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So Much for Alabama or Duke Beating Pro Teams

Sunday, January 27th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

AD

While I was away, two things happened that hopefully finally put to rest a narrative that never had any credence to begin with: the utterly ridiculous notion that a great college football or basketball team could beat the worst pro teams.

Clemson took the big bad Alabama Crimson Tide to the woodshed.

An unranked Syracuse team went on the road into Cameron Indoor to beat Duke.

This is not to take anything away from Alabama or Duke. The high-level performance of both programs is the gold standard for greatness….at the college level. Leave what is already great alone and stop trying to make it something that it fundamentally is not.

I confess that this is a fun bar room discussion. However, you will have to have been in the bar too long if you actually believe a team of college athletes, even the most talented, at 18-22 years of age, are going to beat a team of GROWN ASS MEN, who play the game for a living.

2001 Miami Hurricanes

2001 Miami Hurricanes

Nevertheless, for entertainment purposes only, let us go with the bar room vibe for a minute. The 2001 Miami Hurricanes is the greatest college football team of my lifetime. Consider their depth at running back alone: Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, and Frank Gore. Other future NFL stars included Johnathan Vilma, DJ Williams (his father and uncle were teammates of mine), Ed Reed, Vince Wilfork, Bryant McKinnie, Jeremy Shockey, and Kellen Winslow Jr. So, with that talent, how can I be so sure that it would not have stood a chance against the Carolina Panthers or Detroit Lions, who won a combined three games between them that year? Two words: Ken Dorsey. He was their QB and very good at the COLLEGE LEVEL. However, he was a total dud at the pro level. In other words, he could not beat anyone once he did become a pro. Why on Earth would you believe that he could beat pro teams while he was still in college?

On even the greatest and most talent-rich college team, maybe a 3rd of the starters become NFL players of any note. Simply put, most college starters, even at the highest level, simply are not good enough to play professionally. But you believe that they would beat the pros?

GTFOOHWTBS!

LA

Let us consider basketball. The gold standard historically is without question the Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) era UCLA Bruins. He was there from 1966-69 and I am positive that we will never see another team dominate college basketball as it did. The worst team in the NBA during the 1968-69 season was the Phoenix Suns, winning only 16 games. Yet that team had seven players average double-figures, led by a future Hall of Famer named Gail Goodrich. UCLA would not have stood a chance. Jabbar was going to be Jabbar. Pros could not have stopped him as a freshman. However, they would not beat pro teams.

The only exception to this rule…and it would only be for one game, would be baseball. A college baseball team with a young stud like Roger Clemons from Texas or Sandy Koufax out of Cincinnati, on the rare days he had his control at that stage of his development, could shut down a professional batting lineup. However, no college team will have more than one.

I guess what baffles me most of all is why do we even care? Why this obsession with forcing apples to compete with oranges? Can’t we just appreciate the greatness of Serena Williams and the Lady UConn Huskies basketball team without asking could they beat men?

Greatness is too rare to be subjected to steroid-laced hypotheticals for our unquenchable amusement.  Alabama is the the greatest college football dynasty ever. Duke has been the most high performing college basketball program for 30 years. That is good enough for me.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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Ode to the Wizard of Baltimore

Sunday, January 6th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

ON

If you want to know one of the reasons why six of the eight Black NFL head coaches were fired this year, you can consult with ESPN reporter and NFL apologist Chris Mortenson, who always has the league’s back in his “reporting” on the issue. Or you could ask yourself why there was never any groundswell among the professional sports punditry class about finding the next Ozzie Newsome to be your team’s general manager?

After 16 years at the helm of the Baltimore Ravens, the Hall of Fame Tight End will be retiring.

His resume includes the following:

  • 200 wins for a 54% winning percentage
  • 10 playoff appearances
  • 6 division titles
  • 2 Super Bowl wins
  • 4 of his draft picks are either current or surefire future Hall of Famers in Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Jonathan Ogden, and Terrell Suggs

This is impressive in and of itself. It is even more impressive when one considers that the Ravens have never had an upper-echelon quarterback. Joe Flacco had an upper-echelon season in 2012 and much to the chagrin of Raven fans, parlayed it into a huge and crippling contract extension. However, no one has, nor ever will, mistake him for Johnny Unitas.

Nevertheless, the Newsome-built Ravens have gone toe-to-toe with one of the most stable and consistent franchises in all of sports: MY PITTSBURGH STEELERS. Not only have they more than held their own, but also, in the process, they have created the best rivalry in the NFL, and one of the best in all of sports.

So why hasn’t there been any groundswell to find the next Ozzie Newsome to be the GM of an NFL team? This is where the answers get complicated. Yes, the same ole racial bias is at play on some level or another. However, I suspect that the debt proof model of the NFL is at least as much at play here. In just about any other business, if you show the persistent incompetence that Detroit, Oakland, Washington, Cleveland etc. have shown over the past 20 years, you would either go bankrupt and/or out of business. At the very least, you would leave no stone unturned to fix the problem…even if that means hire Black folks to run the show.

Not in the NFL. Incompetence is no obstacle to profitability and as a result, teams keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. In fact, a case can be made that the uninterrupted profits actually undermine innovative, out of the box thinking, and embolden outdated bigoted attitudes. After all, what price is there to pay? One need go no further than to look at the well-intended but largely ineffective protesting of the league over its treatment of Colin Kaepernick.

The other factor that I believe gets far too little attention is the notion that merely putting Black faces in what have traditionally been White places will in of itself improve the situation. I believe that there is enough evidence both inside and outside of sports to argue that, at best, such is an incomplete solution. It places too much emphasis on individual character (which obviously is important) and too little on the need for systemic and structural changes.  It is akin to putting clean wine into a dirty bottle or lipstick on a pig, or whatever analogy one wants to use. The bottom line is that such cosmetics do not fundamentally change the situation. They merely mask the problem.  If we are sincere in our diversity efforts, be they within sports, politics, business, etc., we must ask ourselves these two fundamental questions: 1) is the issue individual or systemic? If one’s conclusion is that the issues are individual, then question 2 is not necessary. One simply gets better people. However, if the answer to question 1 is systemic, then that brings about question 2, which is: do we really want to change the system or simply improve our own individual place within the system?

As good as Ozzie Newsome has been with the Ravens, there would even be a limit to how much 32 of him as NFL GM’s could change the system. Why? Because they would need the support of owners. It is at this point when some will say that the answer is more Black owners.  Pump the breaks on that as well. Of the few Black folks who have acquired the capital to buy an NFL team, do you really think that their mindsets are dramatically different from the current status quo NFL owners? If it were, could he/she have gotten in a position to buy a team?

BCCapitalism is predatory and therefore most of those who have amassed a significant amount of capital are predators. Short of vulgar opportunism, such mindsets have little interests in social justice in general and particularly how many Black coaches are hired and fired.

So bid a fond farewell and richly deserved retirement to Ozzie Newsome. He has been the single most underappreciated General Manager in all of sports for the better part of the last 15 years. But if you think that more Ozzie Newsomes would have automatically stopped what happened on “Black Monday” you have grossly underestimated what this game is all about.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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Josh Gordon and Understanding Addiction in America

Thursday, December 27th, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of Getty Images

Image courtesy of Getty Images

For the 5th time in his troubled career, Patriots wide receiver Josh Gordon has been suspended for a positive drug test. Understand that for every suspension we hear about, there are other positive test that we never hear about…a function of the NFL’s due process on this matter. As it should be.

He had been productive with the Patriots catching 40 passes for 720 yards, which amounts to an average of 18 yards per catch.  From just a pure talent standpoint, he is on the short list of most feared deep threats in the NFL.

His talent has never been in question. His reliability has always been in question.

To understand Gordon and the larger issue of addiction in America, its’ important to distinguish what addiction is and is not about.

Addiction is not about stupidity or character. These are the two primary responses you get from sports fans. Their response is usually something like, “why would he risk all he has just to get high?” They attempt to apply logic and rational thinking to irrational behavior.  There is so much more to addiction than this. At its core, addiction, regardless of the type, is the manifestation of one attempting to self-medicate. Be the vice drugs, shopping, sex, or gambling, they are all attempts to treat that which has not been treated. Therefore, until one can get to the root of that which one is attempting to treat, the addiction will persist.  While there is a dopamine release in the brain in all cases, none have the biochemical impact of drug abuse, nor are they as socially stigmatized as drug use. This is what makes it more challenging in many ways than the others.

While there must be a desire to be clean, notions that it’s only about will power are overly simplistic as well. This myth was compounded by the former first Lady Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign during the so-called “War on Drugs”.

This is what Josh Gordon is dealing with, and the fact that the Patriots literally assigned people to watch a 27-year-old grown man 24/7 and yet he still got away to do what his demons commanded him to do, should tell any thinking person that this is not that simple.

The even larger aspect that one needs to understand about addiction in America is the reality that under Capitalism, treatment, like everything else, is a commodity.

According to federal health and census data, in 2003, for-profit addiction treatment centers reaped $21 Billion in revenues. With the Opioid Epidemic, those revenues are expected to double by 2020. That rate is 3 times faster than the growth of inflation. Now most would say that there is no price that can be put on recovery for a loved one. The problem is, more often than not, they just don’t work. When treatment is a business, not only is there no incentive to truly treat, it’s the very opposite. The revenue stream is maintained and increased by recurring patients.

The 2015 documentary, The Business of Recovery, was made by a former industry insider named Greg Horvath. In it he poses the following:

“There are nonprofit treatment centers that cost $53,000 a month, while good senior care can cost $4,000 a month. What’s the other $49,000 paying for?”, asked Horvath. “It’s not like you’re using an MRI or an X-Ray machine. It’s a bed, food, and usually minimally-educated therapists. I’m really confused. Where’s the money going? No one has been able to show me.”

Of course, at the core of the issue is that addiction needs to be viewed as a health issue, as opposed to a stigmatized criminal issue. Furthermore, health care should be viewed as a human right rather than a commodity to the highest bidder or those fortunate enough to have insurance. Once we get the predatory insurance companies and for-profit treatment entities out of the way, we can begin to look at addiction in an entirely different way, and that paradigm shift will produce far greater results than what we have today. Part of that shift should include “Chasing the Scream”, by Johan Hari, as required reading for treatment professionals. This book provides a radical departure from traditional ideas about addiction and treatment.

There is a reason that the Canadians, the British, and even the Cubans do not have the recidivism among addiction that exist in America. They have greatly reduced the predatory element by adopting universal health care.

These models provide much more hope for recovery for the Josh Gordons of the world and those unable to pay what he can for remedies that have little to no track record of success. But only a continued mass organized demand will bring it about in America, where a Josh Gordon is the perfect customer; he has money and is not of sound mind.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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Oakland, Washington, and the NFL Stadium Extortion Game

Tuesday, December 18th, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

OAC

What do NFL fans and perpetually cheated upon wives have in common?

They both ALWAYS take the cheaters back. The cheaters know this, and thus there really is no reason for them to change.

The two latest examples are in Oakland and Washington.

In Oakland, the city has filed a federal lawsuit against the Raiders, who will be moving to Las Vegas for the 2020 season. The city’s principal claim is anti-trust and collusion of the other NFL owners, who are entitled to millions in relocation fees, once they approved the move. Meanwhile, the city of Oakland is left with the last of the “dinosaur” multi-use facilities, the Oakland Alameda Coliseum, in which the baseball team is in the process of trying to leave as well. Add to this the fact that the NBA champion Warriors, in the midst of one of the greatest runs in league history, will be moving to San Francisco, and it is easy to understand the collective trauma of Oakland sports fans. An underlying issue is the inferiority complex Oakland has always had in relation to San Francisco. It is similar to the relationship between Baltimore and Washington. While the merits of the suit make it a long shot, do not underestimate Oakland. The city has a long history of resistance to power, from the Black Panther Party to its support of the late great Congressman Ron Dellums and his struggle to dismantle Apartheid South Africa, to taking on Big Oil. Oakland does not just roll over.

RFK Stadium - Former and maybe future (renovated) home of the Washington Professional Football Team

RFK Stadium – Former and maybe future (renovated) home of the Washington Professional Football Team

In Washington, the football team owner, Dan Snyder, is openly conspiring with the lame-duck, Republican controlled House of Representatives to bring the football team back to the city. The scheme is to add taxpayer dollars to a spending bill to finance the renovation of venerable RFK stadium. This urgency is caused by the incoming block of progressive Democrats whom most feel would not be nearly as accommodating, especially to a franchise that stubbornly keeps a racist team name. One of the complexities in this situation is that local DC officials are conspiring with the Republicans to make this happen. DC officials have a disturbing recent record of disregarding the voting will of their citizens to advance their own predetermined agenda, to accommodate moneyed interests. This is evident from their overrunning of voter-approved Prop 77, which would have gradually raised tipped workers’ base salary to $15 per hour. It should be noted that half of the council is Black. The mayor is Black and all are Democrats. So simplistic descriptions of villains and heroes do not apply here. If DC voters were only as concerned about this as some are about the Mayor’s annoyance with mambo sauce, maybe they could stop themselves from being shafted.

While the details vary somewhat, the fundamental process of NFL teams pimping tax payers for new stadium construction under the threat of the team moving is the historical play book. This is especially insulting, given that all 32 teams profit regardless of how bad the on-field product.

In the cases of Oakland and Washington, if we analogize their on-field play with sex, it is even more mind-blowing why their fans keep taking them back. It is clearly not very good!

In fairness to NFL teams, such behavior is the norm under Capitalism and extends beyond sports. Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. Nevertheless, the average salary of his Amazon employees is about $28K, and it’s only that due to the struggle for $15 per hour minimum wage. However, New York representatives were all too happy to sign off on giving him a $2 Billion windfall in tax breaks and subsidies to move Amazon operations to the city. The promises, as is the case with NFL teams, are the same: jobs, urban renewal, and blah blah blah. The fact is, in the case of Amazon, non-local residents will fill most of their best jobs. The remaining jobs are overwhelmingly low paying, part-time, and/or seasonal. This is true of stadium construction as well, except most of their jobs offer no benefits. It should also be noted that while politicians tout the jobs coming in, they forget math when it comes to jobs that are lost, which are mostly provided by small businesses. Unless you own a restaurant/business near the facility, you likely will not feel the economic return. In other words, public tax dollars are merely subsidizing the enrichment of the few whom are least in need. Stadiums promote a form of business gentrification. It is the typical Capitalism playbook both in and outside of sports.

How do the people fight back against this? Two things are essential; 1) a commitment to local organized struggle, and 2) the willingness to walk away and let the teams leave.

Ironically, the second need is more difficult than the first. Getting folks organized around an issue that is of passionate importance to them is not anywhere near as difficult as getting them to let go of that which they have an emotional bond. Both NFL teams and philandering husbands know this and are all too happy to exploit that bond.

However, it is necessary. Just as that philandering husband will keep doing what he is doing until the wife has had enough, so too will NFL franchises.  The absence of boundaries and a line in the sand when dealing with the predatory entities called NFL teams is tantamount to having a neon sign on your back that says, “Exploit me”. Will some cities lose their teams? Yep, but one should never cry long when your partner leaves an unhealthy relationship. Especially when the partner is the source of the toxicity.

There is even a successful model of grassroots resistance in Washington where the Reverend Graylan Hagler has led a fierce fight to repeal the repeal of Prop 77, as well as one to halt the closure of Providence Hospital. In addition to the short time window, the other thing working in the favor for the people of Washington is competition. The state of Maryland is proposing a new stadium near the National Harbor and the MGM Grand Hotel, which is the likely crown jewel for the coming sports gambling…I mean “investing”.

So, I say to the people of both Oakland and Washington; organize and resist. This especially includes football fans. Even before, we get to responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars, by performance alone, neither franchise deserves a break.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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Why Doc Rivers is Wrong about Black Athletes and Fathers

Friday, December 7th, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of Complex

Image courtesy of Complex

If there were a vote for NBA coach of the year today, the Los Angeles Clippers’ Doc Rivers would get my vote. The team’s 16-8, which places it third in the Western Conference. It would be an understatement to say that this was not expected in the first full year of the post Blake Griffin/Chris Paul era.

If there once were whispers that Rivers rode the coat tails of three future Hall of Famers in Boston to an NBA title, they should have subsided by now.

The man can flat out coach!

He is not anywhere near quite as accomplished a social commentator.

Rivers was interviewed in the latest edition of the ESPN magazine The Undefeated and it is worth the read. The following quote is what is drawing the most attention:

“We have a lot of black players without fathers. In addition, to me that is a story that needs to be talked about, because it is difficult for the black coach sometimes. The black male figures in many of these people’s lives have burned them. So, being coached by us, some people think it’s easier, when actually it’s harder.”

Rivers goes on to cite the importance of relationships in the formula for being a successful coach.

He is right about the importance of relationships. One can never really know what kind of relationship you have with another until there is conflict or one tells the other no!

He is wrong to cite absentee fathers as the source of difficulty in building those relationships with Black athletes.

It is necessary for all who care to understand why he is wrong to recognize that NBA players are among the 1% of professional athletes. Like the one percent in any other area of life, they do not necessarily react well when they do not get things their way. Why? Because they have had a lifetime up to that point of getting what they want, within the athletic realm. Rivers mistakenly cites absentee fathers as the source of the difficulty, when in fact, this challenge is just as prevalent among multiple other 1% demographics.

The majority of highly rated high school football quarterback prospects are white and from households with fathers. Nevertheless, when they get to college and learn that they will not start, they are the most likely to transfer. They are not accustomed to being told no!

Even beyond sports, the 1% do not like being told what to do. Try telling the top 1% of the richest to pay their fair share of taxes and see how they react. Needless to say…but I will say it anyway; demographic is almost exclusively white men and they clearly have a reasonably healthy relationship with their fathers, because that is often from where their inheritance came. Observe the reaction of the 1% of the most beautiful women in the world when they do not get their way. Consider the rantings of a Supreme Court nominee when anyone dare question his fitness for the court. Cross a “made man” in the mafia and you may just end up at the bottom of a river.

People who have been accommodated all of their lives do not see it as privilege but as entitlement, and that is what Rivers is confusing for absentee fathers.

Three things are most troubling about Rivers’ comments; the first being that he contradicts himself in the same interview when he says the following:

“You can’t group anyone. They all have their own way about them, and it’s our job to try to figure out each guy.”

Isn’t that exactly what he has done to Black players?

Yet another troubling aspect is that he co-signed (I do not believe consciously) on a contributing narrative to the number of Black men being killed by police. This is to say the more one fuels the notion of Black men being hard to control, neglectful, no-good, violent, etc., the more viable the defense of police is to the public, (from which juries come from in the rare occurrence of a trial) when they claim to have been “in fear for their lives”.

Rivers is not the only culprit. Both corporate and social media promote this stereotypical narrative. The messenger through social media are often justifiably frustrated single mothers left to raise sons on their own. Some would rather broad brush Black men than look in the mirror to figure out why they picked a partner neither interested, suited, or economically ready for fatherhood. None of this absolves those who are indeed absent from the lives of their sons or daughters. There are explanations most notably of which would be deindustrialization of urban areas and the loss of jobs that came with that phase as well as the War on Drugs. But there are no excuses. It is to say that there has been no lack of light shined on this particular demographic for its shortcomings in this area.

The third factor is about media literacy when discussing the “absentee” Black father. By that, I mean exactly what metric is being used. When one does the “beyond the headlines” work of seeking out original sources for a story or research methodology, you would be shocked to learn how some of the data is comprised. For example, I have read some data that determine absenteeism as having never been married to the mother. Others declare no court ordered child support as absenteeism. Under those two, I was not involved in my son’s life…even though I raised him by myself (certainly not without struggle) from the time he was 7 years old. Simply put, the narrative of the absentee Black father is among the most embellished in American society.

In my nearly 25 years as an educator, coach, and mentor in the greater Washington DC area, I have worked with a huge sample of young Black men. Some, indeed, did have inconsistent to non-existent relationships with their fathers. Nevertheless, my experience has been just the opposite of what Rivers describes; they long to trust…as long you do not give them reason to mistrust. In other words, just like any other group of human beings.

Rivers made a very superficial, half-peeled onion assessment that is about as valid as me suggesting his being married to a White woman means he can’t relate to Black people. When former, long-time NBA coach George Karl suggested the same thing in his book a few years ago, he was roundly criticized. Rivers deserves no less.

Sports is a mega platform for a myriad of ideas to be espoused and discussed. Thus, while its occupants are entitled to their opinion, it is important to make sure that such are well thought out and have verifiable support. When they do not, writers or any other observers have an obligation to push back against the flawed narrative, regardless to how often it has existed and is repeated. In the case of Black men in America, taking on such a responsibility can literally be a life and death decision.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

 

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Chemistry in Sports is Overrated!

Saturday, December 1st, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

OA

Wizards All Star John Wall curses his coach. That’s why the team is having an underachieving season.

All Star Jimmy Butler made himself such a problem, which forced the Timberwolves to trade him. That toxic culture explains the Timberwolves underachieving season.

Both narratives reinforce a common myth in sports that says a team must have harmonious chemistry to win.

It just is not true.

DG

Draymond Green has gone off on his coach and cursed Kevin Durant, but it has not stopped the Warriors from winning three of the past four NBA titles. The conflict between Shaq and Kobe is well known, and yet my Lakers managed to be the last and one of only two NBA franchises to pull off a three-peat  (2000, 2001, and 2002).

The evidentiary examples are not limited to basketball.

In the 1970s, Major League Baseball had a team of characters called the Oakland Athletics (A’s). They were in constant war with their cheap but visionary owner, Charlie Finley, and with one another. One of the players described getting into a fight with a teammate in the shower over a bar of soap. Still yet, the A’s won the American League Western Division five straight years, 1971-1975, and the World Series 3-straight, 1972-1974. The only other baseball team to win three straight is the mighty Yankees. It was not the obvious lack of harmonious chemistry that eventually stopped the A’s. It was the advent of free agency.

RJThe New York Yankees of the latter part of that decade were similar. Its clubhouse was nicknamed “The Bronx Zoo”. They also had a meddling and toxic creating owner in George Steinbrenner. Catcher and team captain, the late great Thurman Munson, did not like the team’s best player and never hid that fact from others. Speaking of the team’s best player; he was also a member of the previously mentioned Oakland A’s team: Mr. Reggie Jackson.

Jackson referred to himself as the “Straw that Stirred the Drink”. He rubbed people the wrong way. He was both self-promoting and self-hating, from an ethnic identity standpoint. He was also quite possibly the greatest clutch hitting slugger in postseason baseball history. He is the only position player to win two World Series MVP awards, one with the A’s and the other with the Yankees, while leading them to consecutive World Series wins in 1977-1978.

Production, when it matters most, trumps chemistry.

There is a saying in football: “If you have two quarterbacks, you do not have one.” The riff between 49ers legends Joe Montana and Steve Young was obvious and even more contentious than Tom Brady and Jimmy Garoppolo, formerly with the Patriots.  Montana was more advanced and the incumbent with two Super Bowl MVP awards, but the injuries began to pile up. When Young got his chance, he made the decision for the late coach Bill Walsh very difficult, especially in the back end of 1988, when the team lost consecutive games to subpar Raiders and Cardinals teams, to fall to 6-5, and was in danger of missing the playoffs.

TEMPE, AZ - NOVEMBER 6: Quarterbacks Steve Young #8 and Joe Montana #16 of the San Francisco 49ers discuss strategy with head coach Bill Walsh during the game against the Phoenix Cardinals at Sun Devil Stadium on Novemer 6, 1988 in Tempe, Arizona. The Cardinals won 24-23. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

(Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

For the rest of the season, they would only lose a meaningless season-ending game on their way to winning the Super Bowl. They would repeat in 1989 with what many of us feel was their best team and on the short list of greatest of all time.

None of this is to say that chemistry is not important at all. It is. This is not to say that a player cannot cross the line and warrant accountability. He can, and it seems to me that Wall, Green, and Butler all did. It is to say that teams should think long and hard about getting rid of exceptional talent under the banner of team-cancer or chemistry-killer. Talent has its privileges, be it in professional sports or not. Does anyone believe that Hollywood would have the seemingly endless tolerance for Robert Downey Jr. were it not for his being a proven commodity, from both a talent and box office draw standpoint? Former Cowboys Coach Jimmy Johnson puts it this way: “If a special teams player or back up lineman falls asleep in a meeting, I would cut him. If Troy, Michael, or Emmitt fall asleep, I would go over a wake them up.”

Some may now be thinking, if I curse my boss I would be out of a job. As well you should be…unless thousands of people are willing to pay to watch you do your job. In that case, you may very well get the same leeway as exceptional professional athletes get. The fact is in the NBA, if you do not have one of the best 7-8 players in the league, or two of the top 12-15, you have little to no chance of winning a title. In my lifetime, only two teams broke through without this: the 1979 Seattle Supersonics and the 2004 Detroit Pistons, both of which had Hall of Fame coaches to guide them.

The most interesting part of the tendency to cite a lack of chemistry or toxic culture when a team under performs is the why. I have a few theories that I believe are at play here:

 

  • Unrealistic expectations: both fans and even media routinely wrongly assess how good a team truly is. There are two sources of this one being the “fishbowl syndrome”, which basically gives people the impression that they understand more about something than they really do, because they see the end-product. The second source is a tricky human tendency to substitute our hopes for analysis. Human beings have emotional, ideological, and egotistical ties to their hopes, and as a result, often stretch their realistic possibilities;

 

  • Jealousy: A huge segment of male sports fans (myself included) and media wanted to be professional athletes. Do not underestimate this lingering resentment. The quarterback stole his girlfriend in high school and he never got over the pain of being traded in for a flashier model. Professional sports offer such tormented souls a platform to therapeutically vent about that unresolved teen-age rejection from years ago. I am only slightly kidding; and

 

  • Race: This of the “Shut up and dribble” mindset. More than a few of the fanbase feel that the Black athlete’s primary role in life is to entertain them. When they are not entertained, he is deserving of scorn. One of the best examples of this was the demise of the Eddie Murray/Cal Ripken era Orioles. Murray got all of the blame for the team that started 0-21 in 1988 and was traded the next year, while Cal was left without stain. Simply put, more than a few White fans have a problem….be it consciously or subconsciously, with Black athletes enjoying the privileges they enjoy.

So yes, chemistry is important but nowhere near as much as talent, which is the default narrative often adopted when trying to explain unfulfilled expectations. The degree to which it is cited is more about our longing for simple explanations, even if intellectually lazy and impossible to verify. In 2013, the Houston Astros lost 111 games. That team is on the short list of one of the worst in baseball history. Five players from the 2013 team remained on the team in 2017, when they won 101 games, and the first World Series in franchise history. Of those five was an eventual MVP in Jose Altuve and a Cy Young winner in Dallas Keuchel. What changed? It wasn’t chemistry. All five have spoken about how close the 2013 team was despite the losing. What changed was the improvement of the those who remained and the addition of Alex Bregman, George Springer, Charlie Morton, and of course, Justin Verlander.

This is why I contend that chemistry in sports is overrated.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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Sports’ 4 Most Overhyped Rivalries

Friday, November 23rd, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of The Purple Quill

Image courtesy of The Purple Quill

As college football goes, this is rivalry week. Alabama vs. Auburn is among many that rarely disappoint.

However, some of these matchups that folks have been convinced are rivalries are overhyped frauds. I am going to list the biggest four, but to get where I am coming from, you have to know what makes up a rivalry. There are six primary elements: history; familiarity; regional proximity; greatness of the players; fan passion; and competitive balance.  Now a good rivalry need not necessarily have all of these elements. For example, the Steelers and Raiders, 49ers and Cowboys have history, but familiarity has dropped because they do not necessarily play every year, as opposed to Dallas and Washington. Regional proximity makes them compelling, but USC and Notre Dame, as well as the Celtics and Lakers have proven that regional proximity is not a necessity. In fact, it can be overplayed, as was the case in Northern Cal when I was growing up. Cal-Berkeley vs. Stanford was considered “the big game”. I could never understand what was so big about a game between two teams with a combined record of 4-14.

The one of these six elements that is necessary for a full-fledge, hype-deserving rivalry is competitive balance.

That is the factor missing from the four biggest frauds on the rivalry Mt. Rushmore.

FRAUD RIVALRY 1) Tiger Woods vs. Phil Mickelson:

Photo Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Photo Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

I know they have the $9 million match play on Friday and the $200K side bet that “Phil Appeal” would birdie the first hole. Far be it for me to deny an interest in an ill action, so I may tune in for that alone. However, to call it a rivalry is an insult to rivalries. It has been reasonably close when they have been paired, with Woods holding an 18-15-2 edge. That is the end of the statistical balance. Though they have both played in nearly all four majors since 1997, they have finished first and second in only one major (the 2002 U.S. Open, won by Woods, by three strokes over Michelson). Their careers for wins has Tiger with 14 majors to Phil’s 5, and 80 tour wins to Phil’s 43.

What rivalry?

When Tiger and Phil are paired together atop the leader board on a Sunday of a major, then give me a call.

 

FRAUD RIVALRY 2) Serena vs. Maria:

Photo courtesy of The Telegraph

Photo courtesy of The Telegraph

It should have been great. When 17-year-old Maria Sharapova took two of her first three matches from the undisputed number 1 Serena Williams in 2004, it included an absolute beat down of the Queen at the Wimbledon finals. There was every reason to believe that it would be a great rivalry for years to come. Since that year, Serena has beaten Maria like a drum, to the tune of 18 matches in a row, 15 of them in straight sets. The only reason Maria broke the streak is that Serena retired due to injury in this year’s French Open. Serena has twice as many tour wins (72-36) and over four times as many majors (23-5).  Rivalry? GTFOOHWTBS.

 

 

 

FRAUD RIVALRY 3) Patriots and the Steelers:

Photo courtesy of Inside the Pylon

Photo courtesy of Inside the Pylon

It pains me to point this out, and I may be risking sedition charges at the hands of the council of Steeler Nation. But the record is what the record is. During the Belichick/Brady era, my Steelers are 3-10 against the Patriots, including 0-3 in playoffs. Their only win in New England was when Brady was hurt. Five of the losses have been in Pittsburgh. Stevie Wonder could see that this is not much of a rivalry.

 

 

 

 

FRAUD RIVALRY 4) LeBron vs MJ:

Photo courtesy of Type One

Photo courtesy of Type One

I suppose if we include social media and/or a bar to be qualifiers, this would be a real rivalry. We cannot. Cyberspace is no more of a venue for a rivalry than porn is for one’s Walter Mitty sexual exploits; NEITHER IS REAL! How on Earth could there be a rivalry when the two never competed against one another? Their careers have literally never even overlapped. Jordan’s last year was the year before LeBron’s debut.  They do not even play the same position.

 

 

 

 

It is easy to understand how these four have come to be presented as something their records clearly show that they are not; ratings! All are marquee within their sports and even beyond, and all move the marketing meter. I get it. But let’s not get carried away, least we take away from real rivalries such as Duke and North Carolina, or my Giants and the Dodgers, etc. The good news is that an overhyped rivalry can get an upgrade. Until 1985, the Lakers and Celtics was overhyped. Then the mighty Purple and Gold put that work in on the lil green bas##@$&. Until 2004 the Yankees and Red Sox was overhyped, until the Red Sox gave the pin stripes the business and have been doing so ever since. Until last year, the Penguins and Capitals was overhyped. You know it is not a real rivalry when only one side of fans is obsessed with it, while the other side just takes winning for granted. That is how Penguins fans felt when they met the Caps in the playoffs……….until last year.  Now it is a good rivalry. Nothing gets the attention of an arrogant fan base more than when your team unexpectedly beats them. So none of the above is eternally locked into fraud rivalry purgatory. However, one must change the narrative and the only way to do that is to start winning.

So, here’s to hoping that the Michigan Wolverines read this and finally beats the Ohio State Buckeyes this weekend. Otherwise, that rivalry may be soon on this list.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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Le’Veon, Dez, and Mr. Eric Reid

Saturday, November 17th, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

(Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

(Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

The sagas of Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell, former Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant, and Panthers safety Eric Reid are all different and yet the same in a very important way: they all represent NFL players attempting to exert their considerable leverage against the company line narrative that most go along with like sheep.

Even as a Steelers fan, I initially supported Bell’s holdout on the basis of one indisputable fact: why should the best running back in the league settle for the average salary of the top 5 paid running backs in the league? That is what a second franchise tag would have paid Bell, or 120% of his 2017 salary…whichever would be highest.

But as current Steelers feature back James Connor continues to be close to, if not as productive, as Bell would have been, and the Steelers “righted the ship” from an early-season stumble, it just seemed to me that Bell’s holdout was more about winning a pissing contest and personal ego, and thus pointless. Then I recently learned something I did not know that might explain Bell’s tactic. Even though Bell has not reported and is being docked pay, he will get credit for having been franchised-tagged a second year. Why is that important? Because tagging him a 3rd year would oblige the Steeler’s to pay him the average of the top 5 highest paid quarterbacks in the league, or 140% of his 2017 salary (which would have been about $14 million)…whichever is highest.

What does Bell get out of all this? A healthy year and he is certain to either be traded or allowed to hit the free agent market, where he can negotiate that any team add his 2017 lost salary into his signing bonus. Todd Gurley got just under $22 million as a signing bonus. Is it out of the realm of possibility that a team would give Bell the same $22 million plus the $14 million in lost salary as a signing bonus, IF he surrenders some back-end and annual salary? We will see.

Dez Bryant is another story.

DBThe receiver was let go by a Cowboys team with hardly an elite receiving corps. My guess is that he could have come back had he been willing to redo his contract, or in other words, take a pay cut. He was not, and so essentially bet on himself in the free agent market. He was reportedly offered a 4-year deal from the Ravens at $7 million per, just before the draft.

I will stop right here to point out an example for media literacy. There is perhaps nothing in sports journalism that is more misleading than the headlines of NFL contract values. Very few players actually see that back-end of a contract, which is often where much of the money is back-loaded to allow the team salary cap flexibility.

With that said, Dez Bryant once again bet on himself and turned the deal down, instead preferring a 1-year deal, after which he could hit the market, hopefully on the momentum of a comeback year and cash in long term.

Bryant expected another call from a team after the draft. Other than the Browns, the phone never rang. He had been sitting at home waiting ever since, until the red-hot Saints called to add to their receiving depth down the stretch. Tragically, Bryant tore an Achilles tendon in his second practice with the team and is now not only done for the year, but has yet another red flag attached to him when and if he returns to try the free agent market.

His is a cautionary tale of how important it is to accurately assess one’s value. The fact is from a pure football standpoint, Bryant was never a speed burner and his capacity to get separation had decreased over the years. Add to that a reputation, true or not, for being disruptive, and Dez simply never had the advantage that he thought he had.

The third saga is by far for me the most intriguing, and that is of Mr. Eric Reid. I call him “Mr.” because the value of his narrative is far larger than football, and instructive in our everyday lives, particularly for those of us who believe in speaking truth to power.

ER

Reid, you may recall knelt alongside Colin Kaepernick, when both were with the 49ers. Both were clearly blackballed from the league as a result. Since the Panthers signed Reid earlier this year, he has been drug-tested 5 times in 6 weeks. He has been ejected from a game and had what was clearly a game-winning turnover overturned. Why? Because he continues to kneel and the league would just as soon wish that Reid go away, along with his collusion suit that he filed against it, along with Kaepernick. As much of an offense it was, Reid breaking away from a group of NFL players who “negotiated” an $89 million payoff to the group of money supposedly aimed at addressing the issues that have led to the protest in the first place. Upon closer exam, a significant portion of those funds is going to local police departments.

Why would you pay the people who are doing the killing?

The most instructive piece of the Reid saga is why he called Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins a NEO-ER2COLONIALIST. Unlike some who use terminology that they may have heard others use but really do not understand the concept themselves, Reid understood exactly what he was saying and explained as much when question by reporters.

According to Reid, the group had decided before meeting with league officials that giving up the right to kneel during the anthem was not a negotiable point. It seemed to be the league’s primary objective. After the meetings took place, Jenkins calls Reid and asks, “How much would it take for you to stop kneeling?”

In simple terms, a Neo-Colonialist is someone from the oppressed group that does the bidding of the oppressor, while promoting the notion of post Colonialism. It aptly describes a pitiful number of African, Central, and South American governments upon post-formal Colonialism. It goes on all around us today from most members of the Congressional Black Caucus, to the activist industrial complex, to the Black police chief hired in response to yet another unjust killing of a Black man or woman. Their fundamental role is to keep the “natives” in line. If we calculate 30 pieces of silver in today’s money, sadly, it would not even take that amount for some to turn.

When a well-paid professional athlete that could just as easily take the money and keep his mouth shut continues to speak truth to power as well as call out those who have willingly collaborated with the enemy, he is entitled to be addressed as MISTER!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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The Trouble with Rewarding “The Biggest Loser”

Thursday, October 11th, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of TeamRankings.com

Image courtesy of TeamRankings.com

A friend of mine plays several weekly football pools…straight picks…no point spreads, with the Monday Night total being the tiebreaker. He showed me the payoff breakdown of the largest, which has a pot of over $5000 per week.  First place takes home over $3K. Second about $1K, third about $500, fourth is about $400, and fifth about $300. Considering it’s only $10 per week, per sheet to play, and one can play as many sheets as one likes, it is a good deal. Merely placing once would get a weekly 1-sheet player his/her money back, plus extra.

All good, until I noticed a sixth payout slot: $100, regardless of pot size, would go to……………..get ready for this……….THE BIGGEST LOSER!

That is right. The person who wins the least gets $100.

When I first saw this, my thinking was it keeps the struggling players engaged, which after all, keeps the money pot high. More money for the winners and everybody is happy right?

Wrong!

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

Why reward the Biggest Loser when those who consistently miss only two games get nothing?

Understand that this particular pool has nearly 700 entries. It is not uncommon to go into the Monday Night game with only one loss and be out of the money because five with one loss picked the same team as he did, which means he cannot catch the five leaders. To consistently get through an NFL Sunday with only two losses takes some skill, and yet you walk away with nothing. However, the Biggest Loser gets $100? What this means is that in theory, one could tank the pool, lose on purpose, and win $1700. I know that this would never happen because losing the most has a degree of chance just as winning the most does. However, even if you were the Biggest Loser twice; the $200 would pay for your season and then a $30 return.

So, I asked my friend about this and his response was that they do not let anyone win “The Biggest Loser” prize more than once to prevent just what I feared.

Now here is how a “scheming demon” would get around this: He would simply pretend to have recruited new players, which would all in fact be him, so that he could continually tank games and pocket the $100 per week. Again, even though he would not be the Biggest Loser every week, he still games the system because we have set it up to essentially reward losing.
Now some will expand this concern of mine to the larger society and the debate over entitlements and a larger social safety net, and even calls to move toward a collective first society and away from predatory Capitalism.

It is not that deep.

Those of us who are adamant about moving away from Capitalism are simply saying the basic needs the collective 99% should take priority over the selfish desires of 1 percent and their never-ending attempt to horde the world’s resources for themselves.

The key term is needs.

Winning a football pool is not a need. Nor is the Biggest Loser’s plight the result of a rigged system, both historically and til this day.

He simply either does not pay attention or does not know what he is doing. It is ok. It does not make him a bad person, but it also does not warrant him a reward for his “pick em” incompetence.

Let everyone win by putting the work in and paying attention. Otherwise, this pool is destined for the participation trophy category.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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Where have all the Aces gone?

Thursday, October 4th, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

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As the Major League Baseball postseason begins and one tries to assess which teams have the best chance of winning the World Series, the first thing to consider is starting pitching. Historically, even in today’s hyper-power-hitting era, the teams that pitch the best in the postseason usually win, anchored by their top of the rotation “Ace”!

It is not a question of depth. The Astros and Indians became the fourth and fifth teams in baseball history to have three different pitchers log 200 strikeouts. In the Astros case, their fourth starter, who did not strike out 200, is Dallas Keuchel, a recent CY Young award winner. In the Indians case, they actually had four pitchers strikeout at least 200 batters. That has never happened in baseball history. Power arms are in long supply. However, who do you really trust?

Consider the “Aces” or opening starters of each of the teams:

Jhoulys Chacin of the Brewers is a solid middle of the rotation pitcher who won a career high 15 games this year. He just is not an Ace.

 Kyle Freeland of the Rockies won 17 games and had a 2.88 earned run average (ERA). Anyone with that kind of ERA pitching half his games at Coors field, where he actually had a lower ERA than on the road, has to be straight “dealing”! He validated their hopes last night with six and two-thirds shutout innings on the road in the Wild Card game, which the Rockies would eventually win in extra innings.

Mike Foltynewicz of the Braves won 13 games and had a 2.85 ERA, with over 200 strikeouts. He is only 26, so the Braves are hopeful.

Liam Hendrix of the A’s is not even a starting pitcher. How they managed to win 97 games with no pitcher able to win more than 12 games is beyond me.

Luis Severino of the Yankees won 19 games and has some of the best swing and miss stuff in baseball. However, his post All-Star break ERA was 5.57.

Chris Sale of the Red Sox also has the kind of stuff that Severino has but has a history of wearing down.

Both Sale and Severino have small postseason samples (2 starts each). The eventual champion Astros lit both up in last year in the playoffs.

Even more unsettling are the bad experiences of the more established top starters. Consider the career ERAs vs their postseason:

Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers (2.39/4.35) is by far the most perplexing example of Aces that underperform in the postseason.

David Price of the Red Sox (3.25/5.03) in 17 postseason appearances. The record is clear: He simply cannot be trusted.

Cory Kluber of the Indians numbers are not as bad but his failure to close out the Cubs in the 2016 World Series stays on my mind and was compounded by his postseason ERA from last year, which was over 12.

Compare the results to the Aces of days past who actually raised their performance when it mattered the most:

Mickey Lolich of the Tigers (3.44/1.57) was the last man to win 3 starts in the World Series, accomplishing the feat in 1968, beating the great Bob Gibson in game 7, on the road.

Orel Hershiser of the Dodgers and Indians (3.48/2.59) won the 1988 NLCS and World Series MVPs.

Curt Schilling with the Phillies, Red Sox, and Diamondbacks (3.46/2.23) won the 1993 NLCS MVP and was 2001 co-World Series MVP

Dave Stewart with the Dodgers, A’s, and Blue Jays (3.95/2.77) won a World Series MVP in 1989 and 2 ALCS MVPs.

Scot McGregor with the Orioles (3.95/1.63) is the only pitcher in history to throw complete game shutouts in both LCS and World Series clincher games, both on the road.

Orlando “El Duke” Hernandez with the Yankees (4.13/2.55) won an ALCS MVP and had a .750 postseason winning percentage.

And none of the above is in the Hall of Fame. The following three are:

Bob Gibson with the Cardinals (2.91/1.89) won a record 7 straight World Series games, holds the single postseason game record 17 strikeouts, and won 2 World Series MVPs.

Sandy Koufax with the Dodgers (2.76/0.95). The 0.95 ERA is not a misprint and he also won two-time World Series MVP.

John Smoltz with the Braves (3.33/2.67) won an NLCS MVP and has a .789 postseason winning percentage.

So, who is the best big game/postseason pitcher in the game today? That distinction would go to Mr. Madison Bumgarner of my San Francisco Giants (3.03/2.11). His resume includes two complete game shutouts on the road in the sudden death Wild Card game, as well as an NLCS and World Series MVP.

However, my Giants are at home with me. In the playoffs, there are only two: Justin Verlander of the Astros and John Lester of the Cubs (3.50/2.55). Like Randy Johnson, Verlander was anything but reliable early in his postseason career. However, today, other than “Mad Bum”, he is on the short list of the pitchers you least worry about in the postseason. Lester has been “the man” in both Boston and now Chicago, and he validated himself again Tuesday night, even though the Cubs lost. He also has a co-NLCS MVP award.

So, on that basis; I say the Astros return to the Series and best the Dodgers again, but this time in six.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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