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:
- Tiger Woods $8 million
- Phil Mickelson $6 million
- Rory McIlroy $3.5 million
- Jordan Spieth $3.5 million
- Bryson DeChambeau $3.5 million
- Justin Thomas $3.5 million
- Dustin Johnson $3 million
- Brooks Koepka $3 million
- Jon Rahm $3 million
- 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.