A Festival of Oddities
Three-Dot Friday 6.27
I went to the San Francisco Giants day game on Thursday and the Miami Marlins have two incredibly named players on their roster. The first was starting pitcher Janson Junk, which opens itself up for all kinds of jokes, mostly along the lines of “Well, that tells you what sort of pitcher he is.” And the second was reliever Lake Bachar, of whom I asked “Is this place in Minnesota or Florida?” and the best response I got was “What is this, a video game from the early 1990’s where they couldn’t get the rights to use the players names so they just made them up?” Which feels right.
The highlight for the Giants was Rafael Devers hitting his second home run, a big boom-stick of a shot into almost-dead center that ignited a five-run rally. Hey, remember when the designated hitter became officially adopted into the National League and lots of old-timers whined that the purity of the game would never be the same? Well, that argument hasn’t exactly lasted. It still feels weird to have a DH in an NL park, though… but if he hits 438-foot bombs I guess I’ll get used to it. I can’t help but think that if the NL DH existed 20 years ago that Barry Bonds would never have retired and would still be the Giants DH to this day, doing nothing but mashing 30 bombs and 100 RBI a year. He looks like he could still do it at age 62, too…
It was considered sort-of-news on Thursday when Giants president Larry Baer said Bonds would someday get a statue in front of Oracle Park, but the thing is everybody knew it would happen someday anyway and all Baer said was “it’ll happen someday,” so I guess that was ACTUAL confirmation that it will happen… someday…
Nobody was really clamoring for it, but the NHL will expand the season by two games, from 82 to 84. The real reason is to guarantee four games against each division opponent every season, because it makes no sense to sometimes have only one home game against your closest rivals. For instance, four of the “Original Six” clubs are in the Atlantic division. The Montreal Canadiens, the legacy club of the league, only had one home game this past season against the Boston Bruins and Detroit Red Wings, which makes no sense from a history standpoint. So, this at least changes that…
Of course, the more logical fix would be to have four-team divisions and more games against your closest competitors instead of this wildly convoluted 8-team division smorgasbord, but then this is a league that for decades had the top two teams in the league play each other in the playoffs and not split up so they could meet in the Stanley Cup Final, so I guess this is sort of progress…
WHO ARE WE? DEPT: The Kansas Jayhawks had more football players drafted than basketball players this year. As in, no hoopers were taken for just the third time since 2010, and two football players were taken. Remember when the big get in the transfer portal was Hunter Dickinson, then seen as a sure thing, and then he came back for a second season? (I’m sure you do and are trying to forget, but that’s beside the point.)
Anyway, Dickinson went from an almost-guaranteed lottery pick to not even an actual pick, and after the draft was over agreed to a two-way contract with the New Orleans Pelicans (a two-way contract means he can play for the big club and their minor-league team with a minimum of fuss in roster moves. It’s kind of like having a major league baseball player “with options”. But it doesn’t guarantee he’ll make the team at all). It’s a major fall for a guy who was once considered the best player in the country and shows how much this whole transfer portal thing is messing up even the blueblood basketball programs.
THE PAC IS BACK, KIND OF: All signs point to the Pac-12 finally expanding into Texas, something they almost did more than a decade ago. In the early conferences mega-expansion days of 2011, the Pac-10 had a tentative agreement with Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado to join up and become the Pac-16. It would’ve obviously destroyed the Big 12 and begun the conference realignment explosion in a radically different way. Texas was the fulcrum, and they swung back to the Big 12 for various reasons and the others followed… for the time being. (Reminder: Larry Scott was the worst commissioner ever in college sports.)
This was a long way of saying that as soon as Monday, the Texas State Bobcats are going to join the completely revamped Pac-12, or 8, or 9, or whatever they are going to call themselves once it’s all settled. And in the meantime, after the Pac-16 deal evaporated Colorado went to the Pac-12 anyway and then returned in this new expansion round as Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M all ended up leaving the Big 12 anyway.
This really all started when the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA couldn’t control college football broadcasts in 1984. You see, the NCAA used to declare which games would be on teevee. They ran the whole business for all the conferences, and no matter what a school wanted, the NCAA made all the broadcast decisions and, more importantly, kept most of the money. Once it was ruled they couldn’t monopolize it, the schools were in charge. And they soon signed deals to get their games on teevee- that’s how places like “Jefferson Pilot Sports” showed so many SEC games back in the day that were syndicated all over the place. And the Supreme Court made that decision on this day in 1984…
The West Sacramento Nomads (aka the former Oakland A’s) made a big show of an official groundbreaking on Monday in Las Vegas for the new ballpark. But apparently the bulldozers that were so prominent in the background were rented just for the day and won’t be used in the actual construction…
The Giants have 18 wins this season when they have been trailing by multiple runs… meanwhile the Colorado Rockies still just have 18 wins total…
That means they’re 18-62 through 80 games, still tied with the 1904 Washington Senators for the worst start in MLB history, and need to win only two of their next 20 to avoid being mentioned in the same breath the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, who went 20-80 in their first 100. (Reminder: buy my book)
But three of the Rockies wins came against the Miami Marlins, who the Giants just got swept by this week. That… is not good.
Are the Rockies making things better in the front office? Well, it kind of doesn’t look like it, as they just named the owner’s son the new executive vice president, which means he’s in charge of nearly everything. Oh, that’s a great look…
One music note for June 27th… one of the best music documentaries you might not have seen is “Festival Express,” when the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band and more toured across Canada in 1970. The trip was a financial disaster because the hippie fans, emboldened by Woodstock, insisted that they all be free concerts and either didn’t show up or forced the organizers to let them in for free. The bands had a better time jamming on the train than they did playing the shows, and fortunately that was captured in the documentary. Anyway, the first show on the tour was June 27th, 1970 at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium…
And 40 years ago today, famed Route 66 was officially decommissioned as a federal highway, a few months after Interstate 40 was finished and bypassed it’s last necessary part near Williams, Arizona. It still exists as “Historic Route 66” and may I suggest you get on it when you have the chance…
When the “Festival Express” documentary was released on DVD, it came with a bonus disc of extra performances (because of course it did) and my circle quickly discovered this unheralded gem called “13 Questions” by a group called Seatrain. It was only later that I discovered Seatrain was actually from my original home base of Marin County (but that would surely explain how they wound up on the tour). I encourage you to watch the video and pay close attention to the hat the drummer is wearing. The end result always cracks me up.