Welcome to another edition of “Friday 4”, where I talk about the four things I’ve been thinking about the last week and the upcoming weekend in sports and the world.
ONE
We’ve now hit Memorial Day weekend. Monday, Memorial Day, is the day we’re supposed to honor the men and women who died while serving in the United States military. Unfortunately, many just think it’s the unofficial start of summer and don’t even give passing notice to those for whom the day was created.
Memorial Day is also one of those holidays where companies and organizations not directly tied to the military shouldn’t prominently display their logos on social media remembrances. Most will do it anyway. And it’s a shame.
It’s also not for all veterans. Yes, we should give thanks to all who served our country, but Memorial Day is specifically for those who gave their lives in serving the United States while wearing the uniform. Ask any Vietnam veteran or any veteran of recent conflicts overseas, and they’ll explain the difference.
Because they still can, while those we honor Monday can’t.
TWO
I want to take everyone back to last Saturday if I may, and in case you don’t recall the day, allow me to refresh your memories by saying it rained. A lot. According to the National Weather Service data, it rained two inches at Worcester Airport, starting just before 9am and ending a little after 6pm. So, basically all day.
Anecdotal evidence isn’t really evidence, but in my far-from-expert opinion, it seemed like it rained a lot harder in the Canal District than what the NWS has listed on their website in the 10:54 to 13:54 window for the airport. Looking out the windows of the Worcester Ice Center the rain was coming down quite heavily during that time with virtually no let-up. But again, that’s not actual evidence it happened, so we’ll just rely on the official number of two inches.
When my wife and I pulled out of the Ice Center’s parking lot just past 1pm after the Railers equipment sale and a great lunch at Bay State Brewing, we were a little surprised to see the parking attendants for the lot across Winter Street getting ready for the day’s game. The wait staff at Bay State were all unhappily saying there wasn’t going to be a game, there were puddles on local roads that were only slightly smaller than Patch Pond, and with it still raining heavily at that point you wouldn’t have needed a talented clairvoyant to know they weren’t going to be playing baseball a couple of blocks away over a Polar Park.
Ninety minutes before the scheduled first pitch the WooSox tweeted out their starting lineup, and within minutes all the replies to the tweet were about the weather and if the game would be canceled. There were no replies from WooSox staff. That’s probably a scheduled tweet so nothing much should be read into it, but the replies show people already had a good idea this game wasn’t going to be played.
Over an hour later, and with the gates already open, the WooSox finally tweeted about the weather, saying there was going to be a delay in the start. The key phrase in the last sentence is “with the gates already open”. The WooSox, you know, that “community-minded” organization, did what they always do in these situations and milked fans for whatever they could.
They got people into the ballpark, got them to spend some money while they were in there, and then 45 minutes after the scheduled first pitch and hours after anyone with their eyes open already knew it was going to happen, they postponed the game.
I loved the line that opened the tweet about postponing the game, saying “Fans, today’s game has been postponed due to rain and a forecast of continued rain into the evening.” Literally, both of those things were true hours before, yet it took until 4:47 for the WooSox to announce they weren’t playing.
Just picture what a family of four likely spent at Polar Park Saturday and then didn’t get to see a game. Plus, I’m sure parents dealing with soaked children were having a great time. But they’ll come back next time and spend more money, so the WooSox will be happy.
There will, of course, be someone out there saying “They shouldn’t have gone to the game in the rain”. The problem is there would then be a chance they would spend money on tickets and not get to see a game if somehow the WooSox decided to wait a long time and managed to get the game in much later in the evening. Many times, families are early to ballgames so they can get parking close to one of the entrances to make getting into, and out of, the ballpark with their small children easier.
Hopefully just as easy as the WooSox took money out of their wallets.
THREE
I was scrolling Facebook earlier this week and stumbled upon a post from a baseball history group that somehow appeared in my timeline, and the topic was pitcher Jamie Moyer. When I say you could make half a dozen blog posts just on Moyer’s career, I might be on the conservative side. He played for eight Major League teams across four decades. Trust me, there’s a lot of stories to tell.
He pitched in 50 different Major League ballparks. When you remember there are only 30 teams in MLB, that’s a head-scratching accomplishment. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, when Moyer retired in 2012 he had faced almost 9% of all MLB hitters. MLB is considered to have started in 1876.
There’s obviously tons more about Moyer, but none of that is why I bring him up. One of the comments on the post was from a guy who mentioned “he (Moyer) was the last MLB player older than I was”. A day or so later I had a few minutes and decided to look into who the last player in the four major sports older than me was.
Even though Jaromír Jágr doesn’t technically count since he plays pro hockey in Czechia and not the NHL, I’m older than him anyway, so it doesn’t matter. It also helped eliminate the NHL from consideration. It then took just a few moments to eliminate both the NFL and NBA.
How was I able to eliminate all three sports so quickly? Well, Moyer was older than everyone playing those sports when he retired in 2012, and he was older than me. It looked like it was going to be Moyer for me too until a little voice in the back of my head suddenly registered a different name.
Omar Vizquel.
A quick trip to Wikipedia all but proved it for me. Vizquel was born over a year earlier than I was, and he retired from MLB a few months after Moyer did. So, the mystery was solved. Based on news reports Vizquel doesn’t seem to be the outstanding citizen Moyer is, so we’ll leave it at that.
I guess the next thing is to find out who was the first player in the four major sports to be younger than me when they first appeared. But I won’t be doing that today, and probably not tomorrow.
Because I’m old and need my rest.
FOUR
Occasionally, something happens in the sports world that requires me to consult with an expert in the field to truly understand what’s going on. One of those things is happening now, and lucky for me I didn’t need to scroll through my contacts to find someone who would know what the skinny was as I’d already scheduled some time with just the person who could answer all my questions.
It was my former “Nothing But Shenanigans” co-host Paul Hokanson that I consulted–who would be my current co-host if even half the people who have asked me why we stopped the podcast had actually listened to the podcast, but I digress–because the topic was basketball. I don’t follow basketball, and Hokey does, so to me he qualifies as an expert. And while I read articles about what was going on, I knew Hokey was paying far more attention. So before he’d even taken a sip of his beer, I fired the question right at him…
What the hell is the deal with Bronny James?
You see, not following basketball at all and scrolling past all the headlines without reading the articles, I just assumed James was going to be one of the top picks. It seemed like every other story on the ESPN site was about him or Caitlin Clark, and seeing as I knew who she was I figured James must be on a similar career arc. Thinking this I was completely shocked to see the headline on Boston.com a couple days ago, “New ESPN mock draft has Celtics selecting LeBron James’ son in second round”.
The second round?
It was then that I looked up James’ college stats, and found he played just one year for USC, and “played” is a relative term. He started only six of the 25 games he played in, averaged under 20 minutes of playing time, and scored under five points per game. James also had more turnovers than steals and averaged just two assists per game.
It became immediately clear to me that if Bronny James’ name was really something like Mike Smith absolutely no one would be talking about this kid at all.
I get that many people think LeBron James is the greatest player of all time–spoiler alert: he’s not, that accolade belongs to a former minor league baseball player with a huge gambling problem–but why is anyone talking at all about Bronny right now? There are literally hundreds of basketball players better than him who played college ball last season.
This is where Hokey’s expertise shines. It didn’t dawn on me that LeBron would use his son as leverage in determining where LeBron plays next season. It seems his current contract has a player option year for next season (worth something like $50M, so much for an actual salary cap in the NBA, eh?) that he has to exercise by June 29. The NBA draft is on June 26 and 27. As LeBron has already said he wants to play with Bronny, that paints a pretty clear picture.
In order for the Lakers to be able to keep LeBron, they probably have to draft Bronny. And the scenario for doing that isn’t great for them. They own the 17th pick in the draft, but New Orleans has the option to take that pick as compensation for the Anthony Davis trade, or the Pelicans can defer that pick to 2025. The Lakers’ second-round pick is #55, fourth from last. Experts seem to think New Orleans will defer, meaning the Lakers might need to waste their first-rounder on Bronny to help secure LeBron or trade something to another team to get an earlier second-round pick.
As it stands now the Lakers will essentially have no first-round pick for two seasons in a row or will have to pay top dollar for a pick they wouldn’t ordinarily need to draft a player they really don’t want in order to keep their aging superstar happy, essentially handicapping the team for years to come
And as a Celtics fan, Hokey is OK with that.
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