Connor McDavid speaks up; and while you live in Doug Ford's Ontario, at least you are not a Baltimore Orioles fan
Connor McDavid spoke truth to power, which is nicer than being looped into the Baltimore Orioles, and the Doug Ford party had another 'it's exactly what it looks like' moment.
Over the weekend …
Connor McDavid reminded us what the NHL is all about
When Connor McDavid was hockey’s Next One a few years ago, more than one word-worker walked away from a media scrum murmuring that the next interesting thing he said would be the first.
Thus, the Edmonton Oilers captain and NHL scoring leader criticizing the league for re-scheduling a game to the same day as Colby Cave’s celebration of life qualifies as suprising. Just as one simply does not walk into Mordor, you do not expect the top earner and a player who thrives within the system that way McDavid has to be the one who reminds fans that the instrinsic value of life and human emotions count for more than having a Battle of Alberta game in the 10 ET/7 PT broadcast window.
Of course, you know why the Edmonton-Calgary game was moved up by four weeks. The schedule is a moving target since the National Hockey League has some bad intent with trying to get the Vancouver Canucks to fulfil their obligation to its media rights partner after a teamwide COVID19 P-1 variant nightmare. It is not as though anyone should be surprised this is happening. The Canucks are slated to play 19 games in 32 days, and who knows how up to game speed they will be after several players were fairly sick. They were already a flailer, ranking 25th in the league in goals-for percentage and 22nd in expected-goals percentage, so it is not like a potential Stanley Cup run would be lost if they shut it down.
There has been good and bad with the NHL’s Pandemic Season II: Jack Campbell-aloo. (Some goods: more games among Canadian teams good, the Toronto Maple Leafs being guaranteed not to face Boston before the third round of the playoffs.) But this was an unwelcome reminder that sports ignored the lesson about having a little more humanity that the pandemic should have created. You can understand why a lot of the public is burned out, and it is good that an inner-circle superstar such as McDavid called it out.
A-Rod is buying an NBA vertical that already contains a strong WNBA team. How do we shame him for that?
Finding the negative in any new endeavour Álex Rodríguez attempts is a stretch goal for any crusty contrarian. You defended him in the 1990s and ’00s when everyone found fault with him since his brilliant baseballing didn’t turn the Seattle Mariners or Texas Rangers into World Series champions.1 In the 2010s, it sure seemed like MLB and even the New York Yankees wanted him to go away, rather than have to deal with the public relations fallout of an admitted steroid user becoming the all-time home run leader. At the end of 2010, he was still just 35 years old and already within 150 home runs of Barry Bonds’ record. And then age, injuries, Biogenesis, feuds with his employer over injury treatment, and a season-long suspension put Bonds’ record out of reach for him.
Now everyone seems to like him. But something needs to be pointed out about Rodríguez and Marc Lore likely buying the Minnesota Timberwolves, a very Mets-ish NBA franchise.2 Minnesota is already a WNBA stronghold. The Lynx are four-time league champions and have the W’s longest playoff-appearance streak. Nothing is broken in that part of Minnesota’s basketball vertical.
The WNBA deserves more investment, and that involves having more teams. There is far more female hoops talent out there than there are jobs in the 12-team league. Narrowing the gender gap is essential to the long-term survival of physical sports, just saying.
Of course, a team has to be for sale in order for a sports mogul to buy it. I am far too lazy to check whether any of the 20 NBA organizations that do not have a WNBA franchise in their market are available for sale. But yeah, there is ojne way to cast aspersions on Rodríguez making a big purchase.
‘And then it got worse’: modern Baltimore Orioles history
The actual working definition of ‘sour grapes’ is theorizing that something you wanted would not have been that great. One solace I used to take in my more careerist days was that at least I didn’t end up in a time and place where, with a little hustle and lot more self-confidence, I ended up becoming a beat writer for one of those really bleh Major League Baseball teams.
All sports have perennially losing teams. But baseball plays twice as many games as basketball and hockey, and nine times as many as pro football. The sheer volume of mediocrity and lack of potential for a dead-cat bounce into a flukey playoff berth would be soul-crushing.
That swam into focus Sunday while listening to a few innings of a Baltimore Orioles game while out for a walk. The Toronto(ish) Blue Jays game was rained out, so the Orioles-Boston Red Sox game was chosen randomly. And over about 2½ innings, there was some serious pathos.
The Orioles already trailed by four runs in the third inning. But they had loaded the bases with one out. How did they proceed to not score? First Anthony Santander was called out on strikes on a pitch described a “several inches inside.” Then Freddy Galvis tried to score after a pitch bounced a few feet away from the catcher, and was thrown out to end the inning.
Naturally, Ryan Mountcastle, the batter left standing at the plate, opened Baltimore’s next inning by belting a double that would have scored at least two runs, if there had been anyone still on base.
And it just went on like that. In the fifth inning, Baltimore used its first reliever, rookie Mac Sceroler. The Baltimore radio guys definitely seemed excited about the 26-year-old rookie. It was his second big-league game. Sceroler’s uncle, Ben McDonald, used to pitch for the Orioles. The commentators related that Sceroler was having a big week — he struck out Aaron Judge in his debut, and his celebrated his birthday on Friday. He was getting early results with his split-change pitch — eight swings-and-misses from batters in as many pitches in the strike zone!
Then Sceroler threw his split-change to Rafael Devers, and Devers crushed a three-run home run. That was enough of a window into the existence of the Orioles, who have MLB’s second-worst record in this century. The Blue Jays are in the meaty part of that curve with the 15th-best record out of 30 teams, but at least we can use Canadian taxes and bagged milk as an excuse.
Ontario’s government continues to not politicize COVID19 vaccination
The coronavirus does not care about Doug Ford and his party getting re-elected. Ontario is seeing slight improvement in vaccine uptake — not so much that it should break an arm patting itself on the back — but there does seem to be some realization of how political expediency was baked into the province’s vaccine rollout. Like friend and reader Jonathon Jackson says, this type of action should be enough to topple a government.
Five postal code zones declared as hot spots have rates of COVID-19 cases, hospitalization and death that are actually below the provincial averages, according to data compiled by ICES, a research institute focused on health issues in Ontario.
The designation of hot spot gives people in those areas higher priority for vaccinations, despite their lower-than-average pandemic burden. More than 175,000 people live in the five postal codes zones, four of them in ridings represented by Progressive Conservative MPPs.
CBC's review of the data identified seven postal code zones that have felt a greater impact from COVID-19 as measured by the province's official criteria, yet are not classed as hot spots. All are located in ridings held by the opposition parties. (CBC, 12 April)
Shurely some coincidence, as Frank magazine used to say. The hot spots include the riding held by Merrilee Fullerton, the minister of long-term care who, among others, is on the hook for how Ontario failed its elder population during the first and second COVID19 waves. One can grant some space for an explanation of how this was picked, but it looks greasy and only further cements the conclusion that Ontario is being led by “a group of incompetent murderclowns.” I live in central Hamilton, which is a reliably NDP stronghold and a COVID19 hotspot, and it was ignored to the point that the chief medical officer of health had to call an audible with some of the area neighbourhoods.
Sunday, as a matter of fact, was the two-month anniversary of John Michael McGrath of TV Ontario asking the “am I missing something here?” question. The government had the data. They ignored it.
Is the public starting to get that not having a resentment-based government (stick tap: Craig Burley) is a good thing? Pollster Frank Graves tweeted findings that provincial vote intention between Ford’s party and the nearly invisible Ontario Liberal Party is dead-even.
Ontario’s response is speeding up. But that must not overshadow the slipshod containment before the vaccines arrived, or the gaps in coverage. Day-to-day totals are also a poor metric.
Ontario needed to have a best-in-class rollout because of its population density. Instead it is somewhere between slightly above-average and also-ran, and that’s not good enough.
Patrick Brown’s revenge tour?
There is almost a WWE-like storyline brewing with Patrick Brown and the party he was poised to lead to power three years ago. The former PCPO leader turned Brampton, Ont., mayor’s appearance on the On The Ledge podcast over the weekend was rather illuminating.
There were no good guys involved in the events that led to Brown losing the Progressive Conservative leadership in early 2018. Let’s leave it there.
Brown’s political comeback has involved becoming mayor of Brampton, Canada’s most diverse major city and a significant manufacturing centre. That could put him on the side of the effective resistance to his former party, who ended up with Doug Ford as its frontman after he won the leadership by making a bunch of promises to social conservatives about their pet issues that no political party in Canada is ever going touch with a 39½-foot pole.
Is he any more trustworthy than he was in January 2018, when people were willing to believe the worst about him? Enh, that might not even enter into it.
During his On The Ledge appearance, Brown was very pointed about calling out how more affluent, Conservative-friendly areas are received allegedly preferential treatment for vaccination. According to Brown, whose bailiwick is in the hot zone, the average age of a new COVID19 patient in Brampton is 36 years old.
It leads one to wonder about what role Brown will have as a queen- or kingmaker in the 2022 election. Ontario elections are decided in the outlying areas around Toronto. The regions of Peel and York are underserved in many ways that are in the public interest. Post-secondary education and transit projects that were planned in the Kathleen Wynne era were the first thing to go as part of the Ford Gang’s austerity for thee, but not for we approach to governance. And the hosejob is ongoing:
Brown has a unique opportunity to get payback against his one-time tribe, even if it is theatre.
That is more than enough for today. Thank you for allowing my words on to your screen, and have smooth sailing into the week.
No player’s individual brilliance can turn any team, especially those ones, into World Series champions. Moving on …
The T-Wolves’ signature moment came in the 2004 playoffs, when Sam Cassell injured himself doing his Big Balls Dance after a crucial basket in against the Lakers. With Cassell hobbled, the Lakers rallied to win the series and go on to the NBA Finals. Kevin Garnett got his NBA ’chip in Boston, and the T-Wolves have not won a playoff round since.