Sports

It is official, Joe Torre is now the manager of my beloved Dodgers. There are mixed opinions about whether this is good or bad. J.A. Adande the former L.A. Times columnist isn’t real optimistic about it.

“Torre’s time in Dodger Blue will never come close to matching his accomplishments in pinstripes.

And the city’s long relationship with the Dodgers, celebrating its 50th anniversary next year, no longer generates the same passion as its newer love, the Lakers. Sometimes it seems the Dodgers season is just something that happens in between Kobe Bryant trade updates.

The Dodgers aren’t hurting for attention. Their attendance of 3.8 million this year trailed only the Yankees. They just don’t dominate the discussion any more, don’t get the city’s heart racing or keep Dodger flags fluttering from cars on the Santa Monica Freeway.

It’s not just about the flash, the star power and the almost daily dosage of drama the Lakers provide. Nothing short of a championship will satisfy this city’s sports fans. And while the Lakers and the USC football team revived their glory days earlier this decade, we’re almost to the point where a whole generation has grown up, left for college and come back while the Dodgers maintained the exact same status: without a playoff series victory since 1988.

And no manager, Joe Torre included, is good enough to transform the Dodgers into a championship team.”

I think that the issue is not just about championships, it is a problem with baseball in general. Baseball has done a piss poor job of marketing itself to the younger generation. When I was a kid there wasn’t a question about being a baseball fan. It was a given.

Now things have changed and while people still call it The National Pastime it is probably safe to say that Football and Basketball have eclipsed it. It is kind of sad as baseball has many attributes that the other games do not. To begin with it is the one sport that doesn’t require you be a giant to play.

And from the perspective of being a fan there is something far more interesting and intriguing about baseball records than the other sports. There is a reason why the home run chase still catches our eye or why baseball fans debate when and if another player will hit .400 or higher again.

But back to The Dodgers. Ever since The O’Malley’s sold the team I have been disappointed with the management. The Mike Piazza trade was terrible and though it was under different management, let’s not forget the shoddy treatment of Ross Porter.

I am a supporter of bringing Joe Torre on board. It is a good move. Little was done. He got as much out of the team as he was going to. But before I end this I need to share one more comment from Adande.

“The actions of McCourt just reaffirm a little secret about Los Angeles: all of the behavior that gives this city a bad name comes from people who move here, not the folks who are from here. As soon as the plane lands the new residents throw on the sunglasses, find a hairstylist and start trying to fit in. McCourt, a Bostonian, just bought the flashiest car on the lot and is ready to show off. He might even accessorize with A-Rod.”

I have been hearing all sorts of rumors about this. I’d sure like to see it happen.

Joe Torre might not be out of work for very long.

The Los Angeles Dodgers want to buy out current manager Grady Little and hire Torre, the New York Post reported Monday.

Torre, who turned down a one-year, incentive-laden contract offer from the New York Yankees, is interested if the Dodgers job does open, the newspaper reported.

And if they wanted to sign A-Rod I wouldn’t complain about that either.

There are only tears. Choke, choke, choke.

Tiger has all the luck.

If you are lucky, you have an employer who offers some percentage of matching contribution for your individual retirement account. If you are really lucky, you have a guaranteed pension plan.

If you are Tiger Woods, or any PGA Tour pro, you redefine what others consider lucky.

Woods, the world’s greatest golfer has the world’s greatest employer funded retirement package. How great?

If Woods keeps winning at his current rate, enjoys a nine percent annual return and captures just seven FedEx Cups in his career, he could reach $1 billion in retirement payouts courtesy of the PGA Tour Inc.

Yes, a billion. As in a thousand million. As in $1,000,000,000.

As in, if the PGA right this moment started handing Tiger a dollar bill every second of every minute of every day, it wouldn’t reach a billion until 2039.

Even without this retirement plan, Woods is well on his way to becoming the first American billionaire athlete. He might accumulate several billion. In 2006 Forbes reported he cleared $100 million in on- and off-course revenue.

But even if he found a way to spend every last penny of that fortune and his own personal retirement savings, he might have $1 billion coming to him after he turned 60 thanks solely to the contributions of the PGA. Golfers are independent contractors and not employees of the PGA. But the governing body, in lieu of a traditional pension, offers contributions based on a number of performance variables to a retirement fund that each player controls.

Since turning pro at 21, Woods has been collecting the contributions and watching them grow. Back in 2001, Golf Week estimated he might one day retire with $300 million. But with the new FedEx Cup funded deferred compensation plan, what was an astounding figure might now be the richest retirement payout ever.

All the 31-year-old has to do is keep winning, most notably the annual FedEx Cup, which in a combination of season-long success and a four-event “playoff” pays the winner a $10 million contribution to his tax-free retirement account.

Woods can’t touch the money until he’s 45 and would be a fool to do it before the plan forces him to at 60. If it generated a nine percent annual return (the assumption for all calculations in this article) for 29 years, the magic of compounding interest will turn the original $10 million into a cool $123.1 million.

With investing, the caveat is always that past performance does not guarantee future results. But when it comes to Tiger Woods and golf, there is less fear his dominance will subside. Woods will win. For the foreseeable future, he could win the FedEx Cup any year he commits to doing it.

Which means he could make the $1 billion retirement account projection look Newt Gingrich conservative.

For the full story please click here.

In theory NBA fans should be pleased to see the hated Celtics gain an opportunity to become a player again. But I just can’t get behind that. All I know is that two of the hated Celtics colluded to make this trade happen. Feh. You can’t tell me that McHale acted in the best interests of his team.

Bill Simmons says as much here:

My NBA guide claims that McHale retired from the Celtics in 1993, but apparently that’s a misprint. How else could you explain his decision to trade Kevin Garnett to Boston for the Al Jefferson pu pu platter deluxe? Just five weeks ago, McHale and Minnesota couldn’t close a potential deal in which they received Jefferson and Boston’s No. 5 pick. Now? They’re settling for Jefferson (a potential franchise player), Ryan Gomes (an intangibles guy who’s useless on a bad team), Bassy Telfair (a year away from signing in Italy), Gerald Green (a homeless man’s J.R. Smith), Theo Ratliff’s expiring deal, a 2009 lottery-protected No. 1 pick (congrats on picking in the mid-20s) and the return of Minny’s future No. 1 that was stupidly included in the Ricky Davis/Mark Blount-Wally Szczerbiak trade.