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Last column of the year. Reminds me of the death row convict, when headed to the chair, asked what he wanted for his last meal.
“What are you out of?” he said.
So let’s try the Couch Potato Salad Closer:
While there’s no end to the damage excess and greed do to sports, occasionally the transparent public con jobs are challenged by the candidly and openly courageous. Thus, our Man Of The Final Week is Irish pro golfer, PGA Tour member and Florida resident Shane Lowry.
Following Jon “I’m Not In It For The Money” Rahm’s decision to accept $500 million to play on the Saudi government-owned LIV tour, Lowry said: “I think what Jon said about growing the game and stuff, that’s obviously what they have to say. They’ve signed on the dotted line. They’ve been told by the communications team that this is what you say when you’re asked this and you have no other choice because they own you now.”
As for Rahm’s claim that “I have a duty to my family” to dump the PGA Tour, on which he has won $52 million, for LIV, Lowry doesn’t quite buy that, either:
“People have spent their hard earned money to join a golf club or to buy golf clubs and play golf on the weekend,” he said. “It’s tough for them to listen to the guy who’s already worth whatever, say that he has to do this to put food on the table for his wife and kids.”
But what if they can’t afford the table?
With dozens of schools’ best players opting out of bowl games to avoid pre-draft injuries, how long before the title sponsors opt out of bowl games?
Heck, soon 6-6 teams will have to find something better to do, perhaps even attend classes.
Christmas Day, Celtics-Lakers on ESPN, Celts lead, 100-92, 10:18 left. Good fourth-quarter basketball stuff to come. Perhaps. We’ll let the new-age, post In Season Tournament NBA take it from there, just as it reads on the play-by-play sheet:
- Celts’ Payton Pritchard misses 3-point pull-up jump shot.
- Celts’ Sam Hauser offensive rebound.
- Celts’ Jrue Holiday bad pass, D’Angelo Russell steals.
- Lakers’ Russell bad pass, Jaylen Brown steals.
- Celts’ Hauser misses 3-point shot.
- Lakers’ Jared Vanderbilt defensive rebound.
- Lakers’ LeBron James misses 3-point shot.
- Celts’ Al Horford defensive rebound.
Celts eventually win by 11, with almost no sensible, recognizable team basketball played the entire fourth quarter. But the Celtics made 13 of 42 3-point shots.
Auld lang syne. Gee, how I miss NBA games back when they played basketball.
Zero tolerance for sham ‘zero-tolerance’ policy
Thoughts and Prayers, Continued: Thursday, after Illinois star guard Terrence Shannon Jr. (22 ppg) was arrested and charged with rape, the school released the new all-schools the boiler plate obligatory: It has “zero tolerance for sexual misconduct.”
One wonders what the previous number was, 18 percent? Higher? Lower? Depends?
While full scholarship college athletes so often show themselves to be only marginally literate upon turning pro, we have the NHL Florida Panthers’ Aleksander Barkov.
He’s a Russian-Finnish center, 28 years old and team captain who plays hard, is highly skilled and speaks fluent though slightly accented English.
Go figure.
If you’re ever inclined to listen to mostly southern-accented adult males speak as if they’re emotionally unhinged or overly wrought due to college football and basketball rooting interests, listen to the afternoon phone call sessions on ESPN/SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum Show.
Finebaum, a Memphis native and Tennessee grad, thus no stranger to such excessive rooting and hating interests, mostly has the perfect response: He sits there and makes with a thin indulgent smile, as if he knows better than to further engage such callers.
Reader Michael Perchun has selected our AARP College Athlete of the Year. No, not Rocky Lombardi, the Northern Illinois QB who just completed his seventh year of eligibility.
Perhun has chosen Hawaii’s guard Juan Munoz, now enjoying his eighth year of eligibility.
Munoz, from North Carolina, is listed as a second-year graduate student though he was enrolled for five years at Longwood University in Virginia, 4,700 miles from Hawaii. Call me cynical but I think he may be enrolled in a Hawaii grad school program just to play basketball.
As the Bible verse says: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”
Hey, the NBA wanted higher TV ratings to escalate TV rights fees and receive its cut from sports betting operators by selling its credibility and soul to newly legalized sports books. And now there’s almost weekly a gambling issue generated by the logically suspicious.
For the Nets, last week, to have sat out their best available players after the first quarter against the Bucks — to have provided aid and comfort to the visiting team that eventually would blow them out and easily cover the spread — was not just a betrayal/rip-off of ticket-buyers — a Consumer Affairs legal issue — but the latest call for Adam Silver to hire independent investigators or at least publicly answer two questions:
What the hell was that game all about?
Are you good with what went down?
Reader John Boris has sent along a chart showing a sudden and alarming rise in testicular injuries sustained by female athletes.
Less than ‘optimal’ showing in bowl
Thursday’s Rutgers-Miami Pinstripe Bowl was pretty much a modern standard college football game, starting with the pregame fight and two-group mean-mug mingle, followed by a Miami team that appeared to have no clue due to a pile of pregame opt-outs and a starting QB who hadn’t played a down this season.
But it did provide the latest good grief! from the TV booth. After Miami’s kick returner was tackled at his own 14, ESPN play-by-player Drew Carter declared that “Miami will have suboptimal field position to start.”
Because you never know, here’s hoping it is not embraced by a broadcast booth parrot. After all, who knew that “sticks a foot in the ground” would become the term for a RB who “cut”?
Dear Mr. Goodell: This item appeared in the Sports Shorts section of Wednesday’s Post:
“The Texans claimed safety Kareem Jackson off waivers one day after he was released by the Broncos. Jackson, 35, was suspended twice, ejected from two games and fined a total of $89,670 for repeated violations of unnecessary roughness rules this season.”
What took ’em? The Virginia Tech-Tulane Military Bowl, as seen on ESPN, included commercial sponsors for both first downs and the red zone.
They’re Number 1!: Reader Steven Arendash notes that the Jets lead the league in gross punting yardage. It’s true; you can look it up!
Reminds me of the Div. lll team that lost something like 88-0, a few years ago. The losers’ sports information director posted a headline heralding a player on his team for breaking the school record for “Most Kickoff Returns In A Game.”