This week’s FreeForAll offers the Reds as Baseball’s newest ambassadors of hope, a solution for boring NFL kickoffs, more Madness and the best and worst slow songs of all time. Paid subscriptions always welcome. Enjoy.
Run-DLC
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All better today. Yesterday’s essay/meltdown was necessary and good for the spleen. I recommend a good losing-it on occasion. One of my fantasies is to be given five minutes in the glassware area of a home goods store, armed only with malice and a Louisville Slugger. Tell me you don’t feel likewise on occasion.
But that was yesterday.
Today, this:
Youse aren’t the only folks who should be cheering for the Reds like felons on parole from Football Island. (Only seven more weeks until the mindless hypefest known as the NFL Draft!)
All of baseball and all who love the game should as well. Redsfan/Everyman, this should be your wish:
If MLB is to survive as a relevant major sport, the Reds need to do well. The Reds need to maintain the illusion of small-money hope. In some respects, they are the 15 seed in March Madness, taking down #2.
Forever, the Tampa Bay Rays have worn that pauper’s crown. Still do. But in a consortium of 30 hopefuls, you need more than one dreamer. Tampa alone will not stop the war machine in Los Angeles. To say nothing of the thickwallets in the Bronx, Philly and Atlanta, storming the transoms with bands of bazillionaires.
One-hundred-twenty-six-meeel-yun dollars, for three seasons of Zack Wheeler, who has never won a Cy Young, has been an all-star exactly once and will be 34 in May?
I dunno what planet the Phillies live on, but it ain’t the one we in the Republic occupy.
The Thinwallet Division needs to honor the increasingly quaint notion that brains still matter in Baseball. Scout, Draft, Sign Develop. Do it on the margins and do it well, because if you don’t, nothing stands between the Dodgers and endless trophies. Without the Reds and organizations like them, baseball will be a boring place.
The Athletic:
“Usually, it’s not a good thing when a manager has no idea what the composition of his infield will be less than a month before Opening Day. But with (this team, the) uncertainty is merely a reflection of the team’s incredible depth of young talent.’’
Reds? No, but it could be. It isn’t a stretch to describe them that way. But it’s the Baltimore Orioles, this year’s foremost foot soldier in the war against big-money world (Series) domination. The Tigers have a chance, too, given the kid pitchers and a promising bat or two. Miami maybe, and Seattle.
And the Reds. Think of what it would do for the game if the scrappy local 9 wins big with a collection of Minimums and Arbitration-Eligibles. It might not make monster-agent Scott Boras clutch his chest, but it might weaken his death grip over the game.
Among his clients are guys the Reds couldn’t buy if they had a Brink’s truck of platinum and the oil reserves of the United Arab Emirates:
Gerrit Cole ($324 million), Stephen Strasburg ($245 million) and Max Scherzer ($210 million). And we’re not even talking about hitters. Harper, Soto, Seager, Altuve etc etc.
The father of the National Football League, Komrade Marx
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The NFL is king for lots of reasons. Among them is a socialist economic system that means in theory that every club, every year, has a chance to be good. The Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers will go to training camp in July suggesting a playoff appearance and even cynics will nod affirmatively. Baseball lacks this eternal optimism.
But what if?
The Reds likely won’t win the NL Central; still not nearly enough proven starting pitching. But they will be interesting at the very least, exciting and, most importantly, legitimately hopeful. Baseball needs that, as much as ever.
Now, then. . .
THE DEATH SPIRAL OF THE KICKOFF. The NFL is addressing the boring same-ness of its kickoffs. Here are two proposals, via USA Today:
Setup zone: The kick and return teams would line up on the receiving team’s 40- and 35-yard lines, respectively, and not leave until the ball is touched or reaches the “target zone” (20-yard line to goal line).
Touchbacks: If the ball is kicked into the end zone, the receiving team gets it at the 35. If the ball is kicked into the target zone and rolls into the end zone, the receiving team gets it at the 20.
I wondered last year in This Space why teams didn’t target their kickoffs to land close to the 5-yard line, forcing opponents to return them. Odds are, the returning team will not get to the 25, ie the result of a touchback.
Why not just move back the kickoff spot another five yards, from the 35 to the 30. Keep the setup zone described above. Whatever, they gotta do something.
In 2023, just 22% of kickoffs were returned, and none in the Super Bowl.
Owners could vote on the proposals by the end of March.
MORE MADNESS?
That seems to be the plan. The Athletic:
“A 72- or 76-team field seems the most likely outcome. It may be the only realistic way to keep the tournament alive. College basketball administrators fear that, if the tourney is left untouched, it will inspire power conference schools to at least consider their own postseason.
Who gets the extra bids?
More teams means more schools get a cut of the CBS/Turner TV money. If, however, more money isn’t added to the pot, more teams divided by the same dollars equals less money per school. That will lead power-conference commissioners to push for a restructuring of the automatic bid process, which is, of course, the very lifeblood of the everyman tournament.’’
The first-weekend upsets give the tournament its charm. But no one (or least me) wants to see George Mason or Loyola-Chicago in the Final Four.
If it went to 76, would you prefer it include more teams from big conferences? Or more pumpkins from the MEAC or the Northeast?
As stated here recently, I’d favor reducing the field to 48, hoping to add meaning to the regular season and to conference tournaments. Money will not allow that to happen.
TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Who didn’t like slow-dances? Junior-high guys with hormones raging were big fans. One, because dancing slowly was a lot easier than dancing fast-ly, and probably wouldn’t reveal your pathetic lack of rhythm and (2) well, you know.
The only bad thing about slow dancing for little guys like me the 7th-grader was, the girl I was dancing with was tall enough to post me up.
Anyway, your best and worst songs for slow dancing.
Best: Hey Jude. My first girlfriend and I danced to it. Karen Frey was the coolest girl in 6th grade. She wore high-top Chucks, Need I say more?
Na-na-na-nahnahnahnah-h-h-h. . .
. . . followed closely by Crimson and Clover (extended version), Crystal Blue Persuasion and Precious and Few (lookitup, Dick Clark.)
Worst slows: There was only one, so bad it had no competition. Anyone who attended a prom in the mid-70s will know immediately what it is.
Give up?
Color My World. Chicago’s worst tune ever. Clunky, cliched, manipulative, schlocky. After hearing that record, we needed vomit bags and insulin drips.
That said, here’s a very, very good slow tune.
Your best/worst, please.
So you’re saying there is a chance? :)
You nailed it Doc…I’m going to throw out REO Speedwagon - I can’t fight this feeling