Gold Rush

The Rio Olympics has finally kicked off. Glad it has begun given all the negative news around Rio and these games. When the events eventually start, things typically seem to work out fine.  Even if the issues persist, at least the focus and media's attention shifts to the games and the event is always declared a success. Unfortunately, some horrific injuries have headlined day 1. Hope things get better as the games continue.  Olympics and such big events in developing countries have mostly been financial disasters and nothing more than another avenue for corrupt politicians to get rich. Countries still keep going for it due to the egoistic visions of their powerful leaders. Sadly, the poor people in those countries are the collateral damage as always. I sure hope Brazil gets out of this misadventure in one piece and the games are a success when its all said and done. Let the gold rush begin!

Big day in baseball today. Ichiro Suzuki got his 3000th hit. A well-deserved milestone for an amazing hitter, arguably the best of this generation. His Seattle years were magical and even now at age 42, he is hitting 0.318 as a part-time player after a couple of sub-par season. I am a big fan of Ichiro and it was really nice to hear that the Mariners fans hung around after their home game to see him get the 300th hit on the jumbo-tron. He deserves that love given his work ethic and humility, which is uncommon state-side. In other baseball news, Alex Rodriguez, AKA a-fraud and pay-rod, woke up today and decided to retire just like that in the middle of the season. Quite unusual, but not his fault since he was requested by the Yanks to get the hell out! I am surprised he walks away with 696 home runs though. He may come back for 4 more later. A weird career that saw the highest of highs and lowest of lows.

A-Rod is one of the most hated athletes of this era who never came off outwardly as a mean, cocky, prima donna. But his fake humility and apparent decency wasn't enough to overcome the myriad lies and PED controversies and didn't go far in buying him fans' love or respect. The 450 million dollars he made playing baseball will go very far though. The man who signed the first 250 million dollar contract in American sports tore up the last 3 years of that 10-year contract only to sign another 10-year contract for 275 million dollars. The only silver lining here for the non-Yankee-fan like myself is that he stole and wasted mostly Yankees' mula and they are still on the hook for the year and change left on that contract. Good riddance is America's collective reaction to the news of his retirement and Yankee fan probably feels no different.

Mark Teixeira has also announced his retirement at the end of the season. While he is nowhere near A-Rod in terms of controversy or as a failure, I can't say Yankees got much out of him either for the 22.5 mill a year that they have been paying him. Yankees have been spending almost 50 mill a year between these two dudes and that might explain their mediocrity over the last few years. I guess the World Series in 2009 makes it all worth it and the Yankees should have a lot of money to spend and start a brand new chapter starting this winter. They also did well being the seller for a change at this trade deadline and have accumulated some nice, young assets. They traded Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs, Andrew Miller to the Indians, and Carlos Beltrán to the Rangers and got 10 minor leaguers in return. Hope we are not staring at another Yankee dynasty starting 2018!

Speaking of the trade deadline, those have been hot and heavy since the introduction of the 2nd wildcard spot a couple of years back. More teams are in the gold rush and the demand for the rentals are high these days. Sellers can get a lot and Yankees did real well. The A's, who have no middle ground and are usually selling aggressively or buying aggressively at the deadline, sent Josh Reddick and Rich Hill to the Dodgers, unintentionally strengthening the division rival of the A's cross-town rival Giants. I thought the A's surprisingly didn't get a whole lot in return, but only time will tell with all these prospects anyways. The Giants also won at the deadline since they got a good starter in Matt Moore and reliever Will Smith from the Brewers. These guys are not rentals and the Giants have them for the future as well. Texas Rangers did very well at the deadline adding Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Beltran. With all these moves, we are set for the stretch run. The Giants and the Nats have already played 7 games over the last 10 days and the Nats are just 4-3 in those match-ups despite the Giants being in the middle of a horrible 6-14 run since the all-star break. May be this is indeed the Cubs year!

Tonight was supposed to feature the Hall-of-Game in the NFL, but it got canceled due to bad field conditions. Good call by the NFL and they should try and cancel most of the pre-season games to save the players health as well as the fan's wallet. Brett Favre and gang were enshrined yesterday night, but two thumbs down to the HOF for delaying Ken Stabler's induction and doing it the year after he passed away. He deserved to be in much earlier. Favre was the headliner, though Tony Dungy and Eddie Debartolo Jr were interesting inductions as well for me personally along with Ken Stabler of course. Now onto the games. NFL will consume our lives here shortly, but the NBA enjoys a good run in the summer these days with it's free agency. Russell Westbrook wrapped it up in style for the NBA this year with an extension in OKC. Glad he is staying back for a couple more years with the team that drafted him. He should put up some monster numbers next year and this signing gives Sam Presti a safety net and an opportunity to go after another star next year. The Thunder are still a good team and this signing can make them better long-term.

600 is the new 300

When it comes to our age, people these days say things like "30 is the new 20" and "60 is the new 10" etc. Some of this is just idle chatter, but some of it does make sense due to changes in our lifestyles, priorities, development in health sciences, and workout habits. This is a good thing. The story is the same with home runs. 600 home runs these days doesn't get you the respect and attention it got 30 years back. This is not a good thing and Jim Thome has the rampant use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in baseball over the last 2 decades to thank for it. Thome just hit his 600-Th home run and nobody seem to care. Thome has stayed relatively clean in the eyes of people, but who are we to judge? These guys are all considered guilty until proven innocent because of the extent of the use of PEDs and the spate of shocking revelations over the past several years. It is what it is and I don't blame the fans or the writers for the way they are forced to think on this issue. It's baseball's fault that they never instituted any drug testing for decades.

Writers may take their time debating whether or not Thome belongs in the hall and delay his induction. MLB is exclusively to blame for this predicament. They knew there was a big problem for years and still had their blinders on for a decade or two. Is this fair to Thome? Of course not, assuming he is clean. But he only has his league's management and to some extent, his player's union to blame. Haven't we all been in that situation? Where our managers and our company's executives mismanage everything and end up adversely affecting our careers, earning potential, and the company's bottom-line and future. It's the same with MLB, NFL or the NBA. Baseball's executives and the player's union mishandled the PED issue and underestimated it's importance to the average fan and now, everybody is paying the price. Thome has to deal with the fact that 600 is the new 300. Thome is past his prime and also has a low-key personality and that contributes to his relative anonymity as well. But his feat would have definitely been celebrated way more if not for the specter of PEDs hanging over every baseball feat these days.

On the field, the Diamondbacks are leading the NL West ahead of the World champions Giants and I think the young team has a great shot at holding onto that prime spot through the season. They are different from the Pittsburgh Pirates who have declined rapidly towards the depths of the NL Central standing. The Brewers are on a roll and dominating that division right now. In the AL, the Central is tight as always with the Tigers owning a small lead. The Yankees and the RedSox are all tied up, but both will be in the playoffs - one of them as the wildcard. This is normal for those 2 teams. Few years back, this is when Bob Costas would typically start complaining about how bad an idea the wild card is. That train has long left the station and we don't hear Costas anymore on that topic, but his point is still valid. Yankees and RedSox should be involved in a heated pennant chase right now, but instead, they are humoring us with a mildly amusing and marginally relevant fight for the division. What we get in return for this diluted pennant chase is a whole bunch of teams fighting for the 2 wild card spots every year and a potential Yankees-RedSox ALCS contest. That would be Christmas, New Year and election day all rolled into one for the East Coast media.