12:17 PM
12/03/24
12/03/24
November 29, 2014
SportsFilter: The Saturday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
A good look here by Bill Speros in his Obnoxious Boston Fan blog at baseball in the Dominican Republic, with a bit of history and some cultural/economic aspects thrown in. It starts out a bit Boston-centered, but there is much of a broader view.
posted by Howard_T at 08:56 PM on November 29, 2014
There is value and relative thrift in mediocrity. U. of Virginia decides to keep muddling coach Mike London for another year and promptly loses to principal rival Va. Tech who this year has been eminently beatable. U. Va had both a rivalry win and bowl eligibility in its grasp and could not hold on to the shiny object.
By not extending Coach London's contract and not firing him, the University has saved itself (for now) 2-3 million dollars. He's still overcompensated and is going to get a longevity payment soon, but the AD has seemingly decided that holding the damage to a manageable money hit and going 5-7 is not such a bad thing. In today's marketplace, they're more or less getting what they paid for.
The only way to win this casino game is to hire a Todd Graham, hope he takes your program to a bowl game while he's on your payroll, and earn some money off the buyout clause when he jumps ship for another school.