Gamblor and His Neon Claws

Baseball is back.  Tonight the Dodgers are on Apple TV+.  It’s not even April and I’m already mad about Major League Baseball making baseball difficult to watch.  But this post is going to be mostly about another issue that sports need to deal with.  I’m not optimistic that they’re going to deal with it.

The biggest story in baseball is the Shohei Ohtani interpreter gambling situation.  This reminds me of the Manti Te’o situation 11 years ago.  Immediately there were people who wanted to jump to the worst possible conclusion.  I am totally fine saying that if Shohei Ohtani bet on baseball, then he should get the Pete Rose treatment.  I seriously doubt he was betting on baseball.  There hasn’t even been any word about his interpreter betting on baseball.  Obviously I’m rooting for everything to get sorted out as quickly as possible and for Ohtani to be cleared of any wrongdoing.  I suspect it will take a while to get everything sorted out.  And like I said, if there’s evidence that he was gambling on baseball, that should be the end of his baseball career.  As long as he wasn’t gambling on baseball, I doubt he’s going to be in any real baseball trouble even if he’s not totally innocent in this situation.  There might be some legal issues, but I would guess that if he broke any laws, he could probably testify against people and he would be fine.

It is not surprising that the biggest story in baseball involves gambling.  Recently, we’ve had NFL players suspended for gambling, a Temple basketball gambling scandal, and a Jontay Porter gambling scandal in the NBA.  There might be other stories that I missed.  Sports have embraced gambling and that is a huge mistake.  If Pete Rose is banned from baseball (and he should be), then sports should not be embracing gambling.  They used to not have teams in Las Vegas.  If the A’s do move to Las Vegas and the NBA expands with a team in Las Vegas, all four professional sports will have a team in Las Vegas.  I know gambling laws have changed in many places, but no other city with professional sports teams was built on gambling.  Gambling ads are everywhere.  You can’t watch professional sports without seeing them.  I listen to a lot of podcasts and gambling ads are everywhere.  There are some podcasts that I won’t listen to in the car because I want to make sure I can skip the ads as quickly as possible (not just gambling ads, but I definitely do want to skip those).  How can anybody be surprised that we have these gambling scandals when sports have embraced gambling the way they have?

I’m not totally against gambling.  If people want to gamble responsibly and make friendly wagers, that’s fine.  If people want to be involved in some pools for the Super Bowl or the NCAA Tournament, have fun.  If two random Dodger fans have a podcast and they want to have gambling ads, then go right ahead.  I’m not against those things, but I am against casinos and FanDuel and Draft Kings and stuff like that.  Those things are all built on people not gambling responsibly.  If a podcast has any official connection to a team or league, they shouldn’t have gambling ads.  There shouldn’t be gambling ads in stadiums and arenas and on TV broadcasts of sporting events.

How likely is any of this to get fixed?  It probably won’t get fixed.  It will probably just get worse.  I am all for making money, but people shouldn’t make money by making things worse.  College sports are being destroyed by bad decisions being made because of money.  The murder of the Pac 12 by the Big 10 and the expanded college football playoff are the best examples of this.  The SEC commissioner wants to destroy the NCAA Tournament, the only thing that is universally loved in college sports.  It obviously shouldn’t happen, but I’m expecting it to happen at some point because that’s the direction college sports have been moving in.  So they absolutely get the influence of gambling out of sports, but I don’t expect that they will.

Speaking of making sports worse for more money, I have a solution to another problem created because they made something worse for more money.  The baseball playoffs have too many teams.  We’ve had the two best teams in the NL not make it to the NLCS in back to back years.  I already covered this in October, but I came up with another idea.  Baseball should use the NBA’s play in tournament format.  The 3 and 4 seeds play each other in one game.  The winner plays the 2 seed.  The loser plays the winner of the 5 vs. 6 game.  And the winner of that game plays the 1 seed.  I can’t imagine them doing that because they won’t want to use the same format as the NBA and it would also reduce the number of games in that round (3 games per league instead of 4-6).  But it would make the regular season more important.  Finishing third or fourth is definitely better than finishing fifth or sixth (two games to win one instead of needing to win both games).  And it would reduce the amount of time that the 1 and 2 seeds have to not play baseball while they wait for their opponent.

It’s the spring (well, I had my first Summer Ale yesterday for Opening Day, so maybe it’s summer already) so I’ll finish by updating my sports villain power rankings (my most recent rankings are at the end of this post):

25.  Logan Webb

I feel like I should have a Giant since baseball season just started.  Gabe Kapler isn’t their manager anymore, so Logan Webb gets the spot that would have gone to him.  Maybe somebody else will emerge this season.

24.  Luka Doncic

23.  Ime Udoka

22.  Stephen Curry

21.  James Harden

Doncic complains too much.  It’s also not fun to watch him dribble the ball all game.  Udoka and Curry both have the potential to get off of this list if either one of them eliminates the Lakers in the play in tournament.  Harden was Doncic before Doncic.  He’s not fun to watch.  It was funny how people talked themselves into the Clippers when they played well for a while.  They’re not going anywhere in the playoffs.

20.  Caleb Williams

19.  Lincoln Riley

Caleb Williams is still the most dislikable quarterback in football, but he’s not at USC anymore and it’s not football season.  In my sports villain power rankings last spring, I said, “I hope Jordan Botelho sacks him a few times and Benjamin Morrison intercepts him a few times in October.”  Well, Botelho didn’t sack him, but other Notre Dame defenders sacked him six times.  And Morrison only intercepted him once, but Xavier Watts intercepted him twice.  That was fun.  Lincoln Riley will always be unlikable.

18.  Brian Kelly

It’s another college football coach who will always be unlikable.

17.  Damian Lillard

16.  Kevin Durant

15.  Anthony Davis

14.  Jimmy Butler

13.  Draymond Green

It’s a whole bunch of unlikable basketball players.

12.  Manny Machado

11.  Fernando Tatis

And now we have some unlikable San Diego Padres (Tatis is also a cheater).

10.  Kyrie Irving

He hasn’t done anything terrible in a while.  It’s probably coming at some point.

6.  (tie) Jose Altuve, George Springer, Carlos Correa, and Alex Bregman

The most dislikable active baseball players will always be the hitters from the 2017 Astros.  Yuli Gurriel isn’t on a team right now so he’s been taken off this list (he’ll be right back on if he ends up on a team).

4.  (tie) Tony Petitti and Greg Sankey

The Big 10 and SEC are destroying college sports so their commissioners need to be on this list.

3.  Rob Manfred

Rob Manfred is retiring in 2029.  Why not five years ago?

2.  LeBron James

Until the Lakers are eliminated, he needs to be very high on this list.

1. Jim Harbaugh

He cheated to win a National Championship.  His championship is as valid as the 2017 Houston Astros World Series Championship.  Whether or not it gets vacated, nobody should ever forget that he needed to cheat to win a National Championship.

And I’ll induct a new member into my Sports Villain Hall of Fame.  My original class last year was Barry Bonds, Tom Brady, Reggie Bush, Phil Jackson, and Rafael Palmeiro.  Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll are no longer coaching.  They are Hall of Fame locks, but there has to be a waiting period (I know there was no waiting period for Tom Brady, but I’m making up my rules and they could conceivably end up coaching again).  There are a lot of good options.  But if I’m only adding one, it has to be the Barry Bonds of pitching.  Roger Clemens is our newest member of my Sports Villain Hall of Fame.

Anyway, it’s good to have baseball back.  I hope someday sports will renounce the gambling monster that has enslaved them.  It’s time to snatch sports from Gamblor’s neon claws!

The End of a Long Winter

As we all know, winter ends when I attend the Big East Tournament.  It’s one of my favorite sporting events of the year.  I went almost every year in whatever the decade before the 20s is called.  And then I didn’t go in 2020.  In fact, I haven’t had a blog post in March since 2020 when I lamented the demise of that college basketball season.  I was supposed to go to three nights of the Big East Tournament that year (Thursday-Saturday).  I had already decided not to go, but it ended up getting canceled on Thursday afternoon before any of the sessions I was supposed to go to.  I’ve been wanting to get back to the Big East Tournament ever since then.  I hadn’t really thought about it much this year until a few weeks ago.  I typically went multiple nights to the Big East Tournament, but when I checked the prices, they were pretty high.  Thursday night was reasonable though so I decided I would go if I could get somebody to go with me.  My first text was to Vin who has attended many Big East Tournaments with me and he was in so I was getting back to the Big East Tournament and the winter that never ended was going to end. I’ve gone to many Big East Tournament games with Vin over the years. Of course, the last Big East Tournament I went to was in 2019. I went Thursday and Saturday that year and Vin joined me for the championship game when we saw Villanova beat Seton Hall.

My last indoor sporting event that I needed a ticket for was an NBA G-League game with the Maine Red Claws (now Maine Celtics) taking on the Long Island Nets in January 2020.  Since then, the only indoor sporting events I’ve been to had been girls basketball games that I was coaching (we had our best season ever this year with a 9-4 finish and a loss in the semifinals) and a couple of volleyball games and boys basketball games at my school.  It felt really good to be going up those escalators in Madison Square Garden again.  We were seeing Creighton against Providence and Marquette against Villanova.  I have pretty simple rules about who to root for in the Big East.  I always root for Villanova because of their heroism in preventing North Carolina and Michigan from winning National Championships in 2016 and 2018.  I root for Catholic schools against non-Catholic schools.  I root for old Big East Teams except for UConn against new Big East teams generally.  Now I have to root against St. John’s against any other Catholic school because of Rick Pitino (I’ve always wanted St. John’s to be good because that would definitely make the Big East Tournament more exciting, but I can’t root for Rick Pitino). And I root for Butler over UConn.  I might make exceptions to those rules to root for results that would help get the Big East more teams in the NCAA Tournament (unless the team that might be helped was UConn).  But in this case, my rules all lined up to root for Providence and Villanova.  Creighton and Marquette were going to make the tournament.  Providence and Villanova were bubble teams.

The first game was exciting.  Providence led for most of the game.  They had a double-digit lead in the second half.  And then they let it slip away.  It felt like they were going to lose, but they executed late and won 78-73 despite being even in rebounding and three pointers and Creighton making nine more free throws.  Devin Carter had 22 points and 11 rebounds.  Vin had to leave to get his ferry back to New Jersey after the first game.  I stayed for the first half of the second game.  Villanova led by one at halftime.  I wanted to stay for the whole game since it was close, but I was already looking at getting home after midnight and I had to go to work the next day.  In my younger days, I probably would have stayed.  I missed an exciting finish.  Marquette made a shot at the buzzer to seemingly win the game, but it was overturned (it didn’t look like it should have been overturned).  Marquette ended up winning anyway in overtime 71-65.  The game ended just shortly before I got home around 12:15.  So that was a disappointing result.

My current phone definitely takes higher quality pictures than the one I had the last time I went to the Big East Tournament in 2019.

Actually almost everything after Wednesday in the tournament was a disappointing result.  On Thursday afternoon, Connecticut won and St. John’s beat Seton Hall.  It seemed like the winner of St. John’s-Seton Hall had a good chance of making the NCAA tournament and the loser probably wouldn’t make it.  If Seton Hall had no chance of making the tournament, I could bring myself to root for St. John’s since they are a Catholic school that was a bubble team, but I’m not going to root for Rick Pitino to keep another Catholic school out of the tournament.  Then on Friday, I was rooting for St. John’s because they were playing Connecticut and another win would solidify their position in the tournament.  And I was rooting for Providence against Marquette because Marquette was definitely making the tournament and Providence was a bubble team.  Well, Connecticut and Marquette won.  And of course, I was rooting for Marquette over Connecticut in the championship game, but Connecticut won.  So in the last seven games of the tournament, the only one that went the way I wanted was Providence-Creighton.

As it would turn out, Saturday and Sunday were disastrous for the Big East.  They had three teams that were definitely in and four bubble teams.  Of the four bubble teams, it seemed like Villanova was out and St. John’s, Seton Hall, and Providence had a chance.  With all the upsets in other conference tournaments and bids getting stolen, none of the Big East bubble teams made it.  Hopefully next year a Catholic school that isn’t St. John’s will win the Big East tournament and they’ll get more teams to the NCAA tournament.

It was great to be back at the Big East Tournament with Vin.  Although I didn’t see Connecticut in person, this was my first tournament since Connecticut rejoined the conference.  Obviously, Connecticut has strengthened the conference.  Eleven teams seems like a weird number.  I know it works well for scheduling since they all play each other twice.  But 12 or 16 teams would make for a better conference tournament.  Twelve would give you a full day on Wednesday.  Sixteen would give you a full day on Tuesday and Wednesday with some pretty good games on Wednesday.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Big East does expand at some point.  When the ACC inevitably falls apart because the Big 10, SEC, and ESPN are committed to destroying college football, I hope Notre Dame stays independent in football and goes back to the Big East for everything else.  That’s pretty much been my dream ever since we left.  So we would be the 12th team.  If we’re getting to 16, I would then add Syracuse (I despise them, but much like Connecticut, they belong in the Big East), Boston College (or Holy Cross because it would be funny to take them and not Boston College), Dayton, and some other Atlantic 10 team (VCU, Richmond, Loyola Chicago, Duquesne, or somebody).

Speaking of the Big Ten and SEC trying to destroy college football, it seems like they also might want to destroy college basketball.  Greg Sankey has been talking about ruining the NCAA tournament.  This is the one thing that everybody agrees is awesome about college sports.  And the SEC commissioner wants to destroy it.  If you’re going to do anything with the tournament, I would expand it slightly.  I’ve heard the suggestion to go to 72 teams and have eight play in games with all at large teams.  The argument is that it would make the play in games more interesting and any conference champion should get the experience of playing in the round of 64.  If they did that, I would be totally fine with it.  I am sympathetic to the idea that the worst team should get to be a sacrificial lamb for a 1 seed instead of losing a play in game.  But if it was up to me, I would make it 72 teams with four play in games for at large teams and all four 16 spots determined by play in games.  What I like about that idea is that it would improve the quality of 16 seeds a little bit because two teams that would have been 15 seeds under the current format would get bumped down to play in games.  But I’d be fine with doing all at large teams in the play in games also.  Either way, I think 72 is the right number and I would have a second play in site so that you could get two games going at once instead of having everything in Dayton.

So we’re into the NCAA tournament now.  There are seven Catholic schools in the tournament.  As I’m writing this, things are not looking good for Dayton (update: Dayton came back from down 17 in the second half so that’s awesome).  It seems like Marquette, Creighton, St. Mary’s, and Gonzaga are the Catholic schools with a chance to make a run.  But Duquesne already won their first game in the tournament in 55 years or something like that so that’s cool.  Hopefully Micah Shrewsberry will have Notre Dame back in the NCAA tournament consistently soon.  I’m optimistic as everybody said our team was going to be horrendous this year, but we had a pretty solid finish despite not having much talent.  Until then, I’ll be rooting for the other Catholic schools.

And I’ll just finish with one other thought.  The CBS college basketball music is very very good.  But the best basketball theme music ever (maybe the best of any sport ever) is Roundball Rock.  Of course, I grew up with it on the NBA on NBC in the 90s.  It’s taken a little while, but I’ve gotten used to it being used as Fox’s college basketball theme.  I wish Fox would use it just for one day with its lyrics (since it is a lyrics-first song):

There’s a lot not to like about Saturday Night Live, but sometimes they nail it (this season they had a George Washington skit that was absolutely fantastic).  Anyway, even though the tournament isn’t on Fox, this is pretty much what’s been going on in my head ever since the conference tournaments started: