lewis’ campaigns he made the playoffs, and five of those appearances happened from 2011 thru 2015. However, under Lewis, the Bengals would only ever be able to accomplish “playoff appearances.” Playoff appearances and no wins is a recipe for a head coach termination. John Fox, the head coach of the Denver Broncos from 2011 thru 2014, made the playoffs in each of those years and even made a Super Bowl appearance. In spite of Fox’s ability to make the playoffs in each of these seasons, he was terminated from the Broncos after a “disappointing” season in which the Broncos lost in the Divisional Round of the 2014 playoffs. If Brown disregards this example, then he may want to take a look at Norv Turner’s tenure with the San Diego Chargers from 2007 thru 2012. In Turner’s first three years, he made the playoffs and in his very first year he made it to the AFC Championship game. However, Turner would be fired after the 2012 season because he had three consecutive seasons of missing the playoffs, not three consecutive losing seasons.  If Lewis recorded the same record in his last three years as what Turner recorded in his, then Brown would probably be giving Lewis another ten-year extension.

At the annual meeting, Brown would later tell reporters that “[the Bengals] have gone through a tremendous revival.” This may be Brown’s senile mind escaping his mouth again because in all likelihood the Bengals, at least this season, won’t have a revival. First history and, yes, science has indicated that coaching changes do not produce better results the year after the coaching change occurred. In Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommer’s book titled, This is Your Brain on Sports, they noted Middle Tennessee State University’s professor’s, Michael Roach, study on the effects of NFL coaching changes. “According to Roach’s model, a team that fired its coach reduced its win total the following year by 0.8 victories. The team’s point differential decreased by 27 points. Its odds of making the playoffs dropped by 12 percent.” Regardless of the merits of this study, on paper it would be hard for one not to have to squint to find the talent on this Bengals roster.

According to ESPN, the Bengals finished the 2018 season as the 26^th best offense in the NFL and the NFL’s worst defense. Of course, the reasoning for the atrocious defense may be a result of injuries but look closer and it may be due to the fact that their best defensive players are nearly a decade into the league. The last defensive pro bowlers the Bengals had were drafted in 2010. In recent years the offensive line has been a liability that fared no better in the 2018 season. According to Pro Football Focus’ rankings, the Bengals finished as the 27^th best offensive line and this takes into account the additions of Cordy Glenn and Billy Price. The failures of the offensive line are what led to “franchise” quarterback Andy Dalton having to be sidelined for the rest of the season after incurring a finger injury in week 12. According to Chris Roling of BengalsWire, it may make financial sense to cut Dalton in the offseason. Combine this with the fact that the lone consistent star on the Bengals, wide receiver AJ Green, is entering the last year of his contract and is turning 31, it would seem logical that Green would want to be on a team that doesn’t have the scent of tanking while he is nearing the twilight of his career. This team has depleted the talent it once had and failed to properly acquire the talent it could have had.

After Mike Brown was done with his self-promotion stint, he then started to take aim at the very people who keep this, to the rest of America, irrelevant franchise, well, relevant – the fans. For instance, Brown went on some tangent about how the fans complain about the concession prices. “[T]hey will say why don’t you do what they do in Atlanta what they do with cheap hot dogs. They have cheap prices, but they charge for tickets about three times what we charge. Which would you rather have?”  I’m not sure what, or even if Brown knows, what he is trying to accomplish with this rhetoric. Considering that the Cincinnati Bengals fans still show up to a team who has routinely underachieved, and the fact that those fans have started a website called, mikebrownsucks.com, it would seem in Brown’s best interest to try and take some interest in his fans.

There are two more remarks that Brown made in his interview with reports while in Arizona. The first was the fact that he admitted that fans were right in wanting change. It may be Brown’s senile mind coming into play, but a first time visitor to a Bengals game could have told you that the fans wanted a head coaching change about five years ago. The very fact that Brown, acting with the same muster as some paternal master over his fans, has to grant the fans a sense of being “right” to want change is a slap in the face to the very people who have been supporting Brown’s livelihood since ’91. The second quote that made my jaw drop was when Brown, with the same sense as a blind man suddenly being able to see, stated, “[i]t is remarkable how fast these problems get resolved if you start winning.” Hopefully every reporter, when recording this statement, suddenly put down their pencils and said in unison, “no duh.” For a man who has owned a team for over a quarter of century, this “idea” should have appeared to be a “no brainer.” The fact that this suddenly came into Brown’s head is the very reason why the Bengals are in the position they are in now – a mess.

P.S. At the annual meeting, the owners voted, 31-1 to allow offensive and defensive pass interference to be subject to a coach’s challenge and review (spurred by the 2018 NFC Championship Game). The lone dissent was none other than the senile Mike Brown. There is a good chance he had no idea what he was voting for.

 

The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee Gives UVA a Pass

The Austro-Hungarian Empire is remembered for what? Possibly being one of the largest European empires at the time, right behind the Russian Empire. Of course it was also a dominant economic powerhouse in that they were the world’s fourth largest machine building nation. Although this ethnically diverse and as a result, unorganized bureaucratic state, has these vast accomplishments it seems to be most famous for its epic, and almost too simplistic, implosion and subsequent triggering of an epic worldwide slaughter called, World War I. The Austro-Hungarian Empire’s only goal in the war was to punish Serbia for assassinating its emperor’s heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Instead the empire’s ethnic divisions unraveled, and by 1916 an empire that once portrayed itself as a global force was realized to be a nothing more than a paper tiger. The surprise wasn’t’ that this great nation collapsed, it was the fact that the empire was able to conceal its blemishes so well for so long.

The University of Virginia men’s basketball team is the NCAA’s Austro-Hungarian Empire. It’s easy to see why they routinely are ranked so high in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. According to Kenpom.com, a college basketball statistics database, since 2014 Virginia has ranked in the top 12 for teams with the highest adjusted efficiency metric (adjEM), a statistic used to determine a team’s overall skill. Then again, since 2014 Virginia has been ranked no lower than a fifth seed in the NCAA Tournament and has finished no lower than 5^th in the notoriously brutal Atlantic Coast Conference. In other words, logic says that Virginia deserves to be ranked favorably.

Tony Bennett, Virginia’s head men’s basketball coach, has been able to excel at dominating the regular season. Though, when it comes to tournament play he has failed to capitalize on favorable rankings – only winning his conference tournament once since 2014. The year he won his conference tournament he also won the conference “regular season title” in 2018. That same year Bennett and his team would make NCAA history for all the wrong reasons. The first seeded Virginia Cavaliers would be ousted by the 16^th ranked (lowest seed in the tournament) UMBC. A 16^th seed defeating a one seed was so remarkable that there is a Wikipedia page dedicated to just that first round game. To say that Bennett and his team busted America’s brackets is an understatement. According to ESPN, of the 17.3 million brackets submitted in its Tournament Challenge, only 579,666 picked UMBC to win. That comes to a mere 3.5% percent of people picking UMBC to win the game; whereas 18% of entries had Virginia winning the entire tournament (including your correspondent).

There is reason to believe that this epic and complete debacle of a beautiful season should not transfer over to the subsequent year. It is of course a “new season,” with new meaning and a chance for a team to rewrite, make new, or, in the case of Virginia, bury past history. It doesn’t appear that this mantra holds truth, though. Yes, Virginia has done very well this year (excluding it being outplayed, outhustled, and frankly outmanned against Florida State in the ACC tournament), but there is reason to suggest where some teams are provided with a premium for past successful NCAA tournament performance, no team is punished. To illustrate this theory, it is important to note the premium that Villanova, the defending National Champion, has received from the NCAA Selection Committee in this year’s tournament. Deadspins’ Lauren Theisen describes it best: “The [Villanova} Wildcats might well be overrated by the committee; two national championships in three years will tend to skew perspective a bit.” It seems that arbitrary premiums are placed on teams who have a history of success, yet, a history of debacles and disappointments, like Virginia, do not depreciate a team’s subsequent seasons. If history is the best indicator of the future, then it should not be ignored simply because it may shed a bad light on a certain person, place or even sports team.

Virginia has so far done everything that it has always done – submitted an impressive regular season resume to the NCAA committee. They did the same thing the previous year and years prior- yet have little to show for it.  These impressive resumes are immensely overshadowed by its 2018 history making loss. That loss was the equivalent to when Austro-Hungary’s Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated. Virginia and Austro-Hungary, no matter how brilliant their histories may have appeared, have engrained their most memorable moment in history with their most embarrassing. It is their most embarrassing moment, not because of the loss to UMBC in Virginia’s case or the assassination in Austria’s, but because each event revealed what each truly was – a hollow, paper tiger.

The 2019 Browns Chronicles: Offseason Special Edition - Browns Did Something Good...

The Browns were involved in another one sided trade on Tuesday night. For once, though, the Browns would not be the team who was being duped.  Instead, and a rarity, the Browns made a blockbuster, one sided, deal. In exchange for safety Jabrill Peppers, 2019 first round draft pick (overall pick 17) and a 2019 third round draft the Browns received Giants’ Pro Bowl receiver, Odell Beckham Jr. With the addition of offseason signings of defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson, and linebacker/defensive end Olivier Vernon, the OBJ trade is the equivalent of a terrific finale of an already great Fourth of July fireworks display.

For the longest time Browns fans have gone into the offseason and the draft with the same inspiration that 11^th Century Spanish troops had when they rushed into battle following El Cid – a nobleman whose dead body was strapped on a horse and sent into battle. There have been several Browns offseason signings, that to say the least, were a bust. The Dwayne Bowe signing was a wide receiver debacle from nearly the onset. Bowe was signed to a two-year deal worth $13 million - $9 million of that guaranteed. Bowe would last one season with a total of five catches for 53 yards. In other words, Bowe was paid nearly $2 million dollars per catch. Then, of course, the Browns had the “Kenny Britt Era.” That died after John Dorsey, on his first full day as Cleveland’s new general manager, waived Britt. Then there was the signing of, in the descent of his career, quarterback Jake Delehome. So, suffice to say that, similar to modern Browns history, Browns offseasons have been less than inspiring. 

The likelihood of those same issues happening in the case of the Odell Beckham signing are not likely. This is because unlike the previous mentioned players, Odell Beckham is far more talented than either Bowe or Britt. Beckham is a proven wide receiver - one which has been eluding the Browns even after the 2018 signing of Jarvis Landry (who is still extremely talented). According to Pro Football Focus’s 2018 Top 101 Players, Odell Beckham ranked 36^th. Furthermore, even after missing the last quarter of the 2018 season with injury, Beckham still managed to have an explosive season (on a terrible team) and had a grade of 90.0. It should also be noted that in 2018 Beckham was being thrown to, according to Pro Football Focus, by the 31^st ranked quarterback in the NFL – Eli Manning. Now, with Odell Beckham having (almost) rookie of the year quarterback Baker Mayfield toss him the ball, opposing defensives will be hard pressed to double Beckham as Jarvis Landry and sophomore wide receiver, Antonio Callaway will be lining  up opposite to Beckham.

However, what the Browns are doing isn’t new and it was done last year by the Los Angeles Rams, (who were able to make it to the Super Bowl) and the 2014 Seattle Seahawks (who won the Super Bowl that year). The Browns, after nearly two decades without one, have finally found their franchise quarterback in Baker Mayfield. The Browns have a core defensive unit and with the addition of Richardson and Vernon, only have a more bolstered lineup. Similar to the Rams who had cornerback Lamarcus Joyner and defensive tackle Aaron Donald, the Rams went out and signed cornerbacks  Aqib Talib, Marcus Peters, and defensive tackle, Ndamukong Suh. The finances also make it a time for the Browns to “make moves.” Like the Seahawks with Russell Wilson in 2014 and the Rams with quarterback Jarod Goff in last year’s Super Bowl, the Browns, too, have a star-studded quarterback who is on his rookie contract (i.e. cheap). According to ESPN’s Bill Barnwell, “[t]he Browns can afford to devote nearly $30 million of their cap to Beckham and Landry in 2019 because Mayfield has a cap hit of $7.4 million . . ..” In other words as soon as a team realizes they have a franchise quarterback under a cheap rookie contract, the next best thing to do is spend to assemble expensive pieces around him in order to win. The Seahawks did it in 2014, Philadelphia did it in 2017 (to a lesser extent), the Rams did it last year and the Browns are doing it this year. It’s a method that has proven at the very least a playoff appearance and at the most a Super Bowl victory.

There are, like anything the Browns do, some worries. The first is the very fact that Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham Jr., and Baker Mayfield all have egos. This trifecta of talent also comes with three men who hate to lose.  This mentality, at times, has caused on the field tantrums (Odell Beckham). If things are to go south, there is fear that the locker room could become broken with these polarizing personalities acting out, especially when in March all the press was saying they were now contenders. This issue is exasperated with the second issue – the inexperience of first time head coach, Freddie Kitchens. Although brilliant as an interim offensive coordinator in 2018, Kitchens has never been a head coach before (not even a middle school head coach). If things were to get heated with OBJ’s personality or any other player, it would fall on Kitchens to broker the peace and bring the team together.  These two issues are only created because of the very fact that for once in modern Browns history, the Browns are predicted to make the playoffs and even win their division. Considering last year Browns fans were just hoping to win a game, it is incredible that a year later the Browns are picked to win more than ten games and be in the playoffs.

Yet, this is the situation that Browns fans have longed to be in. This win now pressure is what we have been salivating for decades. Baker Mayfield, Odell Beckham Jr., and Jarvis Landry are, yes, some of the more emotional players in the league, but that’s because they care and have also been noted by fellow teammates to be some of the hardest working players in football. In turn, with the combination of their longing to win, their pride in their work ethic, and Cleveland’s loyal and proud fan base, the likelihood the Browns blow this opportunity is slim. The Browns are finally being led into battle with their very much alive nobleman, John Dorsey . . . it’s about time!

 

Go Browns!!

Tristan Thompson: Enriching the Kardashians, While Embarassing The Cavs

“One: No feelings . . . Two: No social media posts about me . . . Three: I sleep with other people.” In his interview with Sports Illustrated’s Ben Reiter, Trevor Bauer, the  brash and outspoken Cleveland Indians starting pitcher, listed his three rules with anyone who has the “pleasure” in courting him. Although Bauer’s macho masculine, Neanderthalic sense of entitlement is practiced by most major professional athletes, it is widely concealed and cleverly camouflaged under the cloak of an athlete’s foundations, charity funds, and Wheaties commercials. More surprising is that, other than the civilization that resides north of Mansfield, Ohio, most sports readers or even lay-people would have assumed that these three commandments were uttered by the Cleveland Cavaliers center, Tristan Thompson.

The NBA and Kardashian, Inc.  once again collided when it was revealed that Tristan Thompson was “most likely” having coitus with model and Kylie Jenner’s friend/tenant, Jordyn Woods. This wouldn’t have been odd if it wasn’t for the fact that Tristan Thompson was, concurrently, in a relationship with Khloe Kardashian (a half-sister to Kylie Jenner and another asset to Kardashian, Inc.) in which a child resulted from the individuals’ consummation. Tristan and Khloe named their child, like any other reality T.V. star desperately seeking public attention, “True.” So as the Kardashian fandom mounts its warlike mentality towards whichever way Khloe’s Twitter/Instagram wand instructs her zealots, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Tristan “can’t keep his hands to himself” Thompson’s employer, is trying to salvage an already fire dumpster of a season and a team. The best thing the Cavs can do is trade Thompson this offseason.

Ever since Lebron James leapt for La La Land, allowing another proud moment of Cleveland history to decay in the rust belt, the Cavaliers have stunk. At this moment in time the Cavaliers are the third worse team in the NBA and have just avoided tying a franchise record with the least number of wins. The thought of moving Tristan Thompson is neither farfetched nor rash. Rather, moving Tristan Thompson will alleviate a team that is in the midst of an ultimate rebuild and a team that resembles the Washington Generals more than the reigning Eastern Conference Champs.

Even in the dysfunctional state of his team, Tristan Thompson is having his own renaissance. Lately Thompson has been averaging 11.5 points per game, 11.1 rebounds per game, and 2.1 assists per game. As reported by Matt John, of NBA Daily, “all of which [the numbers]are either career-highs or the best he has had since Lebron came back to ‘The Land.’” Albeit, and John notes this, Lebron’s departure has opened the ability for a big man to get more rebounds that otherwise would have been consumed by Lebron himself. Thompson is in the top half of the league in rebounds and fourth in offensive rebounds. Considering that the three-point shot has become an offensive norm and fan favorite, most teams would relish having a player who is capable of efficiently rebounding missed three pointers only to kick it out to give his sharpshooting teammates another shot. While Thompson is an overpaid center, being scheduled to earn $18.5M next year, he has the necessary and vast skillset to be the final piece a contending team requires to put them over the edge.

 

Trading Thompson would serve Cleveland well. Not so much for the fact that this would alleviate hefty cap space off the Cavs and allows us to possibly receive some younger talent, but, more so, because it would eradicate another embarrassment from the city of Cleveland’s vast portfolio. Cleveland sports, especially as of late, have been littered with divas, self-serving, nimrods who are either willfully ignoring their overt irrational behavior or just simply have become incapable of recognizing how embarrassing their behavior is. The Browns had the Manziel experiment, which deserves its own blog for the fact that it is amazing how one person could be that utterly stupid. Then of course the Indians are stuck with Trevor Bauer who even when he gets his way, still decides to run his mouth or cut his finger while playing with his drone … in the midst of the postseason. Finally, it is hard not to forget about Hue “Clueless” Jackson, but his embarrassments were more work related (like he couldn’t win a game) than public relations disasters.

Thompson’s scandal is unlike any of the above. It is not his merely being unfaithful to the mother of his child and their entire relationship, callously demonstrating one of the greatest acts of selfishness and disregard for others. No, the reason is because, unlike other unfaithful professional athletes, Thompson is cheating on the Medusas of America. When Thompson does Khloe Kardashian wrong he isn’t just hurting her directly, but he is creating a business opportunity for them. Thompson entertains fans with his ability to make rebounds, block shots and score points. Khloe and her family entertain men/women by wearing skimpy outfits, increasing the size of their rear-ends while slimming down the size of their waists, and doing all this while on their reality TV show – Keeping Up With The Kardashians. So, when Thompson cheats the Kardashians, all fifty million of them, will get on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat and rouse their masses, with the same vitriol that Trump uses to get his base motivated about his absurd wall. The Kardashians do this because this is their business model. Sure, they have makeup lines, clothing lines, but those products aren’t what makes them. Those products just give them an excuse to keep their faces out there so that girls who want to be like them, and guys who want to “get” with them, keep tuning in to watch their unrelatable lives. Thompson gave this business the scandal it needed to remain relevant.

It would be one thing if this was Thompson’s first time acting as though he has a lack of oxygen to his brain. However, he has no short history of acting out of impulse and lack of intelligence. Prior to the start of the NBA season, but after Lebron left, Thompson stated, “[Cavs] still four-time Eastern Conference champions, so until you take us down from that, teams ain’t got much to say.” The NBA season isn’t complete yet and the Cavs have been “taken down” forty-eight times. Then, of course, the very fact that Thompson was publicly seen cheating on Khloe (first time cheating on her), while she was in labor, and right before the 2018 NBA Finals, deserves a gold medal for achieving that level of stupidity.

I would like to say that Thompson has been infected with the “Kardashin Kancer,” but it seems to me that he was just born dumb.  Maybe a team that is a contender, with solid players around him, can insulate the noise from the next time he decides to enrage, and in doing so, enrich Kardashian, Inc. In all likelihood most teams are taking note of the episodic public disaster and embarrassment that is Tristan Thompson. Hence, it seems safe to say that the Cavaliers will be left paying this bonehead $18.5M to win us another 18 games and, in doing so, help sell another several million People Magazines. At least someone is entertained by a Cavalier … unfortunately it’s just not on the court.

 

It's a Rich Man's World

It wasn’t domestic violence, drunk driving, PEDs or even possession of a firearm. Even more surprising is that the embarrassing act that damaged the “NFL shield”, wasn’t conducted by a player, but rather an owner. Robert Kraft, the owner of the Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots, was charged on two counts of soliciting sex in South Florida. The location of the alleged solicitation was at an Asian massage parlor located in Jupiter, Florida. It was further reported that those persons being paid to perform such acts were victims of human trafficking. Regardless of the legal consequences Kraft may face, it seems that the NFL will level its own consequences against Kraft. However, what punishment Goodell decides to enact against Kraft (essentially one of his bosses) isn’t clear.

First it is important to determine what authority the Commissioner, Goodell, has to arbitrate Kraft’s alleged misdeeds. Section 8.3(E) of the NFL Constitution and Bylaws state, “The Commissioner shall have full, complete, and final jurisdiction and authority to arbitrate: Any dispute involve a member or members in the league. . . that in the opinion of the Commissioner constitutes conduct detrimental to the best interests of the League or professional football.” In this case, especially with the fact that law enforcement agencies claim to have video evidence of Kraft paying for sexual favors, that Mr. Kraft’s conduct would be considered “conduct detrimental to the best interests of the League.”

Next it must be determined what disciplinary action the Commissioner may take, if he finds that Mr. Kraft, after proper notice and hearing is provided to Mr. Kraft, is guilty of conduct detrimental to the league. Section 8.13(A) lists, for this type of issue, two possible sanctions that Goodell can enact himself:

1. Suspend or fine such person in an amount not in excess of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000)
2. Cancel any contract or agreement of such person with the League or with any member thereof

The Commissioner may also, according to Section 8.13(B), “whenever the Commissioner determines that any punishment that the Commissioner has the power to impose pursuant to Section 8.13(A), is not adequate or sufficient, considering the nature and gravity of the offense involved, he may refer the matter to the Executive Committee, with the recommendation that all or any part of the following additional or increased punishments or discipline be imposed:”

1. Cancellation or forfeiture of the franchise in the League of any member club involved or implicated.
2. Require the sale of any stock or interest in a member club of such offending person
3. Make any other recommendation he deems appropriate

If the Executive committee does decide to pursue any of these disciplinary actions, the actions must be approved by two-third of the league members.

Precedent in determining how to go about appropriately punishing an NFL owner is hard-pressed. The most recent was Jim Irsay, the Colts owner, who in 2014 pleaded guilty to driving while impaired. In that situation Goodell fined Irsay $500,000 and suspended him for six games. The issue with using this as a similar punishment is twofold. One, Irsay was hardly punished. Irsay, according to Forbes, is worth $2.7B. A $500,000 fine isn’t even 1% of his worth. So, to “punish” Kraft with engaging in a crime more heinous than driving impaired, as human trafficking has become a global epidemic, would be an embarrassment. Irsay’s six game suspension is nominal. Irsay, as an owner, plays no significant part of a team’s weekly preparation and him not being able to watch the game at “his” stadium just means he watches from one of his many houses. So, to suspend an owner is worth very little. The penalty must be focused on what an NFL owner loves most – his money.

The NFL’s governance prevents it from adequately enacting punishment. First, Goodell’s punishments (8.12), are either extremely weak ($500,000 fine) or do not seem applicable to the situation. Therefore, it would seem that Goodell would recommend one of the sanctions that the Executive Committee may decide upon. The cancellation of the franchise or the League would set a too extreme precedent and also possibly cause players to be out of work and so would cause more victims. However, requiring Kraft to sell stock or interest in his team may be adequate. The Patriots do not have any minority owners. In turn, causing Kraft to lose complete control of the New England Patriots, which would cause him to incur a loss of revenue, may be the solution that the NFL would want to proscribe. Kraft’s criminality stems from something more egregious than Irsay driving impaired and requires a penalty that isn’t paltry and nominal. However, the way the NFL is governed prevents this sanction from occurring.

Furthermore, any sanction the Executive Committee may decide upon must be voted and approved by at least two-thirds of the league owners. The league owners understand that however they decide to deal with Kraft will set a precedent for future owners who engage in egregious behavior. More importantly, no owner wants to set a precedent which may force him to sell part of his stake, especially, like Kraft, the owner is the sole interest holder of his franchise. This is unfortunate because causing the owners to police themselves seems both arbitrary and risk prone. It seems most likely that the Executive Committee will issue a fine that is larger than $500,000. However, Kraft is an owner worth $6.6B, so even a $500 million fine is pennies.

The owners need to make sure they put morals over their own interests (i.e. greed). Surely the owners can admit that the NFL has been a complete PR nightmare since 2014. From the mishandling of domestic violence cases (Kareem Hunt and Ray Rice), to having to settle with Colin Kaepernick over his national anthem protests it seems the NFL, and its owners, could use some good publicity. Remember this is the league who USA Today keeps a “Player Arrest Database,” that isn’t necessarily a glowing reputation. In all likelihood the NFL won’t change its arbitrary governance, and so the common man must rely upon the rich to hold themselves accountable and punish their own who so willfully promulgates the disgusting enterprise that is human trafficking.