Another week in the sports world is almost done. This was some week. NFL playoffs. The Pro Football Hall of Fame Centennial team was introduced. NHL firings. Clemson Men’s basketball team did something unreal. The Milwaukee Bucks are on a pace for 70 wins. The college football championship was decided. Seton Hall is atop the Big East standings in basketball. Rutgers men’s basketball team is being mentioned for the NCAA basketball tournament. I watched the #1 team in Division III via computer. A Rutgers and Highland Park icon passed away. And a man with one arm from birth made a hole-in-one in a PGA Tour Pro-Am event. All to be covered later.
Let’s start with the story came out of Houston by way of the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball which has sent shock waves throughout the sporting world. A story about something so egregious that it cost 3 people their jobs. That wis about the Astros’ two seasons cheating scheme which allowed them an unfair advantage by letting their players know what pitches were coming.
Sign stealing has always been a part of baseball. If a runner on second base can figure out the complex, changed signals that the catcher flashes to the pitcher and then, with a swipe of a jersey or a hat, relay it to the batter, that’s okay. Similarly, if the opponent can de-code the variety of signs the third base coach uses to inform the batter and any on-base runners, that too is fine.
However, when artificial mechanical means are employed to obtain the signs which might not be readily available to other teams, that is blatant cheating. The use of TV cameras and banging garbage cans or, as has been alleged by players even if discredited by MLB in their investigation, the use of buzzers under the uniform is wholly unacceptable.
This cheating has cost the Astros and their manager for not stopping the cheating. Manager A.J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow received 1 year suspensions from MLB. Houston was also fined $5 million. Owner Jim Crane said this was inadequate and fired both.
Boston manager Alex Cora, an Astros coach at the time, not only was directly involved in the cheating in Houston, but also improperly used cameras to0 cheat for the Red Sox in 2018. Red Sox owners and Cora mutually agreed to part ways after this came to light. MLB has not completed its investigation into the Red Sox, so expect sanctions against Cora and the team.
Then there was Carlos Beltran, an Astros player who was named in the MLB investigation but not sanctioned. The owners of the Mets felt the pressure and mutual agreed with Beltran that he would be a distraction to the team if he managed in 2020.
The outcry from players has been swift and harsh. Dodgers players, who lost to both Houston and Boston in successive World Series in 2017 and 2018, were quick to condemn the Astros. Recently retired Yankee C.C. Sabathia was particularly incensed over the Astros cheating and how it affected the outcome of their playoff series. Players from other team were just as irate and calls for stripping Houston of its title and individual players fo their awards have surfaced.
Even more upsetting were the pictures and denials by Astros players that they did not wear a buzzer to warn them about pitches. All Star second baseman Jose Altuve was accused of doing this, and 2019 M.V.P. runner up Alex Bregman was also indicted by other players as a participant in this scheme.
Players are asking MLB to reopen their investigation new photographic evidence of pictures of Altuve concealing an item beneath his jersey has surfaced.
MLB issued quick justice in this affair and three owners felt that the integrity of their franchises and the game had been so denigrated that employment of the participants was unwarranted. I think that it wasn’t enough and the players should have been more thoroughly investigated.
MLB weathered the steroid epidemic. It acted tough against domestic violence. But this scandal is beyond those measures. It was a concerted effort to gain a competitive advantage that was straight out cheating and a total disregard for fairness and baseball as an institution.
It is the worst scandal in MLB since the 1919 Black Sox debacle, which went to the moral and ethical fabric of the sport. Lifetime bans were effectuated.
Similarly, when Pete Rose bet on games—even if he was betting on his Reds to win—that was enough to get him kicked out of baseball. This current scandal warrants that kind of punishment.
I like Commissioner Rob Manfred for trying to be proactive while attempting to preserve professional baseball. He may have been too lenient, perhaps modeling the punishment like the “Bountygate” one year penalties Saints Head Coach Sean Payton and then-defensive coordinator Greg Williams both received for targeting opposing players. Payton has since won a Super Bowl and Williams currently is flourishing as the defensive coordinator for the Jets. This is much more significant and should have more severe consequences—to act as a full deterrent to this aberrant activity.
I hope that MLB reopens the instigation regarding Altuve, Bregman and others. I expect that Cora will receive greater punishment that Hinch. I want to believe, in the end, that this will stop the kind of abhorrent behavior which has tarnished baseball.
Moving on to the NFL conference title games, upstart Tennessee has reached this round by throttling Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens and utilizing the punishing, big-bodied running game of Derrick Henry. This cinderella act reaches a climax on Sunday when the Titans journey to Arrowhead Stadium to meet the Kansas City Chiefs and QB Patrick Mahomes, who seems to be back in his unworldly form. While Tennessee prevailed earlier this season in Nashville, it is going to take much more to down the Chiefs at home, especially in the way they tore up the Houston Texans after being down by 24
The NFC is a more intriguing matchup. Certain future Hall of Fame QB and State
Farm spokesperson Aaron Rodgers leads the Green Bay Packers to the West Coast to face the powerful San Fransisco 49’ers, a team seemingly on a mission this season. Green Bay stopped Russell Wilson and negated the Seahawks defense in its win at Lambeau Field. San Francisco demolished the Vikings, which makes them the favorite in this title clash.
I made my own rankings of the final 8 teams quarterbacks. It is highly unscientific and I am not going to cite any figures to support my results. This is based on what I saw:
1. Patrick Mahomes
2. Aaron Rodgers
3. Russell Wilson
4. Jimmy Garappolo
5. Lamar Jackson
6. DeShawn Watson
7. Kirk Cousins
8. Ryan Tannehill
Thus, by my feelings, the numbers 1 and 8 are going head-to-head, while the NFC has the number 2 and 4 passers meeting.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame added new members with 13 players, coaches, contributors and owners being selected. Coaches Jimmy Johnson and Bill Cowher, players Duke Slater, Ed Sprinkle, Bobby Dillion, Jumbo Jim Covert, Harold Carmichael, Alex Karras, Winston Hill and Donnie Shell, former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, NFL Films legend Steve Sabol, who joins his father Ed in Canton, and Giants GM George Young make up the class.
I think that the 25 man committee did a wonderful job. I also think that the choices of Winston Hill, the tackle on the Jets who protected Joe Namath’s blind side, Covert, Karras, Shell, Carmichael Tagliabue, Sabol and Young were superb.
LSU is the collegiate champion. They have already been to the White House. The celebration will continue with other events in Baton Rouge and Louisiana. Geaux Tigers is in the national lexicon. This team was a great team. One of the best ever. Led by Heisman Trophy winner and sure fire future NFL star in Joe Burrow, a transfer from Ohio State, the almost homesteading Tigers took a hard punch from an excellent Clemson team which just happened to be the defending National Champions.
Not only did they weather the storm, LSU shut the door on Clemson Tigers’ QB Trevor Lawrence, the way Clemson stopped Alabama and Tua Tagovailoa last year. There was no doubt who the superior team was this season. LSU is a worthy top dog (Tiger) this season.
As was pointed out, there may have been as many as 22-24 NFL players playing on Monday night in the Superdome. That statistic is amazing, yet having seen the caliber of play, it makes sense.
Rutgers has completed its 2020 coaching staff for Greg Schiano. Rutgers’ efforts to land defensive coaching wunderkind Anthony Campanile, a NJ native and RU grad as well as brother of Nunzio Campanile who was the interim RU head coach after the departure of Chris Ash, were for naught. Anthony left the University of Michigan for a job with the Miami Dolphins. This works out for the Scarlet Knights, because with this Campanile off the recruiting trail, RU can potentially land talent that might have headed to Michigan.
A former player at Penn State has filled a lawsuit against current Nittany Lions Head Coach James Franklin for hazing. I do not like Franklin and his antics. Given the death of a student during a fraternity pledge prank, this is unconscionable. I believe that if this is substantiated, Franklin must go. Zero tolerance.
Sadly, former HPHS great and Rutgers Hall of Fame inductee Richie Policastro died from complications from a recent stroke. Richie may have been the best player to come out of HPHS. I wondered why he went to VMI (he was offered a scholarship and thought getting away from Highland Park was a good thing), which did not work out at all. Instead, he re-emerged at Rutgers under Coach John Bateman (Richie was great friends with Scott Bateman, the coach’s son, who was a center on the 1964 undefeated squad, and went to Amherst; before games Richie had breakfast at the Bateman home on River Road), because John Bateman had recruited him and said if things didn’t pan out with the Keydets, he would gladly welcome Richie to RU. Which was a plus for everyone, especially when Richie led the Scarlet Knights to a decisive 29-0 rout of arch rival Princeton in the 100 th anniversary of their initial contest.
My memories of Richie include something else. When I played freshman football, he would bring me aside and have a catch, throwing his tight, hard spirals right to my hands at my midsection. He laughed, joked and encouraged me to throw the ball, much bigger than my small hands, better and better. He also was playful on the basketball court when I drifted over from freshman basketball practice where I was the manager.
This was the icon of Highland Park sports, yet he took time to play with this chubby, 5’2” freshman. He knew my name and that was something too. May he rest in peace.
Let’s talk college hoops. First the women. Baylor traveled to Storrs and stopped UConn’s 98 game winning streak. Former number 1 Oregon lost on the road at Arizona State. It looks like Baylor and South Carolina are going to be at the top for now. I marvel at the sudden decline, if you can call it such, of UConn women’s hoops. I always thought Head Coach Geno Auriemma was the John Wooden of the distaff side. Wooden didn’t have may losing seasons, as he ended his legendary career.
To see Geno’s teams not at the top feels unusual and awkward. It’s not that UConn is losing. They aren’t. It is more marveling as to how long they were dominant and how the pursuers are finally catching up. Still, once more it will be strange to see someone else holding up the hardware besides the Huskies.
With men’s basketball, my first bit of praise goes to Clemson. While the campus may have been down with the football loss, the men’s team finally won a game at North Carolina in its 60th attempt. Sure, it is a down UNC squad, minus its star player.
But a win is a win. And to follow it up, the Tigers took out #3 Duke at home, to cap off maybe the best week ever for Clemson basketball.
Big Ten basketball is highly competitive in 2019-20. Pre-season favorite Michigan State leads the league. In second place are Wisconsin, Illinois and…Rutgers. Additional teams who have scored impressive victories or are have been placed in the Top 25 are Michigan, Penn State, Maryland, Purdue, Iowa, Minnesota and Ohio State. That is 11 of the 14 teams, and Indiana is 13-4 as opposed to below .500 Nebraska and cellar dwelling Northwestern.
Home court is huge in the conference. Rutgers is a prime example, with its three wins at home over Wisconsin, a then-ranked Penn State and Indiana on Wednesday. During the contest, the BTN analyst drove home how RU is undefeated at home this season, which includes the blowout win over Seton Hall, and that the Scarlet Knights are on a pace to finally have a winning season after 13 below .500 years.
Before we get too giddy about RU, there are 14 more Big Ten games ahead, starting with a 4-3 Minnesota team which RU cannot overlook. Should RU win that game, then maybe entry into the Top 25 might happen.
Will it last? Probably not. Rutgers lost a winnable game at Illinois when big man Myles Johnson had limited playing time due to foul trouble. RU cannot afford too many instances where he is benched due to fouls. Getting back Geo Baker, the best player on the team was a lift, including his monstrous slam in the last 2 minutes of the Indiana game. Plus RU still shoots free throws poorly and foul shooting is an important key to victory.
It is nice to see a renaissance in RU basketball. For however long it lasts, finally there is improvement.
Seton Hall has picked itself up from its loss at RU, gotten potential All-American Myles Powell back in the lineup and his scoring has vaulted the Pirates to the top of the Big East standings, where they had been picked to finish. This team will go as far as Powell takes them. His injury was scary and it would be nightmare for the team and for him should he suffer another head trauma.
F&M, in the midst of a down year, hosted number 1 Swarthmore last Saturday. The Garnet looked every bit the the top team in the Centennial Conference and in the nation, with a swarming defense and timely shooting and rebounding holding the Diplomats to 53 points. This Swarthmore team is the best D-III team I have seen, albeit I have only been to one Final Four.
At the halfway point of the campaign, it appears that the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers are the teams in the NBA. The Bucks are on a pace to win 70 or 71 games this season. Not so fast, says GM Jon Horst. The priority is to win the NBA Finals, not garner 70 or more wins or take a shot at the Golden State record of 73. Sound strategy.
This week, some more prominent names in the NHL were fired. Devils GM Ray Shero lost his job, a victim of poor performance which cost Coach John Hynes his job earlier this season; Hynes has resurfaced as the head man at Carolina. The Vegas Golden Knights sacked Gerard Gallant, who only a season removed, led the expansion team to the Stanley Cup Finals. He has been replaced by Peter DeBoer, who had most recently been at San Jose. Expect more heads to roll in the NHL—the fact that the St. Louis Blues came from the bottom of the pile last season to win the Stanley Cup after making a coaching change might be the impetus for openings to occur soon.
By the way, watch out for the Pittsburgh Penguins. With Sidney Crosby back in the lineup, they are real title contenders.
With all of the smoke that continued to envelop Australia and Melbourne, the site of the Australian Open which begins on Sunday, the fact that the tournament is being held endangers the players, officials, workers and spectators. Add in the horrific loss of life, property and animals, shouldn’t the organizers cancel the event?
Finally, in a PGA Pro-Am event in California, golfer Laurent Hurtbaise, left with one functioning arm at birth, registered an incredible hole-in-one on the Par 3 4th hole. Watch the video. It is amazing.
That adequately sums up the wild, wacky week of sports we just concluded.W
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