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02/03/2025
Rory wins No. 27
Add-on posted early Tues. a.m.
NBA
--After the Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis blockbuster, the San Antonio Spurs acquired point guard De’Aaron Fox from Sacramento in a 3-team deal, with Zach LaVine going from Chicago to Sacramento.
Fox, 27, is averaging 25.0 points, 6.1 assists and 5 rebounds, and now he gets to feed Victor Wembanyama, which had long been Fox’s request.
LaVine, 29, is averaging 24.0 points per game and will reunite with former Bulls teammate DeMar DeRozan.
--Back to the Doncic shocker...the 25-year-old spent his first seven years in Dallas after he was initially drafted by the Atlanta Hawks with the third overall pick in 2018 but was traded for the draft rights to Trae Young.
In his first statement since the trade, Doncic posted on X:
“Seven years ago, I came here as a teenager to pursue my dream of playing basketball at the highest level. I thought I’d spend my career here and I wanted so badly to bring you a championship.”
Doncic helped lead the Mavs back to the NBA Finals last season for the first time since 2011, when Dallas won its first NBA title. The Mavs then fell short to the Celtics in five games.
“The love and support you all have given me is more than I could have ever dreamed of. For a young kid from Slovenia coming to the U.S. for the first time, you made North Texas feel like home. ...Dallas is a special place, and Mavs fans are special fans. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”
A large number of Mavericks fans expressed their bewilderment, ditto Doncic’s father, who blasted management (but this in and of itself tells you something...read between the lines).
To Lakers management, Doncic wrote: “Grateful for this amazing opportunity. Basketball means everything to me, and no matter where I play the game, I’ll do so with the same joy, passion and goal – to win championships.”
Charles Barkley weighed in on the trade, suggesting in an appearance on NBA TV Sunday that perhaps Doncic was traded for good reasons that were evident to the Mavericks and not anyone else.
“Let me tell you something. The only people that know Luka Doncic is the Dallas Mavericks,” Barkley said. “Guys who have been with him for years, who have been with him every day. He’s a great player, but all of us talking heads... They must know something we don’t know. Listen, he’s been hurt. Everybody complains about his conditioning. But once you give a guy five years, $350 million, y’all are stuck together for life.”
As I noted last time, it seems clear management was concerned because of the health/conditioning issue, and I think Sir Charles nailed it.
--The Knicks (33-17) had a great win Monday at the Garden over the tough Rockets (32-17) 124-118, Jalen Brunson showing off his All-Star skills, 42 points and 10 assists, New York with a 46-point fourth quarter.
College Basketball
New AP Poll, records a/o Sunday....
1. Auburn 20-1 (62)
2. Duke 19-2
3. Alabama 19-3
4. Tennessee 18-4
5. Houston 17-4
6. Florida 18-3
7. Purdue 17-5
8. Iowa State 17-4
9. Michigan State 18-3
10. Texas A&M 17-5
11. Marquette 18-4
12. St. John’s 19-3...highest since 1999-2000 season.
13. Texas Tech 17-4...up 9
14. Kentucky 15-6
15. Missouri 17-4
16. Kansas 15-6
17. Memphis 18-4
18. Maryland 17-5
19. UConn 16-6
20. Arizona 15-6
21. Wisconsin 17-5
22. Mississippi State 16-6...down 8
23. Illinois 15-7
24. Michigan 16-5
25. Ole Miss 16-6
Only one ACC team in Top 25...Clemson (26) and Louisville (28).
MLB
--The Tigers signed solid starting pitcher Jack Flaherty to a two-year, $35 million deal, including an opt-out for the 2026 season.
Flaherty was terrific last season with both Detroit and then the Los Angeles Dodgers, going 13-7, 3.17 ERA, with 194 strikeouts and 38 walks in 162 innings, though he was less successful in the playoffs for L.A., posting a 7.36 ERA in five appearances.
Earlier in his career, the 29-year-old had some solid seasons with the Cardinals and he’s 55-41 lifetime, 3.63 ERA.
--Fay Vincent died over the weekend, 86. He was a former top executive at Columbia Pictures and Coca-Cola, an Ivy League-educated corporate lawyer whose rise to commissioner of baseball was a result of his longstanding friendship with A. Bartlett Giamatti, then the president of Yale University. Their shared passions for baseball and literary scholarship cemented their bond. The cerebral Mr. Vincent had once spoken of the “special relationship between baseball and the American soul.”
When Giamatti became commissioner of baseball in April 1989, Mr. Vincent negotiated his contract. Giamatti then named him as his deputy.
Because of his legal background, Giamatti then asked Vincent to work with Pete Rose after an investigation led by Washington lawyer John Dowd uncovered evidence that Rose had placed bets on baseball in the 1980s while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
The commissioner’s office had been created in 1919 in the wake of the gambling scandal surrounding the Chicago White Sox (Black Sox) who were accused of throwing the World Series in exchange for money from gamblers.
The agreement Vincent then helped craft permanently banned Rose from working in any capacity with a major league team. The Baseball Hall of Fame then ruled Rose was ineligible for election, even though he was the Game’s all-time hit leader.
Rose’s efforts to be reinstated were all turned down by later commissioners. For his part, Fay Vincent never conceded any ground.
“As long as that deterrent remains in place, nobody in baseball will bet on baseball – not an umpire, not a commissioner, not a groundskeeper, not anybody,” Vincent said in 2015. “Because the minute they do it, they’re out for life, and people like their jobs. They know that if we threw Pete Rose out, they would be thrown out in a minute.”
Giamatti died of a heart attack eight days after announcing the findings on Rose. Vincent was then approved as baseball’s eighth commissioner, by a vote of team owners, on Sept. 13, 1989. It would prove to be a most bumpy ride.
Just over a month later, Oct. 17, minutes before Game 3 of the World Series in San Francisco, the Loma Prieta earthquake shook Northern California, and heavy damage was reported in the region, including to transportation and infrastructure. Vincent delayed the series for 10 days, saying, “Baseball is not the highest priority to be dealt with.”
But the owners disagreed with Vincent’s handling of the situation, beginning a long internal battle that would lead to Vincent’s departure.
Among the issues, several of the 26 owners at the time were pissed that Vincent volunteered each of them to contribute $50,000 to earthquake relief efforts. Even his friend George W. Bush – then the principal owner of the Texas Rangers – told Vincent that he should have called before he offered the money on the owners’ behalf.
But that was just the beginning for Vincent. On Dec. 31, 1989, baseball’s collective-bargaining agreement between the players and owners expired. When a new agreement couldn’t be reached, the owners declared a lockout of players during the 1990 spring training. Vincent opposed the move and took an active role in negotiations, and a new contract was hammered out.
“I knew I couldn’t just sit there and watch baseball head over a cliff,” he told the New York Times. “There’s a public trust involved here.”
Later in 1990, Vincent banned George Steinbrenner from day-to-day operations of the Yankees after it was revealed that the owner had hired a professional gambler to uncover damaging information about one of his star players, Dave Winfield. Steinbrenner was seeking to trade him or nullify his contract.
Despite his consensus-building and ingratiating personality, the owners wanted to run Vincent out of the game anyway, with a hard-line group of small-franchise owners, led by Bud Selig of the Brewers, wanting Vincent to demand more concessions from the players’ union.
In September 1992, soon after the owners passed a no-confidence resolution against him, Vincent resigned, succeeded by Selig, who then served as commissioner until 2015.
“Some want the commissioner to represent only owners, and to do their bidding in all matters,” Vincent wrote in his letter of resignation. “I haven’t done that, and I could not do so, because I accepted the position believing the commissioner has a higher duty.”
In a 2002 memoir, “The Last Commissioner,” Vincent wrote blisteringly about the way Selig and other owners had treated him, noting, “I truly could not stomach the thought of being in the same room with these people.”
But I had to pass on a story from one of Vincent’s other books on the game, this one “We Would Have Played for Nothing,” which Vincent wrote in 2008, interviews with old-time players that I happen to have in my bookcase.
One of them was Duke Snider, the Hall of Famer and Brooklyn Dodger great.
In 1954, Snider hit .341, his best season batting average wise, along with 40 home runs and 130 RBIs, finishing fourth in the MVP vote. He was just 27.
Snider: Buzzie Bavasi was in charge of the contracts. He’d call Pee Wee (Reese) up and he called me up and we really hadn’t arrived at a figure for our yearly salary. Every year, you had to renew your contract, because there were no multiyear contracts then. But Buzzie had said, “Well, come on down.” He told Pee Wee and me both. “Come on down to spring training, and we’ll have you sign your contract down here.” “Well, what am I going to make?” He said, “We’ll talk about it when you get down here.” So we went down, first day of spring training. We went into the clubhouse and put our uniforms on. We still hadn’t signed. And we came out of the clubhouse, out to the practice field, and here’s Edna, who was Buzzie Bavasi’s secretary. And Edna’s got two contracts in her hand.
She said, “You can’t work out until you sign these contracts.” I looked, and I said, “Edna, there’s no figure in here.” And Buzzie said, “Well, we’ll get that straightened out, but you’ve got to sign the contracts so you can go out and work out.” And so Pee Wee said, “Well, there’s no figure in mine, either.” He said, “Same thing. Just sign it and we’ll work it out. We’ll work it out with you.” So we signed. We didn’t know what we were making until our first paycheck. Then we figured out how much we were making. And we never did sit down and talk about it. We weren’t positive of the exact figure.
It’s just like Gil Hodges and Buzzie sat down one time and Gil wanted $27,500 for that year. He had a good year the year before. And we’re not talking about much money today, but that was a lot of money then. Anyway, Gil wanted $27,500. And Buzzie said, “Well, I can’t give it to you, Gil. That’s X amount of dollars raise and, if the ballplayers hear about it, they’re going to come to me and want more money, and this and that. “I can’t do it, but,” he said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do.” He said, “I’ll tear up five pieces here, and I’ll write a figure on each piece of paper. And I’ll put them all in this hat. And then, you draw one out and that’s what you’re going to make next year.”
“Yes,” Gil said, “sounds good to me.” So what Buzzie did, he put $27,500 on all five pieces of paper. Gili didn’t know this. And so Gil reached in, pulled it out. He said, “I got my $27,500.” Buzzie said, “Well, you got me that time, Gil.” And he took the hat with the other pieces of paper, put it under his desk. And Gil to this day doesn’t know – well, he’s dead now – he didn’t know to his dying day that the other slips had $27,500 on them.”
--In light of the above on Fay Vincent, it was a bit ironic Monday that Major League Baseball fired umpire Pat Hoberg for “sharing” legal sports betting accounts with a friend who bet on baseball and for intentionally deleting messages key to the investigation into his conduct.
Commissioner Rob Manfred said there was “no evidence” that Hoberg directly bet on games or manipulated the outcomes of any games “in any way.”
But in its statement, MLB said it fired Hoberg for failing to “uphold the integrity of the game” and that he “should have known” that his friend – a professional poker player – had bet on baseball from the shared account.
Hoberg took “full responsibility for the errors in judgment.”
Hoberg, said to be one of baseball’s best umpires, is the first known umpire to be terminated for violating baseball’s gambling policy.
Golf
--I’m looking forward to the Waste Management Open this coming weekend in Phoenix, always the perfect lead-in to the Super Bowl, especially if you’re like me and don’t want to watch hours of pregame.
But back to Sunday and Rory McIlroy’s win, that was exactly what the sport needed, having the sports television airwaves to themselves, a perfect tonic for an otherwise very slow start to the PGA Tour season.
In winning his 27th Tour event, Rory became the first player to hit that level since Phil Mickelson reached it in 2005 at the PGA Championship.
It also marks the eighth straight season that McIlroy has won on the PGA Tour.
For those of us watching Pebble, wasn’t Rory’s driving absolutely amazing?!
Stuff
Beyonce finally scored the top prize at the Grammy Awards, taking album of the year for the first time in her career, as well Best Country Album for “Cowboy Carter.”
“I just feel very full and very honored. It’s been many, many years,” Beyonce said on stage, standing next to her daughter Blue Ivy Carter, who sure as heck doesn’t look 13, I can’t help but add.
Rapper Kendrick Lamar claimed record and song of the year for “Not Like Us,” a diss track in his feud with Canadian rapper and singer Drake. Lamar swept the five categories he was nominated for. He’ll continue his roll by doing the halftime show on Sunday.
Chappell Roan was Best New Artist.
Next Bar Chat, Sunday...immediately after the game.
-----
[Posted Sunday p.m.]
Add-on up top by noon, Tues.
Green Bay Packers Quiz: 1) What was Bart Starr’s career playoff record? 2) Where did his primary receivers in that era, 1960-67 – Carroll Dale, Boyd Dowler and Max McGee – go to college? Answers below.
College Basketball
--Not a lot of dramatic games during the week....
Tuesday, 15 St. John’s (18-3, 9-1) continued to roll, 66-41 over Georgetown (13-8, 4-6), Rick Pitino’s Johnnies holding the Hoyas to 14 of 57 shooting from the field, 24.6%. Yuck.
12 Kentucky (15-5, 4-3) had a big road win at 8 Tennessee (17-4, 4-4) 78-73.
But Wake Forest (15-6, 7-3) laid an egg at 21 Louisville (16-5, 9-1), 72-59, and understand it was far from this close, 45-21 at the half, with Hunter Sallis stupidly picking up two technical and exiting early.
Bye-bye, NCAA Tournament hopes. But the fact is, this just isn’t a real good team. Until Tuesday, we had, however, played decent defense. And the ACC is godawful this year.
Another reminder that we’re a Soccer/Baseball conference, not hoops or football.
--We then had lots of upsets/pseudo upsets on Saturday....
No. 1 Auburn (20-1, 8-0) beat 23 Ole Miss (16-6, 5-4) 92-82, as Johni Broome had 20 points and 12 rebounds, having recovered from his ankle injury.
And 2 Duke (19-2, 11-0) defeated North Carolina (13-10, 6-5) 87-70, Cooper Flagg with 21 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists. Some are calling for Carolina head coach Hubert Davis to be fired at the end of the season.
But 3 Iowa State (17-4, 7-3) suffered a brutal loss at home at the hands of Kansas State (10-11, 4-6) 80-61.
5 Florida (18-3, 5-3) lost at 8 Tennessee (18-4, 5-4) 64-44, the Gators shooting just 13 of 53 from the field, 24.5%.
6 Houston (17-4, 9-1) lost at home to 22 Texas Tech (17-4, 8-2), 82-81 in an overtime thriller, as the Red Raiders ended the Cougars’ 13-game winning streak .
USC (13-8, 5-5) upset 7 Michigan State (18-3, 9-1) 70-64, ending the Spartans’ 13-game streak.
25 UConn (16-6, 8-3) beat 9 Marquette (18-4, 9-2) 77-69.
11 Kansas (15-6, 6-4) lost to Baylor (14-7, 6-4) 81-70.
John Calipari returned to Lexington and his Arkansas Razorbacks (13-8, 2-6) embarrassed his former club, 12 Kentucky (15-6, 4-4), 89-79, Coach Cal booed heavily as he made his way onto the court.
15 St. John’s (19-3, 10-1) took advantage of 20 turnovers by Providence (11-11, 5-6), winning it 68-66 in a nailbiter. Kadary Richmond had his best game for the Johnnies, 24 points with 8 rebounds and 8 assists, including the key bucket down the stretch.
21 Louisville (16-6, 9-2) lost at Georgia Tech (10-12, 4-7) 77-70.
Rutgers (11-11, 4-7), playing without Dylan Harper, fell at home to Michigan (16-5, 8-2) 66-63, Ace Bailey just 3 of 15 from the field for the Scarlet Knights, 0 for 7 from three.
And Wake Forest (16-6, 8-3) got a needed win against Pitt (14-7, 5-5) 76-74, the Deacs’ Ty-Laur Johnson going 6-for-6 from the line down the stretch to seal the deal.
Pitt made all 20 of its free throw attempts, while Wake was 20-for-22.
NBA
--Wednesday, the Knicks (32-16) won their fifth straight, 122-112 over the Nuggets (28-19) at the Garden, Jalen Brunson with 30 points and 15 assists, while the New York ‘D’ held Nikola Jokic to just 17 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists.
Last night, however, the Knicks fell to the visiting Lakers, 128-112, in a poor effort, LeBron with a triple-double, 33-11-12, while for New York, Josh Hart had another triple-double himself, 26-13-11, though he was -20 on the floor.
But the big news for the Knicks was OG Anunoby leaving the game with a non-contact right foot sprain, which could be costly.
Shortly after the game, however, the NBA was shocked by the announcement that the Lakers were trading star Anthony Davis, who didn’t play against the Knicks, to the Mavericks in exchange for Luka Doncic.
Doncic, a five-time NBA All-Star, will now play alongside LeBron.
The 25-year-old Doncic was eligible to sign a five-year, $345 million contract extension with the Mavericks this summer. All signs pointed toward him inking the deal...but then this.
Doncic has been oft-injured this season, playing just 22 games, but averaging 28.1 points, 8.3 rebounds and 7.8 assists, missing time recently due to a calf injury.
Anthony Davis, 31, ends a six-year stint with the Lakers that included an NBA championship in 2020. The 10-time All-Star is averaging 24.8 points and 11 rebounds this season. He’ll now pair with 8-time All-Star Kyrie Irving in Dallas.
The Mavs will also acquire Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick, while the Lakers land Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris.
The Jazz are a third team in the deal, acquiring Jalen Hood-Schifino and multiple second-round picks, per league sources.
This is a huge gamble for the Mavs...and indeed one of the more stunning trades in NBA history.
But word is Dallas was concerned over Doncic’s conditioning and lifestyle, and thus didn’t want to commit to him beyond this season, while at the same time, it seems he wants to move on in the offseason.
I have to admit, I was surprised to look up his stats and see how the most games he played in any one season was his rookie year, 72, and last year’s 70 was the most in five seasons. And he’s just 25.
--Also Saturday night, the Thunder improved to 38-9 with a 144-110 win over the Kings (24-24), Aaron Wiggins with a career-high 41 points and 14 rebounds.
--Sunday, the Cavs (40-9) then whipped the Mavericks (26-24) 144-101, Sam Merrill 9 of 13 from three off the bench!
--They announced the reserves for the NBA All-Star team.
Eastern Conference
Jaylen Brown, Celtics; Cade Cunningham, Pistons; Darius Garland, Cavs; Tyler Herro, Heat; Damian Lillard, Bucks; Evan Mobley, Cavs; Pascal Siakam, Pacers.
Western Conference
Anthony Davis, Lakers/Mavs; Anthony Edwards, Timberwolves; James Harden, Clippers; Jarren Jackson Jr., Grizzlies; Alperen Sengun, Rockets; Victor Wembanyama, Spurs; Jalen Williams, Thunder.
Big stuff for first-timers Sengun, Jalen Williams, Cunningham, Mobley and Herro.
There is no longer an “All-Star Game,” which was a joke and I never, ever watched it.
Now they break the 24 All-Star selections into three teams of eight that, combined with the winner of the Rising Stars Challenge, will compete in a mini tournament...an effort to spice things up.
--Commissioner Adam Silver, faced with sagging TV ratings, told “The Dan Patrick Show” that he’s “a fan” of the idea of going to 10-minute quarters – which is the format for international and college hoops [women’s college hoops, not the men, who play 20-minute halves.]
“Putting aside what it would mean for records and things like that, I think that a two-hour format for a game is more consistent for modern television habits,” Silver said, later adding: “I don’t think most fans would be disappointed if it was a two-hour presentation.”
Various NBA coaches chimed in, with the Knicks’ Tom Thibodeau saying: “I’m probably more traditional so I’d hate to see that.”
No freakin’ chance this sees the light of day.
--But there are some legitimate complaints on the timing issue and the NCAA, for example, is moving the starting time of the men’s basketball national championship game up 30 minutes to 8:50 p.m. ET from 9:20 p.m. ET, the NCAA announced Tuesday.
The College Football Playoff smartly moved its championship game starting time to 7:30 p.m. from 8:00 p.m. ET this year, though Ohio State-Notre Dame actually didn’t begin until closer to 7:45 p.m.
--Federal prosecutors have been investigating whether NBA veteran Terry Rozier manipulated his performance as part of an illegal sports betting scheme.
The inquiry into Rozier is part of a wider government probe into a sprawling ring of gamblers and poker players who have allegedly rigged games across the sports landscape, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal. The same investigation led to a criminal charge and a lifetime ban from the NBA for former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter.
Authorities believe some of the people who arranged for Porter to fix his performance in two games last season had inside information that prompted them to bet large sums of money against Rozier a year earlier.
But unlike Porter, a fringe player, Rozier is an established presence who has been a solid contributor for more than a decade, averaging more than 20 points a game twice for Charlotte.
Rozier hasn’t been charged with a crime or accused of wrongdoing, and it hasn’t been determined whether he was deliberately helping bettors.
“In March 2023, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity related to Terry Rozier’s performance in a game between Charlotte and New Orleans,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said. “The league conducted an investigation and did not find a violation of NBA rules. We are now aware of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York related to this matter and have been cooperating with that investigation.”
On March 23, 2023, Rozier was a member of the Hornets. The betting on him was strange enough that day to raise alarms at U.S. Integrity, a firm that works with sports entities, gambling operators and government agencies to monitor betting markets for suspicious activity.
Unusual wagers were coming in on Rozier failing to meet certain statistical benchmarks, such as the total number of points or rebounds he would record in the game. Some of the sportsbooks stopped accepting bets on Rozier’s stats that day, according to the Journal.
Rozier started for the Hornets against the Pelicans that night seemingly fit to play. He had been averaging 35 minutes and 21 points a game.
But in this game, he played just over nine minutes before being substituted out during a timeout with a foot injury and didn’t return. Rozier would miss the remaining eight games of the season for the struggling Hornets.
Sports bettors noticed, taking to social media in droves to express confusion and frustration about what had transpired.
Authorities are exploring the gambling ring’s potential ties to college basketball as well, people familiar with the probe said.
To be continued...though we really hope not....
NFL
--I normally don’t write much about stuff like this, because you are innocent until proven guilty, but for one, thank god this story isn’t part of the Super Bowl.
Ravens kicker Justin Tucker has been accused of inappropriate behavior by six massage therapists from different spas in the Baltimore area, according to a report in the Baltimore Banner. Tucker was banned from two of the spas, and of several massage therapists ended their sessions with him early or refused to work him again due to his alleged conduct.
The alleged conduct is pretty awful and all six massage therapists interviewed offered similar accounts of his misconduct.
The incidents took place from 2012, Tucker’s rookie season, to 2016.
Tucker put out a lengthy statement saying the allegations are “unequivocally false” and describing the story as “desperate tabloid fodder.”
Tucker’s attorneys denied the allegations and said Tucker has not been banned from the two spas that said they have banned him.
The message therapists who spoke to the Baltimore Banner have not taken their allegations to police.
The NFL said it was looking into the matter. Saturday, three other women came forward with similar allegations.
--I love the moves the Jets are making, the hiring of Tanner Engstrand as offensive coordinator the latest.
Engstrand was the passing game coordinator for the Lions the last four years that new head coach Aaron Glenn was the teams’ defensive coordinator.
And you see the success the Lions had in the passing game.
But who will be the Jets’ QB? Aaron Rodgers can take his time making his decision, and that’s not good.
MLB
--Mets fans are still waiting to see what happens with first baseman Pete Alonso. Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports writes that Pete “badly wants to return to the New York Mets while the club insists they want him back too, but he must decide whether he’s going to swallow his pride and take the Mets’ three-year offer for about $70 million.”
As I’ve noted in recent weeks, the Mets aren’t budging, David Stearns, the GM, just not believing Pete will continue to produce at a high level, as well as having a desire to give some of the younger players in the system an opportunity to grab the opportunity and run with it, a la Mark Vientos last season.
Pete, and his agent, Scott Boras, want much more than $70 million and the Mets are not giving it to them. They could sweeten the first year, and give him an opt-out.
He has no other offers. He’d end up signing a one-year, $20 million deal somewhere and he’d be an unhappy mess.
As for the Astros and third baseman Alex Bregman, he is not worth the six-year, $156 million proposal the team once offered...and as Nightengale notes, that offer isn’t yet back on the table. Bregman will end up taking a lower deal somewhere.
--Max Scherzer signed a one-year, $15.5 million deal with Toronto that is likely his last as a major leaguer, Scherzer turning 41 this summer. It’s his fifth team in five seasons.
Despite all his injuries since 2022, when he’s been on the mound, Scherzer has been OK.
--Major League Baseball took in a reported $12.1 billion in revenue for the 2024 fiscal year, according to Forbes, a record high, breaking the previous record of $11.6 billion in 2023.
The figure does not include any other companies owned by the teams or mixed-use developments around the stadium, like the Braves’ The Battery, according to Forbes, nor does it include revenue from team-owned RSNs, which typically bring in tens of millions of dollars annually.
Going back to 2014, MLB has increased revenues from a reported $9 billion to $12.1 billion, or more than 33% growth in 10 years.
The release of the report comes on the heels of Orioles owner David Rubenstein, who is worth an estimated $4.1 billion, saying he wishes MLB would have a salary cap “the way other sports do.” The MLB Players Association has long insisted they will never agree to a cap.
League-wide attendance last season topped 71 million fans and was the highest MLB has seen since 2017.
--And we learned this afternoon that former commissioner Fay Vincent died. He was 86. I’ll have something in my Add-on...actually, something from a book of his that you won’t find anywhere else that is kind of funny and enlightening.
Golf Balls
--Scottie Scheffler finally revealed how he injured his hand on broken glass during a press conference prior to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Scheffler was attempting to make homemade ravioli on Christmas Day – with limited equipment in a rental home – when he realized he’d made a serious mistake. He decided to use an empty wine glass to shape and slice his pasta dough.
“I had my hand on top of it and it broke, which, side note, I’ve heard nothing but horror stories since this happened about wine glasses, so be careful,” Scheffler said Tuesday. “Even if you’re like me and you don’t drink wine, you’ve got to be real careful with wine glasses.”
The stem of the wine glass stabbed Scheffler in the upper palm of his right hand. That led to a surgical procedure that forced him to miss the first two tournaments of the year he was slated to play in.
“It’s one of those deals where immediately after it happened, I was mad at myself because I was like gosh, that’s so stupid, but you just don’t think about it when you’re in the moment,” he continued. “Yeah, definitely been a little more careful doing stuff at home.”
Scheffler was lucky to have a friend who is a surgeon and helped stop the bleeding. The next day rolled around and the wound was no longer open, but the pain remained, and Scheffler felt a general lack of range of motion. He decided to reach out to a hand doctor he’s worked with on a thumb injury while in college and they opted for surgery. Scheffler said that he does not expect his right hand to incur any long-term damage.
As for the golf, after three rounds we had a terrific leaderboard....
Sepp Straka -16
Rory McIlroy -15
Shane Lowry -15
Justin Rose -14
Tom Kim -14
Cam Davis -14
Scheffler -10
And after the front nine....
Rory -16
Straka -16
Kim -16
Rose -15
Davis -15
Ah, the views of Pebble, the sun out, compared to yesterday’s glom and rain, never grows old, even as we all rapidly age.
Rory then eagles the par-5 14th to go to -20, 3-up on Lowry.
CBS then went to Tony Finau, who finished -12, and he was terrific...a natural commentator. And it was touching, the video of his 6th child...3 boys, 3 girls...God love you, Tony.
Rory then closes the deal, PGA Tour win No. 27. Good for the game, as us fans say. And a cool $3.6 million for the lad from Northern Ireland.
--LIV Golf signed Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin. I wrote the other week of how Rory McIlroy was trying to talk McKibbin out of it. But McKibbin, 27, has been linked to the Saudi-backed league for months and even though he earned his PGA Tour card through the DP World Tour, he announced he was joining Legion XIII, the club helmed by Jon Rahm.
Really stupid move.
Premier League
In games this weekend, Nottingham obliterated Brighton 7-0, a week after falling to Bournemouth 5-0. I’d say that’s bouncing back nicely.
Liverpool beat Bournemouth 2-0. And Newcastle lost to Fulham 2-1.
Today, Tottenham got off the schneid, 2-0 at Brentford.
But in the biggie today, Arsenal blitzed Manchester City 5-1...a game that City had tied at 1-1 at the 55’ mark and then the Gunners rolled at home.
The Table...23/24 of 38 played – points....
1. Liverpool...23 – 56
2. Arsenal...24 – 50
3. Nottingham Forest...24 – 41
4. Man City...24 – 41
5. Newcastle...24 – 41
6. Chelsea...23 – 40
Stuff
--The New York Rangers made another big trade, acquiring center J.T. Miller from Vancouver for Filip Chytill, others involved in the deal.
Miller was a solid player for the Rangers from 2012-2018, but flourished his last three seasons in Vancouver, scoring a career-high 103 points last year.
Miller was then in the lineup less than 24 hours later for New York, but despite his two goals, the Rangers lost to the Bruins in Boston, 6-3, New York’s third straight loss after a terrific streak brought them back into the wild card hunt.
--Alex Ovechkin scored in Washington’s 5-4 loss to Winnipeg Saturday, career No. 877. Ovechkin is now just 18 shy of breaking Wayne Gretzky’s mark.
--Mikaela Shiffrin was back on the slopes, finishing 10th in a slalom race in Courchevel, France, Thursday, after being out 61 days following her crash at Killington, Vermont.
Shiffrin was smiling after. “I’m so happy to be back competing...Hopefully I get faster in the next weeks.”
She still doesn’t know what impaled her when she went crashing into the fence at Killington, but the puncture wound was deep.
Shiffrin will next ski at the world championships in about two weeks in Saalbach, Austria. The Worlds begin Feb. 4, but Shiffrin’s two events, the giant slalom and slalom, aren’t until Feb. 13 and 15.
--It was sadly ironic, that a day after the tragic air disaster at Reagan National Airport that claimed 14 members of U.S. Figure Skating, the great Dick Button, the face of figure skating for decades, died Thursday at the age of 95.
Button was the first American Olympic gold medalist in the sport back in 1948, then again in 1952. As a commentator on television, he then “took the nation by the hand and escorted all of us into the often arcane and always dramatic world of jumps and spins, slips and falls, kissing and crying.” [Christine Brennan / USA TODAY Sports]
As Ms. Brennan continued:
“Button anointed stars with an on-air sentence. A triple jump wasn’t good unless he said it was. When he shed a tear in the ABC Sports broadcast booth for the injured Randy Gardner and his partner, Tai Babilonia, as they withdrew from the pairs competition at the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics, fans wept with him.
“Viewers put their faith in him, and rightly so, because you can make a pretty strong case that no other sport has produced anyone quite like Dick Button. As a pioneering superstar, an innovator, a businessperson and a powerbroker, he was to figure skating what Arnold Palmer was to golf, bringing the sport to the masses – and making a lot of money in the process – as Americans’ access to and fascination with television was exploding across the land....
“Even if viewers knew nothing of Button’s history as an athlete and entrepreneur, he became both famous and essential to them because when they turned on figure skating, there he was, ready to explain it all to them.”
Ms. Brennan notes that while today, figure skating doesn’t attract quite the audience it used to, given how the sports television landscape has changed, in March 1996, the men’s long program at the world figure skating championships, shown live on ABC with Button in the booth, received a 10.1 rating.
Going head-to-head with the skating was live coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament on CBS, and that earned just an 8.8 rating.
For my money, there is no more dramatic television sports moment than the night of the women’s long program at the Olympics...save for a World Series or Stanley Cup Game 7, or the back nine on Sunday at The Masters...a tradition unlike any other...on CBS.
RIP, Dick Button.
--Marianne Faithful died. She was 78. The British singer-songwriter and 1960s pop star, best known as Mick Jagger’s girlfriend back in The Rolling Stones’ ‘Hot Rocks’ days, struggled with drug abuse for much of her life. She also battled hepatitis C, breast cancer and an infection from a broken hip – before being hospitalized with Covid in 2020, after which she told the New York Times that she was suffering from fatigue, memory problems and lung issues.
Faithful attempted suicide in the early 1970s and spent several years on the streets of London, suffering persistent laryngitis that left her voice husky and raw.
“My career had been a fluke. ...At best I was a curious anomaly in the mechanics of pop. As a performer I was only average,” she wrote in her 1994 autobiography, “Faithful.”
But she made a triumphant comeback with the Grammy-nominated album “Broken English” (1979), embracing a darker, more intimate sound.
At the age of 17, Faithful was discovered at a London record-industry party when Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham spotted her.
Invited into the studio, she recorded the melancholy single “As Tears Go By,” later calling it “a commercial fantasy that pushes all the right buttons.” The song was Top 10 in Britain, peaking at No. 22 on the Billboard Pop Charts in the U.S. in 1964. I forgot she was first with the tune. Then the Stones recorded it in 1965 and it hit No. 6 in the U.S. in 1966...the tune one of my favorites of theirs.
But for Faithful, the song thrust her into the acid-, booze- and grass-fueld center of the London music scene. She was closely associated with the Stones.
“I slept with three of them and then decided the lead singer was the best bet,” she once told People magazine.
Faithful performed at the group’s “Rock and Roll Circus” concert in 1968, and contributed to the “whoo-whoo” backing vocals on their song “Sympathy for the Devil.”
As written by Harrison Smith in the Washington Post:
“In 1969, soon after Stones musician Brian Jones was dismissed from the band and found dead in his pool, Ms. Faithful overdosed on barbiturates and entered a six-day coma. She awoke to see Jagger, who told her that she had seemed on the verge of death. In Ms. Faithful’s telling, she replied, ‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag me away.’
“By the time the Rolling Stones released ‘Wild Horses’ in 1971, Ms. Faithful and Jagger had split up.”
Top 3 songs for the week of 2/5/72: #1 “American Pie – Parts I & II” (Don McLean) #2 “Let’s Stay Together” (Al Green) #3 “Brand New Key” (Melanie)...and...#4 “Day After Day” (Badfinger) #5 “Without You” (Nilsson) #6 “Never Been To Spain” (Three Dog Night) #7 “Sunshine” (Jonathan Edwards) #8 “Precious and Few” (Climax) #9 “Hurting Each Other” (Carpenters) #10 “Joy: (Apollo 100 featuring Tom Parker...dreadful...mars an otherwise A- week...)
Green Bay Packers Quiz: 1) Bart Starr was 9-1 career in the playoffs, winning five titles, including the first two Super Bowls. 2) Carroll Dale went to Virginia Tech; Boyd Dowler, Colorado; and Max McGee, Tulane.
Starr threw 15 touchdowns and had just 3 interceptions in his 10 playoff games, a 104.8 passer rating, which was outstanding for that era.
Of course I can’t mention Max McGee without retelling his story from the first Super Bowl.
McGee, who had a terrific career with the Packers (1954, 1957-67), nonetheless had just four regular season catches in 1966 as he was aging and more injury prone. He was also known to stay out late with his party mate, Paul Hornung.
But then he played in Super Bowl I, Green Bay vs. the Chiefs.
Howard Balzer / USA TODAY Sports:
“The night before the game, 34-year-old Packers wide receiver Max McGee, who had just four receptions all season and didn’t expect to play, emphatically broke curfew by returning to the team hotel at 6:30 a.m. after spending the night with two flight attendants he met.
“ ‘I could barely stand up for the kickoff,’ McGee said.
“He told fellow receiver Boyd Dowler, ‘I hope you don’t get hurt. I’m not in very good shape.’
“Well, Dowler reinjured his shoulder on the third play, and McGee entered the game with a borrowed helmet. All he did was score the first touchdown in Super Bowl history on a first-quarter, 37-yard play, added a 13-yard score in the third quarter and finished the game with seven receptions for 138 yards.”
From Jeff Miller’s book on the AFL, “Going Long”:
Reporter Jerry Izenberg, covering the game: “One night, I decided I wanted to talk to Max McGee. I just called the hotel, and they put me through to the room. His roommate, Zeke Bratkowski, answered the phone. ‘Zeke, is Max there?’ He said, ‘No, it’s only 10:59.’ I said, ‘What time is curfew?’ He said, ‘Eleven. Call back in the middle of the night.’”
Word began to leak during the first half of the Super Bowl that McGee might not have retired at all the night before.
Hall of Fame linebacker Bobby Bell of the Chiefs: “I didn’t think McGee had his jockstrap on. He was sitting on the bench, and (after Dowler got hurt), they said, ‘Hey, you’ve gotta play.’”
Packers running back Donny Anderson: “Max said he went out with the little girls and drank his whiskey. I don’t know that. Max was such a great storyteller. I think he has embellished that story a little bit. Max was a great athlete, though. Whether he had one scotch or 20, I don’t know. And whether he stayed up all night, I don’t know.”
Bill Curry of the Packers: “[Max] might have found something that was worth $2,500 to him. I don’t know. It was not uncommon for Max and Paul to observe their own training rules. Vince [Lombardi] loved to catch them so he could fine ‘em incredible amounts of money.”
Packers assistant coach Dave ‘Hawg’ Hanner, however, swears McGee didn’t go out. In August 2002, The Hawg told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s ‘Packer Plus’ that the stories of McGee the night before are just stories. “I can promise you, he was not out before the game,” Hanner said. “I checked him three times that night. And I can guarantee you, if he got out, Lombardi would have been on my butt. If he got out and I didn’t catch him, I would have been on the ropes and Max would have been sent home.”
Bobby Bell: “Max was catching balls behind him, one-handed, close to the ground. He’d jump up, and the ball would just stick. He was just fantastic that day.”
But for the record, and from Paul Hornung’s book, “Golden Boy,” Hornung writes of his best friend McGee and the night before the Super Bowl:
“I didn’t expect to play because of my injuries and Max figured he wouldn’t get very much time, so Max wanted to go out and party. I didn’t feel like it, so I went back to the hotel [after a big dinner where golfer Bob Rosburg asked Hornung if it was safe to bet on the Packers to which Hornung said ‘yes’], while Max stayed out and ran the streets. I’m not sure what time he got in, but the sun was up on the day of the game.”
So we’ll go with this version.
Brief Add-on up top by noon, Tuesday...a good, old-time baseball story....