Football coaches are strange people

And there's nothing strange about that

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Breaking —

The Reds claimed off waivers CF Harrison Bader from the Yankees. They owe him the rest of his ‘23 salary of around $5 million.

Knee-jerk reax: Odd move. Bader is very good defensively, but likely no better than TJ Friedl, who has been exemplary in CF. Bader has speed, but speed is not an issue here. And he’s hitting .240 with a .643 OPS in 310 plate appearances.

Meantime, the Guardians added three — three! — pitchers: SP Lucas Giolito and 2 relievers. And they’re 5 games outta 1st place and 11.5 from the final wild card spot. Far more out of it than the Reds, in other words.

Give me your take.

FOOTBALL SEASON CAN START NOW. . . Joe Burrow practiced with the Men Wednesday, for the first time since straining his right calf July 27. Exhales all around. That news comes with a small, inconsequential wonder, which is OK because this is a small, inconsequential sports day.

When the heathen media asked Zac Taylor on Tuesday when he thought Burrow might resume practicing, the coach didn’t say. Why not?

Answer: Because coaches and managers are strange that way.

“We’ll see,’’ said Taylor. Do you think when Taylor asked the team’s medical staff about Burrow’s availability, the medical staff said, “We’ll see’’?

I remember Sam Wyche telling me that the one year he spent head-coaching the Indiana Hoosiers, he had a grad assistant visit the school that IU was playing that upcoming Saturday. The guy’s task: Hang out outside the building where the coaches worked. Get back to Sam when he sees all the lights go out in the coaches offices. Only then would Wyche dismiss his assistants for the evening.

True? Maybe, maybe not. But very believable if you know anything about football coaches.

Ed Emory

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I covered East Carolina football for a very short time, when the Pirates actually were a Top 25 team. During summer camp, it was very important for their coach, Ed Emory, to know how many practices his opening-game opponent was running per day. Armed with that knowledge, ol’ Ed would run his charges through one more.

George Welsh turned Virginia football around when I covered the Cavaliers in the mid-80s. As soon as the team became remotely good, the media coverage turned fawning. Welsh was concerned the kudos would make his kids cocky. He dispatched some lowly employee to downtown Charlottesville and anywhere else a newspaper rack was positioned.

Welsh gave the guy rolls of quarters (that’s what a paper cost in those days) with orders to take all the papers from every rack he could find.

While none of these tales of fact deal directly with coachly evasiveness, they do speak to the mindset. Football coaches are a little different from the rest of us.

Injury information is mostly inconsequential, unless you’re a degenerate gambler. One, most of it is well known well before Sunday. Two, teams still prefer to do what they do best, regardless of what players they’re facing. And yet to football coaches, injury secrecy is not a matter of life and death. It’s more important than that.

Back in the glory days, Bill Belichick would rather call his uncle a Communist than tell anyone about his players’ injuries.

Check out the coaches on the sidelines, strangling their laminated play cards. Watch them as they talk to their QBs. They cup their hands over their mouths. Haha.

Who do they think is watching? The other team’s coaches? Spies in the stands? The Russians? Do NFL teams employ lip readers now?

To be fair, baseball managers and players do the same, hand-cupping routine. One can never know if that 9-year-old in the Diamond Club box seat is in reality a spy for the Cubs.

Columbo

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So, yeah, Zac Taylor is not about to tell you, me, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Columbo or the Cleveland Browns anything about Joe Burrow’s medical condition. Taylor’s not being difficult. He’s just being a football coach.

Now, then. . .

BTW, ARE YOU WORRIED about the opener? Cleveland is better than last year. The game’s in Mistakeville. The Browns have a very good O-line, the best RB (Chubb) by far in the division and Myles Garrett to give Frank Pollack night sweats.

Deshaun Watson was lousy and listless when he finally got on the field last year. This year? He has Amari Cooper and that running game. Good thing Burrow’s going to make it. At least I think he will.

We’ll see.

ANOTHER REASON TO BELIEVE SOCCER IS STRANGE. . .

Luis Rubiales is president of Spain’s football (soccer) federation. He’s in deep.

After the Spanish women claimed the World Cup title, Rubiales was seen congratulating a Spanish player by kissing her on the lips. Let’s say upfront that was an obviously dumb thing to do. Said player, Jenni Hermoso, had every right to be pissed. (Not that Ms. Hermoso needs my permission.)

Since that moment, here is what has happened with Rubiales, per news-service accounts:

• Eleven members of the Spanish national women’s soccer program have resigned.

• Players have threatened to boycott competitions should Rubiales stay in his post.

• Rubiales faces an investigation that could end in sexual aggression charges from Spanish prosecutors.

• "The behavior of Rubiales could be deemed as sexual harassment on the basis of current Spanish legislation," lawyer Ignacio Alvarez Serrano, an associate at Gomez-Acebo & Pombo abogados, told ESPN. "[The legislation] punishes such misconduct with 1-2 years in prison, and 18-24 months of professional disqualification.’’

I’m confused, as I am generally when the subject is futbol.

Does anyone else see this as somewhat, I dunno, wildly over-reactive?

Rubiales apologized, even if he did maintain the kiss was “spontaneous, mutual, euphoric and (done) with consent.” Hermoso says there was no consent. But. . .

It was a kiss. Not a punch, a shove, a kick, a grope or a mugging. A kiss. You must remember this. A kiss is just a kiss. (Lookitup, kids.)

I understand that Spain is trying to get past its machismo sexist leanings. I understand that men can’t just go ‘round lip-locking women they don’t know. I understand some form of condemnation is needed.

But c’mon.

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Think of the fate of Morganna, had her wanton kissing of baseball players been seen through the same lens. Thirty years of storming the field and lip-smacking major leaguers. Poor woman would have spent decades in the gulag.

Think of the charges in this highly enlightened era:

Trespassing. Assault. Battery. Criminal trespass. Criminal mischief.

Hey, Spain: Give Senor Rubiales three months off, sentence him to the Madrid Zoo and order him to kiss frogs.

GARY WOODLAND, GREAT GUY, WILL HAVE HIS BRAIN OPERATED ON. He won the 2019 U.S. Open, which was nice, but not what made him special. At the Waste Management Open a few years ago, Woodland befriended a college golfer named Amy Bockerstette. Ms. Bockerstette was a capable enough player to make her college team. She played a par-3 in a Waste Management practice round.

You might remember the rest. Amy made par from a greenside bunker. Woodland celebrated her as if she’d won the Open. They’re still friends.

Did I mention Amy Bockerstette was born with Down syndrome?

On Sept. 18, Woodland will undergo surgery on his brain, to remove a lesion. Godspeed, Gary. Some of us will never forget your kindness.

Postscript: A couple months after Amy’s Moment, I played nine holes with her at Legendary Run. (The Bockerstettes have family in town.) She kicked my aspirations. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Is anyone cooler than this guy? I think not.