Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar Need Some Messaging Help

by Kent Sterling

Crashes like Dario Franchiti’s in Houston are going to happen, but the piece that was cleared by the Associated Press cannot.

The Associated Press is really good at providing dry game recaps, and other nondescript pieces that help newspapers fill its pages with relevance. What it rarely does is rage against a player, team, or league – until what happened at IndyCar’s Grand Prix of Houston got wedged between the APs Jenna Fryer’s hindquarters and her saddle.

President Lyndon Johnson famously said about the media and the Vietnam War, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Well, if you lose the Associated Press, you have lost media coverage.

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IndyCar has lost the media. Here is part of what the Fryer wrote and AP distributed (for the whole piece, click here):

Far be it for the beleaguered series to draw any interest for something other than a crash that injured 13 fans, an IndyCar official and left the three-time Indianapolis 500 winner hospitalized with a fractured spine and broken ankle.

The accident was replayed on television stations across the country and even made a morning show or two on Monday. It came with a hitch, though: At least one network mistakenly referred to IndyCar as NASCAR, and instead of recognizing Franchitti for his impressive racing resume, more than a few chose to identify him as the ex-husband of actress Ashley Judd.

That’s so IndyCar.

Almost a year after the Hulman & Co. board of directors ousted CEO Randy Bernard, little progress has been made with IndyCar. In fact, some might argue the series has taken a step or two backward.

The board elevated member Mark Miles in late November to CEO of Hulman & Co., but not much has been accomplished so far under his watch beyond the recently announced road course race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Conversely, the race at Baltimore is falling off the schedule after three years, there appears to be questions about the future of the event in Brazil and the 2014 schedule has yet to be released. Series sponsor Izod is leaving at the end of the season, and Miles has yet to fill the role of head of IndyCar and IMS’ commercial division — the person who would likely be trying to replace Izod.

Miles has been turned down at least once for the job — by motorsports marketing executive Zak Brown — and former Ganassi executive Tom Garfinkel chose president and chief executive officer of the Miami Dolphins over any serious conversations with IndyCar.

It’s going to be a tough position for Miles to fill because of the current structure.

It makes anyone paying attention, including the media watchdog who forwarded me the piece, wonder who the hell is in charge of crafting the message of IndyCar. In Indianapolis, the series is an afterthought, and nationally it is invisible. The only month it matters is during May, and the rest of the time, fans just hope nothing embarrassing happens – as it did in Houston.

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This kind of publicity is a disaster for IndyCar because there is no counter piece to show the positive – if there was any. The closest thing to positive coverage comes from Curt Cavin of the Indianapolis Star, who is becoming lonelier by the day as an impartial voice for the series.

What’s missing is not excitement, better equipment, or more good drivers. I would have liked to see the flying wing chassis selected a couple of years ago when IndyCar went with the more conservative Dallara, but that aside, IndyCar needs three things – attention to details (both on and off the track) by those committed to the success of the series, leadership that knows how to throw a party (Mark Miles is that guy), and an evangelist that will work tirelessly to spread its message.

A piece like Fryer’s cannot happen for IndyCar to survive. Number one, everything she wrote is true. Number two, if she was presented with angles that might have painted IndyCar in a more positive light, she was not compelled to use them. Maybe Fryer is inflexible in her desire to roast IndyCar. Maybe IndyCar’s effort in Houston was so completely bereft of planning and common sense that it would have been impossible to live through the weekend and write anything but what she posted.

Maybe the spin from IndyCar PR is right on, and Fryer is an outlier. Maybe not. Maybe a compelling storyteller could turn the media coverage into something that sell sell rather than destroy the series.

I don’t know everyone in public relations, but I worked with exactly the type of person who could make a huge difference. Eddie White is the template for the position IndyCar needs to create. He’s dogged, creative, and a zealot, and IndyCar needs lots of all three of those attributes.

Joe Girardi to Yankees for Four More Years; Cubs Continue Search for Sap

by Kent Sterling

This picture was snapped when Manny Acta was named manager of the Cleveland Indians and he still knew how to smile. If three years of losing in Cleveland didn’t paralyze his face into a frown, one season in Chicago will finish the job.

Anyone surprised that Joe Girardi decided to stick with the New York Yankees is a moron. The only hope the Cubs of had of landing the only decent manager with any interest in the job had was that the Yankees would be so dissatisfied with an 85-win season that they might tell Girardi to clean out his desk.

The Yankees don’t lose managers unless they want to, so when general manager Brian Cashman said that they would offer Girardi an extension it was like Mariano Rivera had been summoned from the bullpen. The Cubs were dead – they just didn’t know it.

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What possible reason could Girardi have had for moving his family to Chicago from New York. I didn’t use a question mark at the end of that question because it isn’t really a question, but a plea for a legitimate rationale for doing anything other than what Girardi did.

And don’t tell me that Girardi and his wife are from the Chicagoland area. If you live other than where you grew up, would you move to a lesser company out of geographic nostalgia?

The Yankees have won 27 World Championships since the Cubs won their last, and despite signing the offensive juggernaut that is Ryan Sweeney to a two-year extension yesterday, the commitment the Cubs have shown to losing big should deter most conscious candidates.

Girardi wasn’t just conscious; he’s very capable. After watching Dale Sveum get rewarded with a pink slip for enduring his team being traded out from under him during both the Julys he served as skipper, reasonable people would choose to toil as a third base coach for a legitimate franchise than manage the Cubs.

Sveum was fired by Cubs President Theo Epstein for being unable to develop the young talent on the Cubs roster, but a serious consideration in the regression of Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo must be the way that Epstein and the front office have decided to toss seasons in the trash in the middle of July.

When the front office deals every valuable cog in a mediocre machine, the remainders aren’t likely to work quite as hard. There is no doubt the Cubs farm system was gutted by the idiocy of Jim Hendry’s win-now initiative combined with brutal drafts, and the farm system had to be rebuilt, but to expect young men in their early 20s to take seriously their daily preparation when management had done everything but paid a biplane to fly over Wrigley Field with a banner that reads, “We don’t care whether we win until 2016!” shows no knowledge of human behavior.

So Girardi will do a great job at Yankee Stadium for another four-years while the Cubs will almost certainly conclude the current search and another in that time.

There are rumors that Manny Acta is a finalist for the Cubs gig, and let’s just say that his record will not warm the cockles of season ticket holders deciding whether to re-up for 2014.

Acta may or may not be a genius in developing youngsters to win down the road, but he owns a career 372-518 mark in six seasons managing the Washington Nationals and Cleveland Indians. In four of five full seasons (one of which was actually 156 of 162 games with the Indians, but he had already lost 91 games so we’ll count it as full), Acta’s teams lost at least 89 games. In the other, the Indians found a way to finish 80-82. The sixth (partial) season was a trainwreck for the Nats where Acta coaxed a 26-61 record while his replacement – the all-to-well-known-on-the-north-side-of-Chicago – Jim Riggleman did something right to go 33-42.

A.J. Hinch are Rick Renteria are the two other serious candidates. Both are currently employed by the San Diego Padres, for whom Cubs GM Jed Hoyer was the boss until agreeing to begin the rigorous work of disemboweling the Cubs.

Renteria would be a first time manager, and Hinch would be getting a second bite at the apple after spending parts of two seasons with the Diamondbacks where he ammassed an 89-123 record. These two along with Acta would be the types of men attracted to the Cubs job. Acta and Hinch are terrified that after two massive failures he will never be trusted to manage at the major league level again, and Renteria is a first-timer who would be thrilled to manage anywhere. Sveum’s fate will not deter any of the three as managing the Cubs is the best job any of them could hope for.

That they are almost certain to last only the next two years in Chicago is just fine by them. The cash earned by telling Castro to watch the game instead of the Red Line as it passes will put their kids through college.

If fans want to know where the Cubs stand, all they need to do is read the resume’ of the clod who accepts the offer to manage. If it looks more like the career work of someone who should be hired to run the AAA team in Iowa, that’s because it is.

Kentucky High Schools Ready to Eliminate Unnecessary and Dangerous Postgame Handshakes

by Kent Sterling

If Jim Harbaugh and Jim Schwartz can’t get along, how can a reasonable person expect high school kids to congratulate each other with grace.

Asking high school kids to calmly shake hands seconds after a hotly contested game is an unrealistic request. It has always been ridiculous, and those who mandate that it occurs lack an elementary understanding of the way a competitive teenager’s brain functions.

The Kentucky High School Athletic Association took a step in the right direction by issuing a directive yesterday that requests an end to the foolish tradition that has led to more than two dozen violent incidents in the last three years in Kentucky alone at the end of games at high school games.

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The sad truth is that forcing teenagers to congratulate each other moments after a game is a threat to the safety of the competitors, and no one means “Good game!” when they say it.

It would be great if kids (or adults for that matter) enjoyed the healthy perspective that a game is just a game, but most aren’t wired that way. There is no on/off switch for competitiveness, and asking someone to congratulate his counterpart mere seconds after trying to beat the hell out of the same guy is absurd.

Of course, someone is going to take a swing. Anyone who played sports has seen it up close. At Trinity High School in Louisville, a teammate of mine was sucker punched after a soccer game. My regret is that there wasn’t a brawl. We should have beaten the hell out of the kid who punched Bryan Woodard. My anger is still there 30 years later. If not for the handshake line, it never would have happened.

Almost 10 years ago, during postgame handshakes immediately after a Cathedral vs. Arlington basketball game, an Arlington player sucker punched Cathedral guard Tyke Cockerham. There was chaos that night. My son was in the middle of it because his coach asked him to get the Cathedral kids out of the mob. Watching my skinny freshman son sprint into the fracas made me proud. Back up your guys. If you absorb some punishment, dish out twice as much.

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That’s a terrible way to think in the office, classroom, or behind the wheel of a car, but when competing men are encouraged to indulge that mode that proves so valuable during battle, asking them to hang a behavioral u-turn is not reasonable. The adrenaline rush during physical struggle is a genetic component that has been nurtured and rewarded since man stood erect, and those who have done it best have survived. Those who wanted to shake hands after war were stabbed, shot, and/or pummeled.

Waiting until that frenzied state calms before forcing kids to congratulate each other is a wise step in the right direction.

These fights happen all the time and always have. Getting rid of the postgame handshake is a big step toward their elimination.

Of course, state legislators in Kentucky are furious, but that’s par for the course. The only unique skill possessed by elected officials is making noise that panders to constituents in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Heritage Christian High School in Indianapolis is the only school I know of that has ever gotten it right. I don’t believe this happens anymore, but when my son played basketball against Heritage, the players and coaches from the opposing team were invited for a postgame meal. This was after showers and a chance to calm down a bit.

NFL Players gather in the middle of the field after every game to pray together. There is no mandate, and those who have no interest in that scene head to the locker room. Nothing wrong with doing either. The coaches seem to have some difficulty getting along as they shake hands in many cases, and they are grown men.

This order from the KHSAA smacks of liability aversion – a family of a kid who fractures a cheekbone in a fight is going to sue somebody, and if the KHSAA mandates or encourages the act that precipitates the fight, it stands to reason it would be a likely party in that suit. Even if the KHSAA acted only as a preemptive act to avoid a future judgement, the result is just, so what the hell.

If you want sportsmanship after high school athletic events, give the kids a few seconds to get their pulse under 180. That way they aren’t in harm’s way, no one gets hit, and then no one is sued.

Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and New Orleans Finalists for 2018 Super Bowl

by Kent Sterling

There was a time that the dream of Indianapolis hosting a Super Bowl was reserved for psychotics, malcontents, and idiots. Anyone who watched the people of this city wander (it was a directive on Indiana license plates for a brief time) aimlessly through the almost completely empty downtown couldn’t imagine Indy hosting a decent prom, much less the world’s biggest party.

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Today, Indianapolis was named one of the three finalists for the 2018 Super Bowl along with New Orleans and Minneapolis, whose inclusion dispels any thoughts of the NFL favoring warm weather locales. Miami, Tampa, and Dallas were told to leave the 2018 line and get ready for a 2019 bid.

Colts owner Jim Irsay said at the announcement that Indianapolis would be a player in the pursuit for the Super Bowl and that it would take a dynamic performance to keep the NFL from favoring a place with beaches and palm trees. What Indianapolis is to Miami, Minneapolis is to Indy.

New Orleans is a different story. It’s warm there, and they want the Super Bowl to be the centerpiece of a celebration to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the city’s founding. Setting aside why the 300th anniversary is somehow more important than the 295th which occurred as the last Super Bowl was held. New Orleans was unable to keep the lights on in the Superdome through the duration of the three-hour game earlier this year.

The city fathers might have been wise to let the memory of the hilarious 34 minute dialogue between terrified CBS sideline reporter Steve Tasker and stupefied sideline reporter Solomon Wilcots fade into the deep dark recesses of our memories before launching another bid.

Given the virtually flawless performance of the electrical grid in Indianapolis, and the overall excellence of IBEW members in connecting a device designed to prevent an outage (the culprit in New Orleans) as well as the rare weather advantage Indy holds over the Twin Cities, this should be a cake walk.

Of the last three Super Bowls, Indianapolis is the only one that wasn’t a total train wreck. The debacle of 2011 in Dallas will live on in the hearts of all who were there. Not only was there an ice storm, but a delay in the construction of temporary seating that caused hundreds of ticket holders to be taken to a poorly equipped lounge to watch the game on TV.

The fate of this year’s Super Bowl rides entirely upon the vagaries of the weather. It could be wonderful, or it could be a disaster the likes of which will make Dallas look tropical.

I’ve lived in Indianapolis for 20 years, and cannot figure out why major sports don’t pledge their love far more often to Indy. It was constructed and modified for the express purpose of hosting big sporting events, and the people genuinely enjoy showing off the city. Indianapolis is centrally located, and downtown is a quick 12 minute drive from the airport. The hotels are world class, and the stadium is easy walking distance from downtown.

Everything is easy because people designed it to be easy.

There is a decided lack of sexiness about Indianapolis, but for doing business, watching sports, and getting a good meal, Indy has few equals. The governmental construct of Indianapolis and the relationships between the individual governing bodies makes Indianapolis a dream to deal with. This could be the subject of a different post, but the happy marriage between Marion County and the city clean up one area of potential discontent, and the city and state governments have spent the last decade moving the city forward rather than playing degenerative political games.

The NFL should end the madness and name Indianapolis to a regular rotation just as the NCAA has done with the Final Four.

Indy has been transformed from a city even Indianapolisans weren’t excited to visit to a place that people can’t wait to return to. The Super Bowl in 2012 was one of the most enjoyable Super Bowl weekends of all time, and the infrastructure that led to that fun has done nothing but improve, unlike Madonna whose structure no longer inspires thoughts of fun.

To go from a city that had a crazy dream to a no-brainer reality for the biggest event in the world is one hell of an accomplishment.

North Carolina Basketball – Tutor Resigns in Protest over Hairston Remaining on Team

by Kent Sterling

P.J. Hairston and his coach would have preferred that athletic tutor Jack Halperin had stayed quiet.

You have to hand it to those who work at the University of North Carolina. They are a moralistic bunch, even if the coaches hired to lead the student athletes there are lacking in that area.

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Jack Halperin has tutored student-athletes at UNC for 23 years, but decided enough was enough when it appeared to him that men’s basketball coach Roy Williams made an irresponsible decision in allowing P.J. Hairston to stay on the team despite a series of poor decisions with minor legal consequences over the past year.

The Daily Tar Heel printed a letter from Halperin that succinctly airs his grievance:

TO THE EDITOR:

Roy, after 23 years as an academic tutor, and after going through the devastating football scandal, I am resigning in protest of your disgraceful decision to allow P.J. Hairston to remain on the team.

If I were arrested driving with no license, illegal drugs and a gun in a felon’s car, my employment at this University would end immediately.

Hairston’s DTH headline quote was, “I will play this season.” Since when does the criminal decide his fate?

Jack Halperin
Athletic academic tutor

There are few things as sure as the axiom that the only thing that gets coaches fired is losing, and after last season, Williams needs a gun full of bullets to rebound from a 25-11 campaign that saw the eight-seeded Tar Heels bow out of the NCAA Tournament in the round of 32.

In 2009-2010, Williams led UNC to a comparatively miserable 20-17 record and an NIT berth.

With Hairston, Williams might have a squad talented enough to win a national championship. Without him, they would still be good, but not potentially elite.

When it comes to getting paid, Vince Lombardi was right when he said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” That is certainly not lost on Williams, whose handling of Hairston, whose decision making has revealed him to be a short-sighted and self-indulgent mope, has been lenient. If the pot, gun, and rental car provided by a felon/booster named Fats Thomas didn’t belong to him, they belonged to someone close, and that shows sufficient idiocy for removal.

Maybe Williams is punishing Hairston with significant extra work, maybe not. But the very public resignation of a tutor who has devoted his energies to helping kids learn/stay eligible for 23 years doesn’t tell a very compelling story in Williams defense.

Mary Willingham,the assistant director of the center for student success and academic counseling at UNC, has also been very public in her critique of UNC’s decision to protect itself than to bring consequences to bear upon those who mistake their university for an athletic factory. In June, she wrote:

Protecting our (UNC’s) image has become the most important factor, sadly, this appears to have done more harm than good. As an institution of higher education where learning should be taking place each and every day, what is the lesson in all of this? Yesterday was the lowest day on campus – ever. As yet another new bright eyed group of first year students meet up in the pit, we, the adults continue to cover up the truth about our mistakes. One dark cloud hangs in the otherwise blue sky, and we could make it go away – if we were honest.

Educational inequality is fed by a machine on our campus and campuses everywhere – the college sport system – until we own it and make the proper adjustments, the cheating will continue. Waiting for the NCAA is a joke, the sky over Indianapolis is full of dark clouds, thunder and lightening. They have failed miserably as a regulatory body. Bogus systems of eligibility along with secrets, silence and our own vulnerabilities win, our students lose. Protecting the brand at all costs – worth it? Lesson learned? Not yet.

It’s people like Halperin and Willingham that set a great example, and give students and alums a reason to remain proud of the University of North Carolina.

Chicago Cubs – Why Joe Girardi Is Not Coming to Chicago

by Kent Sterling

Loving the Cubs, and agreeing to work for them are two different things. Wrigley is where managerial careers go to die.

Can you imagine a world where a manager like Joe Girardi given a choice between managing the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs? He can’t either.

The delusions of mediocrity that invade the consciousness of Cubs fans every once in awhile, and visions of Girardi in Cubbie blue have provided the illusion of hope once again.

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And why won’t the Cubs be able to lure Girardi from the Bronx? There are obvious reasons, and then some even more obvious reasons:

The Yankees are committed to winning championships. The Cubs are committed to duping fans into believing they are only three years from contention.
The Yankees, while no longer dominating, are willing to do what it takes to compete year in and year out. The Cubs are trading players capable of playing now for international pool money that allows them to sign 16 year-olds ready to help the Cubs win (maybe) two managers from now.
The Yankees have talent that is getting old and brittle. The Cubs have talent in the lower minor leagues.
The Yankees are the team of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Jeter, Berra, Dickey, Martin, Ford, Rivera, Munson, Stengel, McCarthy, the Colonel, and the Boss. The Cubs are the team of Hack, Hack, Banks, Santo, Sandberg, Durham, Grace, and Bartman.
If you had to wager all the money you have on whether the Yankees with their 27 World Championships (last in 2009) or the Cubs with their two titles (last in 1908) were going to win a title next, where would you put your money?
In the last 19 seasons, the Yankees have qualified for the postseason in 17, and in seven have played in the World Series. The Cubs have earned a postseason berth four times in that span, and six times since 1945 without a single appearance in the World Series. In fact, they have only qualified for the postseason 16 times since 1886.
The Yankees all-time record in World Series play is 134-85. The Cubs all-time postseason record is 28-53 since 1901.
The Cubs strategy during the Epstein regime has been to trade talent out from under its manager. The Cubs were not terrible despite being virtually bereft of talent in 2013 until the end of July when Epstein and GM Jed Hoyer held their second annual garage sale. They were 49-58 after beating Arizona 7-6 on July 31st. From that point forward, the Cubs finished 20-41.

Why would Girardi believe that the Cubs would change course from their habit of annually purging the roster of decent talent?

Choosing to trust the Cubs is like believing that Warren Buffett wants to pay insurance settlements. Cubs owner Tom Ricketts stood in Wrigley Field and told the media that if Chicago approved his plans for the Wrigley Field renovation that the Cubs would win a championship. While a prediction does not quite measure to the level of a bald faced lie, I would challenge Ricketts to put some money where his mouth is. I’ll give him seven years to win that guaranteed championship. If he does, I write a check for $10K to his favorite charity. If they don’t, Ricketts guarantees me two box seats to every game until either he or I dies – with free concessions.

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Weeks later, Ricketts sunk to a new low by threatening to move the Cubs from Wrigley if the renovations weren’t approved. This does rise to the level of a lie. There is no way that Ricketts would abandon Wrigley Field – the only reason fans continue to show up to watch the Cubs.

Wait a minute, you’re thinking, is Kent trying to tell us that fans aren’t buying tickets to watch Donnie Murphy, Nate Schierholtz, and Darwin Barney play baseball? Hard to believe, but yes. Ninety-nine percent of the Cubs fans in Chicago couldn’t pick Murphy out of a lineup. If not for Jeff Samardzija’s hair, all of the Cubs could dance in the middle of the intersection at Clark, Barry, and Halsted and not draw a crowd.

Wrigley Field is such a wonderful and nostalgic place that the Cubs don’t need to win to draw fans, so why spend the money and effort to acquire and develop them?

That’s why Girardi is going to stay put in New York. The Cubs want him for the marketing help his picture on a billboard will provide, but Girardi wants to win. Not sharing the same goals with management is the best reason not to accept a job, regardless of what it is.

St. Louis Cardinals Show Chicago Cubs How to Retool, Not Rebuild

by Kent Sterling

Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein would like Cubs fans to believe that rebuilding is the road to winning, and that it takes five years. That the length of his contract is five years is purely coincidental.

The St. Louis Cardinals just keep piling up trips to the postseason at a relentless pace despite flipping the roster even more aggressively than the Cubs.

The sad truth is that Epstein – the architect of two seasons that combine as the worst in Cubs history – is going to have to catch a team that does best the thing at which he proclaims to be the master.

The Cubs claim to be in the throes of a self-imposed exile from winning because former GM Jim Hendry ran the SS Cubbie Bear into the rocks like the late Ted Kennedy trying to cut a path through Cape Cod. The truth is that the Cubs have chosen the path of losing, and are selling fans the bill of goods called “patience.”

The Cardinals won the World Series in 2011, and immediately said goodbye to the third best hitter in franchise history behind Stan Musial and Rogers Hornsby. For most franchises, including the Cubs, first baseman Albert Pujols would have been the best of all-time. Pujols wanted a 10-year deal, and the Cards said adios.

Staff ace Chris Carpenter suffered from nerve damage that effectively pressed pause on his career. The rest of the rotation has completely turned over, as has the bullpen minus Fernando Salas (whom many Cardinals fans would like to abandon ship).

As for the rest of the roster, Ryan Theriot, Colby Rasmus, Skip Schumaker, Rafael Furcal, and Lance Berkman are gone. That’s 82 home runs, 365 runs, and 334 RBIs. That’s 48% of the Cardinals offense gone, the entire rotation, and almost the whole bullpen gone from a team that won a World Championship less than two years ago, and they are one game away from a third straight trip to the NLCS.

The Cubs claim that the farm system was virtually bare, and the difference between their last place team and a team like the Cardinals that wins relentlessly is the strength of the farm system, but while the Cubs are drafting kids a few years away from the big leagues and using their allocation of dollars to sign international players on talented 16-year olds, the Cardinals are drafting players like 2012 first round draft pick Michael Wacha.

Wacha threw 7 1/3 innings of no-hit ball today in Pittsburgh to keep the Cardinals alive in their NLDS with the Pirates.

If Cubs fans are looking for hope, the majority of the organizational stars who came up and played the Cards into the playoffs again were drafted in 2008 and 2009. Theoretically, that would put the Cubs three years behind, which jibes with the Epstein timetable. That assumes that the Cubs have drafted in 2012 and 2013 as well as Cards GM John Mozeliak did five years ago.

There is one incredible difference between the Cubs and Cards that cannot be overcome or overstated and that is Yadier Molina, who is the best catcher in the game and perhaps the most valuable player in baseball. It can’t be a coincidence that every pitcher who the Cardinals bring up from Memphis or Springfield studs it up in St. Louis, and the common thread is Molina.

Maybe the Cubs hire Joe Girardi. Maybe they let Javier Baez and Kris Bryant break camp with the team. Maybe the Cubs will sign a free agent pitcher. And maybe Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo will justify the extraordinary outlay of cash the Cubs extended to them. The last three years have been filled with maybes that led to yecchs that led to 288 losses.

Epstein keeps saying that national pundits agree that the Cubs are coming. Mozeliak has no need for Buster Olney or Karl Ravech to extol the virtues of his work. The proof is in the pudding year after year.

Indiana Basketball – Freshman Devin Davis Is Ready to Contribute to the Hoosiers

by Kent Sterling

The first thing you notice about IU freshman Devin Davis is his length.

When he played at Warren Central High School in Indianapolis all of seven months ago, Devin Davis was often the biggest and strongest player on the floor. That made him an Indiana All-Star, but now he’s neither the biggest or strongest in the Big Ten. He’s not even close.

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But he is a very athletic and long forward for Indiana, a team in need of a lot of athleticism and length. Davis has just wrapped up his first week of practice as a college basketball player, and he knows what he needs to do to get on the floor for the young but deep Hoosiers, and what he’s best at.

Davis is a gifted rebounder who knows how to use his body to create the space needed to rebound, and he has the wingspan that coaches crave to limit passing lanes.

The construct of the Indiana starting lineup is an absolute unknown today, and how many minutes Davis can earn by quickly developing and exploiting his gifts could range from eight to 32. He knows that, and says he knows that controlling what he can – his work ethic – is all he can do.

Indianapolis Colts – A Win Is a Win, But Colts 34-28 Triumph Was a Pete Carroll Loss

by Kent Sterling

Pete Carroll hung an L where there could have been a W today in Indianapolis.

The Colts did a lot of good things in the second half of today’s 34-28 come from behind win against the previously undefeated Seattle Seahawks, but that game was lost by the complications Seahawks coach Pete Carroll introduced to the game.

It wasn’t the timeouts used because of staffing issues that caused the Seahawks to use all three second half stoppages with 8:55 left in the game, although that didn’t help. It was more about rendering moot the one offensive force the Colts appeared unable to stop.

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Marshawn Lynch was a rampaging beast today at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts had trouble bringing him down almost every time he touched the ball. Lynch ran 17 times for 102 yards – an average of six yards per carry. There were some carries that really didn’t do much (-5, -2, no gain), but more often than not Lynch churned and rammed his way to positive yards. A six-yard average requires more than 17 carries regardless of adjustments made.

And defensively, the Seahawks had difficulty defending whomever the Colts lined up in the slot. Reggie Wayne was very productive in the second half. Normally, halftime adjustments are overrated as determining factors in the outcome of the game, but Colts offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton clustered Wayne, T.Y. Hilton, and Darrius Heyward-Bey which required the Seahawks to assign Walter Thurmond on someone. The Seahawks chose Wayne, and the result was the hall of famer schooling the four-year veteran out of Oregon.

Wayne ended the day with six catches for 65 yards, but it was his five catches in the second half including some great box out work to clear space for a completed two-point conversion attempt giving the Colts a 31-28 lead that made the Seahawks and Carroll pay.

The battle between the two outstanding second-year quarterbacks was incredibly even. At one point in the fourth quarter both Colts QB Andrew Luck and the Seahawks Russell Wilson were 15-27 for 210 yards and two TDs. In the end, Luck had the edge in throwing, but Wilson was elusive to say the least as he tied Lynch as the leading rusher for the Seahawks with 102 yards on 13 carries.

It’s not easy to lose a game when your team runs for 218 yards on 34 carries, but that’s exactly what Carroll did.

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There was a phrase painted on the wall of the Indiana University Basketball team’s locker room that might still be there. It read “Don’t complicate winning.” Despite the clunky wording of the message (it’s much clearer to tell people to “win simple” than to champion the aversion of complexities while aiming for victory), it would have done Carroll some good today. If you are running the ball at 6.4 yards per carry, run the ball. If Reggie Wayne is lined up in the slot, put a cornerback on him who won’t be abused repeatedly.

While Heyward-Bey and Hilton are nice players (Hilton had a big day with five catches, 140 yards, and two TDs today on only six targets), there is one Canton bound talent among the Colts receiving crew, and putting your third best corner on him is going to cause you problems.

Add the timeout fiasco to the equation and the noise being made in Seattle about the safety call that was upheld under review and a borderline pass interference that wasn’t called late should be directed toward Carroll who has long shown a disdain for details. He’s plenty enthusiastic, but his use of strategy and time maintenance has always been suspect.

The Colts also won today because they were tougher late in the game. The 10-yard run by Trent Richardson when the Colts faced a third and five with under 4:00 minutes left in the game was huge and the result of low and tough running. Richardson ran for only 56 yards on 18 carries, but that run was a major nail in the Seahawks coffin.

So the Colts are alone in first place in the AFC South with a 4-1 record, and the Seahawks will end the week on top of the NFC West regardless of what the 49ers and Cardinals do.

The Colts are prime time players the next two weeks with games at San Diego and at Lucas Oil Stadium against Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos. A split would leave them 5-2 with the toughest part of the schedule behind them.

Avoiding ways to lose is a good step toward consistently winning, and the Colts did that today while Carroll’s Seahawks did not.

Indiana Football – Kevin Wilson’s Vision Validated as Hoosiers Trounce Penn State 44-24

by Kent Sterling

The day Kevin Wilson was announced as the next head coach at Indiana, he spoke like everyone else has of changing the tradition. Today, he proved his vision to be accurate.

For almost three years, Indiana football coach Kevin Wilson has been telling fans, players, alums, boosters, and media about his methodology in building a winning tradition at a place that hasn’t had much of one since Bo McMillan prowled the sidelines of old 10th Street Stadium.

There was a brief era of wondrous and thrilling trips to the Peach Bowl in the late 1980s and early 1990s under the great Bill Mallory, but that seems enough like a dream that I’m not sure if Anthony Thompson is real or a magnificent apparition.

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Today, Indiana beat Penn State, and they didn’t just beat Penn State, they got Penn State to accept defeat and cry uncle. As they did, a weight was lifted from Wilson’s shoulders.

Wilson is a grown man, but there is just no way a little doubt didn’t creep into his psyche during the quiet moments everyone has when there is nothing to do but wonder whether the mounting list of losses begin to form the picture of a failure. There is an interesting moment that comes after you get the job of your dreams – that instant before the success comes when you doubt you are worthy of it.

That’s when you either hide under your desk and hope no one notices you are gone, or man up, double down on yourself, and ride the wave. For some, the wave carries you safely to the beach, and for others jagged rocks await. Today, Wilson got to the beach.

On Monday, Wilson spoke of coaching his team as though they are winners despite having lost to Missouri before the bye week. That’s called pushing a tall stack into the middle of the table, and praying that the kids whose actions determine the fate of a coach can rally and find a way to validate his faith in their talent and heart. I sat there watching him say it, “We coached them as winners last week.” There was a calm to Wilson that was impossible not to admire, and I thought “either that man has lost his marbles, or he knows something we don’t see yet.” I’m glad his marbles are intact.

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It’s funny what a win can do for a program. Wilson’s contemporary who runs the basketball program across the parking lot for Memorial Stadium had his watershed moment in late 2011 when Christian Watford hit a buzzer beating three-pointer to beat Kentucky. That moment changed everything for Indiana Basketball and Tom Crean, and so did this fourth quarter beatdown of a good team.

Rick Venturi was a football coach in the Big Ten and NFL for over 40 years, and he is fond of saying “leadership is making others believe without evidence.” After the decline of the Hoosiers program in the mid-1990s, the failed regimes of Cam Cameron and Gerry DiNardo, and tragic death of Terry Hoeppner, and the mostly mediocre years with Bill Lynch at the helm, people associated one word with IU football – losing.

There was absolutely no evidence at all that Wilson would be able to climb the mountain inch by inch to where the inspiration of hope seemed like anything but the continuation of a longstanding and cruel hoax. Wilson stayed the course, learned from his mistakes, and has found a way to put together a team capable of an upset the likes of which has not been enjoyed in Bloomington in a long, long time.

Wilson knows his work is not done. The Hoosiers are five games into what he hopes will be a 13 or 14 game season (I know that 14 games is absurd, but so was Indiana -20), and the next test is Michigan State, but because of a win that was unexpected by so many, so much can now be dreamed.

This win wasn’t just the result of years of work by Wilson and his staff, it was earned through the efforts of talented players. The offense is filled with weapons quarterback Nate Sudfeld can access. Cody Latimer, Kofi Hughes, Shane Wynn, Ted Bolser, Tevon Coleman, and Stephen Houston are a special combination of dynamic assets.

For those waiting for the Hoosiers to show they can win before climbing on board the bandwagon, today’s dominating finish should provide an adequate push.

Almost certainly for the fans, the math will start to calculate the needs for bowl eligibility. It’s not complicated. The Hoosiers are 3-2. They need three wins. With road games against Michigan State, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio State, and home games versus Minnesota, Illinois, and Purdue, it’s not hard to see a path to get there, or even 7-5.

Wilson won’t indulge in those thoughts, at least not publicly. The work at IU is to get better tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day.

Even after a win against a legendary program, Indiana is still Indiana, but today the meaning shifted. Wilson saw it coming, and today fans did too.

Tomorrow, all thoughts turn to Michigan State.