The kids in our neighborhood, this time of year, would envy the kids in Cincinnati. No foolin’.
There was a wonderful tradition back then, before MLB placed a price tag on everything and marked up its soul for sale to TV, then pay-more cable, and now whatever it can get via streaming — even if it costs fans more and more money and costs MLB more and more fans.
With the Cincinnati Red Stockings, formed in 1869, the oldest team in the majors, the Reds, as a matter of sustaining historical deference, were annually granted MLB’s Opening Day game. None other was even scheduled.
And Cincy responded with hearts and souls. Schools were closed so kids could attend the parade that placed the Reds in open-top convertibles, so they could wave to the crowds as they were slowly driven to Crosley Field.
It was right out of a Norman Rockwell print, and all the baseball-crazy kids at P.S. 35 wished they’d been shipped to Cincy for the day.
Rob Manfred pictured during a February 2024 press conference in Tampa. USA TODAY Sports via Reuters ConOf course, this was before teams’ marketing departments were invented, as there was no need to interest kids in what they already were crazy about.
Those Opening Day Reds’ games typically were played the second week of April, a logical time of year for fans to begin to attend baseball games and baseball to begin. To play weekend games at night was out of the question, because it defied logic. There was little TV money to play stupid for.
One wonders if Rob Manfred knows of that Opening Day tradition — or just allowed it, as did Bud “Bottom Line” Selig before him, to be destroyed for TV money.
The Dodgers and Padres opened the 2024 MLB season in Seoul, South Korea. APNow, Opening Day belongs to ESPN for no other reason than money, as ESPN relentlessly proves that it wrecks everything it touches with its half-witted excesses, cross- and self-promotions and divided in-game attention.
So this year’s Opening Day became a Dodgers-Padres game, held last week, March 20, in Seoul, South Korea. A game designed to make far more dollars than sense.
First pitch for the opener, between West Coast teams, was 6:05 a.m. ET, 3:05 a.m. in L.A. and San Diego. As Lt. Kojak asked, “Who loves ya, baby?”
As for Norman Rockwell, he’s pitching parlays for one of MLB’s partner sports books.
NCAA Cinderella story? Quality announcing team
NCAA Tournament Notebook:
Again I’m moved to favor the work of CBS analyst Steve Lappas.
Thursday, working the Oregon-South Carolina game on TNT, Lappas saw and spoke it all so clearly, heads to toes. Thus we were shown and told how players weren’t moving their feet on defense and didn’t make smart passes the other way. He continues to make you stop, look, listen and learn. He’s Ed, as in continuing ed.
He and play-by-play man Andrew Catalon also spoke as if we could see what couldn’t be missed. They even allowed a successful 3-point shot to speak for itself rather than trying to top it with transparently forced Kevin Harlan/Gus Johnson shouting.
The most unintended comedy came when the studio gathering of Ernie Johnson, Clark Kellogg, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith tried to provide insights on Duquesne’s next game after its upset of BYU.
It was clear that they knew nothing about Duquesne’s basketball team, and that stood to reason as few viewers knew about the Pittsburgh school’s team. We’d have applauded their honesty had they simply said, “We’re in the dark on this one.” Smith came closest to candor with, “We don’t even know who they’ll play next.” But they instead killed time and filled space with a pile of platitudinous palaver.
Duquesne’s upset win against BYU stumped the studio analysts who needed to talk about the program. Getty ImagesTouts of the first round belonged to the all-knowing, colossally wrong Mike Francesa — who advised McNeese, a 6 ¹/₂ -point dog, vs. Gonzaga. McNeese lost by 21. He also said Kentucky, a 14-point favorite, would crush 14-seed Oakland (Mich.). Kentucky lost by four.
Brings to recall Fransayso’s claim that Louisville QB Teddy Bridgewater will be the “sleeper” in the 2003 NFL draft, “a steal.” Bridgewater remained at Louisville, as he wasn’t even eligible for the 2013 draft.
And after the detritus has settled in L.A., I suspect we’ll learn that Shohei Ohtani’s since-fired interpreter, a reported $4.5 million gambling loser, was a subscriber to Francesa’s sports book-sponsored podcasted touts.
Bill Bradley on basketball’s escalating financial reliance on gambling on games:
“I don’t think players should be turned into roulette chips” he told NBA Substack reporter Marc Stein. “It’s a scandal waiting to happen. There will always be gambling around the edges, but to legitimize it as a central part of the sport is counter to the values of the game.”
Still no word from Temple University’s acknowledged investigation into four highly suspicious basketball betting line movements and results this season.
Bill Bradley cautioned that NBA players shouldn’t be “turned into roulette chips.” Robert Sabo for the NY PostPoliticians & Sports, continued: False alarm puller, N.Y. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, recently defended the appearance of hate-mongering, proud and loud Jew-basher, history-fabricating and mainstreamed fringe lunatic Louis Farrakhan as an honored image in a mural.
Wonder how Bowman reconciles Farrakhan’s applauded spew during the Mike Tyson rape case when he declared to a room filled with black male Muslims,“When a sister says no, she really means yes!”
For crying out loud, Farrakhan essentially supports the right for black men have non-consual sex — to rape — black women! Bowman and Farrakhan’s many female supporters are good with that?
But it grows more insane by the minute.
In-season event to forget
Say, let us know when next season’s NBA schedule comes out so we can amp up for the second in-season NBA Tournament — a reprise of the instantly forgettable, meaningless and desperate what-were-they-thinking inaugural held this past December.
There was a sustained shot clock failure during last week’s Warriors-Lakers, resulting in a long delay. Such things happen. But that gave LeBron James, 39-year-old spoiled brat, opportunities to demonstrate his ball-slamming petulance as if he had something better to do. Perhaps if he’d been told that the clock was made in Communist China along with his Nikes he’d have been more understanding.
Chris Simon, who traded bare-fisted punches to the head for seven NHL teams including the Rangers and Islanders, last week committed suicide at age 52. His family believes he was afflicted by on-the-job brain damage, CTE. Given his past response to CTE revelations, Gary Bettman, I suspect, thinks Simon died of media hysterics.
LSU basketball, TV star and glamor gal Angel Reese says she has broken up with boyfriend, Florida State basketball player Cam’Ron Mitchell. She made that very clear writing on Instagram: “I don’t got no man. Don’t attach me to no man. That’s all I’mma say.” State-funded LSU lists Ms. Reese as a communications major. Seriously.
Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff claims he has received death threats and threats against his family and home from gamblers. Ugly but not unexpected. But hey, as long as the threats came from those who bet with NBA partnered sports books, it’s all good.
