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Bar Chat

07/13/2020

Fall College Sports in Serious Doubt

[Posted Sun. p.m.]

PGA Tour Quiz: From 1980-89, six different golfers were the season money leaders.  Name ‘em.  Answer below.

College Football

The season is on the verge of falling apart entirely after a slew of moves by conferences at week’s end and once again it was the Ivy League that got things started on Wednesday when it announced it would cancel all sports in the fall.

“With the information available to us today regarding the continued spread of the virus, we simply do not believe we can create and maintain an environment for intercollegiate athletic competition that meets our requirements for safety and acceptable levels of risk, consistent with the policies that each of our schools is adopting as part of its reopening plans this fall,” the Ivy League Council of Presidents said in a joint statement.

The Ivy League was the first to cancel its conference basketball tournament this spring. That decision on March 10 was met with frustration from players who watched their seasons, and for some their careers, abruptly end.

But with the severity of the virus becoming clear, other conferences followed suit by canceling their basketball tournaments on March 12, and the NCAA canceled all remaining winter and spring championships that afternoon.  Sports in the United States had ground to a halt.

So on Thursday, the Big Ten announced it was playing only conference games in 2020.  Commissioner Kevin Warren acknowledged, “We may not have college sports in the fall.  We may not have a college football season in the Big Ten.”

The Pac-12 Conference then announced Friday it will not play non-conference athletic events including football this fall, joining the Big Ten.

“Based upon the trends and indicators over the past days, it has become clear that we need to provide ourselves with maximum flexibility to schedule, and to delay any movement to the next phase of return-to-play activities,” said commissioner Larry Scott in a release.

The announcement took on added weight when it was announced Scott himself had tested positive for Covid after experiencing mild flulike symptoms.  He is self-quarantining.

Lost games from the Pac-12 schedule include USC against Alabama* at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, along with the Trojans’ annual game against Notre Dame.  Stanford also won’t be traveling to play at Notre Dame.

*Alabama was set to earn a $6 million participation fee, according to a copy of the school’s contract for the event.  USC’s contract is not available because it is a private school.  Colorado was set to receive $1 million for playing Colorado State in Fort Collins.

The Pac-12 is now revamping its entire schedule and with 1,430 miles between Washington’s campus in Seattle and Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, you have issues like if teams are not permitted to charter flights, they’d face at least 22 hours on a bus.  The conference thus may try to regionalize the schedule, with Oregon and Washington schools playing Stanford and Cal, while the schools in the Los Angeles area would go against the duo in Arizona.  Colorado and Utah, however, still need to be worked in.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said Saturday his concern for the football season is “high to very high” and acknowledged, “We are running out of time to correct and get things right.”

With rising coronavirus cases across the South, Sankey told ESPN Radio:

“We put a medical advisory group together in early April with the question, ‘What do we have to do to get back to activity?’ and they’ve been a big part of the conversation.  But the direct reality is not good and the notion that we’ve politicized medical guidance of distancing, masks, and hand sanitization, ventilation of being outside, being careful where you are in buildings. There’s some very clear advice and you can’t mitigate and eliminate every risk, but how do you minimize the risk? …We are running out of time to correct and get things right, and as a society we owe it to each other to be as healthy as we can be.”

Sankey reiterated the SEC’s deadline to make a decision remains late July, and he said the decisions the Big Ten and Pac-12 have already made do not put pressure on him or the SEC to follow suit.

It’s true that with each day we receive more data to inform decisions.

The Big 12 and ACC have also said they will wait until later in July before making any final determinations about the fall season or possible scheduling arrangements.

As I addressed when the coronavirus was unfolding, the lost revenue from college football will be deadly for many schools and their overall sports programs.  Power Five conferences had over $2.9 billion in revenue in fiscal 2019, tax records show.

The hit to the other conferences, like the Mountain West and Mid-American, is huge.  Mountain West teams had been scheduled to play six games at Pac-12 schools, with a total $4.45 million in guarantees due to be paid.  Utah State had been set to receive $1.5 million for playing Washington on Sept. 19, and Hawaii had games against Arizona and Oregon that were set to pay a combined $1.4 million.

Separately, Notre Dame, aside from losing games against Stanford and USC, is also losing an Oct. 3 matchup with Wisconsin at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

Johns Hopkins infectious-disease expert Amesh Adalja, a member of the NCAA’s coronavirus advisory panel, told the Washington Post’s Adam Kilgore: “College football can’t be isolated from what’s going on as a nation as a whole. The events of the past several weeks have really made the calculation a lot different than it was a month ago in early June, when we were thinking about what measures to put in place. It just becomes much, much more difficult when you’ve got rising outbreaks in many states.”

Kilgore:

“The sport’s leaders are scrambling to create contingencies. But Adalja pointed to several factors that make even trying to plan for an altered season dicey.  Quarantine measures in various states may restrict travel.  In some states, testing capacity has been stretched to the point that turnaround time for prior-to-competition testing would be impractical and the ethical choice of dedicating hundreds of tests to healthy athletes is fraught.

“Excising nonconference games, Warren said, was an option chosen to salvage any kind of season. By playing only league games, the Big Ten can fully control its schedule, allowing it to postpone games, restrict travel or reschedule matchups with autonomy….

“The decision compelled the NCAA to offer tepid support with a wan statement that reinforced one of college football’s greatest challenges in a pandemic: No one is really in charge.  The NCAA provides guidance, but conference commissioners make decisions, and those are often heavily influenced by power brokers who range from television executives to coaches….

“Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick, one of the sport’s leading influencers, added to the bleak outlook.  On Thursday, he told ESPN the past two weeks have made him pessimistic about starting on time, and it is now ‘less likely’ the sport can launch as usual….

“Adalja said he could see a college football season unfolding in partial form, with some schools sidelined because of their geography.  But even that is problematic, he said, because of the high chance of outbreaks popping up in new places.

“The overall picture pointed to a sobering conclusion: College football, one of America’s most popular pursuits, is staring into the abyss.  The country had many months to save this season, and now time has nearly run out.

“In June, as cases came down, Adalja believed college football would be possible. The approach of test, trace and isolate had been established as a successful method to inch back toward normalcy.

“ ‘It’s simply impossible, it seems, for certain places to put in place the infrastructure to do that,’ Adalja.  ‘If you want to have some semblance of normalcy, you have to get this right.  We have to acknowledge the failure.  It’s very baffling to many of us that this continues to happen.  You can’t separate sports from the society in which it’s being played in.’”

Steve Politi / Star-Ledger

“The Big Ten made a major announcement on Thursday afternoon, declaring that it would play a conference-only season in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the real news was the big fat asterisk it slapped in a statement detailing this new plan.

“That came in the last paragraph, of course:

“ ‘As we continue to focus on how to play this season in a safe and responsible way, based on the best advice of medical experts, we are also prepared not to play in order to ensure the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes should the circumstances so dictate.’

“Those final five words – should the circumstances so dictate – are intentionally vague.  The Big Ten isn’t about to put in writing what has to happen to cancel football. But here’s a better way to look at this decision: What would the ‘circumstances’ have to look like for the conference to give the green light on its 2020 season?

“Covid-19 cases declining nationwide?

“Campuses open for more in-person classes?

“A sense that a pandemic response our nation’s leaders have botched in a hundred different ways – and, please, spare me the email if you can’t accept that’s true – is miraculously improved to the point where the coronavirus is under control when all credible experts expect the opposite?

“I’m rooting like hell for all that.  I’m also a realist.  And, based on their comments on Thursday afternoon, so are the Big Ten officials who eventually will make the decision on whether or not to pull the plug on college football.

“They were slapping asterisks all over the place.

“ ‘One thing we have to realize is that this is not a fait accompli that we’re going to have sports in the fall,’ Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said on the Big Ten Network.  ‘We may not have sports in the fall.  We may not have a college football season in the Big Ten.’

“ ‘I am very concerned,’ Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said in a teleconference with reporters.  ‘I used to be cautiously optimistic but I’m not even there now.  When looking at our trajectory with the virus, we are the worst country or one of the worst.’

“Smith was practically begging people to ‘follow the protocols’ such as wearing masks and social distancing ‘to give our kids a chance to compete.’  But, c’mon, it’s too late for that now. We failed as a country to do what the rest of the world did to get the virus under control, and now we are dealing with the consequences.

“The problem for college football in the fall was supposed to be a second wave, but we couldn’t even outlast the first one….

“If we’re only talking about the best interests of the athletes, this debate would have ended already. That’s why the Big Ten leaders who announced the conference-only schedule were quick to slap their asterisks on any statement about the future.

“They know.  We all know.  The country isn’t ready for a college football season in the fall, and pretending otherwise is just postponing the inevitable.”

--The North Carolina athletics department reported 37 positive Covid-19 tests, and the football program’s voluntary summer workouts have been put on hold.

Only football players and men’s and women’s basketball players have reported to campus.  Athletes in other fall sports were to begin reporting Monday.

Ohio State was another school suspending voluntary workouts due to a number of athletes testing positive, though OSU didn’t say how many.  Wisconsin announced seven positive cases among its athletes but did not shut down workouts.

--As an aside, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was not happy with the Big Ten’s move to play conference-only games because this means Iowa’s Sept. 5 opener against Northern Iowa and the annual Cy-Hawk game against Iowa State on Sept. 12 are canceled.

Grassley tweeted: “Don’t they realize the Cy-Hawk game is a lot more interesting than many big ten games??  Especially disappointed Iowa can’t play MY UNIVERSITY uni BIG DISAPPOINTMENT.”  [Grassley went to what is now known as Northern Iowa… ‘uni’.]

Northern Iowa could lose a $650,000 payday.  The Cy-Hawk affair has been played every season since 1977.

--Stanford presented a sign of things to come when it cut 11 sports, including rowing, field hockey, wrestling and men’s volleyball.

In a letter from President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, the provost and athletic director, the school said: “While Stanford may be perceived to have limitless resources, the truth is we do not.”

Supporting 36 sports was not sustainable and a budget shortfall, projected to exceed $12 million for the 2021 fiscal year even before the pandemic, would be considerably worse if football is not played this fall.

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One final note on this depressing topic.  Here in New Jersey, we’ve done a great job in bringing coronavirus cases down to a low level, especially when compared with the immense pain of April and May.  We’ve been reopening fairly successfully thus far.

But officials who regulate high school football announced Friday that there would be no games until Friday, Oct. 2…with the season ending by Thanksgiving, including the playoffs.  Teams can only meet virtually from August 29 to September 13, with all sports (soccer, girls tennis) starting practices Sept. 14.

And this is a best-case scenario assuming our cases don’t start spiking again.

NBA

--ESPN reported that league physicians and officials are concerned about the lingering health effects for players who contract the coronavirus.

“There are unknown effects it has on lung capacity, unknown effects it has on cardiac health,” one general manager of a team entering the NBA bubble told ESPNN on the condition of anonymity.

“What if a 24-year-old catches it in Orlando and, in 14 days, he quarantines and is fine, but then he has these everlasting heart problems?  (Or he) gets winded so easily, or he becomes a little bit too susceptible to fatigue? …These are all the unknowns.”

The effects of Covid-19 on cardiac health, including myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), are “not yet fully understood,” the league wrote in a memo sent to teams on June 15.

According to the American College of Cardiology’s Sports and Exercise Cardiology Council, “Acute cardiac injury…occur(s) in up to 22 percent of hospitalized patients with Covid-19, which is significantly higher compared with the approximately 1 percent prevalence in non-Covid-19 acute viral infection.”

--LeBron James said on Saturday that he’ll be one of the few NBA players who will forgo a social justice message on the back of his jersey when the season resumes in Orlando, Florida.

“I actually didn’t go with a name on the back of my jersey,” James said on a video conference call with reporters.  “It was no disrespect to the list that was handed out to all the players. I commend anyone that decides to put something on the back of their jersey.  It’s just something that didn’t really seriously resonate with my mission, with my goal….

“I don’t need to have something on the back of my jersey for people to understand my mission or know what I’m about and what I’m here to do,” James said.

“I’m happy to have a platform where not only people will gain joy by the way I play the game, by the way our team plays the game, but also for what I’m able to do off the court, as well.

MLB

--Ready or not, baseball seems determined to start its season in just ten days, July 23-24, as New York Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman became the team’s third major league player to test positive for the coronavirus, the others pitcher Luis Cessa and infielder DJ LeMahieu.

Manager Aaron Boone said Chapman has “mild symptoms but overall is doing well.” That said, “He will not be here for the foreseeable future.  Beyond that, I’m not going to get into commenting much on him.”

--Giants star catcher Buster Posey decided to opt out of the 2020 season Friday out of health concerns for his newly adopted twin baby girls during the coronavirus pandemic.

The babies were born about eight weeks prematurely last Friday and Posey and his wife finalized the adoption on Thursday.  The babies are healthy but will need to spend time in neonatal intensive care and will have weakened immune systems for the next few months.

“In the current state that we are right now and these babies being as fragile as they are for the next four months, at minimum, this ultimately wasn’t that difficult a decision for me,” Posey said.

The Giants had been counting on a bounce-back season from the six-time All-Star as he appeared to be the healthiest he has been in years.

--It’s hard to get enthused over the topic even if you’re a Mets fan, but Steve Cohen reportedly made the highest offer for the team in a process involving other bids.

Cohen, the hedge-fund billionaire had previously offered $2.6 billion only to see the deal fall apart at the 11th hour.  Then came the pandemic.  Now, according to Fox Business, Cohen came in at $2 billion, but is willing to offer an additional $2 billion to also acquire SNY.

Alex Rodriguez and J-Lo have the funding for a bid that the New York Post said is around $1.7 billion. 

NHL

If anyone can pull off a season, it might be the NHL.  The league and its players’ association announced Friday the approval of the league’s 24-team return-to-play plan and a four-year extension to the collective bargaining agreement.

The NHL will officially resume Monday with formal training camps for all 31 clubs after a four-month hiatus because of the pandemic.  Any player can opt out of the plan for any reason without facing a penalty. 

After two weeks of training camp, teams will travel to one of two hub cities (Toronto and Edmonton) on July 26.  A qualifying round will start Aug. 1 and include the 16 teams playing eight best-of-five series to determine who advances to what the league is calling the Stanley Cup playoffs.  The four top seeds in each conference will play a three-game round robin to determine seeding.  The season is supposed to end Oct. 4.

Under the expanded playoff format, 12 teams from each conference will be housed in either Toronto or Edmonton, living in bubble-like environments and playing games without fans.

There will be two hotels for teams to stay in at both locations.

The start times for the games beginning Aug. 1 in Toronto will be: noon, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern.  In Edmonton, the start times will be 2 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Eastern.

So lots of action, sports fans.

Players are supposed to undergo daily coronavirus tests, symptom checks and temperature screenings while in the hub cities.

Golf Balls

--Back-to-back weeks at Jack’s place, Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio.  This week was the Workday Charity Open, replacing the John Deere in Illinois which had to be canceled due to coronavirus restrictions.  The PGA Tour’s job is to try to make these two weeks look different, but the course is so cool (I’ve walked it, haven’t played on it), that I don’t think golf fans mind too much.

And heading into the final round we had a rather fascinating leaderboard…make that a great one.

Justin Thomas -16
Victor Hovland -14
Collin Morikawa -13

Morikawa had the 36-hole lead and then stumbled with a 72 on Saturday to allow JT and Hovland to zoom up, both shooting 66s.

Golf fans know that Morikawa and Hovland are two young guns who will be around the top for at least the next decade.  No one will be surprised if they string together multiple seasons with, say, five wins…and hopefully more than one or two majors.

But there is Thomas, still just 27 and with 12 wins already.

--Well, it was a helluva final round, Thomas opening with bogeys on 2 and 3, losing all his mojo, but then stringing four straight birdies on Nos. 8-11, and then carding an eagle on 15 and he was up three on Morikawa at -21.

But Thomas bogeys 16, Morikawa birdies 17, and the lead is just one heading to 18, where JT bogeys it and we have a playoff.

And the first hole was amazing…Thomas with a 50-footer for birdie, only to be matched by Morikawa’s 24-footer, and then on the third hole an errant Thomas drive led to Morikawa’s second career win, versus one missed cut.  Think about that.

Great stuff…here’s hoping for the same next week.

I just have to add, congrats to Chase Seiffert for his best-ever fourth place finish.  Seems like a good guy…another to root for.

--Brooks Koepka missed the cut and he finds himself at No. 156 on the FedEx Cup points list, in big danger of missing the playoffs.

And Jordan Spieth’s poor play continued.  He missed the cut, is No. 102 on the points list, but with only a T9 and T10 this 2019-2020 wraparound season.

But congratulations to 53-year-old Jerry Kelly, who not only made the cut (he’s 2-for-2 in PGA Tour events this year), he finished a solid T22.  Good on you, Jerry!

And 53-year-old Steve Stricker made the cut, finishing T56.

--Tiger Woods is playing next week at the Memorial, tweeting: “I’ve missed going out and competing with the guys and can’t wait to get back out there.”

Rory, Jon Rahm, DJ, Webb Simpson, and Justin Thomas (the top five in the world) will also be in the field.  And DeChambeau.

Tiger has won at Muirfield Village five times…the last won in 2012.

--The Ryder Cup was officially postponed Wednesday and will now be played at Whistling Straits in 2021.

The impact of the delay is most felt on the European Tour, which relies on the biennial contest for lots of money.  Some say, survival money.  We’re talking seven- and eight-figure windfalls the European Tour needs to continue in anything like its familiar form.

You can see the import of the Ryder Cup in Europe in the selection of the venues. Rather than play on classic courses like Royal Birkdale, Royal Lytham and Walton Heath, long ago sites, now it’s all about the money and the highest bidder.  Europe’s next “home game” in 2023 is in Rome.  In recent decades we’ve had venues like the Belfry, Valderrama, the K Club, Celtic Manor…Le Golf National outside Paris. The final profit from France in 2018 was about $25 million, according to Golfworld’s John Huggan, which pays for everything the European Tour – played in a dozen countries – does.

Huggan:

“By pushing back the matches a year, the tour’s receipt of those profits is delayed, which becomes problematic, considering the tour has already budgeted future seasons based on that income arriving in 2020 and 2022.”

Already the impact is being felt, with the Euro Tour cutting 65 positions from its 265-person workforce.

Meanwhile, the Presidents Cup, slated for next year, will now be played 2022 at Quail Hollow Club in North Carolina.

--China has banned all sports events for the rest of the year except for trials for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing a desire to ban the import of the coronavirus, according to the AP.  That would mean the PGA Tour’s WGC HSBC Champions event would not be played, among other major events.

NASCAR

--One week ago, Jimmie Johnson learned he had become the first NASCAR driver to test positive for the coronavirus and would miss this past weekend’s race in Indianapolis, thus ending a streak of 663 consecutive starts.

But five days later, NASCAR reinstated the seven-time Cup Series champion after he twice tested negative early this week.

So is this too soon?

“I’ve followed the protocol,” Johnson said during a Zoom call with the media Friday morning, adding other major sports leagues have the same reinstatement program as NASCAR.

According to the CDC, those with Covid-19 should quarantine for 10 days until it’s safe to be around others.

--So Johnson was third with about 20 laps to go today at Kentucky Speedway on a restart and then got hit from behind by Brad Keselowski, though it was really Johnson’s fault.

Personally, I was discouraged because I had Johnson in my DraftKings lineup and at the time was in line for a big payout.

Johnson had to start No. 24 after, and finished 18, BUT….I had rookie Cole Custer in my lineup as well and on a thrilling final restart with three laps to go, somehow Custer pulled it out…a first win for the rookie which is very rare in NASCAR.  Awesome….and I won some coin.

Football (Futbol)

--The great footballer Jack Charlton died.  He was 85.  Charlton is a hero to both the Brits and the Irish.  He was appointed Ireland manager in 1986 and will always be remembered as one of the greatest ever to hold the role.  Under his management Ireland qualified for a major tournament for the first time ever by reaching Euro 88 where Ray Houghton’s goal provided a historic win over England.

And then two years later, Charlton guided Ireland to its first World Cup, going on to reach the quarter-finals after beating Romania on penalties in the last 16.

And in the U.S. in 1994, Ireland qualified for the World Cup again where Houghton provided one of the most memorable moments of Charlton’s tenure when his strike gave IRL a famous 1-0 win over Italy at Giants Stadium. 

Understand that today, as just released stats from the European Union reveal, Ireland still has a population below 5 million.  Such great football moments are exceedingly rare for a nation that size…which is why Iceland’s performance in making the World Cup in 2018 was so extraordinary; their population being under 400,000.

But back to Jack Charlton, who left his job as manager of Team Ireland in 1996, he first made his name as one of England’s most popular and larger-than-life figures in the Premier League (it wasn’t called that back then) as he played his entire 21 years at Leeds, making a joint club record 773 appearances before retiring as a player in 1973.

After this he was a successful manager at Sheffield, Middlesbrough and Newcastle.

Jack Charlton’s brother Bobby was a legend for Manchester United, though there were serious family issues between the two.

--The action in the Premier League has been anticlimactic with Liverpool having long clinched, in reality, going back to before the lockdown, but we do now have a big battle for the final Champions League slot as Leicester City struggles, 4-1 losers to Bournemouth today.

And there is a little drama for the Europa League slots, Tottenham having defeated Arsenal 2-1 today in its Derby.

But the battle is between Chelsea, Leicester and Manchester United for the final two CL berths for next season.

Standings…34/35 of 38…W-D-L…points

1. Liverpool 35…30-3-2…93
2. Man City 35…23-3-9…72
3. Chelsea 35…18-6-11…60
4. Leicester 35…17-8-10…59…CL line
5. Man U 34…16-10-8…58
6. Wolves 35…14-13-8…55

Monday, Man U plays Southampton in a huge one.

Saturday, Sheffield whipped Chelsea 3-0, while Liverpool managed only a 1-1 draw with Burnley, preventing them from having a perfect home record this season.  They still need to win their last three to break the season points record.

Stuff

--American Noah Lyles briefly appeared to have set an astonishing new 200m world record of 18.90 seconds in the Inspiration Games, before it was revealed he ran only 185m.

Lyles’ time would have obliterated the 19.19-second mark set by Usain Bolt back in 2009.

Given Lyles’ personal best is 19.50 and he was running into a strong headwind, the time was immediately challenged.

“That cannot be right!” said BBC commentator Steve Cram.  “Even he has got his hands in the air wondering what is going on!”

Around five minutes later Cram revealed world champion Lyles, running on his own in Florida, had started from the wrong lane and run 15m less than his rivals at other tracks.

Lyles, 22, tweeted afterwards: “You can’t be playing with my emotions like this…”

The farcical ending to one of the event’s headline races is a major embarrassment to Inspiration Games organizers, who banked on television and timing technology to make a major international athletics event possible despite the restrictions of coronavirus.

Athletes competed from different venues around the world with starting guns firing simultaneously and athletes’ efforts shown alongside each other on television in a split-screen broadcast.

--Charles Barkley said the sports world’s focus on social justice statements is becoming a distracting “circus” that doesn’t fully address core issues the country is facing or produce real change.

In an appearance Friday on CNBC, Barkley said he’s felt the national spotlight shines too brightly on statements like kneeling during the national anthem or social justice messages displayed on jerseys.

“What’s happening now is we’re turning into a circus,” said Barkley.  “Instead of talking about racial equality, racial justice and economic justice, we spend all our time worrying about who’s kneeling and not kneeling.  What’s being said on buses.  What’s been said on jerseys.  I think we’re missing the point.

“We need police reform, prison reform.  Those are No. 1 and No. 2 things to focus on. We need the cops, good cops out there policing bad cops. …When we spend time focusing on what’s on the jersey, that’s gonna defeat the purpose.  My concern is this is turning into a circus instead of trying to do some good stuff.”

“We are in a divided country,” Barkley said.  “Sports used to be a place where fans could go and get away from reality. Now it’s such a mixture.  It’s going to be fascinating what happens with fans. Fans are at a disadvantage, they’re going through the pandemic.  They don’t want to see a bunch of rich people talking about stuff all the time.  I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer.  People lost jobs and the last thing they want to do is turn on the television to hear arguments about stuff all the time.”

--Stefan Bondy / New York Daily News

“To understand the absurdity of Stephen Jackson’s ignorance and inability to understand his anti-Semitism, we have to begin here: Adolf Hitler.

“That’s where this all started and it can’t be forgotten.  You can’t separate Adolf Hitler from bigotry or genocide.  There’s no ‘Hitler did some bad things but he has some good ideas.’  Hitler, more so than any figure in history, is synonymous with hate.

“Yet when DeSean Jackson, a wide receiver for the Eagles, decided to highlight an anti-Semitic quote attributed to Hitler, Stephen Jackson co-signed and double-downed and revealed himself as, at best, wholly uninformed.

“ ‘He’s speaking the truth,’ Stephen Jackson, the former NBAer turned media personality/activist, said.

“First of all, the quote used by DeSean Jackson was fake.  It only sounded like Hitler because it cast Jews as trying to ‘extort America’ in their ‘plan for world domination,’ a Hitler-esque sentiment.  So here’s a real ‘truth’:

“Through propaganda marking Jews as sub-human creatures who were conniving, corrupt, sex-craved and money-driven, Hitler’s Nazi party earned enough support from the public to follow through on exterminating millions – that right, millions – of Jews. Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who was responsible for the logistics of the Jewish genocide, testified in 1961 that roughly 4 million Jews were killed in extermination camps and another 2 million were murdered in a variety of other ways….

“Stephen Jackson would benefit from listening because Wednesday afternoon he regurgitated a well-worn conspiracy theory peddled for centuries and used to justify the Holocaust.

“ ‘You just said that Jews aren’t the richest,’ Jackson told a person on Instagram.  ‘You know who the Rothchild’s are?  They control all the banks, they own all the banks.’….

“Jackson…doesn’t seem to care if he’s offensive and he’s certainly not going to question (anti-Semite/homophobe Luis) Farrakan (who pushes such a theory).

“ ‘I love Minister Farrakhan and ain’t nobody is going to change that.  Nobody,’ Jackson said….

“To be clear, none of this should detract from the powerful and important work Jackson has done promoting policing reform in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.  Jackson knew Floyd and has been a leading figure in a worthwhile and momentous movement.

“But as he asks for open ears and minds from those who don’t understand his history, the same can be asked of him.”

--The New York Daily News reported that at least three great white sharks are lurking off New York/New Jersey, possibly as many as five, according to the Ocearch online shark tracker.  Among them is the venerable Mary Lee – all 16 feet, 3,456 pounds of her.  These are all sharks tagged by Ocearch.

But these could all be drive-bys…heading to cooler waters off Canada, after first chowing down on Cape Cod swimmers, surfers and such.

Mary Lee, on the other hand, is known to summer off Long Beach Island, N.J.  Personally, I’d recommend Kubel’s in Barnegat Light for classic Jersey shore fare. It was a favorite haunt of Anthony Bourdain back in the day, and a hangout when I’d crash at Pete M.’s family home there on occasion.  [It helped greatly it was walking distance…cough cough…cough…]

Top 3 songs for the week 7/12/75: #1 “Love Will Keep Us Together” (The Captain & Tennille)  #2 “The Hustle” (Van McCoy)  #3 “Listen To What The Man Said” (Wings)…and…#4 “Wildfire” (Michael Murphey)  #5 “Magic” (Pilot)  #6 “Please Mr. Please” (Olivia Newton-John)  #7 “One Of These Nights” (Eagles)  #8 “Swearin’ To God” (Frankie Valli)  #9 “When Will I Be Loved” (Linda Ronstadt)  #10 “I’m Not In Love” (10cc…not a bad week…B+…)

PGA Tour Quiz Answer: Leading money winners 1980-89.

1980 – Tom Watson…$530,808…7 wins
1981 – Tom Kite
1982 – Craig Stadler
1983 – Hal Sutton
1984 – Tom Watson
1985 – Curtis Strange
1986 – Greg Norman
1987 – Curtis Strange
1988 – Curtis Strange
1989 – Tom Kite…$1,395,278

And to show you the progression once Tiger came on tour in 1997…

1996 – Tom Lehman…$1,780,159
1999 – Tiger Woods…$6,616,585…and golf was off and running.

And this is also why today’s tour players owe a lot to Tiger.

Next Bar Chat, Thursday…or sooner.

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