Jarndyce v. Jarndyce v. Goodell v. Brady v. Sanity
BREAKING!!!
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Federal judge Merrick Garland has asked President Barack Obama to withdraw his name from nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Garland phoned Obama with his request approximately six seconds after a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, reinstated the four game suspension imposed on New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for his alleged role in the so-called Deflategate affair in the 2014 AFC Championship Game imposed by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. By a 2-1 vote, the panel reversed a 2015 decision by District Court Judge Richard Berman which had overturned the suspension.
According to a senior Obama Administration official with knowledge of the call, Garland cited the likelihood of the 2-1 vote leading Brady and the NFL Players' Association to appeal the ruling and the possibility the case would reach the Supreme Court in making his request to the President, as well as his age of 63.
"Life's too short for that shit," Garland is said to have told Obama.
According to the same official, at least 15 other U.S. appellate judges currently on are hold after phoning the White House "within minutes" of Garland's initial message.
Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz and John Kasich had no initial reaction to Garland's decision or the Brady ruling. In a message on Twitter, candidate Donald Trump vowed to "only appoint judges who like football. And not soccer!"
"We're on to the draft," was the only comment by New England coach Bill Belichick.
In a possibly related development, ESPN television personalities Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless were each hospitalized early this afternoon for treatment of incipient apoplexy,
Armies With Nothing But Generals Don't Win Many Wars
As the college and pro football season neared and reached their ends last winter, NFL "insiders" (actually outsiders) in national sports media grew louder in expressing a consensus opinion they'd been stating since September. The crop of college quarterbacks eligible for the 2016 draft contained a few players who might make competent pros, there were a couple of promising prospects needing work, but this was no bumper crop of signal callers.
Nobody would mistake this crowd for the class of 1983, ran conventional wisdom. There were no Andrew Lucks here. There might not be any Alex Smiths.
The draft is next week. The Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles have already paid king's ransoms in future high-round draft picks to acquire the first and second overall choices. They did so in order to make sure they wouldn't miss out on quarterbacks Jared Goff and Carson Wentz. The Rams have yet to say which one of these megastars of 2021 they favor, meaning the Eagles dropped off their ransom to the Browns to get their hands on the first runner-up.
This is what REALLY happens every spring. Without fail, at least one and usually more than one NFL franchise pulls up a year's worth of scouting and personnel evaluation, hits the delete key, and lets desperation rule. We need a new and better quarterback. QB X is new. We need him! This logical fallacy is akin to deciding that since a straight looks like it'll be the best hand at the poker table, drawing to fill one's inside straight is the best possible move.
At least the Rams have an excuse, not a good one, but a real one, for saying the future had damn well better be now. They're moving to a new city with an easily bored community of sports fans, and even if they weren't concussed all the time, neither Case Keenum nor Nick Foles are what you, me or their moms would call gate attractions.
The Eagles are the finer, purer example of how quarterback lust drives front offices mad. Philly had already re-signed last year's starter Sam Bradford and acquired backup Chase Daniel for 2016 at a salary cap figure of $22.5 million. Draft pick number two will add a few mil to that total. Good luck fighting over the crumbs, you special team vets. Between that sum and the big bucks former coach Chip Kelly wasted on running backs, shoring up the rest of the Eagle roster will be impossible.
Get the logical contradiction here? Philly made a big and questionable commitment to its current questionable starter. It then mortgaged its short-term future in an investment in its long-term future, an investment that only makes sense if they pay Bradford to stink in 2016. Let's go to Fantasyland. Bradford defies the odds, has a great season and wins Comeback Player of the Year. What happens to QB of the Future then? The date where he begins to offer some ROI on yesterday's trade will be pushed back two seasons at least. He will be dead money wearing a baseball cap backwards on the sideline.
The 2016 draft, like many drafts before it, has been shaped by the inability of NFL front offices to distinguish between the definitions of two simple four-letter words. Yes, quarterback is the most important position in football. Most, however, is not a synonym for only.
Forget the irrationality of the Rams and Eagles paying Ferrari prices to acquire players rated as Subarus before QB frenzy kicked in. Just think about how they paid draft picks they now can't use to paint their houses or replace their cracked and failing roofs. Should either or both Goff and Wentz turn out to be sports cars, they won't impress the neighbors when they're parked in the driveways of two eyesores.
Andrew Luck WAS a consensus surefire franchise quarterback when the Colts picked him number one in the 2012 draft. He lived up to the billing, too. Indianapolis made the playoffs in his first three seasons with Luck pretty much the entire offense of a team with a mediocre defense.
In an exercise in idiocy, Indy's front office (who knows who runs things there, really?) passed on three chances to improve the tacklers and especially blockers among Luck's teammates. In 2015 the inevitable happened. The hits Luck took being the franchise became more numerous. His performance suffered, then he got hurt. The guy who should've been the league's next superstar is dangerously close to "what might have been" territory.
Number one pick Alex Smith was a disappointment in San Francisco. Andy Reid traded for him, let Smith play to his limitations in a no-risk offense, surrounded him with players suited for such a scheme, and hey, presto, the Chiefs are a playoff team.
Tom Brady is on the short list for greatest quarterback ever. He is why the Patriots have been the most consistent winning team in NFL history, 15 seasons and counting now. If we're talking trades, he'd be worth two ENTIRE drafts or more. Yet as was proved once more in the AFC championship game, Brady's only great when he's upright. Like any quarterback who ever lived, Brady's just another guy when he spends 60 minutes staring up at the sky after pass plays and goes back to the huddle picking grass out of his nose and ears. Brady is way more important than any other individual Pat, even Gronk. But as a group, his offensive lineman are just as important as Brady.
It's an equation first discovered by Amos Alonzo Stagg. Blocking + tackling = winning. The emergence of the quarterback has changed what blockers do, but it hasn't changed their significance. This will occur to either Goff or Wentz the first time some Ram guard yells "look out" this fall.
The men who run NFL franchises have spent their lives in the game. They know much much more about football than I do. It's the insecurity of their chosen trade that drives some of them to make the same blunder year after year. The fastest way to get better, not to win titles but to get better, is to get your hands on a real star quarterback. Fastest way to impress fans and the owner, too. Too bad trying to get one is also the bet least likely to pay off, meaning it's also the fastest way to get fired. I sure wouldn't want a gig where I had to eagerly play against the percentages just to draw a paycheck for another couple of years.
The future is never now but it's always unknowable. Goff and Wentz could become the next Brady and Peyton Manning. People DO fill inside straights sometimes.
If only more people tried it when I play poker.
Dullest Killer Reptile Ever
Many careers in all trades end in self-parody, so it's not too surprising Kobe Bryant ended his NBA days in a game in which he scored 60 points by taking a measly 50 shots. Even back in his prime, Bryant was not what one would term a paragon of offensive efficiency. In 19 seasons, he led the league in scoring three times, and in shots taken six times. No man has better epitomized the saying that a shooter must have no conscience.
Indeed, if I were to create a prototypical Bryant game, it'd be a night where he went 11 for 27 and one for 7 from behind the three-point line for about 31 points. It's no accident that the new breed of statistically-driven basketball followers, who're trying to do for their sport what's already happened in baseball, tend to be reluctant to label Bryant an all-time great. They ignore the catch that in my typical Kobe game, that one three would win it for the Lakers.
This NBA follower is anything but stat-driven, but I'm willing to give Bryant his due. Obviously he's an all-time great, one of the top 20 for sure. He averaged 25 points a game over 19 years and scored 33.000 points. That's outstanding. He was a star on five NBA championship teams. That's even more outstanding. Although they all wore Laker uniforms, those five title winners were essentially two different teams (titles were 2000-2002 and 2009-2010) of which Bryant was the only constant. That's the stuff of history. Michael didn't do that, nor Larry nor Magic. Only Hall of Famers I can think of who did were Bill Russell and John Havlicek.
These accomplishments are to be respected and admired, and I do. Yet I must balance that respect and admiration with the following cold truth. From his rookie year to his pathetic farewell season, Kobe Bryant's game has always bored me stiff. He is the least compelling NBA superstar of my long life following pro basketball.
Scoring points is the sport's objective and Bryant was good at it. It's not his fault that isolation one-on-one scoring and repeated jump shots are not what I find the height of hardwood drama. There are no style points in basketball -- except in the hearts and minds of fans. And in my mind, I can think of a dozen scorers, from Earl Monroe to Kevin Durant, who probably weren't/aren't as accomplished as Bryant who were/are more fun to watch. For them, I'd buy a ticket. For him, never.
Time for the elephant in the bathtub. Bryant was accused of the heinous crime of rape. We will never know what really happened in that Colorado hotel room since the case never went to trial. I will say that for celebrities, bribing/threatening victims not to pursue serious criminal charges is not as easy as popular culture supposes. But I can't help remembering that when the news broke, my immediate reaction was "I can't believe such a vapid personality had such a horror in him."
Any fond/funny anecdotes from Bryant's career come to mind? Any memorable quotes? Anything besides all those shots? Maybe people in LA have dozens of such memories. Thirty-five hundred miles away from Staples Center, I don't. When I reach to compare Bryant to another superstar, the first one that pops into my head is poor A-Rod. Outside of Laker fandom, I can think of only two entities in sports who're really fond of Kobe, ESPN and Nike. That's not the best company to keep, legacy-wise.
Sports legends earn that term because people remember them for as long as life lasts. I've been lucky enough to see every NBA immortal save George Mikan. When I close my eyes and think of them, I see plays, signature displays of skill and will. I see Russell blocking a shot, Wilt dunking, Magic leading the Showtime break, Michael going off for 63 on the '86 Celtics. I can turn on the TV and see Steph Curry hitting a three.
When I close my eyes and think of Kobe Bryant, I see a resume.
The Weight of Victory Is as Heavy as That of Defeat -- Heavier Even
There is almost no danger that his 45 minutes of terror and lost balls on the back nine of Augusta National last Sunday will be the most remembered event of Jordan Spieth's golf career. Thirty years hence, he won't be mentioned in the same sentence as Jean Van de Velde.
In fact, Masters champion Danny Willett is at greater risk of a stern sentence from the bar of golf history. He could yet wind up mentioned in the same sentence as Paul Lawrie.
Who's that, you say? Why Lawrie was the winner of the 1999 Open Championship. He was the beneficiary of Van de Velde's breakdown of mind and body on the 72nd hole at Carnoustie. Lawrie went on to win the title in a playoff. He holds the record for biggest final day comeback in a major tournament, having begun the last round 10 strokes off the lead.
And nobody knows, or almost nobody. The video of Van de Velde's comical, horrible triple bogey is a staple of sports television. It never shows clips of Lawrie hoisting the claret jug in triumph. Lawrie's still on the European Tour, a ham and egg journeyman uncelebrated beyond his own household.
If Willett doesn't continue to succeed at the highest levels of tournament golf, indeed, if he doesn't win another major, he will become Lawrie, a guy seen as having prospered from the misfortune of one of his betters. The 2016 Masters will be known not as Willett's victory, but as Spieth's disaster.
This would be most unfair. Not only did Willett should a flawless 67 on Sunday, he also coped with the burden of a sudden and unexpected lead in what was now a wide-open tournament. Willett was on the 15th green when Spieth quadruple-bogeyed the 12th. Willett went on to finish birdie-par-par, earning the praise of interested observer Mr. J.W. Nicklaus.
But Willett's win would be denigrated all the same. There are few areas of human endeavor where it's more of a front-runner's universe than golf, and its history is the same if not more so. One can see this happening even now. For every sentence of praise for Willett's performance, there's been an avalanche of essays, columns, stories, blog posts and tweets on Spieth's. Golf defines itself by what happens to its favorites, not its underdogs.
There's been some long-distance psychological hooey aimed at Spieth, speculation that his collapse will leave lasting scars that'll harm his golf for as long as he keeps playing. One never says never, except this time I will. That's not gonna happen. Spieth's just too good. Multiple major winners, which he already is at age 22, are made of stern stuff, and more of them than one might think have major tournament collapses on their resumes.
Start with Spieth's contemporary peer, Rory McIlroy. McIlroy had yet to win a major when he fell apart at the 2011 Masters in exactly the same fashion, disintegrating with a lead as he stood on the 10th tee of the final round. Oh, the long-distance psychoanalysis was way more superheated in his case. More specious, too, as McIlroy promptly won the next major, the US Open, by about the same margin by which Secretariat won the Belmont. He's won an Open Championship and two PGAs since.
Phil Mickelson kicked away his best chance to win a US Open with a drive to parts unknown on the 72nd hole. Nobody in their right mind calls Mickelson a choker. His failure is accepted as an inescapable part of his greatness. The drive at Winged Foot is the flip side of the shot he hit off the pine straw to win the 2010 Masters. Mickelson has always gone for broke and to hell with prudence. It's why he's loved. Life's too short to lay up.
Greg Norman's debacle at the 1996 Masters is seen as the defining moment of his career not because it was, really (he was already on its downside) but because it epitomized what was the most amazing long term hard luck story the sport has told. Before that awful day, Norman had already lost each one of the four major tournaments in a playoff. Two of the losses were by holeouts. Somebody up there with a five-iron in his hand didn't like him.
Arnold Palmer double-bogeyed the 72nd hole to lose the 1961 Masters, He lost a seven-stroke lead on the final day to lose the 1967 US Open. That's two big fades. Who cares? He's Arnie.
Sam Snead tripled bogeyed the 72nd to lose the 1939 Open and missed a short putt to lose the same tourney in 1947. He was famous for never winning an Open. He's still famous, but the Open gap is a just a quirk of his legend, nothing more. Ben Hogan, Ben Hogan!! went a long time on Tour before he starting winning, and believe it or not, he had a rep for not being able to finish.
Unless everything else Spieth has done in golf was a mirage or unless they change the rules to make putting less important, his destiny will be to have his Sunday of perfect misery stand as an exception to past and future successes, a reminder that the sport's too hard for anybody to beat it all the time, so failure is to be understood, excused and forgotten if success is to be properly celebrated.
The US Open is in two months at Oakmont. As defending champion, Jordan Spieth will face a considerable amount of pressure when he steps on the first tee.
Masters champion Danny Willett will face more.
Merle Haggard 1937-2016
Merle Haggard died today of pneumonia on his 79th birthday. The list of authentic creative geniuses in country music is smaller by one name, and not that many new names are replacing the fallen giants.
Haggard's accomplishments are too many for me to fairly discuss them. I'll just focus on a small one he never knew about. It was his tribute album to Jimmie Rodgers "Same Train, a Different Time," that gave me a love of country-western that lives to this day. Find that album, acquire it, listen and you'll hear what I mean.
Country is like every other genre in American popular music. It's artists striving to produce and perform something true to themselves and others within an industry with a vested interest in grinding off art's rough edges to appeal to the mass audience which like all mass audiences isn't much for originality or truth. Haggard's voice, impeccable sense of music and his personality allowed him to thrive for half a century atop that narrow, narrow balance beam. That's the apex of popular art achievement.
If the Times doesn't have Merle's obit on Page 1 tomorrow, they'll be walkin' on the fightin' side of me. And American cultural history's.
Some Records Get Broken, Others Just Sit and Collect Dust in the Basement
The Celtics upset the Warriors last night. Boston is a poor matchup for Golden State, probably because they are similar in structure, just not quite as good. Mirror image teams are hard to play in any sport.
National if not local news this morning is focused on how the loss ruined the Warriors' chances to become the first team in NBA history to go undefeated at home, and as its eighth loss, seriously damaged Golden State's hope of breaking the 1996 Bulls' mark for best regular season ever of 72-10. Either of those marks represent an astonishing feat of consistent excellence in a grueling endeavor. Yet any time the Warriors have spent thinking about either record has been a dangerous waste of time and energy. Without playoff success and a repeat NBA title, their prowess from November until April will be forgotten at best, a badge of shame at worst.
Every historic NBA season by any team has either been capped with a championship or it's not considered historic. If the '71'72 Lakers hadn't been champs, their record 33-game winning streak would be denigrated as yet another example of how Wilt choked in the clutch. Had the 1985-1986 Celtics failed to dispatch the Rockets in the Finals, their 40-1 home record would mean nothing to anyone, themselves least of all. It's been 20 years now, and what folks remember about the '95-'96 Bulls was that they were the fourth of six titles for Michael Jordan and Co.
Of course, the NBA has been playoffcentric since forever. I was taught as a small child in the '50s that the postseason was the actual season, with the regular grind of 82 games just a means to pay the freight for the entire enterprise. This idea, which sure seems counterproductive from the economic point of view (three-fourths of our product is inferior to the rest), is even more pronounced in the NHl, Where the team "playoff hockey" is a proud synonym for "hockey when everyone cares." But as far as team accomplishments go, it's true in every team sport. Don't win a title, don't expect anyone to recognize what you did before you lost it.
No game venerates and obsesses over its single regular season records like baseball does -- as long as the record is compiled by an individual and not a team. Just to take an example, no fan is unaware of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, even though since it was set in 1941, few of those fans were alive to see it. Only obsessive historians of the sport can cite the record for a TEAM's winning streak. It is 26, set by the New York Giants in 1916.
Nobody dwells on this feat because the Giants finished in fourth place that year. Incidentally, the team's streak came on the final 26 games of the year, making it the greatest salary drive ever, too. You'd think at least the Players' Association could rustle up a plaque for those guys.
The record for most regular season wins is jointly held by the 1906 Cubs and 2001 Mariners at 116. Neither team won the World Series. The Mariners didn't even get there. So their record is widely ignored or disdained. I'll bet most of you readers right now are thinking "116 and they didn't win the Series? How Cublike of them."
Bostonians ought to know the score when it comes to regular season records. The score of Super Bowl XLII, Giants 17-Patriots 14 to be precise. It is noteworthy that when Patriots management put a banner up at Gillette Stadium to mark the team's 2007 16-0 record, fan embarrassment and I'll bet an internal expression of humiliation from the likes of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, forced the banner's removal.
Good for any and all of those who objected. Sports isn't entirely zero-sum. A team can have a most successful year if it doesn't win a championship, this season's Celtics being a prime example. It just can't have a truly great one. It has compiled numbers, not made history.
The Warriors will have their chance to make their records stick starting in a couple of weeks. For now, they're marking time. We note that the team considered to be Golden State's most dangerous playoff rival, the Spurs, are famous for how coach Gregg Popovich would rather tank a game than deprive his stars of the regular season rest he believes they need for when history gets made.
