Deja lose all over again

 Time now to look in on LIV golf, which is, in fact, still going, despite rumors that it had become the sasquatch of golf tours -- i.e., occasionally glimpsed but never verified.

Well, forget that noise. Sasquatch lives. It's down there in Mexico City this week, playing in front of a gallery of dozens and somewhere in the tangled wilderness of cable/streaming service TV.

It is, as the saying goes, not dead yet. But it's definitely made out the will and checked into hospice.

This upon the news that the Saudi group who threw truckloads of money at mid-list golfers apparently have decided continuing to do so is not a wise investment strategy. So it's looking for an exit strategy.

To those of us with longer memories than most, this does not surprise, because we've seen it before. It's deja lose all over again.

In other words, it's time to re-acquaint ourselves with the Chicago Fire, the Philadelphia Bell and the Birmingham Americans, among others.

They were teams in the World Football League, brainchild of a man named Gary Davidson, who was instrumental in launching the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey League. The ABA and WHA were ultimately successful enough to put three or four of their teams into the NBA and NHL. Davidson figured the WFL could do the same with the NFL.

And so, like the Saudis with LIV golf 49 years before them, Davidson and Co. decided to open the cashbox back in 1974. Like LIV with the PGA, they shoveled mountains of green at both established NFL stars and not-so-established NFL stars. Like LIV, they ... well, overspent, shall we say.

The Memphis Southmen raided the Miami Dolphins for Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Paul Warfield. Calvin Hill and Craig Morton signed with Hawaii and Houston, respectively. Ken Stabler signed with the Americans, and Daryle Lamonica with the Southern California Sun.

Eventually, the WFL claimed to have 60 NFL players under contract. Most of those, however, were future contracts; Stabler and Lamonica, for instance, weren't committed to play for the Americans and the Sun until the 1975 season. Ditto Csonka, Kiick and Warfield, who signed to play in '75 for the then-outrageous sum of $3.5 million. But the WFL came apart at the seams midway through that season, all its lofty plans dying in a sea of red ink.

And now, LIV golf, which began with similar fanfare and hubris in 2023. The new tour gave Jon Rahm a reported $300 million to jump from the PGA after Rahm won the Masters. It signed then-53-year-old Phil Mickelson for $138 million, Brooks Koepka for $130 mill, Bryson DeChambeaut for $125 mill and Dustin Johnson for $125 mill. It even gave a guy named Talor Gooch $70 mill to come to the LIV side.

Talor Gooch is 34 years old. He has a world ranking of 967. His lone PGA Tour victory came in 2021 at Sea Island, Ga., and, in 124 PGA events, he missed the cut 43 times.

But the Saudis paid him ginormous sums anyway. And for the money, Gooch and the others got to play in out-of-the-way places in what amounted to a glorified exhibition circuit: No cut, 54-hole events, guaranteed paychecks for everyone.

But down-market TV coverage, and down-market venues. No Augusta National. No Pinehurst No. 2. No Doral, Pebble Beach, etc., etc.

Little wonder the viewership numbers have been so miniscule.

Little wonder the moneymen are therefore thinking of bailing.

Little wonder that Gary Davidson, who's 91 years old these days, is no doubt shaking his head somewhere right now, and muttering, "Damn fools."

The weight of appearances, Part Deux

 Dianna Russini resigned from The Athletic this week, on account of she could no longer do her job as an NFL insider without some drooling hack on social media obsessing over her like a hormonal seventh-grade boy. 

Mike Vrabel, meanwhile did not resign as head coach of the New England Patriots, on account of he's the reigning NFL Coach of the Year and the supply chain tends to run thin in that area.

This should surprise absolutely no one.

It is, after all, the way of the world, and has been since Adam blamed Eve for that apple thing. In any unseemly -- or seemingly unseemly -- interaction between men and women, it's almost always the latter who take the hardest hits. The shame, not to say the consequences, are largely theirs. It's such a given after all these millennia the unfairness of it rarely elicits more than a shrug.

"Yeah, the woman loses her job and the man keeps his," is the prevailing sentiment. "And water is wet and fire is hot. What else is new?"

This is not to say there are never consequences for the guys, too, or that they don't occasionally get shown the street. But the second acts for them seem to come much more readily than for the woman in the (in)equation.

None of this, mind you, is to defend Russini or her judgment as a journalist. Whatever her relationship was with Vrabel -- and, listen, the assumption that she and Vrabel must have been knocking boots is merely that, an assumption -- it pretty clearly crossed the tricky line between source and buddy. And, fairly or unfairly, it was mostly Russini who had the most to lose by crossing it.

She was, or is, damn good at her job, after all. If credibility is the coin of the realm for a journalist, she had a truckload. And nowhere is that more valuable, for a woman, than in Sportsball World.

Neanderthals still roam freely there, after all, emboldened these days by the comeback of misogyny in this retrograde America of ours. And so occasionally they'll surface on the Great Intertoob Thingy wondering why these wimmin' are on their teevees talkin' about sports instead of, you know, in the kitchen makin' their man a sammich.

A hard dollar for sure, bucking that sort of headwind. When I came into the biz, for example, Melissa Ludtke of the New York Times was still suing to get into the locker room. Press boxes and sports departments were almost exclusively male. And very few of us wondered why that was so, or what it must have been like for the first women we encountered in those press boxes and sports departments.

Pretty damn lonely, I imagine. Pretty damn intimidating, too, what with all the whispers and innuendo that, when a woman ascended the newsroom ladder, it must have been because she slept with someone -- not because of her talent.

Now it's all these years later, I'm retired, and I can't count the number of talented women with whom it was my privilege to share press boxes and newsrooms. And yet, all these years later, some things never seem to change.

This fall, Mike Vrabel will be coaching the New England Patriots.

Diane Russini will be doing ... something. 

So it goes.

Cruds alert!*

 (*Well, sort of)

Baseball is a strange game.

It giveth, it taketh away, and, sometimes, it rains. Think about it.

"Hey, no fair stealing from Nuke LaLoosh!" you're saying now.

OK, OK. But I'm looking at what happened in the major leagues yesterday, and the weirdness jumped up and smacked me right in the gob.

Over here was Garrett Crochet of the Boston Red Sox, who finished second in the AL Cy Young voting last season but pitched more like Neil Young last night. And over here were my very own Pittsburgh Cruds, who are being disturbingly un-Cruddy at the moment.

Let's start with Crochet.

Who pitched a typical gem until, I don't know, his opening delivery against the Minnesota Twins, who lit him up like a Roman candle in a 13-6 bashing of the Bosox. In just an inning and two-thirds before manager Alex Cora mercifully removed his bullet-riddled remains, Crochet gave up 11 runs -- 10 earned -- and nine hits. He walked three, hit a batter, and had zero strikeouts for the first time in his 68 career starts.

In the first inning, Crochet gave up four hits on 31 pitches. In the second, he gave up seven more.

"Wow, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Have you ever seen anything like that before?"

Well as a matter of fact ...

Let's examine what the Cruds did last night.

What they did was rap out 16 hits and 16 runs in a 16-5 drubbing of the Washington Nationals, and now they're 10-6 and a game clear in the NL Central. And by "a game clear" I do not mean a game clear of their ancestral home in the division cellar.

No, sir. I mean a game clear of the Reds, the Brewers, the Cardinals and the Cubs. I mean they're in first place, with the second-best record in the entire National League as of this morning.

Paul Skenes is doing Paul Skenes things, giving up one hit and one run with six punch-outs in six innings last night. Leadoff hitter Oneal Cruz was 2-for-3, scored three runs and drove in three. Brandon Lowe (4-for-5, five RBI) and Brian Reynolds (3-for-4, four RBI) drove in nine runs between them, and five Pittsburghers collected at least two hits.

Too weird. Like, you know, Donald-Trump-as-Jesus weird.

And before you say anything, yes, I get it: It's only mid-April. Garrett Crochet, whose ERA is 7.58 right now, could win his next ten games and strike out eleventy-hundred batters in a row while doing it. My Cruds could remember who they are and begin an inexorable crawl toward the old last-place homestead. All things are possible in such an upside-down, inside-out universe.

I mean, when I looked at the standings this morning, I saw that the hideous Colorado Rockheads have already won six games, and are merely tied for last in the NL West with the San Francisco Giants. And the woeful Chicago What Sox, even though they're last in the AL Central as always, are actually playing .500 ball over their last ten games.

Not even Trump Jesus is that weird.

Portal, schmortal

 We're now officially a week into transfer portal season, and poor Scotty is busier than a one-legged Klingon in an arse-kicking contest. Guys are transporting down to New Planet U.'s surface so fast he's telling Captain Kirk the dilithium crystals are in danger of fusing, and wailing, in a mournful Scottish brogue, "I canna keep up, Captain!"*

(*Egregious, and horribly tortured, "Star Trek" analogy for today)

In more conventional terms, college hoopsters are zipping here, there and everywhere like there's no tomorrow. One prized portal-er is transferring to his fourth school in as many years. Alma mater, you say?

Alma Hardly Matters is more like it.

But you know where it still does matter?

Come on. Guess. This isn't that hard.

"Purdue?" you're saying now.

Ding-ding-ding!

Yes, Purdue University, where Matt Painter's Boilermakers just won 30 games and reached the Elite Eight with a team led by three seniors -- Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn -- who actually know the way to the student union. Stayed all four years, they did. Played in a national championship game. First Purdue players to do that since Rick Mount was filling it up from deep 57 years ago.

Know what else?

Those three seniors weren't outliers.

Comes now the news, see, that every one of Purdue's key returning players are actually, well, returning. Every ... single ... one.

 C.J. Cox, Gicarri Harris, Omer Mayer. Daniel Jacobsen, Raleigh Burgess, Jack Benter.  Maybe even Oscar Cluff if the NCAA grants him another year of eligibility, which doesn't seem likely at the moment.

Around them, Painter will add 2026 Indiana Mr. Basketball Luke Ertel. And the Ivy League Player of the Year, 6-foot-7 wing Caden Pierce from Princeton. And yet another 7-footer, Sinan Huan. And maybe a few other guys.

In other words, Painter will again have a roster cored by a pile of guys who won't have to wear nametags on the first day of practice. No, I don't know how he does it, other than building a culture to which young men want to buy in. Yes, it is as old-timey, here in the go-go-elsewhere 2020s, as peach baskets and canvas high tops.

"Yeah, but you can't win that way anymore," skeptics will say. "Or at least you won't be able to for long."

To which all the Blob will say is Painter's won 29, 29, 34, 24 and 30 games in the last five seasons doing it his way. So, you know, portal schmortal.

And ain't those peach baskets grand?

A Master(s) class

Okey-dokey, Smokey. Here's your assignment for today.

Imagine, if you can, that Rory McIlroy is not Rory McIlroy.

Imagine, instead, that he's Herb the claims adjuster, Mel the actuary or some other weekend warrior at Whispering Divots Golf Club And Breakfast Buffet.

Now imagine what Rory/Herb/Mel might have been thinking Saturday night, when he went to bed tied for the lead in the Masters at Augusta.

Oh, God. I just blew the largest 36-hole lead in Masters history, is one thing he might have been thinking.

I suck. Why do I suck? I don't know, but I suck, is another. 

I'm gonna get out there tomorrow, and I'm gonna choke. I'm gonna choke so bad that from now until eternity my picture will be next to the word "choke" in the dictionary, is yet another.

Except ...

Except Rory McIlroy is not Herb or Mel from Whispering Divots. So after blowing that six-stroke lead in the third round, he just went out and won another green jacket.

In so doing he became only the fourth man in history to win back-to-back Masters, joining some guy named Jack Nicklaus, and some other guy named Tiger Woods, and some other guy named Nick Faldo. Not a bad foursome to fill out.

Of course, Rory being Rory, ("I don't make it easy," he acknowledged), he didn't make it easy. He lost his piece of the lead two holes in, then regained it, then popped a double-bogey and a bogey to lose it again. Then he birdied a couple of holes, and suddenly he was leading at the turn.

After which he played Amen Corner in 2-under and the back nine in 1-under. Came to 18 with a two-shot lead, and -- after, of course, spraying his tee shot on 18 so far right it practically landed in Florida -- got it up and down for a tap-in bogey to seal it.

 This on a day when no one was quite good enough to catch him. Scottie Scheffler made a run but slid too many birdie putts past the jar and came up a stroke short. Collin Morikawa birdied five straight holes but was too far back and finished three strokes adrift. Ditto Tyrrell Hatton, who put up a glittering 66 but needed a 64 to tie.

Justin Rose, Russell Henley, Cam Young?

All had their moments. But not enough of them.

And so it was Rory again with a Master(s) class in composure, and with a final round eerily similar to last year's, when he kept taking the lead and giving it back and taking the lead again. Augusta used to torture him like that through all his long, dry years there. Now it tortures him just for old times' sake before saying, "OK, I guess you can put the green jacket on now."

Which suggests the place is getting soft in its old age. Not that Rory or anyone else would say so.

The weight of appearances

 By now I have seen the photos, which hardly makes me special. I mean, by now, every living soul in America has seen the photos -- including the President of the United States, probably, who's no doubt whipping up some harebrained executive order about it at this very second. 

The photos are of New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel and New York Times NFL reporter Dianna Russini, allegedly gettin' cozy at a resort in Sedona, Ariz. In one of them they appear to be holding hands. In another they're hugging. In yet another, they're lounging next to one another poolside.

The photos hit the Great Intertoob Oz five days ago. A millisecond later everyone was Bob Beamon-ing to conclusions.

Which is to say they were assuming, from the photos, that Vrabel and Russini -- both of whom are married with children to other people -- were having a smoking-hot affair. OMG, look, Martha. They're sitting side-by-side at the pool! They must be boinking the living daylights out of each other!

Well ...

Well, here's what I'll say about that: Sometimes appearances deceive.

Both Russini and Vrabel said the idea they're engaging in Forbidden Love is ridiculous, and for once the Blob (which normally consumes salacious gossip with a big ol' spoon) is inclined to believe them. That's because, in all three photos, you can't see what's just outside the frame. You can't tell if or how the photos might have been cropped for maximum innuendo-y effect. 

"Oh, come on, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Who would do THAT?"

Oh, I don't know. Paparazzi. Your Aunt Myrtle. The guy down the street who insists on cutting his grass at 7 o'clock in the morning; the other guy down the street who comes out of his house to threaten him with an epic beatdown.

In other words: Damn near everybody.

So, sure, the photos suggest a certain intimacy, and it's true Vrabel and Russini are close, a relationship that goes back to when Russini was an ESPN beat writer for the Tennessee Titans when Vrabel was the Titans' head coach. Both Vrabel and Russini, however, say they were at the resort with a whole group of people who hung out together. So there could have six or seven other people sitting with them poolside. Who knows?

What I do know is this: The weight of appearances is heavy, especially here in the Age of Gotcha. Which is why, for a journalist, there's always been a razor-thin line between cultivating sources and getting too chummy with them.

That is doubly true for women journalists, ancient sexist tropes being the stubborn creatures they are. And it is triply (triple-y?) true here in the 2020s, when the relationship between sporting events and the media entities that cover them is practically incestuous.

The SEC Network, for instance, is owned by ESPN. Fox owns 61 percent of the Big Ten Network. And so on, and so forth.

And so here are Russini and Vrabel caught, deceptively or not, on camera. And here is the New York Times benching Russini in one of its typically random spasms of journalistic integrity.  And here endeth the lesson:

Never get too close to your sources. Never cross that thin, thin line.

A "birdie" for the ages

 They're moving into the weekend down at Augusta National, and so far the defending Masters champ has everyone covered. Rory McIlroy is at 12-under after stacking a 65 atop an opening-round 67, and he's six shots clear of the field. That's the largest 36-hole in Masters history.

Which means he's either headed for an epic rout of the field, or an epic collapse. It's the Masters, so it could go either way.

And speaking of going either way ...

Let's talk about Robert MacIntyre, the most unruly Scotsman since William Wallace.

Rory's the story but Robert gave us the signature moment of the tournament so far as he was defacing the game in the first round Thursday. The No. 8 golfer in the world sprayed golf balls all over the Hallowed Grounds, shooting an 80 that ensured he would miss the cut.

But it was what he did on the par-five 15th hole that made him immortal.

What he did was, he took a gruesome quadruple bogey after finding water twice and then flying his next ball over the green. And then ...

And then, as he was fleeing the scene, he flipped off the 15th green.

Yes, that's right, sports fans. Showed that bleeping-bleep 15th his middle finger. Birdied the hole after quad-bogeying the hole, so to speak. 

This, it was reported, will likely earn MacIntyre some disciplinary action, because apparently you just can't go around flipping off landscaping, at least Augusta. The best part of that is the PGA said it would defer any punishment to the Masters folks, a notoriously humorless lot when it comes to the sanctity of their tournament and golf course. Which of course gets the Blob's notoriously irreverent mind imagining what that conversation will be like ...

Masters Official Howard Buckingham Prescott III: Flipping off Augusta National! Why, how DARE he! I say we pour honey on him and let the fire ants have at him.

Masters Official Wilbur McKenzie Portmandeau IV: But not on the course. After all, it gets defiled enough every year by the common people. And besides, FIRE ANTS? My God, they'll be EVERYWHERE. Perish the thought.

Masters Official Montague Marcus Aurelius V: Oh, there's no call for something so melodramatic, Howie. I say we simply banish the Scottish whelp from the grounds forever. And we instruct our security team to shoot him on sight if he so much as comes within two miles of Magnolia Lane."

Prescott: Just two miles, Monty? When did you get so soft? I say if he steps foot IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA again, it's hollow-point time for the haggis-sucker. Send him back to the old country in sandwich bags. I'm sure we could get the governor to sign off on that.

Portmandeau: Oh, my.

Aurelius: Oh, dear.

Prescott: Well, we have do SOMETHING radical, do we not? Otherwise before you know it people will be peeing in Rae's Creek and saying vile things about the Sarazen Bridge,  and calling the azaleas -- dear God -- "just a bunch of bleeping flowers."

Portmandeau and Aurelius (in horrified unison): No! Not THAT!