The Couch Slouch
Hey Mike Gundy: You're a man. You can find something else to do
Apr 13, 2020, 6:55 am
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Nobody wants a pandemic, certainly not one that kills hundreds of thousands and delays the college football season.
That was certainly the mindset last week of Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, who indicated that May 1 would be a good time to get back to football and who wants his players on campus even if it's deserted because "continuing the economy in this state" requires his team playing games.
"We've got to have a plan," Gundy said, "…so let's just stay on schedule."
Uh, let's update the scoreboard here:
Covid-19, OSU 0.
Go Cowboys!!!
Coach, I understand that we must get back to the business of living. But – follow me on this – we can't do that if we are all dead. So we must stay at home – pause life to preserve life – until the experts say otherwise in regard to this once-in-a-century sacrifice that we hopefully will never see the likes of again.
It stinks this way, it sure does.
Suddenly, we know why our dogs want to take so many walks.
So, yes, we need sports again. But we also need almost every other taken-for-granted detail of our routine, from schools to restaurants to shopping to libraries to concerts to Costco grand openings.
And, frankly, we need back things that have been missing most or all of our lives: compassion, decency, humanity, sense of community.
But we can start by accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative at home. We can start by appreciating what's around us and by revisiting the simple delights that surround us.
Play Rack-O with your kids.
Watch any season of "The Larry Sanders Show" on HBO on Demand.
Talk to long-distance friends. In the old days, these were known as "phone calls."
Send your aunt or uncle a long note. In the old days, this was known as "writing a letter."
Make your own pizza, and when that fails, order one for delivery.
Dig out your old baseball card box, and if you can't find a Nolan Ryan rookie card, give all of them to the 10-year-old next door.
Tell your spouse, "We've got to talk," to let 'em know what it feels like to be on the other end of that baby.
Sing the theme song from "Gilligan's Island" three times nightly.
Board-game doubleheader: Monopoly and Candy Land!
Try to write the Great American Novel, or, at a minimum, at least a limerick.
"Casablanca" and "The Princess Bride," back-to-back, to experience full black-and-white and Technicolor joy.
"His Girl Friday" and "Broadcast News," back-to-back, in black-and-white and Technicolor, to experience full print and electronic joy.
S'mores!
Re-enact scenes from the Old Testament; I adore Leviticus Chapter 19, Verse 33.
A foosball table ($104.99-ish) or air hockey (also $104.99-ish) is the best quarantined C-note investment in the land.
Good betting game: Sit on your front porch with a family member and wager on which direction – left or right – 10 people will walk by your house first.*
(* If you don't have a front porch, just look out the damn window.)
Remind your teenagers about safe sex, in case they ever have sex.
When's the last time you played Charades?
For 16 and under: Hit your brother for no reason. When he hits you back, roll onto the living-room carpet in full brawling mode.
For 75 and over: Hit your brother for no reason. If he falls to the ground in agony, call 911.
Wii bowling!!!
Tell everybody in your home how much you love 'em, twice. Do it now.
Ask The Slouch
Q. I assume you have the entire "Dogs Playing Poker" collection of paintings. And aren't dogs the best? (Eddie Vidmar; Cleveland)
A. Yes, I have the entire collection and, yes, dogs are the best. We just lost our beloved poker-playing pit mix: R.I.P. Daisy.
Q. Is it true that the first recorded reference of the six feet "social distancing" term was in a NCAA basketball referees manual on what constituted a foul when a Duke player drives to the basket? (Stewart Verdery; Washington, D.C.)
A. Boy, I miss rooting against Duke.
Q. Distraught over the pandemic, IOC and NCAA officials walk into a bar and order a bottle of Screaming Eagle Cabernet 1992. How much should the athletes tip the server? (Bobby Weaver; Smyrna, Ga.)
A. You have an uncanny grasp of global sporting economics.
Q. Since you have been "working" from home for years, does it bother you that your employer deemed you non-essential well before the coronavirus showed up? (Dan Cantwell; Albany, N.Y.)
A. Listen, pal, my family also has deemed me non-essential and questions why I even need to be home.
Q. Since the NFL draft will not have a live audience, should a booing track be added every time Roger Goodell steps up to the microphone? (Arthur Polton; Fairfax, Va.)
A. Pay the man, Shirley.
To enter the $1.25 Ask The Slouch Cash Giveaway, just email asktheslouch@aol.com. The Couch Slouch podcast is available on your favorite podcasting app.
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A lockout appears unavoidable! Photo via: Wiki Commons.
Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995.
“No one’s talking about it, but we all know that they’re going to lock us out for it, and then we’re going to miss time,” New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. “We’re definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league’s obviously not going to like that.”
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one.
Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami’s $69 million, according to Major League Baseball’s figures. Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million — shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year.
“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”
Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026, and management lockouts have become the norm, which shifts the start of a stoppage to the offseason. During the last negotiations, the sides reached a five-year deal on March 10 after a 99-day lockout, salvaging a 162-game 2022 season.
“A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn’t about growing the game,” union head Tony Clark said Tuesday. “A cap is about franchise values and profits. ... A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. It’s not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion.”
The union’s opposition to a cap has paved the way for record-breaking salaries for star players. Soto’s deal is believed to be the richest in pro sports history, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal with the Dodgers signed a year earlier. By comparison, the biggest guaranteed contract in the NFL is $250 million for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
Manfred cites that 10% of players earn 72% of salaries.
“I never use the word `salary’ within one of `cap,’” he said. “What I do say to them is in addressing this competitive issue that’s real we should think about whether this system is the perfect system from a players’ perspective.”
A management salary cap proposal could contain a salary floor and a guaranteed percentage of revenue to players. Baseball players have endured nine work stoppages, including a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that fought off a cap proposal.
Agent Scott Boras likens a cap plan to attracting kids to a “gingerbread house.”
“We’ve heard it for 20 years. It’s almost like the childhood fable,” he said. “This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.”