Time for just a couple thoughts for the summer solstice.
I do believe the Cleveland Cavaliers deserved their victory over the Golden State Warriors on Sunday, and congratulations to the long-suffering fans of Northeast Ohio.
It’s been well-documented Cleveland’s last major championship came in 1964. There’s been plenty of heartbreak since then.
Some remember well when the Cleveland Indians were victimized by the generous strike zone given to Atlanta Braves pitchers in the 1995 World Series, and then lost the 1997 series in seven games to the expansion Florida Marlins.
More might remember The Drive in 1986, when John Elway and the Denver Broncos moved 98 yards in 15 plays in the AFC championship game to tie it and then win in overtime. Or The Fumble in the 1987 AFC title game: Cleveland Brown Earnest Byner coughed up the ball on the Denver 3 after a 5-yard gain with his team trailing, 38-33, and 65 seconds to go.
Yes, as a once long-suffering Red Sox and Patriots fan, I understood their pain.
Still, if I’m a Warrior fan there are a couple things that make me go hmmm. In the Western Conference final with Golden State in a real battle with Oklahoma City, Warrior forward Draymond Green delivered a blow with considerable force and intent to OKC forward Steven Adams’s crate and barrels. He is fined, but not suspended.
With Golden State ahead of Cleveland, 2-1, in games, LeBron James and Green get into a confrontation with the Warriors up by 10 with about two minutes to go. After Green should have been whistled for a moving pick, James shoved him to the floor and then walked right over him. As James moved away, Green tapped him from behind, again on or near land’s end, with considerably less force than he used against Adams. He is suspended.
In an article on the Daily Beast website, disgraced former NBA official Tim Donaghy — he was jailed in 2008 for fixing games — points to that as evidence that things really are subtly rigged. Why, Donaghy asks, are the circumstances so different? Would Green have been suspended had the Warriors been trailing?
For the record, on Friday night he tells the author of the piece, Ben Collins, this:
“The NBA releases the (officiating) assignments at 9 a.m. on Sunday. I’m gonna guess them now and we can see if I’m right,” said Tim Donaghy. “Danny Crawford, Monty McCutchen, and Duke Callahan. You watch.”
The officials assigned on Sunday: Danny Crawford, Monty McCutchen and Mike Callahan.
Donaghy always insisted other officials were involved in gambling. The FBI investigated and said he was a lone wolf. Who knows?
Meanwhile, as the NBA has wrapped, except for this week’s draft drama (please, Celtics, not the guy who can’t get off the bench in Israel) we can turn fully to the Boys of Summer and see the Sox and Yankees are in interesting positions.
If they weren’t the Sox and Yankees they would call each other up and make a deal.
The Sox have enough of their question marks answered (three starters are pitching well, Hanley Ramirez can play first, their young players have become established stars, for example) to be in contention.
The Yankees have too many of their question marks go south: Teixeira and ARod can’t stay healthy, and too many of their aging players aren’t producing, and some of their starting pitchers aren’t cutting it.
So, the Sox are buyers, badly need bullpen help, and have loads of talented prospects on their horizon. And the Yankees, below .500 and now looking up at three stronger teams (Orioles, Blue Jays and Sox) should probably accept it’s time for them to be sellers (like the Boston Bruins management was not smart enough to figure out last winter, for example).
What do the Yankees have to offer? Bullpen depth. Andrew Miller (signed through 2018) and Aroldis Chapman (a free agent at the end of the season) should bring in plenty in return. What do they need? Younger, talented players to plug into the pipeline in hopes they can at some point supplant the Bombers’ aging stars.
Hey, maybe the two rivals really should talk…