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TL’s Sunday Sports Notes – April 3

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BOSTON – Next week (April 10), we’ll be three days into the 2022 Major League Baseball regular season and will be awaiting the Boston Red Sox home opener against the Minnesota Twins, scheduled for April 15th. The Red Sox open the season on the road with consecutive three-game sets against their arch rivals NY Yankees and a sure-to-be chilly trip to play the Detroit Tigers.

While your trusted reporter was able to attend a couple MLB Postseason games last October, the last time Digital Sports Desk graced the press box was Sunday, September 29, 2019 when the Sox defeated the Baltimore Orioles in front of 35,427 fans who had no idea that the terrible hurdle of COVID-19 was four months away. The Red Sox finished 84-78 in 2019, 24-36 in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, then rallied back to a 92-70 mark last year.

They knocked-out the New York Yankees in the AL Wild Card game, then took the five-game set against the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1, after dropping the first game of the series at Tampa, 5-0. Of course, the Sox fell short, losing to the Houston Astros, 4-games-to-2 in the ALCS. They lost the final three games of the series after going up 2-games-to-1.

Boston is 9-6 in 2022 Grapefruit League games (as of the morning of April 2). After Sunday’s game against the Atlanta Braves in Sarasota, the Red Sox have only two more Spring Training games on the docket (April 4 & 5) against Minnesota.

HERE NOW, THE NOTES: 

SVG SAYS: (And, we’re not talking Stan Van Gundy) – The Sports Video Group highlighted the bells and whistles that Turner and CBS Sports compiled to cover Final Four Saturday and Monday Night’s NCAA championship game.

“Sports is match-up driven,” says Craig Barry, EVP/Chief Content Officer, Turner Sports. “It always has been, it always will be. It doesn’t always determine the drama of the event, but it definitely helps determine the dramatic impact of an event. To have Duke, UNC, Kansas, and Villanova, it’s going to be unprecedented.”

“[Duke-North Carolina], Barry continued, “is, historically, one of the biggest match ups in Final Four history. It’s all hands on deck to do this show justice and bring something really special to the fans, without focusing on – and I’ll use this word loosely – any gimmicks. We’re bringing a robust broadcast, where we tell the story of the games that are being played.”

In addition to the elite level matchups, this Final Four is bolstered by the return of live fans, following the cancelation of the tournament in 2020 and an attendance-limited event in 2021. According to Bryant, that energy brings better visuals to the show but also goes a long way into spilling over to fuel the energy of the crew behind the scenes.

“The opportunity to have the energy in the arena again [has been fantastic],” says Bryant. “And that’s not just in the arena, it’s the energy in the studio, the energy in the truck, the energy in the control rooms. We’ve been really leveraging that and bringing that into the broadcast. We need to make sure that we have the technology and the assets to harness that. You can add technology, you can build storylines, but [the atmosphere] was the one large differentiator for us that we really felt was going to push us back to normalization.”

This Final Four is the last for director Bob Fishman, the lead CBS Sports director for college basketball for the past 39 years. It’s not lost with the fact both Fishman and Krzyzewski will both retire after they’re finished working this tournament.

“We have become dear friends over these years. I’ve directed every single one of his national championships,” Fishman said. “I said to him a couple weeks ago ‘You know, I’m impartial coach, but it sure would be cool to be there together to celebrate our retirements together and maybe win a national championship.’ That would really top it off pretty well for me.”

HALL OF A FIVE: The ultimate starting five from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s season-long competition for the best collegiate players at each position.

2021-22 Men’s Naismith Starting Five:

Collin Gillespie (Villanova, Graduate Student) – Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award – 15.6 pts/gm, 3.9 reb/gm, 3.3 ast/gm

Johnny Davis (Wisconsin, So.) – Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award – 19.7 pts/gm, 8.2 reb/gm, 2.1 ast/gm

Wendell Moore Jr. (Duke, Jr.) – Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year Award – 3.5 pts/gm, 5.2 reb/gm, 4.4 ast/gm, 41.1 3pt%

Keegan Murray (Iowa, So.) – Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award – 23.5 pts/gm, 8.7 reb/gm, 1.5 ast/gm, 55.4 fg%

Oscar Tshiebwe (Kentucky, Jr.) – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year Award – 17.4 pts/gm, 15.1 reb/gm, 1.6 blk/gm, 60.6 fg%

CHICAGO LAW: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, (University of Chicago – JD’88), still thinks of himself as a lawyer, wrote Becky Beaupre Gillespie in the u of chicago (sic) news of April 1.

“After all, it’s the skills he learned at the University of Chicago Law School—and later as a judicial clerk and law firm associate—that undergird his approach to the complex issues that have defined his tenure as NBA head, including high-profile decisions related to COVID policy, international relations and more,” she wrote as an intro to a University speaking function headlined by Silver.

“The problem-solving, issue-spotting techniques that you learn, particularly at the University of Chicago, [including] how to reason through issues—I find I use those skills every day of my life, and I really feel indebted to the Law School as a result,” Silver said at a March 22 event co-hosted by the Law School and the University’s Harris School of Public Policy.

OVERTIME: In the past year, the NBA G-League created its Ignite club of talented high school aged players who chose not to attend college but prepare for professional basketball by playing against G-League competition. Similarly, the Overtime Elite team out of Atlanta was mining the same talent.

This weekend, the Commissioner of the Overtime venture, former NBA executive Aaron Ryan, decided to step down from his post to return to his home in New Jersey to spend more time with his family.

“A little over a year ago, no one had ever heard of Overtime Elite,” wrote Ryan. “However, what started out as a novel idea, has transformed the basketball ecosystem and sports media forever. Elite basketball players, for the first time, were prioritized. They were compensated for their value, provided a top-notch education that met them where they are in their academic journey, and they were given access to elite coaches and training. The opportunity to build a league, with the visionary team at Overtime was a true career milestone. And even more than that, for me it was a mission filled with purpose.

“The past 18 months have been rewarding, exhilarating, and exhausting, given that our work was taking place in the midst of a global pandemic where all business and sports norms were upended. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, my work at Overtime Elite bore fruit through hard work with a great team. It also took a personal toll. As many of you know, I have been splitting my time between my home in New Jersey and my office in Atlanta. Time away from my wife and teenage daughters was a tough sacrifice, but became increasingly more difficult as we moved from working remote, to being in Atlanta,” Ryan stated.

“So it is with a heavy heart, and with the agreement of my colleagues at Overtime, I have decided not to seek a contract extension. As much as I enjoyed the job and was dedicated to the larger mission, putting my family first and being present for my daughters as they go through these formative years is best for me and for my family.

“I’ll forever be proud of what we built in the face of adversity. And I’ll always be grateful to our incredible staff, our first 27 athletes and their families, who made the decision to be a part of history.

“I wish the Overtime Elite team every success as they move forward on this powerful mission,” concluded Ryan.

NOTE: This was also a part of the While We’re Young (Ideas) notebook (link)

Parting Words & Music:

As we did a year ago, here’s the song you ‘wanna hear.”

One Shining Moment from the 2021 NCAA’s:

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TL’s Sunday Sports Notebook: On the Real Jerry West and Winning Time

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“Like Sands Through the Hour Glass, So Are the Days of our Lives.”

By TERRY LYONS

BOSTON – There’s a new soap opera on TV and I tuned in to check it out the other day. I streamed it, actually. It’s entitled “Winning Time,” and it is based on a 2014 book by Jeff Pearlman, entitled “Showtime.”

I’ve watched two of the scheduled 10 episode series which first saw the light of day on HBO Max on March 6. I doubt I’ll bother to watch the third episode because – after two episodes – I’ve had enough.

It is horrible.

The first two episodes were dedicated to the point in time when Dr. Jerry Buss (played by actor John C. Reilly (whose best known work is from Chicago, Gangs of New York and The Perfect Storm) was acquiring the franchise. Reilly plays the part and delivers his lines admirably but goes way overboard, if you ask me.

Why?

Well, I was there.

I can not say I was up at Pickfair sipping martinis or champagne with Buss and the stars, but from 1980-on, I saw Buss in action through dozens upon dozens of NBA Playoff games, NBA Finals games, and NBA Board of Governors meetings. I met his daughter, Jeannie, when she was running the Los Angeles Strings of Team Tennis. She was 20 years old.

As I watched the first two episodes of “Winning Time,” I wondered if I had just missed the dirty secrets of the early days of Buss’ tenure, the days when he negotiated terms of a sale for the team and The Fabulous Forum with longtime Los Angeles Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke.

I’ve met and chatted with the former Lakers GM and Hall of Fame player/team exec/coach Jerry West many a time, usually off to the side of some cocktail party honoring a mutual friend at the Hall, but, after seeing the depiction of West by actor Jason Clarke in “Winning Time,” I wondered if it was a different man they were bringing to the screen? How could Jerry West change that much from the first 40 years of his life to the most recent 43 years?

I watched a depiction of Forum executive Claire Rothman that was just flat-out wrong and terribly miscast for actress Gaby Hoffman, a very acclaimed actress whose credits include playing little Karin Kinsella – the daughter who fell off the bleachers – in Field of Dreams.

Lemme tell ya, Claire Rothman was almost royal – maybe regal – always confident and solidly “in charge” of The Forum. She didn’t demand respect, she commanded it, using the show of respect to her as an elixir for anyone seeking to accomplish something in the building, or The Forum Club. Hoffman’s portrayal is of a young executive trainee type not of the highly respected Rothman who ran the best venue in town.

The sports drama, created by Max Borenstein (Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla vs. Kong) and co-producer Jim Hecht, just misses drastically. They claim it’s not a documentary and admit they’ve taken poetic justice to enhance the show. But, you’d think they’d stay with the basics of human drama and personalities, would you?  The series has been met with mixed reviews but one review, in particular, by NBA super-agent turned Detroit Pistons senior executive Arn Tellem in Hollywood Reporter is the reason for the review you are reading right now.

Tellem knows West and the Lakers better than most as he spent time trying to work together while in the high stakes game of the NBA and compete against him while moving talent and draft picks elsewhere for the benefit of his clients. Tellum’s key move came in 1996 when West maneuvered to acquire Shaquille O’Neal as a free agent after Tellum manipulated his way through the NBA Draft to orchestrate a trade of the late Kobe Bryant to the Lakers.

In Hollywood Reporter, Tellum wrote under a headline that told it all:

Guest Column: ‘Winning Time’ Is “Campy, Mean-Spirited Fiction”

Former NBA uber-agent Arn Tellem, who is now vice chairman of the Detroit Pistons, takes issue with the HBO series’ “cruel, dishonest and staggeringly insensitive” depiction of former Lakers player, coach and general manager Jerry West.

Tellem said:

“The late novelist and screenwriter Gore Vidal observed that it’s not what things are that matter so much as how they are perceived. The media supplies stories that the public accepts, at times literally, as the gospel truth. Through eye and ear, Vidal said, we are both defined and manipulated by fictions of such potency that they are able to replace our own experience, often becoming our sole experience.

“Which is the problem with HBO’s new Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, a campy, mean-spirited fiction about the Showtime-era Los Angeles Lakers. The show’s paradox is that it prides itself on being faithful to the facts, and yet — between the formulaic script and stick-figure cartoon characters — reality seldom intrudes.

“Hiding behind the disclaimer “this series is a dramatization,” Winning Time imagines itself a “satire” that treats pretty much everyone with equal odium, covers pretty much everything with equal ordure. Pro basketball players are greedy braggarts and narcissists; pro basketball owners, ruthless bigots and hedonists.

“Of all the athletes and executives shamed and ridiculed in the first two episodes, the most brutal — and gratuitous — character assassination was reserved for Jerry West (played in the series by Jason Clarke), the universally beloved former Lakers player, coach and general manager known as Mr. Clutch. In the series opener, which aired on March 6, his character seemed to be modeled on Yosemite Sam — a boozy, impulsive hothead who steamrollered anyone in his path, angrily snapped a golf club over his knee and stormed away to curse out a colleague, and chucked his 1969 NBA Finals MVP trophy through his office window in a fit of frustration.

‘Never mind that West is a health nut who has always shied away from alcohol. Never mind he’s not just a gentleman but a gentle man who prides himself on treating others with grace and compassion. And never mind that his old office at the “Fabulous Forum” didn’t have windows. Indeed, none of the arena’s basketball offices did. I ought to know. I was there.

‘As a former player agent who is now vice chairman of the Detroit Pistons, I have known West for more than 40 years. During that time, I have observed, negotiated and socialized with him. In all of our dealings, he has been courteous, respectful, generous and self-deprecating. He’s never once lost his temper. He’s always heard me out. Many of the players I represented sought his counsel, both professionally and personally. Having battled depression during his entire adult life, West has a deep awareness of the suffering of others, coupled with the wish to relieve it. Sure, he can be moody. But when frustrated, he doesn’t lash out. He withdraws into himself.

“In his 2011 memoir West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life, he wrote about his father, an oil company machine operator, who beat him repeatedly. At 12, West kept a shotgun under his bed and threatened to use it on his old man if the abuse didn’t end. Today, at 83, he’s still haunted by a sense that he’d let his college down by losing the national championship in 1959, still blames himself that, during the 1960s, his Lakers lost to the Boston Celtics six times in the NBA Finals. “I have a hole in my heart,” he conceded, “a hole that can never be filled.”

“Fans of Winning Time defend the show by saying nothing is sacred, sacred targets are funnier, lighten up, criticism is censorship. And it’s true that, used deftly, satire is a powerful tool to deflate and diminish the powerful, to take them down a peg or two. That’s the power of satire. But Winning Time is less satire than bullying. Though the disclaimer is designed to shield against the possibility of legal action for libel, it’s not a license to damage the reputation that West spent a lifetime building.

“The depiction of Mr. Clutch is cruel, dishonest and staggeringly insensitive,” concluded Tellem.

MUST WATCH:

AFTER-THOUGHTS: From my personal point-of-view, the portrayal  of Jerry West by the creators of Winning Time is a flat-out disaster. It’s wrong. He is the complete opposite of the portrayal.  That’s not opinion. It is a fact drawn from the true reality show we lived and worked in as employees of the National Basketball Association and its teams. I thought it to be so, and Arn Tellem confirmed it.

During my 26+ years, Jerry West was the most competitive person I had ever met until I met Michael Jordan. West’s running mate, Rod Thorn – both West Virginians, I might add – came in as a close third to those two. I can imagine the three of them pitching quarters against the curb and competing like hell for 25-cents.

To some extent, Thorn was my credential of trust and authenticity to West. If you were a friend of Rod’s you were a friend of Jerry West. One time, at a summer USA Basketball exhibition in Charlotte, the two – I’ll call ‘em “hoodlums” – took off with my rental car to head south to Pinehurst to meet up with a bunch of Carolina guys to play some golf as I was returning to work at the NBA office in New York. (Yes, Thorn was kind enough to save the receipt so I could be properly reimbursed and West gave me his “VVIP” gift – a new fangled, wireless home telephone – as compensation for my gesture to hand-over the car. It was a great phone and it lasted for a dozen years or more.

The point being, West is/was/always will be a gentleman. His gesture of gifting a new tech, cool, $150 phone was just a hint of the man’s generosity and depth. He’s a pro’s pro.

In the cone of silence very well respected in the sports television-to-PR world, we are given the direct studio phone lines, dozens of direct mobile numbers for calling or texting information. We have the right email address that is monitored when a show is live. That is the case for The Dan Patrick Show and its producer – the great Todd Fritz.

As a general rule, I never call or write or compliment a writer or reporter on a story, an interview, or a news-breaker unless it’s far above and beyond the realm of the regular ebb and flow of the sports news world.

Twice – yes twice – I stopped in my tracks as Dan Patrick interviewed Jerry West. I can’t think of another interview that was nearly as intriguing as Patrick’s conversations with West. In fact, on one occasion, Fritzy and I traded an email of an A+ level interview Patrick did on air, but we both agreed, it wasn’t quite great enough to be in the “Jerry West Zone.”

REVISIONIST HISTORY: The favorite pastime for sports fans today is to engage in revisionist history. “Today’s game was THE BEST.” … “It was the GREATEST … ever, or “He’s the GOAT.’ … Tom Brady is the greatest NFL player for anyone who didn’t see Jim Brown play football. Michael Jordanand LeBron James are the greatest for everyone who didn’t see Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson or Elgin Baylor dominate in the NBA or Julius “Dr. J” in the ABA.

While Michael Jordan’s “Last Dance” stayed very, very close to reality and also broke some storytelling ground on the backgrounds of Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson, Dennis Rodman and Steve Kerr, “Winning Time” has done none of that in its first two episodes. Please note, this column is not commenting on Jeff Pearlman’s book, a book I haven’t read yet. I will and will comment further into the basketball season. For now, everyone’s attention might turn to March Madness and then the Final Four, as we dread our choices crossed-off in newly busted and worthless brackets.

TL’s Sunday Sports Notebook – March 6

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By TERRY LYONS

BOSTON – Somewhere over the double rainbow, the snow is melting and the birds are chirping and that damn woodpecker is back in action. The 2022 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference is in the books and the annual College Basketball Conference tournaments are already underway. My fave – the BIG EAST Tournament – will tip-off Wednesday.

The saying is that March comes in like a lion but goes out like a lamb. Whoever coined that phrase did not live in New England. In fact, first mention can be found in a volume of proverbs by English author Thomas Fuller, dated 1732. As the thermometer outside reads 19-22 degrees, many of us think he was Fuller Bologna.

The news from Major League Baseball and its Players’ union is not good, but aside from the wonderful 11:10am Minny at Red Sox start on Patriots’ Day, many a baseball fan would be happy with a May 1st season start for the game they used to call the National Pastime. MLB has already cancelled all Spring Training games and the first two series of the regular season for each club. The revenue from those games is gone. Vanished. The December lockout is now real money for both management and the players’ union.

The question is just how much of the 2022 season will go down the drain to further Baseball’s nosedive towards Boxing and Horse Racing on the list of sports that once dominated in popularity the USA public’s point of view, but fell from the sky – Icarus style. It’s not good.

HERE NOW, THE NOTES: The PGA Tour instituted a new and interesting program to increase its players’ engagement on Social Media and thus interact with golf fans. It’s known as the Player Impact Program. Not surprisingly and although he didn’t play a single event because of the terrible auto accident he experienced as a solo driver in the ‘burbs of Los Angeles, Tiger Woods took top prize from a pool of cash the Tour put aside. Phil “Lefty” Mickelson placed second. Of course, that was well before he put a few brainless comments in his mouth regarding the rival Saudi Super League of golf.

Said Mickelson on a podcast (Note to self, beware of podcasters with good PR firms), “They’re scary mother——s to get involved with. We know they killed (Washington Post reporter and US resident Jamal) Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay.

“Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates. They’ve been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse. As nice a guy as (PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan) comes across as, unless you have leverage, he won’t do what’s right.

“And the Saudi money has finally given us that leverage.”

The complete list of money-winners from the PGA Tour Player Impact Program:

  1. Tiger Woods $8 million
  2. Phil Mickelson $6 million
  3. Rory McIlroy $3.5 million
  4. Jordan Spieth $3.5 million
  5. Bryson DeChambeau $3.5 million
  6. Justin Thomas $3.5 million
  7. Dustin Johnson $3 million
  8. Brooks Koepka $3 million
  9. Jon Rahm $3 million
  10. Bubba Watson $3 million

NICE PICK-UP: The Boston Celtics added a little extra offensive depth and shooting with a nice free agent pick-up this week. Nik Stauskas played in 26 games (25 starts) with the Grand Rapids Gold of the NBA G League this season, averaging 23.8 points on 47.6% shooting (41.6% 3-PT, 87.9% FT), 5.8 rebounds, and 4.5 assists in 38.0 minutes. He scored a career-high and set the franchise scoring record with 57 points on 20-of-29 shooting (11-15 3-PT) against the Wisconsin Herd on March 1, and tallied 43 points on 16-of-21 shooting (9-13 3-PT) the very next night against the Lakeland Magic, becoming only the second player in G League history to produce 100+ points in a two-game span.

SIDWELL FRIENDS: “We aims to please” in this collection of notes and that includes a “MUST MENTION” of the Sidwell Friends Quakers (@SFSQuakers #GoQuakers). Congratulations is in order to Kiki Rice. The Sidwell Friends basketball guard (Class of ‘220 is the school’s first McDonald’s All American. She is also a finalist for the prestigious Naismith High School Player of the Year award. “No wonder Sidwell Friends is the No. 1 high school team in the country,” said a Sidwell social media post. Ms. Rice is the daughter of a former NBA employee, John Rice, now the founder and CEO of MLT (Management Leaders of Tomorrow). He grew up in Washington, D.C. where his father Emmett J. Rice was a governor of the Federal Reserve System. His mother, Lois Dickson Rice, was considered “the mother of Pell Grants.” John’s older sister is Susan Rice, a famous diplomat and the Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council. John received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his BA with honors from Yale, where he was a three-year starter on the basketball team. He resides in the Washington, D.C. area with his wife Andrea and their two children, Mateo and, of course, Kiki, a promising scholar and basketball star. … Sidwell Friends’ varsity girls play for DC’s AA Championship in the finals March 6 at 4pm (ET) while the school’s varsity boys play for their title at 6pm (ET), with both games at George Washington U’s Smith Center.

March Madness Special: Read more of the weekly notes by subscribing HERE.

TL’s Sunday Sports Notebook | Feb 27

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By TERRY LYONS

BOSTON – What did you think about this week when you first heard the news that Russian troops had invaded the Ukraine?

The first land war since 1945? The people? The bombs and tanks? The casualties to come?

Although this column is not intended to delve into politics and war, when the all-out war and invasion broke out on Thursday, February 24, this columnist thought of an old friend, 57-year old Alexander “Sasha’ Volkov, a former member of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. Although Volkov was born in the vast region of Siberia – prior to the fall of the U.S.S.R. – he made his way to the Ukraine and eventually played for the Soviet National basketball team, a club who upset the United States and won the gold Medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
Alexander Volkov

Volkov was drafted into the NBA as a sixth-round choice, 134th overall, in the 1986 NBA Draft. Prior to his stint as an Olympian, he and the Soviet team trained against the upper echelon of NCAA blue blood schools, including Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers, Dean Smith’s North Carolina Tar Heels and – in the summer of ‘86 – against the Atlanta Hawks in the Atlanta/Cobb County Summer League and the LA Summer Pro League.

In the Summer of 1988, together with a contingent from Turner Sports, CNN and the coach Mike Fratello-led Atlanta Hawks, this reporter – then Director of Media Relations for the NBA and soon-to-be Veep, International Communications – went on a three-city tour of the then-Soviet Union. Sasha Volkov and Sarunas Marciulionis were among the young Soviet National Team players the Hawks faced in the summertime exhibitions. From Moscow to Tbilisi (in Soviet Georgia) to Sukhumi (near Sochi and the Black Sea) to Vilnius (in Lithuania) and back to Moscow, the trip was legendary. In some cases, it was so bad, it was great.

After his NBA playing career, Volkov returned to the Ukraine and was named as head of the Ukrainian Basketball Federation and served on the State Committee for Sports. The decorated Olympian eventually turned to politics and was elected to Parliament where he served until 2014.

Volkov and his wife, Alla, are currently in Kyiv. An outbound e-mail remained unanswered as of this posting.

UKRAINIANS IN THE NBA: Sacramento Kings center Alex Len and Toronto Raptors forward Svi Mykhailiuk, the two Ukrainian players in the NBA, condemned Russia’s invasion of their native country in a joint statement released on Thursday.

“A great tragedy befell our dear homeland Ukraine. We categorically condemn the war,” Len and Mykhailiuk wrote. “Ukraine is a peaceful, sovereign state inhabited by people who want to decide their own destiny. We pray for our families, friends, relatives and all the people who are in the territory of Ukraine.

“We hope for an end to this terrible war as soon as possible. Dear fellow Ukrainians, hold on! Our strength is in unity. We are with you!”

If you’d like to read more … Subscribe at While We’re Young (Ideas) on Substack. There’s even a March Madness Special.

While We’re Young (Ideas) | Feb 20

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TL’s Sunday Sports Notes | February 20, 2022

By TERRY LYONS

BOSTON – Post the dreaded and deadly global pandemic, the sports world bounced back about as well as any business segment on the planet. While not perfect and, in many cases, having to operate without fans in the building, the events and sports carried-on and incurred extra expenses to keep the players and front-line workers safe.

Here are just a few of a long list of sporting events of 2021-22 that greatly entertained our sports-loving world:

  • PGA Tour ✅
  • NASCAR ✅
  • NCAA Basketball and March Madness ‘21 ✅
  • NCAA Football and the CFP Championship and most Bowl Games ✅
  • NFL Season and Super Bowl ✅
  • NBA Season and this Weekend’s All-Star festivities ✅
  • MLS ✅
  • NHL Season and its Winter Classic and All-Star Game ✅
  • The Masters ✅

And, more recently …

  • Australian Open ✅
  • Winter Olympic Games ✅
  • Super Bowl LVI ✅
  • 2022 NBA All-Star and the Daytona 500 are looking good ✅

Then, we get to Pitchers & Catchers reporting and MLB Spring Training ❌

The Major League Baseball lockout began at 12:01am on December 2, 2021 immediately upon the expiration of the 2016 MLB/MLB Players’ Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) ending. It is MLB’s first work stoppage since the 1994-95 players’ strike and the first lockout since 1990.

Unbeknownst to many, the expiration of a CBA gives a sports organization very few options. If the sides are close, they can call for a moratorium and try to bang-out the remaining issues and keep things operating in “good faith.’ However, with things as they are in Baseball today, the Commissioner of Baseball and his MLB Player Relations Committee had no option under labor laws and called for the lockout.

While a lockout in December and January is not very visible to players or fans, the impact begins immediately for the league office and teams, as they must shutdown any and all player-related activities, including promotional tours, winter training and a host of important items. The players must train on their own, which most do in their hometown cities anyway. So, as the NBA on TNT basketball guru Kenny Smith once likened an off-season lockout as your regular Barber Shop being closed on Mondays, the tenants of MLB are now in dire need of a haircut.

MLB and its Players have volleyed proposals back-and-forth without any significant progress towards a deal. The first “real” meeting didn’t take place until January 13 and that was done by virtual Zoom rather than in person, which saved time and travel while keeping the parties safe from confinement and air travel.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred requested a Federal Mediator to assist the process in early February and as recently as February 17, the sides met again – but that was two days after the treasured date on the calendar for Pitchers & Catchers to report.

The Boston Red Sox are yet to load-up the equipment truck on Jersey Street, outside of Gate D at Fenway Park and the negotiations seem to be going backwards, rather than forward.

The NBA and NHL find themselves in the dog days of winter. College basketball’s “Got Next” with the various Conference Tournaments and March Madness fast approaching. Meanwhile, MLB is starting to scratch-off scheduled Spring Training games and revenue is being lost by the day. And, if there’s any sport which needs a solid month of training and exhibition games, to stretch-out the starting pitchers and alleviate many a hamstring pull awaiting, it is baseball.

Remember last year when the likes of Ronald Acuna (297 at bats), Alex Bregman, Max Muncy, Fernando Tatis, Jack Flaherty, Chris Sale, J.D. Martinez, Eloy Jiménez, Cody Bellinger, Ketel Marte, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, George Springer, and a laundry-list of others were all sidelined or scratched?

A combination of pandemic fatigue, lack of training and proper stretching and preparation, never mind care by some of the best Athletic Trainers in the world, will cost many a game due to injury if and when the 2022 MLB season begins and the Barber Shop opens seven days a week.

HERE NOW, THE NOTES: Shares of Boston-based DraftKings tumbled by more than 15% as the week closed when the online sports-betting operator reported top line growth as well as widening costs, according to the Boston Business Journal. The company, led by CEO Jason Robins, reported its quarterly and full-year financial results. In the last three months, DraftKings’s revenue jumped from $322.2 million to $473.3 million, but costs widened as well, particularly sales and marketing — from $192 million to $278 million. In the end, net loss for the quarter grew from $242.7 million to $326.3 million. while Draft Kings offers full sports gambling in many States, including New York where it pays a lofty 50+% tax, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts continues to bury its head in the sand with no real progress on sports gambling. With Governor Charlie Baker now facing lame-duck status, there’s no certainty on the future of sports gambling in Massachusetts and the money continues to flow to Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire.

NHL UPHOLDS MARCHAND SIX-GAMER: National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman upheld the six-game suspension that was assessed to Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand by the Department of Player Safety for roughing and high-sticking Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry during their game in Boston on Feb. 8.Bettman heard Marchand’s appeal of the original decision, assessed Feb. 9, at a hearing on Feb. 16. … The incidents occurred at 19:35 of the third period. Marchand was assessed a minor penalty for roughing as well as a match penalty. … “In reaching my conclusions I have given careful consideration to Mr. Marchand’s testimony concerning his efforts to control his emotions in order to excel as an impact player who plays aggressively, but within the rules. I believe that he has already made significant strides towards achieving this goal. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Marchand’s behavior and lack of judgment in respect of these incidents did not meet acceptable NHL standards. He created a distraction which reflected poorly on himself, on his team and on the League as a whole, and as such, I find he also deserves the penalty he received. Having said that, I encourage Mr. Marchand to reflect on this experience and to use it positively in furtherance of his efforts to refine and improve his on-ice image and game for everyone’s benefit,” said Bettman in his statement.

TL’s Sunday Sports Notes | Feb 6

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The Story Behind ‘Linsanity” 

By Terry Lyons

BOSTON – This is a story worthy of narration by Peter Coyote or David McCullough. The voice of Morgan Freeman might be too much to handle.

This is the story of Jeremy Lin and the “Linsanity” which swept through New York and the NBA 10 years ago. To fully understand the story of Linsanity, one must first understand the story of the great Mike D’Antoni for without D’Antoni, “Linsanity” would’ve never materialized.

Here’s how it went down:

The 2011-12 NBA season started on Christmas Day, December 25th after a July 1st expiration of the NBA/NBA Players Association Collective Bargaining Agreement and subsequent lockout. The league was just days away from losing the entire season but came to terms with an agreement to jumpstart the regular season by Christmas to fulfill mega TV dollars.

The season began and looked a lot like NBA preseason. Games came at a frequent pace and the players were tired, out of NBA game shape and feeling it a month into the truncated season.

Coach D’Antoni was at the helm of the New York Knickerbockers and they limped into Boston Garden on February 3, 2012 for the middle game of a back-to-back-to-back in the condensed season schedule. D’Antoni and his Knicks departed with a 91-89 loss to the Celtics, a two-game losing streak and an 8-15 record. Worse than that, the Knicks were badly banged-up, especially at the point guard position.

The New Yorkers were fumbling around with a backcourt of Iman Shumpert, Toney Douglas, a washed-up Mike Bibby, and an injured Baron Davis who was suffering from an elbow infection, severe back pain and couldn’t suit up. When D’Antoni was finished with his media obligations after the loss at Boston Garden that night, I remember walking aside with a friend and confidante of 23 years and asking, “What the hell are you going to do?”

“Jeremy Lin is gonna get his chance,” said D’Antoni in his distinctive West Virginia way.

While some looked at Lin as a deep reserve or a (then) D-League prospect, those of us who saw him play at Harvard from 2006-07 to 2009-10 knew there were some amazing skills hidden beneath his 6-foot-3, weak, lanky frame. Lin showed improvement in his sophomore season of college ball, often bringing Harvard’s tiny Laviettes Pavilion fans to their feet in amazement. By the time he was a junior, he was an All-IVY League point guard and the only NCAA Division I player who was in the Top 10 in his conference in scoring (17.8), rebounding (5.5), assists (4.3), steals (2.4), blocked shots (0.6), field goal percentage (0.502), free throw percentage (0.744), and three-point shot percentage (0.400).

In Lin’s senior year of ‘09-10, he carried the Harvard Crimson team, averaging 16.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.4 steals, and 1.1 blocks, and was again a unanimous selection for the All-IVY League First Team. He was one of 30 midseason candidates for the John R. Wooden Award (College Player of the Year) and one of 11 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award named annually by the Basketball Hall of Fame to recognize the best point guards in college basketball.

Lin was on the radar for a small group of Boston/Cambridge basketball fans but few outside of Boston or the IVY League crowd even knew his name. He went undrafted in the 2010 NBA Draft. Soon after, Donnie Nelson of the Dallas Mavericks signed Lin to a make-good summer league contract but the Mavericks did not offer him an NBA deal that summer.

The Golden State Warriors did and on July 21, 2010 Lin became a member of the Warriors (B.T.W.G) which translates to “before they were good,” as evidenced by their 26-56 won-loss record in 2009-10. The Bay Area was a good fit for the American-born guard of Asian (Taiwanese) descent, and that was amplified by the fact he graduated from nearby Palo Alto High School and brought his very own fan club along for the ride, many showing up and buying tickets for rod games, too.

The problem for Lin was that he was playing behind Steph Curry and Monta Ellis, two basketball-needy guards who didn’t flinch at playing 40+ minutes a game. Buried on the bench with only an occasional downgrade to the D-League Reno Bighorns for much-needed seasoning and playing time. In Reno, he averaged 18 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.4 assists and made the D-League All-Defensive team to boot. Everything he was asked to do, he did. In everything he did, he began to excel. Yet, before the 2011-12 season, the Warriors were forced to waive Lin to clear salary cap space for the free agent signing of DeAndre Jordan.

Lin bounced from the Warriors to the Houston Rockets to the Knicks, a victim of clearing salary cap space once again, as the Rockets went big with the signing of center Samuel Dalembert. Two days after Christmas and the opening of the delayed NBA season, Lin was claimed off waivers by New York, prior to the rapid-fire injuries to their backcourt.

Aside from knowing Lin “was going to get his chance,” D’Antoni elaborated as the Knicks limped back to New York, saying, “the one thing you can say about Jeremy is that he’s very coachable. You never have to tell him something twice and when you teach a step or technique, he uses it immediately.”

I watched the Knicks leave the TD Boston Garden that night, looking at the team bus somewhat sadly as I waved good-bye to my longtime friend like a Band-Aid waving to the Stillwater Band in Almost Famous. It was not a wave of sadness or despair, it was a wave of hope.

To me, D’Antoni became just “Mike” in 1987 at the McDonald’s Open in Milwaukee when he was the starting point guard for Tracer Milan of Italy. After the initial acquaintance, we met frequently, usually along with his wife and son in Europe after he retired from playing but undertook big-time European coaching gigs first with his Milano club but more prominently at Benetton Treviso where he led the rival club to Italian League titles and a trip to the 2002 EuroLeague Final Four in Bologna.

When he wasn’t coaching in the Final Four, he was attending as a celebrated coach and all-time fan favorite – even for rival teams in Spain. Put it this way, Mike didn’t pay for a dinner or a drink in Italy, Spain or West Virginia.

His coaching resume expanded with a job coaching the Denver Nuggets in 1997-98 and short pre-season stint to assist the San Antonio Spurs as they navigated Milan for the 1999 McDonald’s Open. All the while, D’Antoni stressed an up-tempo offense, second to none.

By 2005-06, D’Antoni ran his famed “Seven Seconds or Less” offense for the Phoenix Suns with soon-to-be MVP point guard Steve Nash running the show. The Suns went 62-20 and he won NBA Coach of the Year honors while Nash became the best point guard in the league.

In 2008, with the Suns somewhat imploding a couple years after longtime Suns managing partner and GM Jerry Colangelo sold 30% of the franchise to current owner Robert Sarver, D’Antoni and company headed for greener pastures and that aligned the universe and the world’s Most Famous Arena for Linsanity.

On the third game of that back-to-back-to-back, Saturday, February 12, 2012 at The Garden, Linsanity began with a seat on the bench. D’Antoni started the ailing Shumpert and Landry Fields at the guard position, but substituted Lin who logged a team-high 35:52 minutes, scoring 25 points on 10-for-19 shooting. He added seven assists, two steals and five rebounds with only one turnover as New York defeated New Jersey (now Brooklyn), 99-92.

Knicks star forward Carmelo Anthony encouraged D’Antoni to give Lin more minutes, as did center-forward Amare Stoudimire, but both players would soon be added to the Knicks’ injury lists as the team resembled more of a M*A*S*H unit than an NBA team.

Lin got the start the next game, which ended as a 99-88 home win over the Utah Jazz. Lin played 44:52 minutes, scoring 28 points on 10-17 shooting with eight assists and an equal number of turnovers, a sign of concern.

The phenomenon of insanity grew and grew, and it carried on because of The Garden’s victory-starving crowd who fueled the ride. In his 12 starts before the NBA All-Star break, Lin averaged 22.5 points and 8.7 assists per game, and New York surged to a 9–3 streak, including the first seven in a row since that game up in Boston. The Knicks reached the .500 mark on February 15 and were 17-18 at the break. However, the shooting star was faltering, slightly, as opposing NBA team scouts focused-in on New York’s style, the way to double team Lin while the injury-ridden Knicks had nothing more in the gas tank.

D’Antoni was dismissed in March and former Knicks forward Mike Woodsontook over, slowing the offense down and running few pick-and-rolls as he favored an isolation game featuring Anthony. Meanwhile, Davis returned to play the point and Lin’s run was over.

During the offseason of 2012, the Houston Rockets concocted a free agent offer sheet for Lin with two years at about $5 million and a third year, ‘poison pill’ at $14.5m. The Knicks signed Raymond Felton and Linsanity died a natural death somewhere between the Hudson River and Galveston Bay.

HERE NOW, THE NOTES: José Pañeda, the official Spanish-language voice of the Miami Heat, has been awarded the National Sports Media Association (NSMA) award for Best Broadcaster in Florida. The popular Cuban-American narrator, affiliated with the Heat Spanish Radio Network since the club’s establishment in 1988, became the first Spanish-language broadcaster to win the prestigious NSMA national award.

FROZEN FENWAY: The 2023 NHL Winter Classic will feature the Boston Bruins at Fenway Park, America’s Most Beloved Ballpark. The game will mark the fifth NHL regular-season outdoor game for the Bruins and the second time the Winter Classic is scheduled for Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox. Boston defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 2-1 in OT in the 2010 NHL Winter Classic and the Bruins lost to Montreal, 5-1, when Gillette Stadium played host to the event in 2016. Says the NHL’s official news release, “The game continues the NHL tradition of hosting a regular-season outdoor game at the onset of the New Year. The 2023 edition will mark the 15-year anniversary of the first NHL Winter Classic in Buffalo. Boston’s opponent, broadcast information and a confirmed details for the 2023 NHL Winter Classic will be announced at a later date.

In their two other outdoor games, the Bruins played the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2019 NHL Winter Classic at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. The Bruins won, 4-2, in front of 76,126 at sold-out Notre Dame, the second largest crowd in nHL history. Tuukka Rask made 36 saves and Sean Kuraly scored the game winner to elevate the Bruins to the victory.

The Bruins played in the NHL ‘Outdoors’ game in beautiful Lake Tahoe, Nevada on February 21, 2021. David Pastrnak recorded a hat trick as the Bruins topped the Philadelphia Flyers, 7-3.

TL’s Sunday Sports Notes | Brady Retires

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Tom and daughter, Vivian Brady: (Photo by Getty Images)

Bye-Bye Brady

By TERRY LYONS

Mid-afternoon Saturday, ESPN reported that all-time great NFL quarterback Tom Brady has decided to retire from playing pro football, effective immediately. He leaves with one year remaining on his NFL/Tampa Bay contract.

Brady, 44, is retiring with a record (624) touchdown passes, (84,250) passing yards in 22 seasons of NFL football, mostly with the New England Patriots but concluding with the Tampa Bay Bucs, the 2021 NFL Super Bowl champions. Brady also leaves the NFL with seven Super Bowl championships and a burgeoning business with his TB12 brand.

With the fact Brady’s children are in their formative years, the time for spending valuable days with his family is now. With his wealth, combined with the wealth and celebrity status of his super model wife, Giselle, the timing will allow them to settle in the place of their choosing, most likely New York City or Miami. They are building a home near Miami Beach, in an exclusive paradise called Indian Creek Island.

Late in the day Saturday, Brady’s agent (Don Yee) offered a vague non-denial, denial of the report and Brady’s father, Tom Sr. stated via the NFL Network, “This story Mike is total conjecture. Tommy has not made a final decision one way or the other and anybody else that says that he has is absolutely wrong.”

The take here? You’ve gotta be very happy for Tom Brady and his family. He gave his all to the NFL for 22 years and can retire healthy and at the perfect time to spend time with his wife and children. He deserves nothing but personal happiness and more professional success if he chooses to explore more entrepreneurial outlets like TB12. Otherwise, the links from Pebble Beach Ireland, Pro-Ams and celebrity golf tournaments await.

Side Note: With the announced and now highly expected retirement of Brady, the odds of TE Rob Gronkowski returning to the NFL football field fall to slim and none.

Side Note II: With the retirement of Brady, a Golden Age for Boston sports franchises comes to a full stop with Brady leaving the Patriots (lost to Tampa Bay Bucs), Paul Pierce gone from the Celtics (shipped out to Brooklyn with KG), Zdeno Chara for the Bruins (shipped to DC) and David “Big Papi” Ortiz retiring from the Red Sox and just this week voted as a first ballot National Baseball Hall of Famer. At least Big Papi remained on the Sox and retired as a winner in his Boston uniform, something Sox OF Mookie Bettsdecided against. It is the end of an amazing era in Boston sports history.

SNOWY and WIND-BLOWN BOSTON – The NFL Super Bowl participants will be determined today and the game date will be circled on everyone’s calendar – February 13, 2022 with a 6:30pm (ET) kick-off. Then, if all goes well with their negotiations (see note below), Spring Training for baseball will begin 48 hours later. Pitchers & Catchers reporting is always the first sign of spring.

There will be a February 4-20th time-out for the Beijing Winter Olympics, but with dozens of athletes testing positive for COVID+ and the time change challenges of an Asian Olympics for USA television viewing, the 2022 Winter Games are not generating much buzz or viewer enthusiasm. NBC and Peacock are now beginning 24/7 promotion of the Games, avoiding any connection to China and the obvious human rights protests on-going. NBC Sports is NOT sending broadcasters to call the Winter Olympics on site and, instead, will base much of the coverage out of their Stamford, CT studio. Blah.

That brings us to the “next” season for sports fans. With the NBA and NHL in their dog-days of winter, the focus will shift to NCAA basketball, the various conference tournaments as NCAA “March Madness” fast approaches. The bulk of the college tournaments begin March 9, but some, like the Southern Conference tip-off March 4. Here’s your pocket schedule for planning:

  • March 4: Some mid-major conference tournaments begin
  • March 9: Bulk of NCAA conference championships tip-off
  • March 13: NCAA Selection Sunday
  • First Four: March 15-16
  • First round: March 17-18
  • Second round: March 19-20
  • Sweet 16: March 24-25
  • Elite Eight: March 26-27
  • Final Four: April 2
  • NCAA championship game: April 4
  • MLB Regular Season: March 31

Each week, the Associated Press Top 25 and the NCAA Basketball Coaches Poll rank the best college hoops teams. There’s rarely a spot or two difference between the two polls. As of this week, there’s 99.9% agreement on the Top 10 programs in ‘22:

  • Auburn
  • Gonzaga
  • Arizona
  • Baylor
  • Kansas
  • Purdue
  • Duke
  • UCLA
  • Houston
  • Michigan State

In the Top 11-25 ranked range, these teams should be noted as contenders to go deep into the tournament:

  • Wisconsin
  • Villanova
  • Kentucky
  • Texas Tech

Of course, in the NCAA’s, you can always count on at least one or two teams to catch fire in late February and the first week of March, then become the Cinderella darlings of March Madness. Loyola (Chicago) certainly qualifies in that realm, as does a well-coached and scrappy Providence team from the Big East. UConn and Marquette are two clubs to keep an eye on throughout February.

Winning in-Conference road games by any margin is always the key indicator for this reporter. Don’t let those rankings, Quad-1-to-4 victories, RPI or NET rankings fool you.

HERE NOW, THE NOTES: Saturday, January 29th, 2022 (yesterday – or tonight if you’re reading the bulldog edition) marks the first Saturday without “real” football since August 21, 2021. The NCAA football season began the following Saturday (August 28) and the nFL filled what might’ve been a dormant January 8 with two games of their final regular season weekend. (KS 28-24 over Denver) and Dallas 51-26 over Philadelphia). … The NCAA All-Star exhibitions don’t count.

POWER RANKINGS: Green Bay, Buffalo, Dallas, Tampa Bay and Tennessee all tapped-out last weekend, leaving the January 18 NFL Power Ranking in shambles. No. 7 LA Rams and No. 8 Cincinnati Bengals both advanced and the San Francisco 49ers surprised everyone but the Las Vegas bookies. That leaves us:

Cincy at KC, 3pm (ET) on CBS

SF at LA Rams, 6:30pm (ET) on FOX

Prediction: The home teams win and cover. … That said, Cincinnati is dangerous and will be a team to be reckoned with for at least five more years. KC and Buffalo both in that category, too. Anyone else? Let’s hear it.

PITCHERS & CATCHERS & LAWYERS: The MLB Spring Training countdown clock reads 14 days as of January 30th, with most teams asking pitchers & catchers to report on February 15th. This week, there was a Floridian-style ray of hope as consecutive meeting days (this past Monday-Tuesday) between MLB and the MLBPA concluded with reports of progress in their negotiations for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. … The deadline for a deal is fast approaching so it is reasonable to think the two sides will continue to meet and chip away on the details for a new deal. … The good news, there has been surprisingly little said to media as the negotiations continue.

TL’s Sunday Notebook | Clark Gillies RIP

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By TERRY LYONS

Clark Gillies, an NHL Hall of Fame winger and one of the great New York Islanders players of all-time, passed away on Friday night, January 21 at the age of 67. His story is as amazing as the ‘69 Mets, as entertaining as the “Dr. J” Nets and as important to the fans of the glory-years New York Islanders as any story that can be told.

It is the story of the strongest piece to be placed in the foundation of an expansion NHL franchise. It is the story of a young man from Western Canada finding a new home on Long Island, New York and his return to that new home, even after serving his last two NHL seasons in Buffalo. Sadly, it is a story with a very unhappy ending, one that came quite suddenly to those who just saw him at Christmas 2021.

Let the story book dissolve and fade, as the calendar pages turn back in time.

On November 8, 1971, the National Hockey League awarded an expansion franchise to play at the brand new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, Long Island. The team – to be known as the New York Islanders – would join the New York Nets of the American Basketball Association as primary tenants of ‘The Coliseum” The Islanders and the Atlanta Flames joined the NHL and played each other on opening night, October 7, 1972.

The Islanders lost, 3-2, with team captain Eddie Westfall scoring the team’s first goal and hot shot rookie draftee Billy Harris netting the second. Isles’ goalkeeper Gerry Desjardins took the loss. I remember it all because I can state proudly – I was there.

The expansion New York Islanders had a few pieces in place from the expansion draft and the wise choice of Harris, the No. 1 overall pick of the 1972 NHL amateur draft from the Toronto Marlboros. Harris and the highly respected Westfall, gobbled-up in the dispersal draft from the Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins, were joined by fan favorites like Terry Crisp, Brian “Spinner” Spencer, defenseman Gerry Hart and a handful of others who weren’t ready for primetime NHL minutes.

There were only two foundational pieces in place that first year. The back-up goal-keeper was a young Billy Smith, a fifth round draft choice of the Los Angeles Kings in 1970 and team General Manager Bill Torrey who had signed as GM on February 14, 1972 getting an upgrade in title from that of the California Golden Seals. Happy Valentine’s Day, New York Islanders, little did we all know.

The Islanders struggled mightily as an expansion franchise, going 12-60-6 in their first year. That qualifies as the ninth worst start for a team in NHL history but it did earn the right to choose first in the 1973 amateur draft and the astute Torrey turned down many an offer for money and veteran players to select defenseman Denis Potvin with the No. 1 overall pick. Torrey also coaxed St. Louis Blues coach and former NHL defenseman Al Arbour to become the Islanders’ head coach.

A year later, Torrey scored again. With the No. 4 and No. 22 picks in the 1974 NHL amateur draft, the Islanders selected Clark Gillies, a 6-3, 210 pound left wing from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan at No. 4 and 5-11, 195 pound center Bryan Trottier, hailing from Val Marie, Saskatchewan, at No. 22, a second-rounder that every team had a chance to pick.

Fast forward to 1975 and the Islanders upset the New York Rangers in the first-round of the NHL Playoffs, went down 0-3 to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round but managed to come back to take the series, the first time since the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs for a team to accomplish the feat. The Islanders nearly repeated the miracle against the Philadelphia Broad Street Bullies Flyers in the third round Stanley Cup semi-finals, but fell short in Game 7.

The Islanders needed one or two more pieces, addressing the need for more scoring, some second-line depth and another solid defenseman or two. In 1977, the scoring issue was checked-off when Torrey used the No. 15 pick to select Michel “Mike” Bossy, arguably among the greatest scorers and snipers in league history.

The next season, Trottier would play center with Bossy on his right and Gillies on his left to form one of the great lines of all-time. Potvin paired with his brother, Jean, or with the steady Dave Lewis and Smith anchored the goalkeeping duties, combined with amazing performances by Glenn ‘Chico” Resch. The foundation for a Stanley Cup champion was in place.

In three short seasons since expansion mayhem, the Islanders were competitive. In eight years, they became an NHL dynasty, reeling-off four Cup victories in a row. A team that was dropped in our laps as Long Island hockey fans allowed us to sing “We ARE the Champions” at the top of our lungs from 1980-to-1984.

When we played Street Hockey on the asphalt school yards, you’d be asked, “Who do you want to be?”

This columnist went to Gerry Cosby’s sporting goods store and had a road, royal blue Islanders jersey affixed with No. 9 for Clark Gillies. I wore it everyday. Every single day when we played on the streets, in the parks, on the cement of ice hockey rinks in the heat of summer.

I was Clark Gillies, growing tall, with some size and a wicked left-handed wrist shot. The only thing Gillies did a thousand times better than i could ever dream of was FIGHT, and fight he did against the toughest enforcers in the NHL. Philly’s Dave Schultz, Behn Wilson of the Flyers and Chicago Blackhawks or the epic playoff fights between Gillies and Boston’s Terry O’Reilly.

This is the fight Gillies had in mind:

It’s important to note, Gillies was NOT an NHL “goon” as he scored 30 or more goals in a season six times and scored 47 playoff goals with 46 assists in his 12 year career which concluded in 1986-87 and 1987-88 as a member of the Buffalo Sabres.

More importantly, Gillies, the native of Western Canada, became an Islander forever and returned to his Long Island digs after his career, bringing up his family and enjoying life with an occasional golf outing and return to the Nassau Coliseum or helping the team open its brand new UBS Arena, near Belmont.

The Islander roots are deep as Gillies’ daughter, Brianna, married the son of one of his best friends’ (NYI center Bob Bourne) son in Justin Bourne.Gillies frequently made appearances and raised money for Islanders great Pat LaFontaine’s Companions in Courage charity but his own charity work funded Huntington (LI) Hospital’s Pediatric unit and emergency room to the tune of a $2 million check to get started and frequent fund-raising efforts of $50,000+ all to help the children of Long Island. (Please see Clark Gillies Foundation).

HERE NOW, THE NOTES: Jim Johnson, Holy Trinity High School ‘76 and a former member of the New York Islanders’ front office staff, now runs the Companions in Courage Foundation along with his friend in NHL Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine. Over the last decade or more, the Islanders insiders raised millions of dollars for charity, much of it going to help children. Johnson can express the feelings of many of us better than any of us.

“The tributes are pouring in from the hockey world and from an adopted community that Clark Gillies made his home,” wrote Johnson, an accomplished scribe. “But the shock and grief have yet to set in. Even if you only met him once, he made you feel like you had been a friend for life. Clark Gillies had that kind of impact on all of us.

(Left to right): Jim Johnson, Clark Gillies, Pat LaFontaine.

“Some of us just saw him around Christmas, and he was laughing and dancing, seemingly without a care in the world. He was one of those guys who embraced life and stared down any obstacle that might arise. He once told a friend that he had culled the cutest filly from the herd, and that’s how he married Pam. They had three beautiful daughters who made him a grandpa several times over.

“The hockey world is mourning the loss of a guy nicknamed “Jethro,”(dubbed that because of his resemblance to the big, goofy son of Jed Clampett in the ‘60s-70s TV comedy The Beverly Hillbillies). They remember the fierce fighter who never lost a fight until (Friday) night. They remember him riding shotgun on the famed “Trio Grande Line” with Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier. Maybe they remember the image of him crushing a beer can on his head on the center-ice scoreboard at last year’s playoffs. Rangers fans will no doubt remember his one-punch throw down with Ed “Boxcar” Hospodar, and Bruins fans will reflect on the heroic actions of Clarkie and Terry O’Reilly in the 1980 semi-finals.

“But some had an extra special bond with Clarkie that was something completely different. Yes, we all knew the ferocity that the man represented, but it was his kindness and adoption of our town as his own that made the friendship so special. Plus, he was one of the funniest bastards we’ve ever met.

“I often talk about how the most important reason why you want a pro sports franchise in your neighborhood is not necessarily to win championships (though those four straight Cups didn’t hurt!). Rather, it’s the athletes who become a part of the fabric of the community where they play. The Islanders introduced guys from Hinton, Alberta; Waterford, Michigan; Peterborough, Ontario; and yes, even Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (where’s Moose Jaw? 6 feet from the moose’s ass!) to this lovely little island we call home. We were all so lucky that guys like Bob Nystrom, Pat LaFontaine, Steve Webb and Clark Gillies came here and stayed.

“Clarkie loved kids, and he has raised more than one million dollars to support Huntington Hospital. If you’ve never visited the pediatric wing and the “Cub Room” he built in that facility, you should do yourself a favor. As I’ve heard more than one hospital administrator say, “this is such a great idea. Why did it take a hockey player to come up with it?”

“We had a running gag at the CiC Golf dinner. How many standing ovations could we get for Clark in one night? I’m really proud that we got it to NINE this year. A personal favorite moment was the night Pat LaFontaine honored Clark for all of his charitable work in the community. He cried when we presented him the plaque. The big tough S.O.B. was such a soft touch when it came to helping kids.

“So, we’ll process the grief over the next few days and weeks over the loss of this very special friend. We’ll get together and share our own stories of how he impacted our lives, and we’ll cherish every one of them. We’ll celebrate a life that helped make us all just a little bit better. RIP, big fella – until we all skate again on that big negative-edge pond in heaven. Save us a spot “in the room” #9,” concluded Johnson.

BRIAN “SPINNER” SPENCER: Mentioned in the story of our beloved Clark Gillies and the New York Islanders was another Long Island fan favorite in Brian “Spinner” Spencer, who played in 11 NHL seasons from 1969-70 to 1978-79. … If you haven’t heard about it, his career story is incredible, unbelievable but sad. … In December of 1970 when Spinner was called-up to play his first NHL game, he called his father, Roy, who was in his hometown of Ft. St. James, British Columbia to tell him the good news and that he’d be on TV for “Hockey Night in Canada” that weekend. A very serious problem arose when a Vancouver Canucks vs California Golden Seals game was aired by the western affiliates of CBC instead of Spencer’s Toronto Maple Leafs eastern game. Spencer’s father – upset by the programming selection – drove 84 miles to Prince George where he ordered the production crew and staff at the station to air the Maple Leafs game. He did so at gunpoint and, although the station complied with his wishes, when Roy Spencer exited the TV station, the Royal Canadien Mounted Police confronted him and he was shot and killed on the spot. … As time went by, Brian Spencer had a decent NHL career, being a fan fave who loved to mix-it-up. His best seasons came with the Buffalo Sabres (1974-75 to 1976-77) and he labored for another few years, eventually finishing-up in the American Hockey League, playing 30 games in 1979-80 with the Hershey Bears. … After his hockey career was over, he turned to crime, violence, alcohol abuse and was arrested for kidnapping and murder in 1987. He was jailed and faced the death penalty. believe it or not, this reporter and Spencer became “pen pals” of sorts that year, while he was in jail awaiting trial. I wrote to say he could take pride in the fact those expansion Islanders games he played in meant a lot to a whole new generation of hockey fans, and that no matter what trouble he was in, he could smile that night, knowing he played a role. … His return letters were incredibly well-written, perfect penmanship by hand, always very appreciative and on-point – the subject matter only about hockey. He did not ask for a thing, but I sent some letterhead, envelopes and stamps. In his last letter, he assured me he was innocent and that he was hopeful he would be declared so and set free after a fair trial. At his trial, many of his former NHL teammates testified and the jury returned a NOT guilty verdict. … Despite the acquittal, Spencer returned to a life of crime and drug abuse and was shot dead in a crack cocaine purchase gone bad in Florida. He died on June 3, 1988 at the young age of 38.

CBS SPORTS: CBS Sports colleague Bob Fishman is calling it a career as one of the top remote, live sports directors of our time. The late Sandy Grossman and Fishman televised NFL, NBA and college basketball games for a generation of sports fans, both foregoing any chance to be at home on a weekend for decades at a time. Fishman will retire after the NCAA Final Four, marking 50 years at CBS Sports.

TL’s Sunday Sports Notebook – Dec 26

by

“He spoke not a word and went straight to his work.” – Clement Clarke Moore (or Bill Belichick?)

By TERRY LYONS

BOSTON – When there’s 52+ weeks of Sunday notebooks to review, there are plenty of topics, notes, tidbits and remembrances to point out as we look back at the strange year of 2021 and look forward to (hopefully) better days ahead in 2022.

Upon quick review, here’s a list of the most prominent items in TL’s Sunday Sports Notes | While We’re Young (Ideas) over the past 52 weeks:

January 2021:

Big Story: Alabama defeated Ohio State, 52-24, in College Football Playoffs National Championship game

  • A Few of My Favorite Things
  • Diggies: Outstanding TV Ads and Hard Knocks NFL Jinx
  • Tons of NFL Talent (Unfortunately, many were hurt in 2021)
  • Hank Aaron Tribute
  • Sekou Smith Tribute

February 2021:

Big Story: QB Tom Brady and Tampa Bay defeated Kansas City, 31-9, in Super Bowl LVI

  • Super Bowl | Salute to Tom Brady
  • Baseball Spring Training | Red Sox Equipment Truck Heads South
  • Second Chances in Life, Sports | Alex Cora
  • NBA Logo | Great Logos and Branding

March 2021:

Big Story: Justin Thomas shot four-under (68) in the final round for 274 (−14) to win his first PGA Tour Players Championship, one stroke ahead of runner-up Lee Westwood, the 54-hole leader.

  • NBA All-Star Notes | International Players | Zion was an All-Star
  • The Concept of TIME | Precious TIME of a sporting career
  • 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 | March Madness Brackets
  • March Madness without Duke and Kentucky
  • Sportico News: NBA Franchise Valuations; Fanatics $ Merch

April 2021:

Big Story: Baylor defeated Gonzaga, 86-70, in nCAA Final four Championship game

  • MLB Opening Day Brings Excitement, Joy | Underrated Events
  • The Masters | Rick Welts Announced retirement from GS Warriors
  • MLB’s Jackie Robinson Day | Mark “The Bird” Fidrych
  • European Super League Futbol Flop

May 2021:

Big Story: Medina Spirit crossed the finish line first in the Kentucky Derby, giving his trainer Bob Baffert a record seventh win in the race and jockey John Velazquez his fourth Derby win. However, the horse tested positive for betamethasone after the race.

  • Must Win Time in NHL and NBA | Kentucky Derby
  • NFL Franchise Valuations | IVY League Sports Comeback
  • Basketball: Hall of Fame | WNBA 25th | Africa League
  • ATL: Us Against the World and NBA
  • Fan Behavior | Mark Eaton RIP

June 2021:

Big Story: In the 121st U.S. Open golf tournament, Jon Rahm made a birdie on each of the final two holes to become the first U.S. Open champion from Spain and win his first major championship.

  • Fragile Nature of Sports | Sports Perfection
  • The Sports Window of Opportunity | PGA Tour : The Travelers
  • Father’s Day | USA Swimming/Nick Fink
  • Red Sox: Dustin Pedroia Tribute

July 2021:

Big Story: The Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Phoenix Suns in six games with the decisive contest played on July 20th.

  • Name, Image, Likeness | #SportsBiz
  • NBA/ESPN Reporter Bickering | Olympics on Horizon
  • The Open
  • Memories of Olympic Games Past

August 2021:

Big Story; MLB stole the show with its first-ever regular season game at the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, a site popularized by the 1989 baseball motion picture.

  • More Great Olympic Games Memories
  • Modified Stableford Scoring for Hoops
  • PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs
  • Northern Trust = No Pro Golf in Boston

September 2021:

Big Story: Daniil Medvedev defeated Novak Djokovic in the final, 6–4, 6–4, 6–4 to win the men’s singles tennis title at the 2021 U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows. On the women’s side, Britain’s Emma Raducanu defeated Canada’s Leylah Fernandez in the final, 6–4, 6–3 to win the women’s singles tennis title at the 2021 US Open. Raducanu became the first qualifier, male or female, to reach a major final and win a major title, as well as the first singles qualifier to reach the semifinals at the US Open.

  • The Most Wonderful Time of the Year for Sports
  • US Open Tennis: 18-year old Emma Raducanu of Great Britain defeated 19-year old Leylah Fernandez of Canada
  • Ryder Cup Golf and Hard Knocks NFL
  • More Ryder Cup Golf | Hope for BC Eagles Football

October 2021:

Big Story: The Chicago Sky defeated the Phoenix Mercury in four straight games to win the 2021 WNBA title.

  • NBA at 75 Tip-Off
  • The people behind the NBA at 75 Impact: Off the Court
  • NBA at 75 | Final List | #SportsBiz Sports Gambling Update
  • Preseason College Basketball Preview

November 2021:

Big Story: The Atlanta Braves defeated the Houston Astros in six games to win the 2021 MLB World Series.

  • 30 Year Look-Back at Earvin “Magic” Johnson
  • Best Sports Towns in America
  • Olympic Boycotts – Athletes & Diplomats
  • Paying Thanks on Thanksgiving Day 2021

December 2021:

Big Story:  New York City FC defeated the Portland Timbers (1-1) in penalty kicks after a scoreless overtime. It was NYC FC’s first MLS Cup title.

  • A Look at Deep, Dark December | NFL Power Rankings
  • #Sports – The Land of Confusion | Bill Russell Auction
  • Dreaming of a “Wilt” Christmas | NBA Christmas Day Preview
  • 2021 Year-End Review

January 2022: As you can see from the photo up top, the lads are welcoming in a New Year with hopes for a much better 2022 than was experienced in 2020 and 2021.

Overall, it’s somewhat daunting to look back at the year in sports. So many things happened – good and bad – in such challenging circumstances, yet again. It’s even harder to look back at the year in news. The “real world” headlines of 2021 absolutely drops us to our knees, especially the way the year started out on January 6th. Nevertheless, we must move on and move forward. And, with that in mind:

HERE NOW, THE NOTES: Despite the fact this is being written before the NFL games of December 25, now is the time for TL’s Sunday Sports Notes | While We’re Young (Ideas) to do its second installment of NFL Power Rankings. A reminder of my last list (dated December 4):

  1. Buffalo Bills
  2. Kansas City Chiefs
  3. Dallas Cowboys
  4. Arizona Cardinals
  5. Green Bay Packers
  6. Baltimore Ravens
  7. New England Patriots
  8. Tennessee Titans
  9. Cincinnati Bengals
  10. Tampa Bay/SF 49ers/Washington/Miami/Others

Here’s the current Digital Sports Desk Power Rankings of the NFL’s Top 10 (dated December 24):

  1. Kansas City Chiefs: Both on offense and – surprisingly on defense, the KC Chiefs have stepped-up.
  2. Green Bay Packers: The (11-3) Pack are healthy and have Aaron Rodgers primed for a playoff run, most likely with a much-needed first round bye.
  3. Buffalo Bills: The Bills can prove they’ve earned this high ranking on Sunday when they face the New England Patriots at Foxborough. Let’s see where each club ends up?
  4. Dallas Cowboys: Quarterback Dak Prescott and the ‘Boys are lurking, and in good position to do some damage in the NFC Playoffs.
  5. Tennessee Titans: The Thursday night win over the epic collapse of QB Jimmy Garappolo and the San Francisco 49ers placed Tennessee (10-5) in prime position for the AFC Playoffs. A loss would’ve been trouble.
  6. Indianapolis Colts: The Colts (8-6) won a huge game last weekend over the New England Patriots and it thrust Indiana into contention.
  7. Arizona Cardinals: At (10-4), the Cards remain a team no other wants to see in the NFC Playoffs. The question? Can QB Kyler Murray, RBsJames Conner/Chase Edmonds/WR AJ Green remain healthy?
  8. New England Patriots: As the NBA’s great Hall of Famer Rudy Tomjanovich once said, “Don’t EVER underestimate the heart of a champion.” … The question is whether that champion is on the sidelines in Foxborough, Mass or at QB in Tampa?
  9. Cincinnati Bengals: After dropping two important games (Chargers and 49ers), the Bengals bounced back with a 15-10 win over Denver last week. They’re in MUST win territory with their next two games (Ravens and Chiefs). The AFC North is up for grabs and is in the midst of the tightest NFL divisional race in 44 years.
  10. Everyone Else, including the LA Chargers, Rams, SF 49ers.

G-LEAGUE PUSH BACK: With dozens of NBA teams signing players to 10-day contracts to fill-out rosters, the G-League was forced to delay their season. The league noted in a statement of December 24: «The NBA G League will delay its regular season, originally scheduled to tip-off on Dec. 27, will now begin on Jan. 5, 2022. The delay will give teams an opportunity to safely return players to market after the Christmas holiday and to replenish their rosters following NBA call-ups. Information regarding games originally scheduled between Dec. 27 and Jan. 4 will be provided at a later date.»

NO HAWAI’I in HAWAI’I BOWL? – The lone sporting event of December 24 was abruptly cancelled when the powers that be cancelled the EasyPost Hawaii Bowl. The University of Hawai’i could not play in the game due to players and staff with COVID-19+ test results. Hawaii’s college football bowl opponent, Memphis, had travelled to Honolulu for the game. … “The health and safety of our student-athletes is the most important part of this decision,” David Matlin, Hawaii AD, said in a statement. “The recent surge in COVID-19 cases has forced us to not participate in the game.”

REVERSE DECISION: The BIG EAST Conference modified its game cancellation policy for men’s and women’s basketball for the 2021-22 season. The adjustment was the result of the recent sudden and significant increases in the number of COVID-19 cases nationally and within BIG EAST programs due to the spread of the Omicron variant. … Under the modified policy, a Conference game will be canceled in the event a school has fewer than seven scholarship players and one countable coach available for a game. The BIG EAST conference office will attempt to reschedule any such game(s) in accordance with parameters approved by BIG EAST Directors of Athletics. … In the event the rescheduling parameters cannot be fulfilled, the canceled game(s) will be designated as a no contest.

To date, four BIG EAST men’s Conference games had been designated as forfeitures under the previous COVID-19 game cancellation policy. The forfeiture classification will be removed from these games, and efforts are now underway to reschedule them at a later date. (Since then, two other games were scrapped: St. John’s and Butler in Jamaica Estates, Queens; and Georgetown at Creighton. No women’s games to date have been designated as forfeitures. … The new ruling seems much more in line with the rest of the sporting world, all doing the most to get complete season scheduled played in their entirety.

NHL BUYS ANOTHER DAY: From a formal statement released December 24/Christmas Eve, the National Hockey League said its regular-season schedule will not resume prior to Tuesday, Dec. 28. The league had planned to resume its schedule on Dec. 27, but in order to allow adequate time to analyze league-wide testing results and to assess clubs’ readiness to play, the target date for resumption of game play will be pushed back an additional day. Teams will return to practice on Dec. 26 and it is expected that the league will provide an update on its return to play plans by the end of day on Sunday.

The league plans to stage its annual outdoor Winter Classic on January 1 at 6pm ET with the St. Louis Blues visiting the Minnesota Wild at Target Field.

BOOKS CLOSED ON THE STAPLES CENTER: The Los Angeles sports scene will now watch concerts, conventions and sporting events at the Crypto.com Arena, after cryptocurrency website Crypto.com purchased the naming rights to the arena, formerly known as The STAPLES Center.

Official photographer Andrew D. Bernstein recalled nine of his favorite memories of the original, going first with opening night with the great Bruce Springsteen.

1: Bruce Springsteen opens the arena 1999
2: Lakers championship 2000
3: Democratic National Convention 2000
4: LA Sparks WNBA championship 2001
5: Michael Jackson Memorial 2009
6: Blake Griffin Slam-Dunk at NBA All Star 2011
7: Grammys 2012
8: LA Kings first Stanley Cup 2012
9: Kobe’s final game 2016
10: LeBron James 2020

Check out Andy’s series of podcasts at Legends of Sport: HERE

CLOCK RUNNING on DECEMBER 2021 but THE OFFER IS STILL GOOD:

  1. NOTES, NOTES, AND MORE NOTES: A year-long subscription to TL’s Sunday Sports Notes – While We’re Young (Ideas) is a perfect way to have the sports fan in your life look forward to an old-fashioned, weekly, notebook full of sports insights. All Year Long! Sign-up for this special offer: HERE

    Get 20% off for 1 year

  2. PGA TOUR BRUNCH AS CHAMPIONS RETURN OF THE TOUR:Plans are on-going to re-launch the popular PGA Tour Brunchnewsletter when the pros tee-it-up at the Sentry Tournament of Champions (January 5-9, 2022) at The Plantation Course at Kapalua, Maui, Hawaii.

SIGN-UP HERE FOR PGA TOUR BRUNCH

Parting Words & Music:

In Excelsis Deo: On this Christmas night of 2021, I give you the genius of Aaron Sorkin and his work on the television drama – The West Wing – from 1999. Whether you were a fan/viewer of the show or not, I simply ask you to view this scene and the detail of every single word, every single cut, every single edit and every single decision made to produce the poignant scene.

The assembly of The West Wing cast at the White House, each viewing the choir celebration, is striking. Only one other character asked Tobias”Toby” Ziegler (played by Richard Schiff) to accompany him to Arlington National Cemetery and that was dear Mrs. Delores Landingham, the President’s executive assistant. This episode was one of the first when actress Kathryn Joosten’s character became such a focal part of a scene.

Earlier in the episode, Presidential aide/body man Charlie Young (played by Dulé Hill) had asked why Mrs. Landingham was feeling “down,” and she opened up to him that she had “lost her two twin boys” in the Viet Nam war. (They died as medics in a fire-fight at Da Nang on Christmas Eve 1970).

The West Wing and Sorkin, in general, just ace the art of character development and this clip shows you one small reason why. In Excelsis Deoand Two Cathedrals are the two most powerful episodes in the entire drama series.

In Excelsis Deo’s most dramatic scene:

The West Wing won Emmy Awards for:

Outstanding Writing of a Drama Show – Aaron Sorkin and Rick Clevelandsingled out for this episode.

Outstanding Single Camera Editing

Schiff won Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Outstanding Sound Mixing in a Drama Series

Sorkin and Cleveland won the Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Episodic Drama at the 53rd Writers Guild of America Awards

Merry Christmas everyone.

TL

While We’re Young (Ideas) – August 29

by

TL’s Sunday Sports Notebook

By TERRY LYONS

BOSTON – At Christmas time in 1963, the great crooner Andy Williams released “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” a chart-topping, holiday favorite. He sang of parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting, jingles belling, and caroling out in the snow. The song was written by Edward Pola and George Wyle and they make a bundle every year as its played on Holiday radio stations, in shopping malls and at homes all over the world.

As August turns to September, I might suggest Pola and Wyle pen another version to salute the sports world. Right here, right now, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Let’s take a look at what we have to look forward to on the 2021-22 sports calendar approaching.

Via ways of streaming consciousness, (not order of preference nor chronology, I give you the menu of sporting events:

  1. Major League Baseball’s regular-season home stretch to the Postseason.
  2. The start of College Football (Illinois 30, Nebraska 22).
  3. The start of NFL Football.
  4. PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs and the Ryder Cup
  5. U.S. Open Tennis.
  6. NHL Training Camp and start of the season.
  7. NBA Training Camp and start of the season.
  8. MLB Playoffs.
  9. World Series.
  10. The start of College Basketball.

There will be some other wonderful sporting events sprinkled in, too. The Boston Marathon will be run on October 11th. The Breeders’ Cup will be run on the first weekend in November. Fans of auto racing and other motor sports will have dates circled on their calendars and local Boston fave, “The Head of the Charles,” will be staged October 22-24. … The Revs and the MLS will be revvin’ and the World Cup contenders will be qualifying. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of other great sporting events all around the world.

Let’s all look forward to the events ahead and when they’re completed we’ll focus on another “Wonderful Time of the Year,” when March Madness leads into the start of Baseball, the NHL and NBA Playoffs.

HERE NOW, THE NOTES: Let’s get this right out of the way … Just in case you were wondering, the George Wyle mentioned above is the same guy who wrote the theme song to “Gilligan’s Island.” … Whew.

TAKE A SHOT: Taking a good shot took on another meaning for the National Basketball Association this week when the NBA issued a pair of memorandums, one dropped in the lap of the Associated Press on Friday. The league notified its teams that all team personnel who will be near players and NBA game officials must be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus this season. A day later, the NBA and its referees agreed on a vaccination pact with an addendum to add any possible “booster” shots to be recommended in the future. … This agreement was a win-win,” the Refs’ Union said in a statement. “It will support the NBA’s objective of creating a safer on-court environment and continuity of play while protecting the health and well-being of the referees.” … The NBA-NBRA agreement noted, “that all referees must be fully vaccinated unless they have a religious or medical exemption. The referees have also agreed to take any recommended boosters. Any referee who does not get vaccinated and is not exempt will be ineligible to work games.”

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