Without chemistry, good coaches have losing seasons

What in the name of Pistol Pete has happened to downstate boys’ basketball? I am reminded of the quote of Casey Stengel when he managed the 1962 Mets, who lost 100 games: “Can’t anybody here play this game?” I am thinking of the ripple effect; if you ain’t got game it spreads, and the next thing you know “ain’t nobody got game,” to use playground hip-hop lexicon. Fred Sanford - speaking of talking junk - had a favorite drink when he mixed Ripple with champagne and called it “Champipple.” Perhaps that is what we are seeing - a second-decade, new-millennium Champipple version of a team sport.

Check out these records: Indian River 3-10, Woodbridge 0-11, Sussex Central 2-7, Sussex Tech 5-7, Delmar 4-6, Laurel 4-6, Lake Forest 4-7 and Cape 5-7.

Caesar Rodney is 6-6 with all its wins coming against losing teams.

So which teams are plucking off easy wins like the wing man at the Perdue poultry plant? Dover, Smyrna, Milford, Polytech and Seaford are all getting plump barbequing the competition.

I often joke that when things go wrong in sports, just start blaming everyone and offering up all kinds of explanations and - who knows - you might be right.

The playgrounds have gone away; in many cases, tennis or volleyball courts have taken their place.

“I got downs” and “Make it take it” have been replaced by the more formalized AAU basketball indoor programs, yet the basketball has gotten worse in more places than it has gotten better. Middle school ball is mostly horrendous; often victory goes to the team with the oldest-looking players.

Good coaches sometimes can’t figure out the chemistry and sustain losing seasons, but there is more bad coaching than good and more selfish and fundamentally unsound players who don’t get it than players who realize there are four other team members on the court.

I am perplexed, and I don’t know where this is all going. I just know I got the “Please Get Mo’ Better Blues.”

Fat cat collisions - Mostly I would love a sport where millionaires run into each other with the potential for catastrophic injury.

I don’t get too caught up in the fortunes of NFL players in a league where even the coaches make $5 million a season.

Here is the playoff payout: Players earn $21,000 for winning a wild card game and $19,000 for losing one.

That number rises to $21,000 for the divisional round and $38,000 for the conference championship game.

Players on a Super Bowl winner receive $83,000 each; the losers get $42,000 each.

But most player contracts are laden with postseason incentives so the money earned by teams - $4,000,000 for winning the Super Bowl and $2,000,000 for losing it - is all but eaten up with extra payments back to the players. Some players like Brian Urlacher, who gets paid every Tuesday in the 17-week regular season, make $375,000 a week.

So how much does a playoff win matter to the players? Many liken the dollar loss between winning and losing to someone coming into their houses and trying to rob them.

Snippets - The early Las Vegas betting line has the Packers as 2 1/2 point favorites over the Steelers in the Super Bowl.

Both the Packers and Steelers are better than the teams they beat and almost lost to at the end of their games.

Let the punditry and prognostication begin.

The undefeated Sussex Tech swim teams go against Cape at the Sussex Family YMCA Thursday, Jan. 27.

This meet will come down to the top eliminators going head to head and those all-important second and third places.

B.J. Daisey is a sophomore standout for the Ravens. His father, Blaine, ran track for Cape in 1983 and was a Kevin Kennedy Award winner, now a state trooper and most recently featured on the cover of Undercover Cop magazine.

Maddie Crimmins stars for the Ravens girls’ team.

Her father, Dave Crimmins, is one of Delaware’s all-time shot put and discus throwers while competing for coach John Hollis at Seaford. Crimmins later starred at the University of Maryland, a university that actually still has a men’s track team. The trashing of the University of Delaware men’s track team has nothing to do with women’s sports and equalization but is directly tied to the ballooning football budget, according to a Sports Illustrated commentary by author Jay Pearlman, a Blue Hen graduate who also ran track. The total track budget at Delaware is less than the combined cross country, indoor and outdoor budgets at Cape. Pearlman calls the Delaware football program “a giant money suck” and it gets nastier after that. Men’s track at Delaware goes back to 1911. Local Lloyd Mears is on the all-time list for 400 meters, running 48.8 in 1973. Troy Bockius of Rehoboth Beach Patrol ran the 1,500 meters in 3:55 in 1999. Local Wes Stack, team captain in 1961 and 1962, is on the all-time list for the mile at 4:17. John Miller of Lewes is second on the all-time list for the javelin throw, hurling the spear 219 feet.

I think this battle has just begun. Runners, take your mark…