Wednesday, August 26, 2026

The world of college sports is ending, people...

The recent court rulings rendering NFL training-camp invitees eligible to return to college and the NCAA has finished the job.

We're just watching the final downfall:

  • The Big XII has banned all professional athletes from any sport.
  • The SEC is going further:  Any school which offers professional athletes a path of return is DONE WITH THE CONFERENCE.  They lose their voting rights, half their athletic budget, and their head coach for at least half a season.
  • The Big Ten has at least banned NFL returns.
  • The ACC, the last of the "Power 4", is considering joining them.
The question now is simple:  Who's the first school which is gonna walk?

There is a 2026 Fine Blotter up for Week 1 of the preseason. And also the fine schedule for 2026-27.

Now, if I had to make a guess, since today was the day they announced the new policies, I don't think any fines from the preseason (or, at barest minimum, the first two weeks of the preseason) are going to count on this new policy.

Before we note of the fines for Week 1 of the preseason, here's the fine schedule:

A first offense of physical contact with an official will cost you not only the rest of the game, but a minimum of almost $42,000.  Double that for any subsequent offense.

Fighting will also carry the same penalties, including ejection ($42K and $84K)

They're upping Bench Involvement in an altercation significantly:  First one is a little more than $12K, the next one costs you $18K.

It looks like non-physical abuse of the officials has become a very serious problem, as they are upping the fines toward physical-abuse levels as well:  $33,523 for first offense, over $67,000 for anything further.

The player-safety list:

First, the five Points of Emphasis, all of which, once confirmed, carry a strike toward suspension after three, all carry first-offense fines of almost $18,000.  About $24,000 for a second offense, which carries a league meeting.  And a third is a one-game suspension, on top of the potential of any further suspension for the offenses themselves.

That's for Horse Collar, Hip Drop, Launching/Helmet, Blindside Block, or Defenseless Player fouls.

Striking and variants, low block, or chop block:  About $12,500 and $18,500.
Face mask or late hit without other aggravation:  About $12K and $18K
The rest (Leg Whip and Roughing the Passer):  About $18K and $24K

The straight conduct list (if I had to guess currently, this is probably the one-time full-rebate at the end of the season list):

Straight unsportsmanlike conduct costs you about $15K and $21K.
Taunting will get you the same fine as a Face Mask or Late Hit:  $12K and $18K
And a football into the stands costs you $8300 and $14300.

And here's the dress code stuff (probably also one-time full-rebate at the end of the season with no other offenses):

Any minor uniform violation (from visor tint to illegally-worn pads to foreign substances to the more standard ones of socks and the like you hear about):  $6K and $12K
Major violations (personal branding and illegal/unauthorized intellectual property):  Personal is $12K/$18K.  Intellectual property is $12K/$24K.

And one more section I see every year but I'm not sure it's ever called:  If a player ever flashes gang signals during a game, it is conduct detrimental to the league and goes to the Personal Conduct Policy directly for whatever penalties deemed appropriate.

----------------------

Now, Week 1 of the Preseason:

Striking and variants:
  • Buffalo:  Landon Jackson, $8,190
  • Cleveland:  Tytus Howard gets the full $12,537
  • Las Vegas:  Tommy Eichenburg, $6,441
Conduct:
  • Miami:  Ollie Gordon, $5,962, taunting
Facemasks:
  • Detroit:  Thomas Harper, $5,972
  • Tennessee:  Jerrick Reed, $6,361
And now what WOULD BE under the Points of Emphasis -- but with the policy announced today, I seriously doubt these will be treated as "strikes":
  • LA Chargers:  Kendall Williamson, $5,972, impermissible use of the helmet
  • LA Rams:  Darryl Peterson, $4,935, horse collar
  • Tampa Bay: David Walker, $6,254, blindside block

Jokes aside, the NFL put out a far larger notice today.

And it is endemic to the Fine Blotters I used to post here.  We'll see if I get the time and want this year.

An OFFICIAL NFL Points of Emphasis For Supplemental Discipline has been released.

The NFL has put out the following five Player Safety Fouls for Point of Emphasis this year:

  • Horse Collar
  • Hip Drop
  • Launching
  • (Illegal) Hit on a Defenseless Player
  • Blindside Block
The big news?  Any player who receives a Supplemental Discipline (and gets it to stand -- fine or suspension) for at least three of these fouls gets an automatic one-game suspension on top of any other suspension accrued.

I think I have a lengthy project ahead of me, if the NFL still has the data on its website from last year.

EDIT TO ADD:  Rats.  No, they took the 2025-26 ones down.

There is, of course, something the players get in exchange:

First, if a player commits only a single offense in certain other Supplemental Discipline categories, their fine will be returned, 100%.

If a player receives only a single offense in the Player Safety Fouls Point of Emphasis, their fine will be half-returned.

And all players, at least with respect to the Player Safety Fouls Point of Emphasis suspension, will start the 2026-27 season on a clean slate with respect to the current policy.  Not 100% sure whether that means long-time situations might get increased fines for a "first offense" of these fouls, but they will not already be counted against for THIS policy.

I will want to see if the league actually publishes the policy, as there are two other important parts:

1) Increased team fines for "excessive" Player Safety Points of Emphasis violations by a given team.  This is probably on top of the other team fines for excessive violations -- though those fines now are going to be more malleable, given possible rebates.

2) Any player receiving two violations under the Player Safety Points of Emphasis will require that the player and his coach submit to a meeting with the NFL.  No word on whether those meetings will be in-person or virtual.

An anachronism has been completely and finally put to bed...

The Pro Bowl Games -- and that meaning any on-field Pro Bowl itself -- finally died today.

And, as I've already seen in one Discord server with the report -- Nothing Of Value Was Lost.

Tuesday, August 25, 2026

The rampant sacrifice to football -- THEY ALL HAVE CTE!!! ALL OF THEM.

And the article in MSN from Amy Tennery deliberately obfuscates the situation.

878 former NFL players have died between the years of 2016 and 2021.

The article states at least one in four -- 215 of them -- had their brains tested and found CTE within them.

There's only one problem with the findings.

Not all of the brains were donated to science.

235 of them were.

That means almost 90% of the donated brains were found to have CTE -- an effective finding that every one of the brains donated had the disease.

That the basic finding should be that THEY ALL HAVE CTE.

EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM.

ALL OF THEM.

The findings also assert that the players are already beyond brain-damaged before they even hit the NFL -- that the players are fucked by youth football and high school football and college football too.

Monday, August 24, 2026

Bad Faith Actors Get Nothing

An AP source indicates the two former NBA players who are trying to get every transgender person killed by farcically entering the WNBA will not be permitted to do so.

Transition and you can be in, assholes.

But you're bad faith actors, as your continuing incidents are indicating.

I will be more than blunt here:  I'm beginning to wonder if there's a longer play here, straight out of the Heritage Foundation.

It is no secret that these bigots want every transgender person dead.  On top of that, though, I think they have very little want for the women who are actually in the sport today (which see Kanter Bitch's incident last night, for which he might well get the same NBA/WNBA ban that some of the sex toy-throwing morons have gotten).

It is also no secret that many of the men in control of things in entertainment do not see a non-sexual market for women in anything except between their legs (colored as "fertility" by the Heritage Foundation in recent revelations).

But what of an NBA Seniors' Tour?  A summer NBA Legends League?

No one has proposed it, but I'd have to think some of these bigots have thought about it.

EDIT TO ADD:  On and off, Elon Musk has been trying to get people to drum up a campaign that Brittney Griner is a man.

A number of his supporters have said that a number of unnamed WNBA players are men.

A sacrifice to football which is almost personal...

I know I am not nearly all-inclusive when articles like this are made public, but I did happen across a frightening story this afternoon which speaks of a school very familiar to me from my Western Wisconsin school days of the late 1980's.

Alma Center quarterback Adam Massman was beginning his senior year with a game at Turtle Lake last Thursday night.  He was injured and treated, and it was found out over the weekend that Massman died of his unspecified (almost certainly head) injuries.

Alma Center was a school about 50 miles or so from Plum City High School, where I attended school (and now has it's sports in a cooperative with Elmwood, a neighboring town).  The schools would occasionally compete in track and field together (in which I was the school timer and ersatz trainer).

Well, this isn't something the NFL wanted public three weeks before the season...

Jed York, as of 2025 a 15% owner of the San Francisco 49ers (and it's CEO since 2008), was arrested over the weekend in Ohio, apparently over a prostitution bust.

Spent two days in jail this weekend over a no contest plea over disorderly conduct and possession of criminal tools.  Paid about $1200 in fines, and the matter is closed to criminality.  A prostitution charge was dropped in the exchange.

Look, I get it.  You do it because you can.  Ask Robert Kraft and Donald Trump.

But you can't think that's going to look very good to the NFL, less than three weeks before the season starts.

Hedge the 49ers accordingly this season.

Sunday, August 23, 2026

DraftKings being deceptive again...

A DraftKings ad came across my Twitch viewing of the ongoing Race To World First in World of Warcraft tonight.

San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Riverside, etc. and so forth...

DraftKings Sports is in California, starting September 2nd.

It's the prediction-market workaround bullshit...

Bigot bitch wants some...

Enes Kanter Freedom, the bigot bitch who wants to blow up the NBA, took his anti-trans bullshit to the arena and confronted Chicago's Natasha Cloud during the game with anti-trans rhetoric.

He was ejected from the arena by police.

Saturday, August 22, 2026

Gee, is this any shock?

Think these WNBA attendees were sending a message as to the only value of WNBA players, or women at large?

For the second consecutive night (both Thursday night and last night), a WNBA game was disrupted by fans throwing sex toys onto the court.

Does anyone need the dots connected here?

They don't give a fuck, Natasha Cloud.  The only reason you even exist to them is SEX.  And when you realize that, you'll realize the ass-kicking these motherfuckers need and deserve!

Friday, August 21, 2026

Discipline Blotter: Argentina Trump Cup Aftermath

Someone please explain to me why Argentina was not disqualified from the World Cup for the altercations at and after the Final.

If I go any further as to rationale, it would violate the blog's boycott.  But let's just say that Argentina walked around like it owned the place, and threw a violent hissy-fit when they found out they didn't...

Today, the suspensions came down:

Leandro Paredes has been banned from all international play for one year (10 matches) and fined $90,000 for assaulting two Spain players after the match.

Nahuel Molina was banned seven matches and fined $90,000.

Thiago Alamda was banned one game, fined $30,000.

One of the coaches has also been banned three games and fined $30,000.

The Argentinian federation has been fined $210,000 for an array of offenses in the semifinal and final.

#1, why is Argentina not disqualified, stripped of all ranking, and it's $32,000,000 runner-up prize money?

#2, why are they not disqualified from the 2030 Centennary Cup?

Thursday, August 20, 2026

Discipline Blotter: I wonder if this means the end of joint practices...

The viral brawl in which the Steiner kid who's already suspended for PED's German suplexed a player has gotten both the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints $500,000 league fines for lack of sportsmanship.

Once again, I must remind you:  One of the things that the believers state with respect in their belief the NFL is not rigged is the fact that the league's largest cash-cow, the Cowboys, hasn't won a title or sniffed one in decades.

Again, a champion (not unlike some of the rigged music competition shows) represents the brand -- and it's as true for the NFL as it is for American Idol.

EDIT TO ADD 5:05 PM PDT:  Sounds like the Giants and Dolphins are probably next.  Big brawl today at a joint practice.

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

And this is why I keep getting banned, repeatedly, from X...

Luna Grace, on the White Supremacist Bigot Platform, stating that we on the Left want to put gender-neutral bathrooms in every home and airliner in America.

....

....

....

Posted without further comment, except to say people like this idiot need their asses kicked.

Monday, August 17, 2026

Sports to the Right, the latest WNBA/transgender part...

Game in Atlanta Sunday night.

Three fans at the game wore shirts about the WNBA transgender row.  They were all asked to cover their shirts by arena security.

The WNBA, today, said that should not have taken place.

And, for the record, the incident did not discriminate on side.  Two were bigots, the other was a supporter.

Youth Sports. ESPN. Bad Idea: Part Two.

I will be STUNNED if we get through the 10-day tournament in Williamsport, PA without a violent incident.

The qualifiers from Davenport, IA are the center of a Houston Astros-like sign-stealing exhibition, according to MSN reports.

It's the "runner on second" who taps his leg to let the batter know what pitch is coming, says the team from Wisconsin.

Someone is going to take a fastball to the dome in this tournament.

Friday, August 14, 2026

NFL Suspension Blotter and some political MLB news...

First, three more suspensions:
  • Atlanta Falcons:  James Pearce suspended the for 8 games, personal conduct.  For being accused of taking his car and ramming it into his girlfriend during a domestic dispute.  Let that process.  Attempted murder gets you only 8 games in the NFL.
  • Buffalo Bills:  Phidarian Mathis:  Banned for the first 3 games.  Sounds like a repeat offense of failing to cooperate with the Substances of Abuse policy.
  • Washington Commanders:  Dorance Armstrong, 1 game for personal conduct, assault and resisting arrest charges under probation in 2025.
And then, it sounds like the vibes against San Francisco's Pride celebrations worked for the Giants:

The Giants and the Bay Area host the All-Star Game for MAGA League Baseball in 2028.

Monday, August 10, 2026

And yet another story of why youth sports on ESPN is a BAD IDEA...

Every year, we seem to get at least one story a year as to someone breaching the rules to try to get their local sports on the Little League World Series (and softball as well) on ESPN.

Developing story out of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The Tulsa National softball team was disqualified at the championship game (one before they would go on ESPN for the Softball World Series, completed Sunday) for an ineligible player.

And now the story gets even messier:  The same has happened to the baseball team from that very same organization.  Disqualified at the championship game, as they were waiting to see who they would play.

No less than three other organizations in the tournament protested, giving at least five charges that the baseball team was also illegal.

Stay tuned.  I could foresee this getting all the way to arrests.

UPDATE:  They sued and won.  They'll play for the ESPN berth Tuesday.

AND ANOTHER TUESDAY AFTERNOON:  A higher judge reversed the decision.  Tulsa National is OUT.

Sports To The Right, Continuing WNBA Part: It's 3:25 Eastern on Monday...

Chicago plays tonight.

There is still no word on any suspension for DiJonai Carrington for either the two-armed shot to the face of Sophie Cunningham or the hateful social media screed after.

The shit is about to hit the fan if we don't hear it.

Especially in Florida, a state with no WNBA team.

The governor of the supposed "Free State of Florida" wants to make that kind of hit an off-court crime.

I would have no problem, except the fact that it's clear that it's because a MAGA cunt bitch got hit for be a bigot MAGA cunt bitch.

If this applied to all sports and levels, I wouldn't have a problem with it.  Will we see the "Cicarelli Rule" become law in Florida, possibly in other states too?

Saturday, August 8, 2026

Sports to the Right, Part Eight: Tick, tick, tickticktickticktick....

Another Fever game, another few ticks off the time bomb:

This one is on the court.

In a moment that does want me to say "Hit her again!  Hit her again!!  Harder!!!  Harder!!!!", Sophie Cunningham got a two-handed/armed shot to the face by Chicago's DeJonai Carrington.

Quite correctly, she was thrown out of the game under the NBA/WNBA's "Excessive and Unnecessary" Flagrant Foul Tier II criteria.

But, on top of that, ESPN has reported that Carrington then took to her Twitter to yell "White Privilege!" at Cunningham and her Indiana Fever.

The suspension is expected Sunday or Monday.

Sports To The Right, Part Seven: And I don't mean this first line to be as funny as some people think it is...

"Of course you realize, this means war..."

Several parts ago, when I put a screed against Sophie Cuntingham, I entitled it that the WNBA will die within five years.

An action yesterday by two former NBA player bigots may have actually accelerated that to the end of this season.

Enes Freedom and Royce White have given the WNBA an ultimatum:  "Embrace Hate or Lose The League".

On the same day the WNBPA (the players association) rejected the hateful words of Cunningham and the usage of their two White superstars as right-wing political pawns, especially as it relates to transgender players, Freedom and White went Juwanna Mann and declared for the WNBA Draft.

Someone needs to kick their asses.  I don't give a damn if they are or were professional athletes.

Freedom is a known homophobe and transphobe.

I have said before of the after-effects of the anti-transgender sports movement.  Not only will it represent the murder of every transgender person in this nation, should it succeed, but it will also represent the end of all female sporting achievement.

If Freedom and White want to transition, they're more than welcome in the WNBA.  But even a cursory examination of this process indicates they are not and not going to.

And here's something a lot of people don't want to tell you:  The WNBA is evidence of one very simple fact.  The only instances of actual basketball (rather than the Curry and Fightball the NBA has become in the last ten years) people want to see are far below the professional level.

Sans prurient and sexual interest like the Lingerie/Legends Football League, there is not sufficient interest in women's sports at basically any level without force (economic or legal) to prop it up.

If these two pieces of shit succeed, it will end the WNBA one way or the other.  

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Early NFL Suspension Blotter: And there's a 163 1/3% chance he's not making the Saints roster...

Brock Rechsteiner has been suspended the first six games of the season, but they say no one knows why.

Brock is the son of Scott Steiner.

I think anyone who's seen Scott Steiner the last 20 years or so can figure it out.

ROIDS!!!

EDIT TO ADD:  Confirmed.  PED policy.

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

Sports To The Right, Part Six: If you believe that, Mr. Denninger, why does Fauci still live?

(Neither of these are 100% due to sports, but both have many facets within sports in them.)

I had been meaning to write this post for several days after Karl Denninger posted this after Dr. Fauci 5th Amendment'ed his way through a Congressional hearing.

Anyone who paid attention knows Anthony Fauci tried to save this nation from exactly what will now kill it.  The sceptre of individual freedom to do whatever one wishes, even in the face of a threat to the public health.

In fact, our supposed Cabinet member in charge of health has openly now said that individual freedom trumps the public health.  Robert Kennedy Jr. did that on CNN last week.

Well, boy:  FUCK FREEDOM.  OK?

That same freedom is what got your dad and his brother killed.  One as President, and the other one would've been five years later!

That same freedom is what got 15-20 million people killed due to COVID -- a number far more than you or yours will ever choose to admit, because of the fact that you believe the vaccines did it.

And since you won't admit to that number, let me show my work.

CDC studies in 2023 showed that basically everybody had gotten the disease by then.  Even at a 1.5% death rate THEN, that would be over 5 million, or a number about three times the amount the American public was given.

There are two reasons I give numbers far greater than that.  The first is the Bureau of Labor Statistics underreporting the American population which is not in institutions or prisons or the like.

The second goes from the facts of US life expectancy at the time:

2019:  The life expectancy in total was 78.9 years, and going up.  Women were well over 80.

2020:  The general life expectancy went from that 78.9 to 77 in one year...

2021:  And from that 77 to 76.4, a nearly 3% drop in total, by the end of 2021.  This would represent a death rate of over 10 million THEN -- unless everybody had COVID by the end of 2021, not 2023, you can add several million to that number for 2023, and several more million to now.

And would you not know it?  In the five years since, the life expectancy number has recovered.  You'd think, with all the right-wing bleating about vaccines, that number should've stayed at the 2021 number, if not further shrank.

You're lying, Kennedy.  And so are the Republicans in the Senate who grilled Fauci and believe he orchestrated a mass-death scenario for America and the world through COVID.

Some questions:

If the US government had any real interest in seeing millions dead as you charge, why would I not be among that number for both economic and public-safety reasons?

If you believe what you believe about Fauci's role, why does he still live?  Why was he not executed by the US military at that point?

And about 80 million of the rest of us, who you've set a clock seeing us all dead because of what you believe the vaccines will do to us?  (Never mind that it's Long COVID, and in a case that the entire concept of organized sport in this country basically now becomes a crap shoot that you can die due to heart complications no matter how fit you are, in far larger numbers than what was before COVID.)

All for your freedom.

FUCK FREEDOM.

You want to see what "freedom" gets you?

You remember July and August?  When the country was on an ever-increasing path of violence -- and not just the BLM protests, but wilding riots of teenagers in Manhattan?

When MLB games were being boycotted because of the riots?  That the players took the field, laid their jerseys down, and left for a couple days?

I can't give you the question I want to (I've already had one visit from the Secret Service during the subhuman cretin's second term...), but if we put COVID out there to stop Trump...  Figure it out, liars.

We lose this country without Fauci's work.

But I think that's what you, Karl Denninger, and those who support you wanted.  As well as the MAGA Movement.

You saw the opportunity to slay 50 million Americans you wanted dead as defective or as undesirable, and you're too pussy to fire a shot for your supposed Second Amendment rights.

And COVID has won.  The only reason we haven't already lost 50 million is because of the work we were able to do in that first year.

Some of us remember how little people really cared.  The 2020 MLB nor NFL seasons should've been completed -- but, at that point, we probably do lose the nation.

Sports To The Right, Part Five: If you want exclusion and proper conduct, you're going to have to shoot your way there.

Another response to Karl Denninger.  His latest such screed on the subject of companies raising prices to exclude the "hominids like apes" (translated:  Blacks) is here, in part.  (To get the whole thing, you'd have to subscribe to the White Supremacist Libertarian.)

Let me save Mr. Denninger some time.  You're going to have to shoot them, then shoot us, then shoot the government of places like California, etc.

And if you'd like me to list the reasons (and this almost certainly is NOT an all-inclusive list):

1) There is zero benefit for them to act any degree of reasonably otherwise.

Give them money to shut them up, they want more.

Call the police, best case is they get three hots and a cot, significant improvement on their present circumstance.

I've been on the streets 9 1/2 years in San Francisco -- and, admittedly, this was before it got REALLY BAD in the last 10-15 years.  I could tell you stories from what I call the "Drugstore Gauntlet" to the guy who literally walked around town in a hospital gown on which he wrote "HITLER" on the back and wrote screeds of his wife Pia and a whole lot of other bullshit.

This country is going to have to learn a hard truth:  There are any number of people in this country with absolutely nothing left to lose -- probably many of them in the demographic Denninger speaks of.

It's one of the reasons that, once the court determined that the father was responsible to the tune of 15 years for providing the weapon in that one school shooting, he needed to be taken out back and shot.

If you want to shun them, you will have to remove them -- permanently, one way or the other.

2) Another reason you have to deal with them is a concept you don't want to admit to, Mr. Denninger, but that you believe there are too many of the defective, unworthy, (you'd believe unholy if you believed in a God, which you do not), etc.

That will offshoot into another post I have today to something you said about Dr. Fauci.

But the fact is that you are not getting the country you want without removing those you don't from this Earth.  Especially if you claim the "personal agency" central to most Libertarians -- one of the largest reasons that freedom and liberty are factually Satanic.

3) Remember:  Many of these people believe they will be immortalized in death, Tupac-style.  And many of these people actually learn violence on the inside.

Take this Riker's Island Style:  There is no rehabilitation in jail.  And, in fact, on the inside, you learn that violence IS the only law.

And then, if and when you get out, you learn why that's the case -- because that's the case on the outside as well.

I could go on, Mr. Denninger, if you like.  But the fact IS that many of these businesses ARE imposing the tax to keep the riff-raff out -- and, yet, at best, they lurk right outside the property line.

And many of them, as I said, have nothing to lose whatsoever.

Short of shooting them, what are you going to do?  Hell, about 6-8 months ago, I bodychecked one of those motherfuckers to the ground at a local drugstore.  Yeah, he vented the threats -- but was not around when I (armed with a full bottle of creme sherry to smash over his head if he tried!) came out of the store.

And a lot of people say to shut down welfare.  You do that, you might as well shoot them pre-emptively.  Because, to many extents, you've been paying for peace now since the rise of the Bonus Army and the creation of Social Security.

There's a reason that the entitlement program is called Social Security...

Sunday, August 2, 2026

Sports To The Right, Part Four: Enemies of Baseball

(No, this was not originally scheduled.)

I hope you all have something to do next year, around the first of April and onward.

Because, after last night, there is now effectively zero chance (outside of an owner- or Trump-enforced season) that there will be any professional baseball of the regular stripe.

The fact that the Dodgers are getting two-time defending American League Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal is bad enough.  What makes it even worse (and makes me wonder if the upcoming lockout is going to be just one season) is that they gave effectively nothing in return.

And that MLB is going to stand for this is indicative of some very ugly political realities...

MLB is MAGA.  There's a very real chance they've gotten through to the Dodger ownership and they're MAGA too -- and that now the brass of Major League Baseball is rigging a dynasty to kill the game as you knew it.

The Dodgers are now enemies of baseball.

So are Rob Manfred and the MLB leadership.

MAGA League Baseball wants to bleach itself, wherever possible.  MAGA League Baseball wants rid of LGBTQ support.  MAGA League Baseball wants there to be one elite team or a small group of elite teams -- which will create the same illusion of competition the NBA fails to purport.

And the Dodgers are now in full economic and political lockstep.

I do genuinely wonder how many people, last night and today, have finally given up on the National Pastime of Delusion.