Time: 7:10 central time
Weather: Partly cloudy, 52°
Opponent SB Site: Bluebird Banter
Radio: turn up the volume after 8 pm
Tonight’s Blue Jays pitcher is Patrick Corbin, who in 2018 signed a six-year, $140 million contract with Washington, and boy. an ERA of 5.11 and WAR of 2.8. He was a little better in Texas last year and is off to a decent start in Toronto. Corbin is primarily a sinker/slider guy who will blend into a curve and change; the slider is his best pitch. The Twins’ starter is Simeon of the Long Name, who wouldn’t be a starter for the Twins if a bunch of other starters weren’t injured.
Advertisement
Tonight we’re taking a little break from Baseball Stories and instead detouring into a Cautionary Story for Fans. About how any property situation can always get worse.
I was an Oregonian for most of my first 30 years and a Portland Trailblazer fan for about 25 years. I largely abandoned that fandom in 2015, because by then my sports soul had moved to the Twins. Also, because after 14 years without winning a playoff series, the Blazers had finally won a first round in fabulous and exciting fashion:
I just knew in my heart that this was the happiest thing watching the NBA could make me. Nothing would surpass it. The Blazers were never going to win a championship in my lifetime (they did when I was four, but I didn’t realize it). Accept that, take the joy, move on.
Advertisement
So how has the team fared since then? I was curious.
In fact, they advanced to the Western Conference Finals in 2019, where they were swept. They’ve sucked the last four years, although they snuck into the playoffs this year (with a 42-40 record, since the NBA has too many playoff teams). And he was defeated comfortably in five games. Still, better than many people had predicted.
The team’s former owner, Paul Allen, died in 2018. Allen, a Microsoft co-founder, wasn’t exactly a beloved figure in Portland, but he wasn’t vilified either. He was a basically harmless rich weirdo; He would pay the Rolling Stones to party on his yacht so he could play guitar with them. (It must have paid pretty well.) After Allen’s death, his family ran the team for a few years.
The family fired the team’s reasonably successful head coach in 2021 and hired Chauncey Billups in his place. Even though Billups settled an alleged sexual assault case in 2000. Billups’ four years leading the team led to a 117-211 record; He coached one game this season before being suspended by the NBA following a federal indictment on gambling charges. I’ll let Wiki handle this from here:
Advertisement
“The indictments alleged that the defendants were part of a sophisticated criminal conspiracy involving several members and associates of the Bonanno, Genovese, Gambino and Lucchese crime families in New York. Prosecutors alleged that the group organized rigged high-stakes poker games in cities such as Las Vegas, Miami, Manhattan and the Hamptons, where victims were enticed to play alongside former professional athletes such as Billups and (former player Damon) Jones. Participants allegedly used concealed weapons. Officials stated that When the victims refused to pay their debts, members of the crime families resorted to threats and intimidation. The scheme is believed to have defrauded the victims of approximately $7 million, according to federal authorities.
Not just your average point reduction scheme, that one!
Billups’ replacement has been assistant coach and former NBA player Tiago Splitter; he’s the one who helped Portland sneak into this year’s playoffs. But he is still considered the “interim coach.” Because? Because new owner Tom Dundon (who bought the team at auction a year ago) doesn’t want to pay Splitter more than an assistant coach’s salary.
I didn’t know who Tom Dundon was until last week when I read Drew Magary’s article “There’s a New Contender for Worst Owner in Sports.” (Magary is a Deserter and ex dead turn writer; your book The night the lights went out It’s the only book about surviving a stroke that didn’t make me want to throw it across the room.)
Advertisement
Magary tells us how Dundon made billions; Subprime auto loans. These were loans to car buyers who bought money at a deceptively low rate, burying in the fine print how rates could skyrocket within a few years. Two-thirds of clients ended up with an interest rate higher than 20%. Dundon even beat private equity to the sale of these loans, and as Magary writes, “when you’re an even bigger bastard than private equity, that’s quite a feat.”
Dundon refused to give away jerseys at the team’s first home playoff game in five years (something teams typically do) and requires team employees to check out of hotels by 12:30 to avoid additional lodging costs, even if the team isn’t scheduled to leave town until several hours later. (When the Blazers had a playoff play-in game in Denver, the team’s masseuse had nowhere to perform pregame treatment on the players.)
And when it comes to Coach Splitter, Dundon apparently made him an incredibly low offer, and has told the team that he wants any new coach to accept a salary of $1 million a year: good money for you or me, but well below the norm for what NBA coaches make (the lowest is paid $2 million, according to this site). A source said The Athletic that the way the team treats Splinter is “the cruelest thing I’ve encountered in over 30 years.”
Now I’m sure Blazer fans will accept a coach with lower salaries if it means Dundon is actually willing to spend on payroll (the NBA has a salary cap, but there are ways around it, and the team with the best payroll this season outspent the bottom team by about 50% more). Still, there are signs that this guy is a tremendously cheap guy. And it has already paid state taxpayers $365 million in stadium improvements and wants the city/county to give it $235 million more. (For a stadium that cost $554 million in today’s dollars to build in the first place.)
Advertisement
So, if you want, get mad at the Pohlads (I’m not crazy about them either). But remember: any new owner can ALWAYS be worse. (You never know, Jeff Loria may want to own baseball again…)
Also, I found out that the Blazers have a player named “Scoot.” His real name is Sterling, but everyone calls him Scoot. That’s great.
