Category Archives: Sports

WNBA CBA issues coming this fall

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The WNBA is now a speculative bubble, and the only way players can significantly increase their salaries is to take ownership of the league for themselves. Expansion fees are now so high that owners won’t agree to any significant payroll increases during the next CBA negotiations starting this October. WNBA expansion fees for the newest franchises in Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia were $250 million each, compared to $50 million paid by the Golden State Valkyries who began play this season.

How can the new owners in Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia afford payroll increases with a $250 million entry fee? They can’t. Therefore that franchise value must go to the players who create the league value, otherwise the disparity between ownership revenues and players’ salaries will become highly contentious, threatening a destructive labor stoppage. The NFL, MLB & NBA have all experienced work stoppages in the past which hurt their leagues. At this crucial point in its development, the WNBA can ill-afford one itself, yet that is where it is heading.

WNBA franchise valuations have ballooned, with the average team value jumping from $96 million in 2024 to $269 million in 2025, according to GoLocalProv, a 280% increase in value in just one year [!]. The jump in WNBA valuation is entirely attributable to irrational exuberance & TV money, as the WNBA has secured a new media rights deal worth $2.2 billion over 11 years.

Caitlin Clark (2025 averages: 16.5 pts, 5.0 reb, 8.8 asst, 1.6 stl), personifies the irrational exuberance, as she has become the face of the league. Caitlin Clark adds value to the WNBA because: 1) she’s a transformative basketball player, and 2) she’s white– not necessarily in that order. The racialist aspect of this is not a good sign for the WNBA. Note that this is not Caitlin Clark’s fault, it’s the fault of ESPN and the media executives who encourage this.

WNBA minimum salary for players with 0-2 years of experience is $66,079, while players with 3+ years of experience have a minimum salary of $78,831 for the 2025 season. The highest-paid players can earn the super maximum salary, which is currently around $241,984, according to ESPN. The players naturally want a bigger piece of the pie as the league grows, but it is likely that the WNBA has already had its biggest growth spurt. It’s impossible to keep growing at a rate of 280% per year. The only other industry that does that is crypto.

So what the WNBA players face is a political choice of insisting on owning their league, or being salary-stunted by traditional ownership. “Pay us what you owe us” is an empty protest that will fall on deaf ears, as owners want to make money, and with such a high WNBA start-up cost the only way to do that is for owners to keep players’ salaries depressed. The only fair solution is for the players to become owners in the franchises they play for, as that’s where the money is.

But instead, the WNBA players have taken up a protest campaign, which may rally some support initially, but history shows that when the CBA negotiations come around, fans won’t be so sympathetic. Sports is entertainment, nothing more, and if these WNBA players strike over salaries that are already higher than what many fans make, they will be seen as greedy & selfish, just like the MLB players in 1994, the NFL players in 1987, etc.

When this much money is involved, it becomes a Marxist issue of worker control over production vs. exploitation. Instead of complaining about this unfairness, WNBA players need to take control of their game by becoming owners themselves, otherwise they will get cut out of the profits and be castigated by casual fans who view striking players as unappreciative of their privilege.

After all, sports is entertainment, and fans can turn off the TV and do/watch something else anytime they feel like it. What basketball players do isn’t essential, so the only way working people & youth (the vast majority of their fans) will get behind them is if they take a revolutionary stance at the next CBA– demonstrating actual leadership against ownership oppression. Any other position is acquiescence to the status quo, which inspires no one and is a losing proposition for the players.

NFLPA corruption: A serious lesson for the WNBA players

When it comes to representation in CBA negotiating, the WNBA players would be well advised to look at the current NFLPA situation where union representatives withheld evidence of ownership collusion from the players after QB Deshaun Watson signed a five-year, fully guaranteed $230 million contract in March 2022. Owners clearly colluded to suppress NFL player contracts after that deal and the players weren’t informed of this by their union representatives after evidence came to light in the courts. The NFLPA kept ownership collusion a secret from the NFL players for three years, until ESPN reporter Pablo Torre, broke the story a few weeks ago.

Union representatives who aren’t rank-and-file members, in any industry including the WNBA, are tools of management & ownership whose job is to keep labor in line and working for suppressed wages. These union representatives are nothing more than well-paid lackeys who collaborate with ownership to maintain their cushy jobs, salaries & benefits. This applies to teachers, auto & factory workers, municipal employees, etc.

This is why the emerging WNBA CBA is now a cutting edge sports issue. The WNBA’s new found success presents the current players with an opportunity to take control of their industry by representing themselves. For this they need to be a united fist of rank-and-file players, insisting on a fair stake in ownership, otherwise they will eventually be crushed by ownership duplicity with union/management collaboration.

These same issues apply to every industry globally, but they are more highlighted here because because sports gets so much media attention. WNBA players taking control of their negotiations and insisting on becoming the owners of the game they’ve created & built themselves is the key to a labor victory for the players. It is the only way to garner lasting public support for their cause without alienating their fans.

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The Eric Meeker

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Dr. Robert Cade at the University of Florida developed Gatorade in 1966. His laboratory potion had the right electrolytes & salts from the start, but it didn’t taste good, so the football players who needed it often wouldn’t drink it. Dr. Cade took home an early batch of Gatorade to his wife, who recommended cutting it with lemon, and thus sports science was changed forever. Sometimes a brilliant doctor just needs a good woman to help him out. Gatorade won QB Steve Spurrier the Heisman Trophy in 1966, and “The Sweat Solution” is one of the best ESPN 30-for-30 shorts.

Arnold Palmer popularized professional golf and invented his own drink, now commonly referred to as an Arnold Palmer– which is ice tea with lemon. There are arguments about how to proportion an Arnold Palmer, but Arnie says it is mostly ice tea with the lemon garnishing the drink. Some people prefer an Arnold Palmer with half lemonade or more, so it allows that flexibility and there are various acceptable preferences.

The most delightful moment in this ESPN 30-for-30 short is when Arnold Palmer reveals the moment he finally gave up and started referring to his favorite drink as an Arnold Palmer. His attributed concoction became so accepted & widespread that every waiter/waitress now knows what an Arnold Palmer is, so he gave up and started ordering it as an Arnold Palmer– laughingly hoping that no one will recognize him. It’s a great lesson in how to handle fame and giving up false humility from one of the most beloved athletes of the 20th century.

With that introduction, I am now sharing a drink I invented, which I have named after myself. An ‘Eric Meeker’ is half apple cider & half high-pulp orange juice. Individually orange juice and apple cider are very acidy, which limits  consumability, but surprisingly when these two are combined the acids mellow each other out and you are left with a fruity burst of natural sugar rich in vitamins & minerals your body needs. In this sense it is much better than Gatorade because it is organic. It’s superior to an Arnold Palmer in that it is much healthier, while being comparably delicious.

The Eric Meeker is a 50/50 mixture, and leans no more that 60/40 in either direction. The drink’s inventor says it’s better to have more apple cider than orange juice in an Eric Meeker, and you definitely need high-pulp OJ. Also, apple juice doesn’t work like apple cider. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about an Eric Meeker is its economy & easy mixing, with ingredients that are always available in any decent Midwest food market. The nutrient burst you receive from a cool Eric Meeker will replenish your body with what it needs– and fast.

For years Arnold Palmer didn’t self-reference his favorite drink when ordering it, but I’m skipping past all that. As I’ve learned, it’s a hoot to have invented your own drink, and this blog allows publication of the recipe with all the nuances, so enjoy!

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The 2025 Colorado Rockies & franchise mismanagement

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Preface: The 2024 Chicago White Sox finished 41-121, which ranks among the worst MLB seasons ever. Projections all indicate the White Sox will lose at least 110 games in 2025. Currently they are 9-24, worst record in the AL. Their Pythagorean W-L: 14-19, -25 run differential, indicates they have been quite unlucky early on, which may or may not turn itself around. When you are as bad as the White Sox, you can’t just expect luck to turn itself around. You have to play better to create more of your own luck, so Pythagorean W-L is not as reliable an indicator when a team is this extremely bad.

The 2025 White Sox still have a bunch of guys who can’t hit, including CF Luis Robert, Jr (.182/.300/.345) who is now officially untradable after being shopped for years Their pitching staff is a bunch of young arms with plenty of veteran flotsam mixed in. It’s going to be another long season for the South-siders, but it won’t approach the historical badness of 2024. This team is younger and will finish stronger than in 2024, where the White Sox had three major losing streaks, a 14-game streak (May 22-June 6); an AL-record-tying 21-game streak (July 10-August 5); and a 12-game streak (August 23-September 3). That’s hard to replicate in baseball, no matter how bad you are. The 2024 White Sox were really bad, and they had awful leadership on top of that, which turned them into a historical disaster.

The 2024 White Sox were completely demoralized by management & ownership, starting in Spring Training when they dealt their ace RHP Dylan Cease to the San Diego Padres. This unexpected trade (March 13, 2024) challenged everyone on the White Sox pitching staff to step up and fill a slot, and when they couldn’t it quickly collapsed. The key pitching prospect in the Dylan Cease deal, LHP Drew Thorpe, made nine starts for the Pale Hose until he came up Tommy John surgery. That’s how things started death-spiraling for the 2024 White Sox.

After unloading anything they could at the Trade deadline, the front office was unable to deal their most-coveted asset– young LHP Garrett Crochet, so the team had to ride out the rest of the season with their best pitcher on an innings-limit, so he would remain a valuable trade commodity in the winter. Garrett Crochet was dealt to the Red Sox for four prospects in December. The White Sox now have a top-10 farm system, so they will get better, which isn’t saying much but it is somewhat of a relief.

Setting the mark for most losses in a MLB season and putting your team in the discussion for ‘worst MLB team ever’ doesn’t happen every year, which makes the 2025 Colorado Rockies all the more remarkable. The 2025 Colorado Rockies are already a contender for worst MLB ever. The modern list starts with the 1962 New York Mets, managed by the great Casey Stengel, who were 40-120, with a .250 winning percentage. The 2024 White Sox lost one more game, but also won one more game and had a better winning percentage at .253. Mathematically speaking, as bad as the White Sox were last year, the 1962 Mets were a fraction worse. Futile teams from the dead-ball & pre-integration MLB eras include: 1916 Philadelphia Athletics 36-117, .235; 1935 Boston Braves 38-115 .248: 1904 Washington Senators 38-113 .252; so there are historical teams with a lower winning percentage than the 1962 Mets but they are of a completely different era.

Currently the Colorado Rockies are 6-27, with a Pythagorean W-L: 8-25, and a -83 run differential, by far the worst in MLB. This basically means the Rockies are who they are at this point. Their 8-25 expected winning percentage (Pythagorean) is .242, which over a season projects to 39-123 for the Colorado Rockies. But the Rockies are 6-27, which is a .182 winning percentage, which means they have to start playing a lot better just to get to 40 wins in 2025.

Looking deeper into this futility only reveals more bad news for Colorado Rockies fans. The White Sox have the good fortune to be in one of the two Central divisions in MLB, which are qualitatively less completive than the East & West behemoths in both leagues. By contrast, the 2025 Colorado Rockies are in the toughest division in MLB.

Furthermore, it is impossible to discuss Colorado Rockies baseball without understanding what high altitude does to the game, particularly pitchers. Coors Field fastballs don’t ride as much, sinkers don’t sink, and sweepers don’t sweep. The thin air doesn’t allow spin to work as effectively. It’s about survival, so Rockies pitchers have to pitch differently in their home park, and they all look forward to starting on the road. How can a baseball team win with that?

The altitude also affects conditioning, meaning shorter outings, more fatigue buildup during games and over the course of a season in Denver. With advanced metrics normalized across MLB, they now prove beyond any doubt that it is impossible to build a winning team in Denver, Colorado due to these conditions. The Rockies need to move their franchise (Oakland?) to ever have any hope of competing. They haven’t made the post-season since being ousted in the 2018 Divisional series, and have only fallen further from contention since. The last Rockies free agency splash was Ian Desmond in 2017, signed to play SS but had to move to 1B/DH, he produced -2.8 WAR in three seasons before retiring. Their 2007 World Series appearance is a distant memory.

Can you name one current Colorado Rockies player? Most MLB fans outside of Colorado can’t, and they aren’t intersted in learning, which is the problem. This is a boring, homegrown team that never makes a free agency splash anymore, because (outside of OF Larry Walker) none have worked. Since Bret Saberhagen, Denny Neagle & Darryl Kile, top free agent pitchers never list Colorado as a desired destination during hot stove season, and the same goes for position players who need to waive their no-trade clauses to be dealt– they NEVER authorize a trade to Colorado. How can a GM build an organization up against all this? It’s tough enough to beat the Dodgers at sea level, just ask the Padres, Giants & Diamondbacks, who are trying.

The Rockies have a beautiful ballpark, top-5 by MLB standards, and they fill it up with fans every year, so this comes down to a discussion about what is best for the game. Is it okay for a team that sells-out and has a beautiful modern ballpark to play where the game really isn’t baseball? Baseball in Denver is arena baseball, a distorted pinball version of the game. How long will Colorado Rockies fans put up with the inevitable futility on the field? These questions will grow louder & louder if the Rockies continue to play as they have.

We should not see two consecutive seasons of historic futility in MLB anymore, which is troubling for fans. This can only mean that in an era where sports is more competitive & lucrative than ever, it is now becoming commonplace for teams to completely give up before the season starts. The White Sox did it in 2024, and now it’s the Rockies in 2025 and possibly beyond. The Colorado Rockies are #18 in the latest MLB farm system rankings, but what does that mean when NONE of their pitching prospects can develop into real MLB pitchers?

Baseball is the most unique game, the only game where the defense has the ball, and that’s why you can’t play baseball at high altitude. You can play football, basketball & hockey in Denver, and it affects the game for sure, but it doesn’t handicap a NFL, NBA or NHL franchise from winning a title– which the Broncos, Nuggets & Avalanche have done. The Colorado Rockies aren’t anywhere close to that class of winning and never will be. It’s completely unfair to pitching prospects to be drafted by the Colorado Rockies, which is the worst place in the world to go as a young pitcher. That should have been recognized long ago, but MLB is run by owners & front-office executives who don’t understand the game because they can’t see past their ticket sales.

NBA mismanagement 101: This situation isn’t as extreme as the Colorado Rockies or Chicago White Sox, but it deserves attention from sports fans nonetheless. The Milwaukee Bucks have mismanaged themselves into a situation where they are about to lose their superstar, Giannis Antetokounmpo. It really began after the Bucks were defeated in the playoffs by the Celtics in 2022. Instead of getting younger around their two studs, Giannis Antetokounmpo & Jrue Holiday, the Bucks front office kept their aging, diminishing-returns roster together.

Most disastrous was the Damian Lillard trade in 2023, as Jrue Holiday is one of the most valuable players in the NBA as far as winning a championship goes. Steve Kerr knows that, and that’s why Jrue Holiday was on the 2024 gold medal US Olympic team, while Damian Lillard wasn’t. Lillard is now out for the next season-and-a-half, with a torn ACL, while ace defensive stopper Jrue Holiday (pic above) is trying to help the Boston Celtics to another championship. Plus, the Bucks gave up a first-round pick (and two potential swaps– more below) to acquire Damian Lillard, the inferior player in the deal.

The Milwaukee Bucks with all their fruitless wheeling & dealing since 2021, do not have a first-round pick in the 2025 draft. Their 2026, 2028 & 2030 first-round picks are subject to potential swaps with the New Orleans Pelicans & Portland Trail Blazers, meaning if the Bucks hit the lottery in those drafts, the Pelicans (in 2026) or Trail Blazers (2028, 2030) will get their pick. The Bucks do not have first-round picks in 2027 or 2029, which means their next available first-round pick is in 2031. When the Bucks trade Giannis Antetokounmpo this summer (as they now have to) they will be a lottery team for several seasons, in which their top picks will be going to other teams. That’s about about badly as a GM can mismanage a championship roster in four years.

The 2025 NBA draft lottery is Monday, May 12. The Houston Rockets & San Antonio Spurs have been rumored to be the teams most interested & able to acquire Giannis Antetokounmpo from the Bucks. It’s the ‘Cooper Flagg draft’ in the NBA this year, so the Bucks can shift directly into a rebuild with the young stud from Duke by dealing Giannis for the top 2025 pick, but it depends on how the draft lottery goes, so everyone in basketball will be watching.

Any of the teams involved can win the draft lottery, no matter what the “odds” say. There are years where it may have been rigged, going back to the first draft lottery in 1985, and there are too many instances where the team with the lowest odds has won the draft lottery for it not to have been rigged. In 2025: Utah, Washington, Charlotte and New Orleans are the top-4 favorites with the best “odds,” but none of them are thrilling options for the NBA in the Cooper Flagg draft. After that it’s Philadelphia, Brooklyn & Toronto which isn’t any better for media conscious NBA executives.

After that, San Antonio has a 6.7% chance of winning over two picks– 6.0% from their own, and 0.7% from the Atlanta Hawks. Houston has a 3.8% chance of winning, with rights to a Phoenix pick via Brooklyn. The Spurs or Rockets winning would be the most exciting draft lottery outcome for the NBA on May 12, but also among the least likely statistically– a 10.5% composite likelihood. Look for it anyways, since this isn’t fair play, it’s a ruthless business.

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Transgender athletes in mixed & co-ed sports

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Preface: This is my follow-up conclusion to “Trump to ban transgender athletes in women’s sports”, published yesterday and linked here.

Perhaps the final hurdle in this ideological debate is the question of transgender participation in co-ed sports. There are sports where women compete against men. Equestrian jumping & horse racing feature women jockeys competing against men from the Kentucky Derby to the summer Olympics. Auto racing forever changed with Danica Patrick. In these mixed sports (which men still dominate), gender doesn’t matter as much, since it is the horse or vehicle that is doing most of the work. Therefore transgender isn’t a competitive issue in these such sports.

For co-ed sports, there are rules to divide men & women– usually equally. For example, in most adult co-ed softball leagues there are 10-player teams (4 outfielders), divided half women & half men. The batting order has to alternate boy-girl-boy-girl, and if a guy is walked (intentionally or not) he gets second base while next batter up (female) gets a walk to first. This effectively disallows pitching around the men.

Transgender participants in co-ed sports need to be considered as their birth sex. If that fair-play rule violates their sensibilities, then don’t play. That’s how it goes in sports where competitive athletes don’t allow enabling. From all of us to them, “In you can’t play by the rules then form your own league or STFU.” Assuming they know how to play, a co-ed softball team with 5 transgender biological males playing as women would be unbeatable in most recreational leagues.

As I’ve discussed, this is an easy political victory for Trump when he needs it most. His anti-immigration policies, along with Elon Musk’s government takeover have backfired domestically, while his plan to cleanse Gaza of Palestinians and build a casino resort for the rich on its ruins have been internationally rejected & condemned. Transgender athletes is a minor issue in comparison, but it gives Trump a much-needed credibility boost and thus more room for his fascist maneuverings. It allows Trump to go on the attack, with moral superiority over the Democrats. In Trump’s warped mind, canceling Biden/Harris DEI initiatives gives him the authority to attack anyone on the left. To be clear: DEI is fake left. Socialists who think & act like this writer are the true left, which is the real target of Trump & DEI/CIA Democrats.

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Trump to ban transgender athletes in women’s sports

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Donald Trump has announced today that he will ban all transgender athletes from competing against girls & women in sports. This is to apply to all ages, from grade school competition through NCAA & professional leagues. This after the Biden/Harris administration had backed their legal participation in women’s sports for years as part of their sweeping identity politics campaigns.

Much of this story was brought to a head by the controversy surrounding San Jose State University’s (SJSU) women’s volleyball team. The transgender athlete in question is Blaire Flemming (pic above), who led the 2024-25 SJSU women’s volleyball team in kills (314), kills per set (3.88) and total sets played (81). Second on the team in kills was Nayell T’ia with 228, and 3.45 kills/set. No other Spartans women’s volleyball player had more than 169 kills last season. A link to SJSU 2024-25 women’s volleyball stats is here.

A cursory look at these statistics, nullifies any argument that a transgender athlete creates no competitive advantage for a NCAA women’s volleyball team. Blaire Flemming was arguably SJSU’s most effective women’s volleyball player last season. Teammates & opponents describe how much higher Blaire Flemming can jump and how much harder she hits the ball, as compared to biological women.

Upon wide-spread discovery of this transgender athlete, NCAA opponents refused to play against SJSU women’s volleyball in 2024-25, as numerous matches were forfeited over principled opposition to a transgender athlete competing against women.

This is not a difficult issue for most of the population. Most people feel transgender people have democratic rights, but allowing them to compete as women in sports isn’t one of them. In fact, allowing this form of unfair competition only serves to increase society’s hatred towards those who are transgender. The problem here isn’t Blaire Flemming, the problem is the corrosive identity politics of the Democratic Party that (by design) irrationally divides society.

The team captain of SJSU women’s volleyball, Brooke Slusser, is suing her head coach, the university, and the conference over this, after being made to be the roommate of Blaire Flemming, without being told about Flemming being transgender [!!]. Apparently, SJSU & the NCAA knew Blaire Flemming was transgender when transferring to SJSU from Coastal Carolina in 2022.

ESPN has written multiple articles on this matter, in which they refuse to identify the transgender player as Blaire Flemming, in order to “protect privacy.” The privacy of Blaire Flemming’s roommates & teammates are of little-to-no concern to ESPN and this identity politics crowd. The mission of these moralist Democrats has been to create a post-modernist wonderland in female athletics, where protesters are silenced, while the “rights” of a handful of transgender athletes are tightly safeguarded.

Every male athlete in competition discloses that he is male to the NCAA. Every biologically female athlete does the same. But according to identity politics logic, transgender athletes can lie about their gender and are politically protected. For the record, Blaire Flemming is listed as “female,” not transgender, on the SJSU 2024-25 women’s volleyball page. This deeply unpopular & reactionary political position is despised by 99+% of athletes and the fans who watch. It allows a fascist imbecile such as Donald Trump to posture as a reformer for justice & common sense, and only the Democrats can do that.

One final note on gender identity. I always refer to Blaine Flemming as Blaine Flemming. That avoids the he/she them/they identity politicking. When I write about any athlete, I almost always use their first & last name together. For instance, Roki Sasaki was the most coveted MLB free agent this winter, and as a sportswriter I had to publish extensively on that. Notice that his name is Roki Sasaki, not Sasaki. Excessive use of a last name without the first dehumanizes the subject. In two long articles on Roki Sasaki, I referred to him by his last name only a few times over the course of thousands of words. I also referred to him, as a pronoun.

With men & women you easily can use pronouns. But with transgender, I prefer to use their full name only & always– writing & speaking. It’s the most accurate (& comfortable) way to write I’ve discovered. Consider that as my accepting nod of approval to transgender people who are having a hard time identifying themselves. The more these transgender people support the Democratic Party, the more voiceless & confused they become.

Liberals cry that “outing” a transgender person is a crime, when really it is a public reckoning of personal truth. You’re an adult now, so deal with it. It’s always uncomfortable, but more importantly it’s necessary. If you checked “female” to the NCAA when you are a transgender biological male, then you fundamentally lied. Enabling this pathological form of dishonesty is the root of all our problems.

Statistically speaking, as far as sample size goes transgender athletes are an extreme outlier. This means you can’t have a NCAA division of transgender competition because the numbers aren’t anywhere close to supporting it and never will be. There are so few of them, that if transgender people want to compete then they need to do it under rational scientific guidelines, meaning man/woman determination by birth gender. If there’s any question, then the athlete must submit to genetic testing, just like drug testing. Transgender athletes don’t get to make up their gender, or claim identity with a specific gender and make that a fact, which Democrats have shamelessly supported.

This isn’t an infringement on the rights of transgender people, it’s just a fair solution to a new problem. Instead of solving it rationally, the Democrats have tried to cynically exploit the issue of the rights of transgender athletes. What the Democrats always leave behind in the process are the rights of the great majority: in this case it’s the female athletes who have had to live, locker room, shower & compete with an unidentified transgender athlete that has been secretly protected by the NCAA from revealing their true biological gender. That’s creepy & murky murky.

The Blaine Flemming’s of the future will have to compete with the boys & men. It took Trump to do this, after 99% of the population already had clearly expressed their feelings on this issue. It’s an easy political win for Trump, always a specialty of the Democrats. Notice that I almost always refer to Donald Trump as Trump, and that’s because Trump is a dehumanized persona.

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Michael Jordan on defense

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I’ll review one play in Michael Jordan’s brilliant basketball career and it’s all you need to know about his defense, if you know what you are looking at. View this YouTube video for reference:

After he makes that famous shot, notice the great defense by Michael Jordan in confusing Fred Brown who is trying to pass to a teammate on the right but MJ is directly in the passing lane after he had picked-up his dribble in a posture & position where he couldn’t shoot.

James Worthy gambled on an overplay steal and was caught badly out of position when Fred Brown checked his pass to the right, but in that confusion (and with a five-second count ticking as MJ is defending two players at once), Fred Brown blindly passes the ball to James Worthy. That’s MJ greatness everyone witnessed, but few understand. Watch it again if you haven’t seen this, it’s total greatness. Billy Packer never saw it, even on the replay. I never hear anyone talk about that defense, just the shot, but MJ was a complete great player at that point and that play proves it.

Fred Brown made two critical mistakes before he threw the ball away. First was picking up his dribble before he knew what to do, along with being in poor shooting posture. Always remain in ‘triple threat’ position when holding the ball. After he picked up his dribble, all Fred Brown could do was pass and MJ played it perfectly. The second mistake was not calling timeout when MJ had him locked up and approaching a 5-second violation.

Georgetown had one timeout remaining, which John Thompson wasted as Billy Packer correctly points out before Worthy misses both free throws. But really, Fred Brown is on that list with Craig Ehlo, Bryon Russell, etc, as guys Michael Jordan dominated when the cameras were on and his team needed to win. Any serious baller can see the phenomenal athleticism, instincts & basketball IQ from MJ to lock up Fred Brown and force that error. MJ won that game for UNC at the end, on both ends.

Clock & timeout management was in its infancy back then and it shows. UNC had 4 timeouts remaining [!] after taking that famous TO with 32 seconds left. No tenths of a second, no shot clock, no three-point shot, or replay officiating. Apparently, neither team knew an intentional foul had been called on those final Worthy free throws, which is VERY poor officiating but also poor coaching by John Thompson. He took that timeout to organize his troops, so has to go to the officials and say, “That was a one-and-one foul, right?” You MUST KNOW before talking to your players about a plan for the final two seconds of the game. He definitely got out-coached by Dean Smith.

It’s striking how much the game was condensed w/o a 3-pt line. Poor spacing allowed MJ to eat up the space between Fred Brown & James Worthy’s guy he had to cover at the same time. Worthy being so out-of-position became a gift when Fred Brown figured it couldn’t be a UNC defender in that spot. James Worthy always gets the credit for that steal, and it was his steal, but it was entirely created by a basket savant named Michael Jordan.

Good spacing became easier to achieve with the 3-pointer finally in the NCAA Tourney in 1986. It’s as if you have to put a line on the court to direct players on where they should be. The game is better for it, that’s for sure and Georgetown-UNC in 1982 was THE game that catalyzed all that change in college (and pro) hoops.

So from now on, if you ever hear anyone say (as I’ve heard for decades), “I still can’t figure out what Fred Brown was thinking on that play,” you can correctly interpret that as an admission of not understanding the greatness of Michael Jordan. MJ knows, so it’s actually disrespectful. It happened in front of everybody, so why don’t you see it?  This happened before anyone knew Michael Jordan was Michael Jordan. But we all know MJ now, so it becomes easier to recognize when looking back at it.

Acknowledging this type of greatness separates those who love & understand the game from those who are in it for the hype. MJ attracted all that & more, but appreciating that level of skill used to matter a lot more in sports to people like Michael Jordan. When people don’t truly appreciate all that greatness, which took a lifetime of effort & sacrifice to achieve, it kills your passion for the game. I believe that is why MJ sold his Charlotte NBA franchise and went into racing.

In The Last Dance (2020) they show a clip of an ESPN reporter asking Michael Jordan what he was thinking after making that last shot. The freshman hero gave a canned, touchy-feel-good answer everyone loved and no one remembers. But his thoughts were, “I’m gonna lockdown Fred Brown (and whoever else I have to), then fake him out his shoes, until he cracks and throws the ball away.” Michael Jordan must have been thinking that because that’s what he did.

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Padres & the Roki Sasaki sweepstakes

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Read my preview analysis here

Silence from the Padres on the first day of the 2025 international draft means intense conversations with other GM’s regarding acquiring more bonus money for Roki Sasaki. This may be part of a series of trades AJP is about to make. Increments of $250,000 in international bonus money can now be traded. It’s not the money teams are trading, but the rights to spend that money on signing a player. How it is valued we are about to find out. AJP is a GM pioneer like that.

Consider this, if you were Padres GM AJP and wanted Roki Sasaki more than anything this winter, then you would do whatever it took to impress him, right? Money talks, so AJP is looking for 14 chunks of $250K from teams around the league who have international bonus money to spare. He’s letting all the other top talent get signed so every spender is spent, then AJP can get the international bonus money cheaper.

Timing is surely important to his plan, and that’s why it was so critical to keep East Coast Bias off his back while he executes it. AJP has until January 23 to sign Roki Sasaki before his Japanese posting window closes. Remember, the Blue Jays are the kicker team if MLB blows up AJP’s plan, as he brilliantly neutralized East Coast Bias with Laurentian Bias. It was a masterstroke of baseball GM genius.

By my calculations, the Padres & Blue Jays can acquire up to $3.5M, as no more than 60% from the base amount is allowed. The Dodgers can acquire up to $3M extra. If AJP is running this show, and I have postulated that he has from the start, then the Dodgers & Blue Jays are in no man’s land right now. Unable to act in the international draft in the vain hope of signing the ultimate prize: Roki Sasaki.

Every MLB team had a contingency plan to pivot from Sasaki if their bid failed. Some teams pivoted earlier than others. In many ways, the teams that were never in on Sasaki were the best off, as the weren’t distracted by something they weren’t going to get anyway. A Sasaki level of talent is like a drug that has you in the grips of addiction, you can’t quit as it consumes you. If affects your judgment because it’s so emotional.

Whatever the Dodgers Plan B on Sasaki is, it is slipping away as teams sign the top remaining international talent for 2025. This after they left $2.1M unspent last year on an early Sasaki signing gambit, that was as insulting as it was short-sighted. Andrew Friedman is currently in an impossible situation which he partly put himself in. If he keeps waiting, all the other top talent will have signed elsewhere and the Dodgers risk getting shut out of the 2025 international draft. The same dynamic applies to the Blue Jays, and that’s what happens when you go all in & fall short. If the Dodgers/Blue Jays sign another top talent, it’s a concession they aren’t getting Roki Sasaki. What do you do? Tick, tick, tick…

The only MLB team that didn’t have a Plan B on Roki Sasaki was the Padres. With their current payroll situation, this was simply a matter of failure not being an option for AJP and the Padres. You can follow this action from afar by monitoring which teams are signing the top-50 international prospects, and who still has bonus money to spare. Anticipate some complex 3-way deals trying to line up competing interests for the Padres purpose of AJP acquiring bonus money for Roki Sasaki.

Wed 15 Jan 2025 09:32 PM CST

End of Day 1 summary & analysis

Beyond the SDP, LAD & TOR, other WS contending teams that have been noticeably quiet so far are: NYY, BOS, ATL & PHI. Small market teams have feasted on Day 1 of the MLB international draft. On the big market side, the SFG & NYM each signed a top-5 prospect, but it’s the middle & small market teams that are reaping the early benefit of neutralized East Coast Bias.

Kudos to the Rays, Brewers, Twins, Marlins, Cardinals, etc, who are signing talent and using their pool money early & aggressively to improve their organizations. This is their big chance at low-cost future stars. Every draft class has a few guys who come out of nowhere to become impact players or stars. When the top prize is out of reach, a baseball GM must be realistic and find that talent amongst what remains available. That’s what organizational scouting departments are for.

AJ Preller is the type of GM who has the gonads to say to all of them: “I’m getting Sasaki. Who’s gonna deal me the $3.5M in Monopoly money in their bonus pool so I can pay this kid what he deserves?” It’s better to get it all at once and AJP will eventually find a price he likes in that market.

Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins and team president Mark Shapiro are at the helm in a long-shot situation in Toronto. They certainly know they are the kicker in this AJP deal. When do they act? Or do they just wait & see? Would they dare try to acquire $3.5M in bonus pool money? What would it cost them & what are the chances they will get stuck with it?

How about Andrew Friedman who is in a similar (but different) spot with the Dodgers? That $3.5M in funny money isn’t worth a whole lot, but perhaps it’ll return a better prospect from the Padres system than what was available in the 2025 international draft. Who knows? It will be worth a gamble for some team(s), and it only takes one with the unusable money to make a deal.

Too many teams still have most or all their bonus pool money for this not to be on MLB GM’s minds. Most heavyweights have usually signed a top player or two from this top-50 list by the end of day 1. The pickins’ only get slimmer on day two if you don’t hit the jackpot. From #2-50, only twenty prospects remain unsigned as of this writing. #2-7 are signed, with the Mets paying #3 prospect Elian Peña, SS, D.R. $5M. Other prospects around him got ~3$M. The other top prospects left will go for $1M-$2M. Prospects at the bottom end of the top-50 are going for $800,000+.

Beyond that it is a murky free-for-all, and that’s why it’s so important for an eligible international prospect to be on this top-50 MLB list. Most of the top prospects are from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela & Cuba– in that order. Prospects signed for <$10K don’t count towards the team’s bonus pool, and there are more than a few of those guys every year.

Sometimes the easiest answer to a difficult problem is a direct approach. A Padres three-way trade (as posited earlier) probably involves too many moving parts which can drop out, especially when Black Hand influence is in the midst. It allows for too many media leaks also. AJP needs one team (or two at most) to deliver the money for Roki Sasaki. Then he can sign the coveted ace with the proper financial respect, and all other Padres deals in the works can then be made.

Thu 16 Jan 2025 1:05 PM CST

It is now being reported on MLB dot com that the Padres & Dodgers have been calling other teams about acquiring bonus pool money– which is what I postulated yesterday. The Blue Jays apparently haven’t, which makes sense as I’ve outlined already. As a surprise dark hose, the Blue Jays have to be cautious with all these sharks in the water. The Dodgers are the beast of MLB right now, and clearly Andrew Friedman feels they should be all-in on Roki Sasaki to the end.

It’s a calculated risk based on the premise that Roki Sasaki is infinitely more valuable than any other eligible international draft prospect in 2025. It’s also his competitive nature to not give into the Padres on anything, who at this point are the Dodgers fiercest rival. Giving in is the worst sin.

Hypothetically, if the Padres currently have a 70% chance in these sweepstakes, with the Blue Jays at 20%, and the Dodgers 10%; Friedman would still play this same strategy. Andrew Friedman is (at minimum) trying to drive up the price for AJP to obtain the $3.5M he’s seeking from other teams. The Dodgers can only obtain up to $3M more, as they have a smaller original bonus pool.

Remember, this isn’t money that is being traded, it’s the right to spend that money on signing a player. In other words, the $3.5M (or $3M) these teams are seeking is monetary credit that can be traded and turned into bonus money which that team can pay to a new signee. Other MLB teams are now realizing they can possibly get a prospect in return for their bonus money credit, which both the Padres & Dodgers are seeking. Only one team can use this money to sign Sasaki, so it’s a game of blind-mans’ bluff between the Padres & Dodgers GM’s. If AJP suddenly acquires $3.5M, what does Andrew Friedman do? Or vice versa?

What the value of that bonus pool credit will be is what’s being discussed by these GMs, with other GM’s. The longer the international draft goes, the softer the market becomes for acquiring bonus money. The remaining international prospects aren’t as attractive, so acquiring a Padres or Dodgers prospect for Monopoly money gets teams excited to make a deal. As I wrote earlier, the Padres/Dodgers prospect they could receive may be better than anything left in the international draft, plus it won’t cost that team any real money to acquire that prospect. Nothing gets MLB GM’s more aroused than potentially getting something for nothing.

The Red Sox spent their pool money since my last update, so they are eliminated from this group of teams that have been inactive with possibly this trade strategy in mind. There is more than enough surplus bonus pool money around MLB for both the Padres & Dodgers to acquire their max limit, and even the Blue Jays too ($3.5M) if they were inclined. I don’t believe Andrew Friedman or AJP would give up anything close to a top-30 prospect in a trade market this soft, but it’s still unknown.

What I do know is that if the Black Hand of MLB blocks AJP’s pool money deal, he’s already picked out the Blue Jays prospect he wants for the $3.5M bonus money he has available in his bonus pool. AJP is far ahead of his competitors on this, as Andrew Friedman is stalking AJP’s every GM move.

If you want Roki Sasaki, then you have to go the extra mile and then some. Both Friedman & Preller know what is at stake, while knowing everything about how the system works. The Padres have more money to offer and can add more than the Dodgers. That is a fact. The Blue Jays can’t risk this gamble, which is an appraisal.

Between the Padres & Dodgers, one team is going to bust and go home with nothing in the 2025 international draft. Set-backs like that have rarely happened to the Dodgers under Andrew Friedman, as AJP seeks to level the competitive playing field with his arch-rival by doing whatever it takes to get Roki Sasaki ALL his bonus money.

This process is really about more than the money. It’s about doing your job as a GM to take care of a coveted player’s interests. It’s about proving your organization’s worth to that player to earn his loyalty. The team that does that best will win the Sasaki sweepstakes.

Fri 17 Jan 2025 11:52 AM CST

The Black Hand intervenes–again

It has just been reported by MLB that the Padres are out of the Sasaki sweepstakes and the Blue Jays have made a deal with the Guardians for the bonus pool money needed to sign Sasaki. Padres fans have seen this before, as this eerily recalls their pursuit of Shohei Ohtani in 2018. I suspect Dodgers GM Andrew Friedman convinced MLB to not approve any type of Sasaki-Padres deal– and they agreed out of competitive self interest. Clearly, AJP tried to get the bonus money for Roki Sasaki, but apparently no one would trade it to him– because the Black Hand was looming.

Notice that the Dodgers never got that bonus money the were talking so loudly about acquiring in the media for the past two days. Why not? It’s because they knew they were already out, and were doing anything (by hook or crook) to keep the coveted ace from ending up in a Padres uniform. Dirty tricks are part of the Black Hand’s modus operandi, and Andrew Friedman used his big-market clout to block his arch-rival AJP by that means. I have no respect for that. It’s equivalent to losing at something, then asking your parents to intervene on your behalf because you didn’t like the results.

This happened in 2018 when the Red Sox convinced MLB (in a more open & ham-fisted manner) that the Padres didn’t deserve Shohei Ohtani. How else does anyone explain Roki Sasaki to the Blue Jays? A few weeks ago, Toronto wasn’t even on Sasaki’s list, after he had been planning this jump to MLB for years. Once again, the Black Hand has revealed itself, and once again MLB writers & reporters who know better will bury this story. They could get fired & blacklisted for telling the truth here.

For seven years, no one (but me) has explained how Shohei Ohtani got to the Angels, the same way no one will honestly explain how Roki Sasaki is going to end up with the Blue Jays. AJP has been forced to pivot to the remaining international prospects after his Sasaki master plan was nullified by the wave of MLB’s Black Hand. The Padres organization & their fans wish Roki Sasaki the best in Toronto, but they are not only disappointed, they are disgusted by all this.

No, the best team doesn’t always win. That’s because there’s too many behind-the-scene machinations which rig the game in favor of the big market teams and their interests. It’s sad to realize this truth of life through a kid’s game like baseball, but these sports are big business and money rules.

Fri 17 Jan 2025 12:49 PM CST

Conclusion

The lesson of lessons in major sports, business & politics (which all this is) is: You must ALWAYS account for the Black Hand. Read that last sentence a few more times until it has absorbed into your marrow before reading on. I understand I’ve sounded somewhat like a lunatic-fringe conspiracy theorist at times as the Black Hand has been a leitmotif during my writings on the Sasaki Affair. But now that story has been written (largely by me), and it has unfolded in the context I provided beforehand, giving the reader everything necessary to understand this murky process, I feel it is time for me to take my leave.

Once again, it was NEVER an open contest among 30 MLB peer competitors. It is instead a monopoly capitalist rigged playing field. That is the Black Hand. Exposing that is more important to this writer than who gets Roki Sasaki. I love baseball, but it’s just a tool in life, and that’s the difference between me; and MLB writers such as Jon Morosi, Ken Rosenthal, Jeff Passan, etc, who have been reading & sharing me during the Sasaki Affair. My message to all of them is. “Tell the fans the whole truth– for a change… and fuck Buster Olney.”

In this spirit of sportsmanship, there are no hard feelings towards Roki Sasaki from Padres fans– particularly this one. This Padres fan holds those who are truly accountable to blame. The Black Hand hates exposure above all else, and this is how to strike back.

That’s what made my 2018 Ohtani Affair coverage so valuable, and why MLB has hidden its facts since. I believe my artist name was heatedly discussed at the MLB owners meeting held in Orlando, FL shortly after that murky 2018 international affair. My MLB account (handle: Ric Size) was deactivated and commenting became near impossible for me, until MLB killed all the team message boards later that year.

That’s an event that REALLY affected baseball fans and was never reported in the mass media, due to the Black Hand. If allowed to remain in the murky shadows, the Black Hand becomes the all-powerful nefarious force which violently consumes us all. In Trotskyist Marxist terms based on dialectical materialism, the Black Hand is imperialist capitalism.

Postscript

It was later announced in the day that Roki Sasaki chose the Dodgers. No surprise there either, which team would you rather play for? The Blue Jays were AJP’s kicker if his deal went bad, which it did, but it was Roki Sasaki’s choice to make. Sasaki made the ‘smart choice’ according to baseball insiders. I believe in his heart that he (& Shohei Ohtani in 2018) wanted to be in a Padres uniform, but elite athletic talent can’t resist the Black Hand as it is only a pawn in this game. Roki Sasaki understands that much better now and I hope those who are reading me do too.

The Dodgers are giving Roki Sasaki a $6.5M signing bonus. To get to $6.5M, the Dodgers must acquire an additional $1,353,800 in bonus pool money by next Thursday, January 23– an impossible task for AJP, but easy living for the Dodgers. As proof of favorable bias, the Dodgers get to announce the deal before they even have the money, something the Padres & Blue Jays would never be allowed to do by MLB.

After the first two days, AJP was unable to find another MLB team willing to trade him any Monopoly money to increase the Padres bonus pool for Sasaki and that was a clear signal from the Black Hand. Note that this Dodgers $6.5 is slightly more than the Padres had available at $6.2M. An appearance of legitimacy is what counts here.

Since the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy in 2023, the Padres are now one of 7 (possibly 9) teams that broadcast through MLB in 2025. The significance of that is if MLB doesn’t want Roki Sasaki in San Diego, then MLB can coerce Padres ownership into yielding by threatening their broadcast deal, etc– meaning their revenue streams. I have a sense that when this ‘business proposition’ was presented to Padres ownership sometime last night, the decision was for AJP to drop his Sasaki pursuit for the ‘good of the organization’.

It’s this type of blackmail, coercion, tampering, collusion, or whatever else you want to call it, that sent Roki Sasaki to the Dodgers. It’s exactly this type of ownership dirty dealing & league interference that turns off fans. The Padres will obviously have no comment on any of this. Just business as usual for MLB.

Over & Out

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Colin Rea & San Diego Padres history

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Colin Rea just signed a 1yr/$5M contract with the Cubs.

RHP Colin Rea was the other starter in the infamous Andrew Cashner trade deadline deal in 2016. Rea was healthy when the Padres traded him, but Marlins manager Don Mattingly wrecked then-rookie Colin Rea the first day they got him, after which the Marlins front office whined & demanded the Padres take Rea back while returning pitching prospect Luis Castillo, whom the Marlins would later deal to the Reds for junk. In the wake of his heist of Fernando Tatis Jr from the CWS, and Red Sox whining over trades they won (Craig Kimbrel, Drew Pomeranz), MLB forced Padres GM AJ Preller to acquiesce to the Marlins demands. GM Mike Hill was a principal part of this sordid Marlins history and a huge reason why they stink today.

Marlins started Colin Rea the day they acquired him, on his normal 4-days rest after a cross-country flight to Miami. The Marlins were more of a max-effort staff, based on ace RHP Jose Fernandez (RIP). Rea, who had 99.1 IP as a rookie starter for a soft tossing stinky Padres staff, went directly into a playoff chase atmosphere where he was expected by everyone in the organization to go max effort to help his team win. It lasted 3.1 IP, before his elbow snapped, as he signaled to manager Don Mattingly he was hurt and needed to leave the game. Before this on Sunshine Sports Network, Marlins GM Mike Hill was raving about how Colin Rea was such an important throw-in to this trade and expected him to help them win for years. The next day, Mike Hill is demanding the Padres compensate the Marlins for their stupidity & reckless handling of a rookie pitcher clearly near his season’s innings limit.

To Colin Rea’s credit, he didn’t let all these murky MLB machinations in 2016 define his career. The Brewers deserve serious kudos for resurrecting Colin Rea as a respectable pitcher, to the point where a big market team in 2025 will pay him $5M to fill out their rotation. Colin Rea as Brewers starter beat the Padres a few years back, and AJP was quoted afterwards, “Who saw that coming?!” This from the GM who was suspended by MLB for a month over all this, No overview of Colin Rea’s MLB career can ignore this fascinating GM history.

Upon returning to the Padres, Colin Rea had his TJ surgery, but the soft-tosser was eventually released by them in November 2018. Rea pitched in Japan for a few years until the Brewers took him on as a reclamation project in 2021. He didn’t pitch in MLB in 2022, but then had two productive years with the Brewers in 2023-24.

As background, in the 2016 J2 (July 2) international) draft, Padres GM AJP spent $70-80M on young Latin talent. Before that, no MLB team had ever spent over $5M in a signing year. Teams got REALLY upset over that, so MLB changed their international draft rules & money allotments due to AJP. All that 2016 international draft madness happened around the time of the Colin Rea trade fiasco, and this is why some baseball people love AJP, and others don’t. He’s definitely not boring, which used to define the Padres. For a long time during AJP’s early years, there was a solid majority among the MLB owners & media that the Padres should be boring.

AJP has made the Padres competitive & relevant and kept them there, which no other GM has ever done. With all the trades AJP made to dump his veteran roster in 2016, the Padres never lost 100 games in a season during their building process. MLB media would endlessly accuse them of “tanking”, as they patiently rebuilt their entire system from within. “Why aren’t the Padres signing free agent Ian Desmond? They need a shortstop!!” These-type hysterics of irrational baseball thought would echo from every MLB & ESPN writer onto AJP. Beating the Dodgers is a monumental task, especially from inside their division. The reality of the all-powerful Dodgers has driven AJP to every extreme, and he has run headlong into the old guard of MLB repeatedly, which has done everything in their power to slow down the Padres, including tampering in AJP’s pursuit of RHP/DH Shohei Ohtani in 2017-18.

Buster Olney of the Red Sox/ESPN was lead hatchet man on that. If the Padres would have signed Ohtani, MLB would have confiscated their record 2016 international draft haul, so AJP kicked Ohtani to Angels GM Billy Eppler because it did the Padres the least harm. East coast bias markets (Red Sox, Yankees & Mets) were violently upset that Ohtani had spurned them for the west coast, and the Padres as an early favorite to land the two-way star was too much for them to stand. That murky chain of events is why no one in MLB can ever explain why Shohei Ohtani ended up with the stinky Angels in 2018.

AJP was then forced by ownership to pivot to 1B Eric Hosmer, who was handed a record free-agent contract whose main purpose was to buy the Padres ownership into the “respectable” club of MLB owners. This status was solidified when they signed 3B Manny Machado next winter. SS/2B Xander Bogaerts was another ownership splash from which AJP now has to recover. When deep-pocketed Padres owner (Peter Seidler) died of cancer in the same year their cable deal with Diamond Sports Group went bankrupt, Preller was forced to cut payroll under new ownership. First Juan Soto to the Yankees, and now Xander Bogaerts is the next contract AJP needs to move.

The Padres have taken extra care to make sure the ‘Ohtani affair’ doesn’t happen to them again in 2024-25 as they prepare to sign Japanese pitching phenom Roki Sasaki. Padres are in on him, as AJP is definitely one of the top-3 GM’s in MLB– along with Andrew Friedman & David Stearns. After Roki Sasaki makes his decision this week, the Padres will become hyperactive in the trade & talent acquisition market.

The Roki Sasaki countdown:

Mon 13 Jan 2025 06:50 PM CST

It was just reported on ESPN & MLB dot com that Roki Sasaki has narrowed his list to three MLB teams: San Diego Padres & Toronto Blue Jays, who have a $6,261,000 bonus pool this year, and the LA Dodgers at $5,146,200. No one has picked the Blue Jays, and some could view this as a respectful nod to Canada. Blue Jays fans should feel delighted they made the final list, over their rivals in New York & Boston, but they aren’t signing Roki Sasaki.

The Dodgers have been picked as the favorites in the Sasaki sweepstakes from the start, and conventional wisdom favors it. But there was a revealing sign the Dodgers are being played, or at least out-of-the-loop, when it was reported they had left $2.1M in their 2024 international bonus pool to sign Roki Sasaki early in the posting period, if possible. The Baltimore Orioles also played this losing strategy, leaving $1.9M in their pool which expired December 15.

On Wednesday morning, 9:00 AM EST, the new international signing period opens and Roki Sasaki can be signed for maximum bonus pool money, and teams can make trades to increase their signing bonus allotment by up to 60% from their initial figure.

In the last two international signing periods, the Padres have given all their money to sign the top prospect on the first day: C Ethan Salas in 2023, then SS Leodalis De Vries in 2024. AJP will give all his pool money to Roki Sasaki in 2025, save possibly a few hundred thousand dollars to sign a kid (or two) he likes from Latin America.

Mon 13 Jan 2025 08:42 PM CST

Toronto is a brilliant third choice finalist. It neutralizes the Yankees & Red Sox from messing with AJP’s business. If MLB ruins his deal now, he’ll encourage Roki Sasaki to sign with the Blue Jays and see how fans like that in New York & Boston. No one wants the Dodgers to get Roki Sasaki except Dodgers fans, so it creates acceptance from MLB towards the Padres, which AJP couldn’t get back in 2018 when he got jerked by East Coast Bias on Shohei Ohtani. Very well played by AJP.

One ironic note, the tip-off article on the Dodgers & Orioles leaving bonus money to potentially sign Roki Sasaki early in the posting period was written by Buster Olney, and posted in the Padres ESPN page. No mention of the Padres in that article [!], so why did Olney put it in the Padres ESPN news feed?

Tue 14 Jan 2025 11:23 AM CST

Roki Sasaki has cooled the MLB Hot Stove for weeks now, until he can sign for maximum bonus money starting tomorrow. This is what top talent does, it freezes the market until a decision is made. Until then everyone has hope & anticipation, and ideas based on that, but nothing to act on. Reducing the field to three still doesn’t resolve much, even for the 27 teams on the outside, because they need partners to trade with and the Padres are MLB’s leading trade partner. The Dodgers make deals too, but notice they’ve already been active in the free agent market before the Sasaki sweepstakes started coming to a head. The Dodgers weren’t as sure on Sasaki as the Padres, so they signed Blake Snell early. Andrew Friedman is no dummy.

After Roki Sasaki signs, I see Xander Bogaerts to the Yankees who are looking for another middle infielder. Both GM’s know what they are doing and have made mutually beneficial trades in the past, namely the Juan Soto deal. AJP needs to move contract with Bogaerts and get something in return, which may involve throwing-in another good player– or pitcher. I don’t see AJP dealing any prospects at this point. C Luis Campusano needs a change of scenery and is another trade chip for AJP this winter. Perhaps the most valuable Padres trade chip is ace closer Robert Suarez who is due $10M in 2025 and team controllable through 2027. Yankees already snatched ace closer Devin Williams from the Brewers, leaving free agent Tanner Scott & trade candidate Robert Suarez as the top remaining closer options for contending teams to acquire this winter. RHP Dylan Cease is yet another AJP blockbuster trade candidate. Padres need to fill holes (or upgrade) at C, DH, 1B & LF if they want to beat the Dodgers in 2025, and that’s assuming they sign Roki Sasaki. AJP has a plan, and Sasaki (& the international draft) come first.

Tue 14 Jan 2025 12:40 PM CST

This will be my final installment of this piece. I’ve predicted & explained Roki Sasaki to the Padres, before it happens, because I’ve seen this before from AJP. At no time during this process did I believe AJP wouldn’t get Roki Sasaki. AJP is controlling the market until he gets what he wants. He does it consistently, and as a fan, it’s always exciting to witness– even when he gets screwed by MLB.

Not this time, I’ve predicted. Too many aware eyeballs on the process this time prevents Black Hand machinations in the Roki Sasaki sweepstakes. The illusion of the Sasaki sweepstakes is that it was an open process to all 30 teams. In reality, only a handful were allowed to be considered and East Coast Bias had a word on which teams would be best for MLB.

Can you imagine what MLB would do if Roki Sasaki agreed to sign with the Reds or Pirates? [!!] That isn’t good for baseball according to those who own & run baseball, and on that they have a point, but when it comes to directly interfering with the amateur free agent process through East Coast Bias leverage with the MLB commissioner’s office, that needs to be called out as tampering. In 2018, the Red Sox & MLB tampered with the Padres in their pursuit of Shohei Ohtani. That lesson hasn’t been forgotten by AJP and his Padres organization, or their fans. May the best team win the Sasaki sweepstakes!

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NCAA, NIL, and US politics

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College sports have exploded since the landmark Ed O’Bannon v NCAA decision in 2015, which now allows NCAA student athletes to earn NIL money for themselves. This came into reality by 2020, and since then it’s been the NCAA trying to self-regulate NIL payments to athletes, followed by student athletes challenging these new rules in court– and often winning.

A well-written recent ESPN article by Dan Murphy titled “Texas senator aims to help NCAA regulate athlete payments”, indicates that Capitol Hill lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are ready to give the NCAA what it wants.

What’s at stake is big money. According to this ESPN article, “the Big Ten and SEC each raked in more than $850 million in their most recent fiscal year, leaving even their power conference peers in the ACC ($706 million) and Big 12 ($511 million) significantly behind.”

The core issue is collective bargaining rights for NCAA student athletes. The NCAA (& US lawmakers) are against it, while most student athletes don’t understand its revolutionary implications. To have collective bargaining rights, means you must be an employee that earns for an employer. Athletes that play big-time NCAA sports do just that, yet the NCAA insists their student athletes aren’t employees.

When such an impasse is reached in bourgeois politics, this is when its lawmakers & courts get involved, by crafting legislation into laws that don’t violate basic rights as defined by the judiciary– in theory at least. This is always a biased process, colored by class & personal interests.

It is worth recalling the only American institution which is exempt from federal antitrust laws is Major League Baseball (MLB). In 1922, the US Supreme Court made one of its more reactionary rulings which still stands, in Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National League, ruling that baseball was a “purely state affair” and not interstate commerce. The court concluded that profiting from local “human effort and skill” in the sport did not constitute interstate commerce. The court found that transporting teams to play in other states was a “mere incident, not the essential thing”.

What was at issue was the ‘reserve clause’, which kept MLB players bound to their club for life. The owners of MLB were granted anti-trust exemption by a business-friendly government, which kept players salaries artificially suppressed. It wasn’t until MLBPA legal representative Marvin Miller (pic below) challenged this in court in the 1970’s that free agency came to MLB, and eventually all the major sports leagues.

These same issues are in play today with the NCAA’s leading universities acting as owners to keep NIL athletes from forming a union and having collective bargaining rights. The NCAA doesn’t consider it’s money-earning athletes to be employees, even though they can be (and are) paid by universities & alumni boosters to make money for them. These athletes clearly work for the NCAA, and if that isn’t the definition of an employee, then what is? The courts have taken this legal position on every NCAA attempt to control NIL-athletes ability to earn, etc, as the courts don’t buy the NCAA’s argument that NIL athletes aren’t employees.

At this point, Congress has been asked to step into the fray, in the form of Ted Cruz (R-TX). Texas is a HUGE football state, and the University of Texas just joined the SEC, making the final four of the 2024-25 CFP. It’s the huge money at stake, in terms of TV revenue for football that is driving all this. Football generates over three times the revenue for the NCAA that basketball does.

NCAA hoops is booming too, particularly on the women’s side, as they finally have regular network TV broadcasts, largely catalyzed by the popularity of Caitlin Clark at the University of Iowa, etc. It’s the Big 10 & SEC that have expanded into super-conferences, who are taking the lion’s share of this revenue, and demanding more in the future. There is a perception among those in-the-know that the NCAA may become a two-tiered system– with elite schools competing for national titles in all the major sports, but especially football– and then all the rest just existing on the fringes. Some would argue that has happened already.

Ted Cruz has been brought in (& bought by) the NCAA to make sure no collective bargaining rights are appropriated to NCAA athletes. And so Congress has been entrusted to work out a system which favors the NCAA in its further exploitation of student athletes. No unionization means not having to pay insurance, health care costs, even pensions, etc, to student-athletes who have earned for the NCAA. Attempts at denying these employee-athletes their right to bargain collectively, and thus be a united fist against the NCAA, violate anti-trust laws and will be open to strong legal challenges in the courts.

This is a revolutionary issue for young student athletes, as this goes down to high school now. The window for elite athletic competition is small and it’s a young man’s/woman’s game. Young athletes need to learn their history and speak to each other on these issues. Today, all sports are designed to bring prestige & money to a NCAA university. Sports has tremendous value. Volleyball, skiing, gymnastics, etc, are now broadcast regularly on the major networks as weekend sports programming. If they don’t have football, then just about any other sport will do.

Regular TV has gone to total garbage, with AI now taking over. Reality TV is now largely sports-competition based, in case you haven’t noticed. That makes sports programming more coveted than ever. The NCAA is attempting to cap it’s cost/university. Right now each university is allowed to spend $20.5M/year in NIL money to its athletes. Of course, for Texas, Alabama, Ohio State & Michigan, that isn’t enough, so alumni boosters kick in another $5-10M annually to give them the competitive edge they insist on having. For all intents & purposes, these university presidents, athletic directors and conference commissioners are the NCAA.

So what we have is a closed loop between the bourgeois politics of Ted Cruz and the NCAA. What has been left out of this political discussion are the athletes voices. This NIL & transfer portal era in the NCAA has become a Wild West of unethical recruiting, broken promises on agreed-to deals, and endless transfers & lawsuits from aggrieved student athletes. What it has done to the product on the playing field is obvious. There are no more programs at these universities– football, hoops, baseball, etc. They are now rotating sports factories designed to make maximum financial profit every year. This applies to the NIL athletes too.

And what we have are a bunch of kids who don’t fully realize the bigger game they are part of. They want to compete at the highest level, and they also want to get paid & go pro. Their competitive nature inherently directs them away from turning to others for help in obtaining their rights as employees of the NCAA. That is the barrier these young men & women must overcome to help themselves. By uniting and joining with others, you become stronger and help yourself in turn.

Final thoughts: Football & men’s basketball are the only profitable NCAA sports. The House Settlement, (named after ASU swimmer Grant House) which allows NIL revenue-sharing with student-athletes (along with back pay for former athletes dating back to 2016), has received preliminary approval from a federal judge. As with every other capitalist institution & setup, there are vast inequalities in this NCAA-NIL system. Of the $20.5M annually currently allowed (set to increase in the future), 90% of it will go towards football ($~15M) & men’s hoops (~$3M). The vast majority of NCAA student athletes don’t have NIL deals, and have been completely unrepresented in the process.

What this will create is a two-tiered layer of athletics across the NCAA and on every campus. The vast majority will be regular student athletes, with an elite layer of NIL-athletes for whom this professionalized system was created. Yes, stars are important to winning and they grab the TV ratings, but in football & hoops you need a TEAM to win. When all the programs become stratified in the manner I’ve described, you don’t have teams anymore– just a bunch of guys with the same-colored jersey. Thus, the competition becomes less compelling on every level.

NIL money for student athletes has the potential to revolutionize athletics for the better, but as anyone can see, it is instead being used by the NCAA & its power conferences to increase their monopoly power over college sports, while enriching only an elite class of athletes. This mirrors how real-world capitalism deals with any social inequality issue– it promotes a thin layer of union bureaucrats, blacks, women, gays, etc, to create the illusion of fairness & equality for all. The logic of identity politics is: Because OJ Simpson became rich & famous, all blacks should be happy– and so on.

Unless student athletes unite and appoint their own legal & media representatives in this fight, then most of them will be excluded from any benefits or compensation. Deion Sanders, head football coach at the University of Colorado has the clout to get his players (including his own son) top NIL deals. LeBron James can get his son a lucrative NIL deal at USC for a year, until he goes pro. These are the people being enriched by NIL money, and it’s an advantage most student athletes don’t have.

Also note that these NIL expenditures didn’t get the Trojans into the NCAA Tournament, or the Buffaloes into the CFP. It turns out you need a group players who are willing to sacrifice for the greater good (along with top talent) to win. NIL deals distort that paradigm. How can a coach create a consistent winning culture & team camaraderie when top players transfer every year? At this point, sports are all about entertainment, with winning & excellence being secondary– especially in the NCAA.

The professionalization of college & high school sports is a modern reality. The idea of sports is that it is fair to all and merit-based, meaning those who are the most-talented & work the hardest will excel above the rest. The reality is that if you don’t have money-backed competitive advantages working for you, you will get crushed by those who do.

Sports academies offer specialized professional training and top competition for aspiring young talent, but they are expensive and out-of-reach for most working class families. College sports is becoming more bourgeois at its roots, because you need these such advantages to compete for NIL deals at top NCAA universities.

On football:

When the NCAA kingpins who rule the Big 10 (now 18 schools) decided it would be a good idea to bring UCLA, USC, etc, into their conference because it benefits Michigan & Ohio State football, that doesn’t work out so well for the other sports whose west-coast athletes now have to fly to Rutgers & Maryland for conference competition. This is one example of the nefarious & destructive influence of football in college athletics.

In many ways football needs to be it’s own entity– apart from universities & education– because it is so powerful it can swallow up any school. It can absorb any evil such as organized crime & gambling in the NFL. The Universities of Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, USC, Alabama, etc, are beholden to football. The power it has over alumni is incalculable.

Football often defines that institution, and in this era of branding & NIL rights, that is more powerful than ever. Football is the PR department for the University of Miami Hurricanes and has been since Howard Schnellenberger. The same goes for FSU under Bobby Bowden, and the Florida Gators under Steve Spurrier & Urban Meyer. UCF in Orlando has become a top-25 football program out of nowhere due to massive financial inputs from the university, alumni & boosters.

The problem of the NCAA & NIL rights can’t be divorced from football. It is an addicting game, but it has a tremendous cost which is largely overlooked. Football ruins the lives of people who don’t even play, but instead bet compulsively on it. Lots of them are former high school/college players who never made it any further, yet somehow believe they have some special insight into the game. They don’t. It’s a physical, punishing game that grinds its participants into retirement. CTE, Parkinson’s, etc, are just a few of the long-term brain afflictions that await football greats when they retire.

These realities need to be widely discussed and accounted for when collective bargaining issues such at NCAA NIL rights are at stake. It’s the athletes who are competing in field hockey, soccer, wrestling, etc, that are being excluded from these discussions. It’s the university athletic directors, presidents & power conference commissioners (based on football), that are running the NCAA in their own interests. The NCAA student athletes need to come together under the banner of collective bargaining to have any voice in their future.

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Jimmy Carter and his 1980 Moscow Olympics boycott

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The 1980 boycott of the summer Olympics in Moscow was contemptible hypocritical politics from Jimmy Carter. President Carter made this unilateral announcement in January 1980, just weeks before the 1980 winter Olympics were to be begin in Lake Placid, NY; where Soviet Union athletes were invited to compete, despite the 1979 USSR invasion of Afghanistan, which was US president Jimmy Carter’s pretense for the Moscow summer games boycott.

In Lake Placid, the 1980 US hockey team defeated the mighty USSR machine and miraculously won the gold medal. The best sports documentary on these events is the ESPN 30-for-30: Of Miracles and Men (2015).

The Lake Placid Games were held from February 13 to 24, 1980, with the Miracle on Ice game (US 4, USSR 3) played on February 22. Note: this was a tape-delayed ABC broadcast, meaning most viewers already knew the US had won, but everyone still watched. Also note that US athletes were competing against Soviet Union athletes, while Jimmy Carter’s “Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan” ultimatum on a summer games boycott was lingering over the entire competition.

At that point you couldn’t find an American who would have supported a Soviet Union boycott of these winter Olympics, as it would have largely invalidated the US hockey gold. And that’s the point of the Olympics, if you don’t like someone, then beat them (fairly!) in the athletic arena and you can cheer. That’s better than killing people. Olympic competition is international by nature, and any boycott for political reasons does violence to that egalitarian principle.

I’ve spoken with a former track athlete who was affected by the boycott. His response was to compete under another flag, which he did, saying it was probably his only chance at Olympic glory. Years later, he had no regrets about what he did. Reading comments from others on Reddit, I discovered much of that same sentiment from others. Here are a few samples of popular comments in italics:

I hate it. Don’t involve athletes in geo political BS.

Trash move. Athletes work their whole lives for that shot.

One of my gym teachers in high school was an older gentleman who had qualified for these Olympics (weightlifting). You could tell when he talked about it that there was still lingering disappointment and regret, decades later. And understandably so.

I understand the reasoning, but in reality it did nothing but harm innocent athletes. No international policy changed as a result, just a bunch of people who worked their whole lives just to not be given their shot.

Worked with a guy who was on the men’s field hockey team. Never got another chance. Edit: I should add that because he was officially on the Olympic team, he was given lifetime access to any Olympic training facility. He said “whoop-dee-fucking-doo”.

I hated it. Athletes have a limited window.

My father, a life-long Democrat, but also a longtime track & field and Olympics fan, never forgave Carter for this. There were certainly other ways we could have protested the Soviet Union’s actions without destroying the dreams and athletic careers of people who had done nothing at all to deserve to be treated that way.

Jimmy carter being disconnected to the feelings of the American people! Color me shocked. Athletes that have one chance of competing in the Olympics being pawns in international politics is awful no matter who’s doing it.

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Jimmy Carter completely disregarded all this, and unilaterally insisted US athletes would not compete in the 1980 summer Olympics. It was never held to any popular support litmus test in the media; it was presented as an ultimatum from an unchallengeable authority figure.

Today, Jimmy Carter’s decision wouldn’t hold up in court, but back in that day, Olympic athletes didn’t have agents. Today, top athletes are professionalized by high school. Back then, the Olympics were billed as the most prestigious international competition of amateur athletes. Eastern Bloc athletic training & doping programs made a mockery of that Olympic principle, and when the NBA ‘Dream Team’ conquered Barcelona in 1992, the Olympics officially became professionalized.

ESPN currently has Jimmy Carter’s death in their news feed, and their portrayal of his 1980 Moscow Olympic boycott is one of him being a courageous leader. ESPN is completely clueless on international politics and out-of-touch with how American working people & sports fans feel about Jimmy Carter. The Democrats needed Jimmy Carter’s death to serve as (yet another) a temporary distraction from their party’s collapse in November, their ensuing surrender to Donald Trump, and all the other political realities they are trying so hard to avoid.

Wrap-up: It is always questionable in bourgeois politics whether it’s worse to be a weak president (Carter), or a disgraced president (Nixon). In short, Jimmy Carter was a weak president capable of only the most limited reforms, who was crushed by reactionary forces & ruling class interests in November 1980. Jimmy Carter won in 1976 as a liberal humanitarian, just as liberalism was dying out as a political force. “Stagflation” came into the political lexicon under his presidential watch, while his environmentalism, commitment to public education, defense of workers rights to decent jobs & wages, etc, were crushed by the forces of Reaganomics in the 1980’s.

Other notable Jimmy Carter presidential events include the Mariel boat-lift disaster in Miami, FL (April 15 to October 31, 1980), paving the way for reactionary anti-immigration reforms under Bush/Reagan. Cocaine Cowboys (2006) is a good documentary film with some insightful discussion on that.

Finally, no discussion of Jimmy Carter is complete without mentioning the hostage crisis with Iran. After the overthrow of the hated (US-backed) Shah through an Islamic-led revolution, 53 US diplomats & citizens were held hostage in Iran from November 4, 1979 until their release on January 20, 1981, the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.

A bungled military helicopter rescue attempt on April 24, 1980, in which there were multiple US fatalities, further sunk Carter’s popularity. In September 1980, the Iran–Iraq War broke out, further overwhelming Jimmy Carter in any attempt to find a diplomatic solution with Iran under his administration.

In the 1980 election, where an Independent candidate (John Anderson) was allowed to debate and be on the ballot, the incumbent Jimmy Carter lost to Republican challenger Ronald Reagan: 489-49 in the Electoral College. The Democrats didn’t recover politically until Bill Clinton in 1992.

Perhaps Jimmy Carter’s most celebrated diplomatic achievement will be the last to be discussed here, his Camp David Accords, signed in March 1979 by the US, Israel & Egypt–  explicitly excluding Palestinians. It was packaged by Jimmy Carter to the world as “a framework for peace in the Middle East”. Like other “humanitarian interventions” under Jimmy Carter, these feeble & myopic attempts at shuttle diplomacy were all quickly undone by monopoly capitalism & imperialism, and that is the legacy of Jimmy Carter.

The death of Jimmy Carter is an ironic reflection of the current political situation. President Joe Biden has ordered maximum effusive praise for the former Georgia peanut farmer who became US president. “He was a better ex-president than president,” is liberalism’s apologetic way of admitting Jimmy Cater was a failure, while conveniently & systematically overlooking those failures.

The collapse of Biden/Harris/Waltz in 2024 mirrors the political situation after Carter/Mondale got wiped out in 1980. Reactionary & predatory forces were/are working behind-the-scenes and licking their chops after the Democratic Party set the groundwork for the social, political & economic disaster to come. By Joe Biden’s order, through January 9, 2025, US flags are to fly half-staff in observance of this husk of liberalism that most Americans (rich & poor) despised.

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