The Golden State Warriors haven’t lost a game Derrick Stafford has officiated since . . . well, Tuesday night in New Orleans. Before that, it was a very long time. Either way, King Cake Baby is now eighth, and the Oklahoma City AfterSonics are ninth. Given a choice, I much prefer four days in New Orleans. The rest of it is in the hands of Baal, the Babylonian god of, well, ball.
[INSTANT REPLAY: Pelicans down Warriors with strong second half]
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And if Stafford’s first Warrior loss doesn’t move you, consider the telling call in the waning moments of the NCAA men’s championship game in which the nation got a better view of the play and the replays than the three officials.
John Adams, who is the supervisor of officials, pleaded “Oh, crap,” saying, “We have been told time and time again, ‘Nobody at home will see anything you didn’t see,’ and I will tell you that is not what happened last night.’”
And:
“We never saw, on our monitor, what everybody saw at home, if you can believe that . . . I saw it after they had left the monitor, and actually thought about, is it in my prerogative to get up, run over to the table, buzz the buzzer, and tell them to come back and look?”
Allow me to answer for America.
“YES, YOU MONUMENTAL CUSTARD, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO. IF YOU CAN’T MANAGE THAT, YOU MAY AS WELL WORK AS A BAGMAN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE.”
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Sam Holtz, the 12-year-old who won ESPN’s Bracket Challenge by missing only six of 67 games and winning a drawing, can’t have the big prize (trip for two to Nellieland, er, Maui, and a $20K gift card to an electronics store) because he isn’t 18. ESPN, though, was thoughtful enough to give him a swag bag.
Which, if it doesn’t include Michelle Beadle delivering it and features the kid’s choice of Bob Ley, Ian Darke or Doris Burke, is a complete and utter ripoff, and here’s hoping the kid sues and ends up owning one-seventh of the network. Not for the original prize, but for the alternate one.
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Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post has taken to examining the next significant advancement in women’s college basketball.
Las Vegas.
Of course, Las Vegas. The place too foul for the NCAA, but perfectly acceptable for seven of its conference basketball tournaments.
The idea being put forth by longtime administrator Debbie Antonelli is to have the second and third weekends of the women’s tournament in Vegas because . . . well, nothing else has worked to make the event achieve breakthrough popularity, so maybe Dolly Brunson and Phil Ivey doing postgame analysis on Maryland-Stanford will work.
We live in hope, because the only alternative is making UConn move to the NBA’s Atlantic Division.
[RELATED: UConn beats Notre Dame for third straight NCAA title]
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Many people worry about what athletes do after their playing days are over. Not Will Allen, the former New York Giants safety. He (allegedly) became a captain of theft.
He and a woman, Susan Daub, have been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with fraud, according to the Wall Street Journal. They are charged with running a Ponzi scheme where they used payments from other investors to re-pay original investors from July 2012 to February 2015. They worked very hard not to be served with subpoenas, but got dealt anyway, so the next bit of news in this story is whether their (alleged) plea bargains include a ClubFed prison, or a trip to see their investors in a gigantic hall with no exits.
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Carlisle United of England's 4th division have gone winless in their last five matches, and it’s easy to see why if you’re someone who stares at players’ nethers. Manager Keith Curle gave a new meaning to the term “metrics” by pointing out in a radio interview that half his team lacks the wedding tackle to handle the rigors of Accrington Stanley.
“I'm speaking to the players and the players say, ‘Well, we've got to play people that have got the . . . uhh . . . uhhhhh . . . how can I say this knowing that it's going out on air . . . ‘with the uh, the male genitalia to go out and play.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don't think I can do that. Because I'd only start with five, six players, because I don't think there’s players out there that have got the male genitalia.’ And now, that's the alarming thing that I’ve got to get a reaction out of those players.”
Sounds like a job for a trainer with latex gloves and a lack of squeamishness.
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And finally, popular Giant bête noire Mat Latos’ broke the seal on his 2015 season with this 10-batter roll call against Atlanta:
Eric Young walks and steals second.
Jace Peterson lines out.
Nick Markakis singles to score Young.
Freddie Freeman doubles to score Markakis.
Christian Bethancourt doubles to score Freeman and goes to third on a wild pitch.
Kelly Johnson walks.
Chris Johnson doubles to score Bethancourt and move Johnson to third.
Andrelton Simmons singles to score both Johnsons.
Alex Wood (the pitcher) sacrifices Simmons to second.
Young singles to score Simmons.
Latos’ ERA is 94.50. Now wipe that grin off your schadenfreude-smeared faces, you hyenas.
