The Latest is Still the Oldest - Mammon Still Reigns in Professional Sports

When I was a young lad I'd almost always enjoy the 11:15 PST major league baseball game shown on Channel 4 every single Saturday during the baseball season. It did seem that the network showed a variety of major league teams, even though some say it seemed as though the Dodgers and Reds appeared more than their fair share. I never thought so. There were enough of other teams to watch, so the audience could enjoy those team's players and their style of play even if not the local favorite. If a team was decent it was showcased -- the Pirates, the Orioles, and yes throughout the 70s the very good Royals were on Saturday baseball often enough. 

I say this because I'm pounding away here on my Chiefs blog on a lazy Saturday without any baseball to watch. It hasn't been on national television Saturday middays for years now -- I don't even know how long it has been. I wouldn't be watching any of it anyway because of my sworn sports celibacy, though I'll pay attention when others remark so I may be in the conversation to some extent. But as I've shared many times in this blog effort I do deliberately work to avoid seeing any of it. There are reasons. But one of the main ones is all of the duplicity that happens within professional sports that has eviscerated competitive integrity.

When you look carefully at the history, you'll see it has to a large extent been that way for a long time.

I really believe it started in earnest, institutionally anyway, with Babe Ruth. His oversized hero status then in the 1920s and 1930s generated so much interest in the sport that the Yankees regularly winning became an important part of not just baseball but all professional sports. When teams in other sports attained some kind of grand mythological status they too needed to succeed, and some of those nudges to that end were justified to keep the entire enterprise thriving. 

In baseball that has always been the Yankees and the Dodgers. In basketball the Lakers and Celtics (who're both yet again doing exceptionally well this present NBA season). In football the Cowboys and Patriots. Any New York team works fine, even though the basketball Knicks and football Jets have been so horribly mismanaged that they don't fit. But for a while the football Giants worked fine, as well as the long-ago Los Angeles Raiders until Al Davis lost his mind and wrecked the team. 

Anything New York or Los Angeles works.

Again, the baseball history. After Babe Ruth the Yankees managed to put together powerhouses that always won -- at least enough to keep things rolling in the dough--er--rolling along nicely. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s the Kansas City A's served as a Yankees farm system -- that's the major league A's, not minor league. It wasn't an accident, it was made to be that way be virtue of the relationship the owners had with one another.

In the late 1960s when the majors had to allow other teams to compete and look like legitimate contenders so the whole thing wouldn't appear arranged to benefit those favored teams, the Yankees and Dodgers were nowhere to be seen. This couldn't hold if the majors were going to survive, so, voila, free agency was born. Instantly the Yankees and Dodgers were now able to buy the better players, and sure enough from 1973 to 1988 New York and Los Angeles teams won 11 pennants and 5 World Series titles. 

The strike of 1981 and the playoff arrangement thereafter alone was proof of the way the majors absolutely had to have the Yankees and Dodgers appear in the playoffs, it was deliberately manipulated to be that way.

When the Yankees and Dodgers slipped a bit from the tops of their divisions in the early 1990s, another strike was arranged so the bountiful benefits of free agency could further advance the cause of the New York and Los Angeles teams -- and by default all of major league baseball. The 1994 season ended without a postseason at all, but afterwards it was interminable glory days for those teams. You could add the Boston Red Sox in the mix a bit because they are the Yankees main rivals. (Ever see a Brewers-Pirates game on an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball event when a Yankees-Red Sox game is scheduled?)

Since that infamous 1994 year, a total of 31 baseball seasons, the Yankees have made the postseason 26 times -- 26 times! They've won five World Series titles and eight pennants

For the Red Sox, though not having the stature of the Yankees by far but still heavily favored to be successful with the benefits of free agency, they have made the postseason 15 times and won it all four times. Yankees success does in large part depend on something of a Red Sox success.

And the Dodgers, of course, have made the postseason over that same time period 19 times and have not missed it since 2012. (I can't help but add this "X" clip that happened to be posted in my feed just today -- even though I have no baseball things appearing there, nor even any Chiefs things! -- if they show up I remove them immediately. But there was this one, just about what it is like in a stadium packed with too many of these kinds of belligerent fans paying that kind of money for this. It appeared that just about every one of those people fighting in this video clip were wearing Ohtani jerseys. Yhee.)

It should be worth noting, from confirmation of powers-that-be who've been willing to share, that these favored teams do not have to win championships to make all of this work for them all.

They just need to get into the postseason. 

If they win it all, that's a bonus. If they don't win a title but they are still appearing in every postseason there is, (1) it keeps their legion of fans (and their $$$) interested and attentive, and (2) it keeps the ruse going when most people can bleat, "Hey look! Another team won the championship! So there is competitive integrity after all!"

Why am I sharing all of this? Here in my Chiefs blog? A few reasons. One, I just like to pound my keyboard about this, really, for the therapy. I have an insane desire to tell the truth about it all because, well, I'm just that kind of Jeremiah (the Biblical truth-teller) and Cassandra (the Greek legend truth-teller) Both were punished severely for their devotion, but, well, not many people read this blog, and a whole lot of not many people pay any attention to the duplicity to care.

Two, it does impact the Chiefs. Not going to belabor a point I've made a number of times in this blog effort, but even though it is harder for the NFL to do what the baseball major leagues had done, by the Scorecasting exploitations they can still manipulate things for favorable outcomes in some meaningful ways. This past season the Chiefs got majorly hosed by the most antagonistic officiating in so many close games that those horrors affected outcomes specifically to keep the Chiefs from dominating the sport when they have the greatest quarterback ever to set foot on the field. We simply can't have too much of Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, can we.

The NFL also does have free agency, and I hate that we must lose players we've drafted and developed. Bryan Cook, Leo Chenel, Jaylen Watson, and others, all gone. Fortunately the Chiefs GM Brett Veach knows about the limitations of free agency and the salary cap and adjusts accordingly, and does so brilliantly. Much more on that in a later post, after we see what we've got in the draft next month.

In this post I also just wanted to share a couple of links. One, to this article showing up in the Atlantic, just about a journalist's journey into the seedy world of online sports gambling. It is quite revelatory, I could emphasize a half-dozen different things shared there that make the whole online "Official Wagering Site of Such-&-Such Sports League" a fully reprehensible evil. I've written about this also a few times here.

I should add it isn't just the gambling connection that demonstrates how much Mammon is worshipped in all of this. One of the reasons I simply can't enjoy a regularly scheduled widely broadcast game any more is because of all the insane streaming and cable requirements needed to enjoy most games. I like NASCAR racing, too, yet almost every race is either on cable or streaming, for which a customer must pay a huge chunk of change for programming he doesn't care about just to have games show up on the television. In some profound way it just makes my sports celibacy commitment that much more robust -- that's a very good thing.

Finally there is this, my own elucidation of why exactly it is that teams like the Yankees and Dodgers are given the advantage they have. I've shared much of this already in this blog. I know it isn't Chiefs at all, but as I just shared the whole duplicity does impact their success in extraordinarily prohibitive ways.

The only redeeming value in any of it is that Veach and company know what they are up against and must work that much harder to overcome it. I can't neglect to share too that maybe these things are there to draw people from that wicked ugliness and into a deep abiding faith in The One Who Is The Only Deliverance from any of it.

Again, I'll likely post again when there is something of a shape of our team for next season, maybe in April or May right after the draft, or maybe as the preseason activities merit a preview post. Until then, find your vibrant fellowship with ones you love and do rich meaningful sportsy things with them that don't involve any of this, and yeah, make it part of your worship of the Lord in Spirit and in Truth.

Blessings.

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Chiefs at Raiders - Week 18 - Record: 6-11

It's about an hour or so before game time today, but I wanted to post this image I clipped from Facebook. (Take on the game coming up a bit later, of course.) 

This guy put up all the NFL team's records if close game results were reversed. It is exactly what I thought, knowing the Chiefs pretty much blew out teams they beat, but it was super close in almost every loss.

Close enough that one or two stupid calls or non-calls by the officials made the difference. 

This graphic just proves how many times this happened to the Chiefs over the course of the season. Any observant Chiefs fan could name just about every one of them, specifically.

Just this morning I glanced at the Cowboys-Giants game a family member had on the television, and in one play you could see how it was that the Chiefs were so terribly disfavored this year.

The Giants ran a play with both of their tackles lining up well off the line of scrimmage, pretty much where Jawaan Taylor lined up at a crucial point in the first Denver game when Kareem Hunt completed a terrific pass play to get the Chiefs right at the goal line. Nope, penalty on Taylor for not quiiiite being on the line of scrimmage to start -- play erased, we get bupkis.

Again, this is a procedure penalty officials really liked calling frequently against the Chiefs and Jawaan Taylor in particular, when otherwise I see other team's tackles in other games line up in the same place all the time.

Right then the Giants QB threw about a 20-yard pass at the sideline that was pretty much out-of-bounds, the receiver really wouldn't have been able to catch it. The commentator remarked, however, that there was some handsy activity by the defender but not enough to call a penalty. Again there really was no issue because even if he caught the ball he'd have been out-of-bounds, but still...

What's with the commentator remarking about how much or how little the jostling by a downfield player was anything that affected the pass play?

In other words, it is definitely on people's minds whether or not something is pass interference based on an official's interpretation. And oh did the officials do lots of interpreting against the Chiefs this year in that area.

I happened to catch an actually very fine take from a fan at the Arrowhead Pride site this morning. He made the case that the Chiefs entire offensive approach needs an overhaul, with the main issue defenses having figured out Patrick Mahomes, and that either the coaches need to do much better at changing things up or Patrick needs to get to a point where he is actually being his own offensive coordinator and making things happen more on his own out there on the field, or both.

Great point, I too have for the past couple of years been exasperated far too much watching Patrick just get too frustrated in the pocket and always have to bail too soon and just... phfthxxthpffssssss...

I thought, huh, this guy at Arrowhead Pride got it, huh, why didn't I see that...

But, well, I did. He said it much better, I admit, but I too feel we just need to do something about Andy Reid. The guy at Arrowhead Pride mentioned he should "reapply" for the job, and I do agree something dramatic like that needs to happen. Either he fixes things on his own, or the team has a firm word with him about it, or we just move on with someone else. Just tinkering with a few coaching changes or doing a bit of finger-wagging won't do it.

The problem is I'm still seeing very little from enough people about the real problem, the NFLers simply working against us. That graphic says a ton, I think. The Arrowhead Pride guy and too many others feel that we were "found out" this year and last year "we got lucky." No, the veritable truth is this is indeed a very good team that deserved everything they got last year (another trip to the Super Bowl) and should have at least made the playoffs this year but got extraordinarily hosed by the Scorecasting-proven debilitating officiating.

Do we need improvement in certain areas? Of course! Could we do much more from our game-planning and play-making and just plain coaching excellence? No question! But again, for the umpteenth time, every team racks their minds about these things, and it is always good to have the conversation -- spring season quarterbacking is always a robustly invigorating endeavor.

How about having the conversation about what is really going on in the NFL?

In the meantime, I'm just going to add my take about this last game against the Raiders here in this post a bit later. If we lose we could get as high as an 8th pick in the 2026 draft, I'm told. If we win we may drop to 12th or so. I'm not hoping we lose just to get four picks higher, really. It just doesn't matter. The draft can be such a crapshoot, if Brett just gets the best available player at 12 or 13 we'll be good.

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Nkay. Game take. Just notes is all, really, tough to do in yet another horrific loss as pointless as any of it is anyway.

1. All kudos to Chris Oladokun for his efforts, but his two fumbles in the first half led to two Raiders scores. He also just couldn't get untracked -- constantly looking downfield, making short completions that didn't amount to enough, wandering around back there too often... much of that is on the coaching, again, but to their credit you just can't get it done in the NFL without the guns you need on the field.   

2. People need to stop the constant dissing of our special teams. Our punter Matt Araiza is terrific, and he played great today. Harrison Butker hit all four of his field goals and is still rails. Coverage was fine, though again we got flagged for something, yet again, on a return. 

3. We played Brashard Smith a lot and he ran well enough, but the offensive scheme is just not there (see fuller analysis above). When it is he'll be pretty good.

4. Our passing game was trash today, but then again we played our 4th string quarterback Shane Beuchele in the 2nd half and he did not do well. He got sacked in the end zone for a very unfortunate safety, which in the score was really the difference in the game. He just looked lost out there, even though he had that one terrific throw late to Hollywood which got us into ersatz game-winning field goal range. Again, if you don't have the guns you won't win. Anyone realize how valuable Patrick is yet? I know that is very much a rhetorical question, but it is still extraordinarily meaningful.

5. Our defense played great, people like Nohl Williams come to mind -- it'll be nice to see what he does for us in the coming years. But then, Williams had an interception dropped, and that was typical of this team this year -- a dropped pick here, and missed fumble recovery there, and each of those individual refusals to take advantage of opponents' gifts make a difference in a close game.

6. The defense bent just a little too much when the Raiders had only a minute left with no time-outs, and had to go at least half the length of the field to get a game-winning field goal. They did. Their tight end made a great play to get big yardage, enough to get them in position for their excellent kicker to bang through a, yes, 60-yarder to win it. Yet another wicked picture of this Chiefs season in one single ugly play.

7. And the only saving grace in this putridity, our first-round draft spot in April. It is... wait for it...

Ninth.

So there you go. Thuh end, 2025. If I do another post, great, if not, I may see you in April, or even as far out as August for something of a preview or September for our first game of the 2026. The main question, will Patrick be ready to go by then? We'll see! 

Otherwise, the main underlying question we can only answer as the season progresses, will we have a good enough team to overcome any more NFLer adversity, and if that adversity is still plainly there on the field will there be anyone who'll finally pay attention? We'll see about that too! In the meantime...

Go Brett and the Chiefs!

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