Sports this 'n' that

America's Idiot has put his foot in his mouth again.

I refer, of course, to ESPN bloviator Stephen A. Smith, who knows as much about boxing as LaVar Ball does about reality. In each case, that ain't saying much.

After Andy Ruiz, Jr. seemingly upset the boxing applecart on Saturday by beating Anthony Joshua, spoiling plans for a Joshua-Deontay Wilder match, at least for now, Smith took to Twitter and took a few pokes at Ruiz, likening him to, say for example, Butterbean (Eric Esch).

The late Howard Cosell, whom Smith attempts to emulate as often as possible, would never have taken that tack. Ruiz subsequently called out Smith for his ignorance and lack of journalistic ethics. ESPN has him covering boxing just because 1) Cosell did, and 2) Smith=ratings, despite the fact that his sparring partner on First Take, Max Kellerman, now has a talk show about boxing on ESPN, and has more experience covering the sport than Smith ever will.

It would be too easy to give Smith another Dunce Cap, so we won't. He gets his advice from "Weird" Al Yankovic. He dares to be stupid on national television.
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It won't be long before they're circling the wagons in Flushing again.

The Mets went 2-5 on last week's road trip to Los Angeles & Arizona, they wasted another solid performance by Noah Syndergaard as overused reliever Robert Gsellman and the bullpen imploded in the 10th Tuesday in a 9-3 loss to San Francisco.

Owners Fred & Jeff Wilpon have developed a fear of spending big money to sign closer Craig Kimbrel and/or former AL Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel, despite the pleas of the fan base. There might still be some fallout from the Bernie Madoff mess from a few years ago, making the Wilpons gun shy, but second year manager Mickey Calloway is making the same mistakes with the bullpen has his predecessors before him (i.e. Terry Collins, Jerry Manuel, etc.) by overusing certain pitchers to the point of near-burnout, and we're not even halfway through the season yet.

Calloway is a pitching coach, not a manager, but the Wilpons decided to be cheap when they hired Calloway last year. I'm sorry, but I don't see him lasting the season. By September, he'll be busy selling golf equipment.
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Could the NBA finally have a champion outside of the US?

Defending champion Golden State is hampered by an injury to superstar Kevin Durant, leaving them vulnerable to losing to Toronto. It's the Raptors' deepest penetration into the playoffs, and Toronto has not had a World champion in any sport, except maybe the CFL, since the Blue Jays won it all in 1993. Like, that is cause for celebration, eh?

In case you wonder why it takes 2-3 nights between games, it's because ABC/ESPN wants to milk the drama as much as possible, and that's been the case for years ever since they began carrying the finals live, a tradition that started, if memory serves, on CBS at the end of their run before the NBA moved its tack to NBC.

Here's a better idea. The regular season ends in April. You schedule the early rounds of the playoffs the same way baseball does, and hockey, too, for that matter. That way, the finals start, and could also end, during the May sweeps, the final sweeps period for ratings in the television season.
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At least the NHL gets it right a little more often than the NBA.

The Stanley Cup finals are played with 1-2 nights between games, even though NBC is more inclined to farm out coverage to cable sister NBC Sports Network, which has 3-4 nights of games during the week during the regular season. I think part of the reason the hockey & basketball playoffs drag out until mid-June is not just ratings, but the fact that there's a genlemen's agreement, if you will, to keep the finals in both hockey & basketball from competing with each other on the same night.

In the NBA's case, they'd like to finish the finals before the draft on June 20. The NHL draft follows a couple of days later. It wouldn't be so bad if the action didn't bleed into June, but that's television for you.