It was Tuesday night of this week, I was on the road for work. To kill time while sitting at the bar waiting on dinner, I was in my phone, flicking and clicking my way through all of the posts and stories speculating that Kurt Busch would announce his retirement as a NASCAR Cup Series race. On Saturday morning at his hometown racetrack of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, he announced that he would be stepping away from full-time racing.
The gentleman sitting next to me was totally reading it all over my shoulder and finally tapped that shoulder, followed by a trio of questions.
“Hey man, how many Cup races has Kurt Busch won?”
I replied quickly, “34.”
“Hey man, how many of those do you think you were there for in person?”
“Hey man, for real, what do you think happened more often, you seeing Kurt Busch win a race or him cussing you out to your face?”
OK, this one I had to think about. For a long while. It has been days now since I was asked the question and I still don’t know the answer. And that’s really all you need to know about the complicated, door-to-door dual of the fates that is the Kurt Busch legacy.
The winner versus the jerk.
For nearly a quarter of a century, Busch made his living in NASCAR’s premier series. He has indeed won 34 races, ranked 25th on the all-time victories list, just ahead of NASCAR Hall of Fame members Fireball Roberts and Dale Jarrett. In his trophy case are victories in the Daytona 500 and Coca-Cola 600. Among his non-points-paying triumphs are one each in the NASCAR All-Star Race, Bud Shootout and even an IROC championship. His 28 poles rank 28th all time. His 10,292 laps led rank 21st. His 339 top 10s rank 15th. Busch has won in all three national series, and he has won at least one race for all three current manufacturers — Ford, Chevy and Toyota — and he won 10 races in long-departed Dodge. He won races driving cars owned by Jack Roush, Roger Penske, Tony Stewart, Chip Ganassi and even Michael Jordan.
Busch survived the single most nail-biting moments ever seen in a NASCAR championship season finale. In 2004, the first iteration of the Chase/Playoff era, he coolly shed a snapped-off right front tire and narrowly missed the water barrels at the end of the Homestead-Miami Speedway pit wall. He ended the race as the champion. He battled with Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. He banged doors with Ricky Craven at Darlington in perhaps NASCAR’s most thrilling finish of this century. He owned Bristol Motor Speedway. Just five months ago he won at Kansas Speedway, earning his 34th win at age 43. Heck, he has gone NHRA Pro Stock racing and won 2014 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year.
But every year and seemingly every great moment of Busch’s inevitably first-ballot NASCAR Hall of Fame career has always been dogged by a “yeah, but …”
He exploded onto the Cup Series scene. Yeah, but the remarkable early success in 2003-04 that led to that Cup title is remembered by many more for his ongoing feud with Jimmy “Mr. Excitement” Spencer as it is for his seven wins over two years.
He won his Cup title with Roush Racing. Yeah, but his exit from the team became testy when Roush felt as though Busch hadn’t given him fair warning about the racer’s departure for Penske Racing, and he missed what would have been his final races with Roush after he was parked by NASCAR for a DUI citation and resulting altercation with police in Phoenix.
He won 10 races for Roger Penske. Yeah, but after he was fined $50,000 for screaming at ESPN pit reporter Dr. Jerry Punch, The Captain had seen enough and they parted ways.
He landed with Phoenix Racing and embraced the underdog role, even running Ricky Bobby’s “ME” cougar paint scheme at Talladega. Yeah, but he was also placed on probation for an incident with Ryan Newman at Darlington and the following week received a one-race suspension when he responded to a question from reporter Bob Pockrass about his behavior while on probation by saying, “It refrains me from not beating the s— out of you right now because you ask me stupid questions.”
A six-month feud with brother Kyle Busch had to be fixed by Grandma at Thanksgiving. Profanity-laced radio tirades. Having to be pulled off of reporter Joe Menzer at Richmond. Denying he said something on live TV, being shown the transcript of it and then ripping up the papers and dropping them in front Associated Press reporter Jenna Fryer’s face.
We all have those stories. Somewhere in the ESPN video library is a clip of Kurt Busch responding to my question about a crash at Darlington with a question about my relationship with my mother. Marty Smith has a clip of him having to explain why he and Busch had an altercation in the Michigan Speedway media center on YouTube.
We’re all grownups. We can take it. I just never figured out why we had to.
In 2010, I wrote a story for ESPN the Magazine where I sat down the Busch brothers together, following two years of asking. Kurt convinced me that he and his little brother had changed their ways. I believed him. But one year later, I wrote a confession and partial retraction. Kurt wasn’t merely unchanged, he was worse. In 2015, his bizarre relationship with girlfriend Patricia Driscoll led to a high-profile court case and accusation of domestic violence that managed to overshadow that year’s Daytona 500. He was suspended again, this time only two days before the Great American Race. It was embarrassing for the sport, so the suspension stood even after it was determined by investigators not to pursue criminal charges against the racer. When he was allowed back what did he do? He won two races and made the postseason field, despite missing the first three races of the year.
To be clear, he certainly wasn’t alone when it came to tantrums, even those that crossed the line. Tony Stewart was a stick of dynamite, as is Kevin Harvick, and of course, brother Kyle. But those others, even Smoke, their rage came in waves. Kurt Busch was a nonstop tsunami. When it wasn’t, it was a surprise. A pleasant one. Even now, as he has mellowed with age, it still catches one off guard. That’s what has always made it so maddening when he would crack open the windows to show us all he could be a better person. You always knew it was going to be slammed shut.
Perhaps the most insightful conversation I’ve had a with a stock car racer was an interview I did with Busch smack in the middle of those volatile days of the mid-2010s. The story was about the value of the human behind the wheel versus the machine that racer drove. Does the driver still matter in the age of engineering? He was truly brilliant as he explained how he was able to wheel the once-lowly like of Phoenix Racing and Furniture Row Racing into being regular contenders. He said to me: “My road has not been easy. But what it has done is remind me how much fun this can be. And that, in the end, no one is holding that steering wheel in his hands but me.”
That same year I produced a TV series in which modern racers spent time with legends of the past. Busch was on our pilot episode, sitting with Buddy Baker. He was funny, brilliant, respectful and downright likable. I knew then he would be great on television, and when the current networks have put him in the booth, he has been. But the weekend that the show premiered, he unleashed such a vicious, profanity-laced tantrum over the team radio that his then-boss, Roger Penske, waited on him in the garage to pull him into the team hauler and shout him down.
Him stepping away from full-time racing comes with another asterisk, although one not of his own doing, suffering concussion-like symptoms since a practice crash at Pocono Raceway in late July. But his departure from the garage ignites another question, new but also familiar. Kurt Busch did so much. He will be a first-ballot NASCAR Hall of Famer and if I am fortunate enough to still be a voter when he becomes eligible, I will vote for him immediately. But I also know the question that will be raised in that room. It’s the question that always comes up when his name is mentioned and always will.
What could Kurt Busch have really done if all of that other stuff hadn’t gotten in the way?
The Hockey Hall of Fame is going to swing open its doors to some impressive former NHL stars in the next few years. Legends such as Zdeno Chara, Joe Thornton, Duncan Keith and Patrice Bergeron. Eventually Jaromir Jagr will be inducted. Probably in his 80s, when he’s done playing.
The Hall can welcome up to four men’s players in every annual class. Given how many current NHL players have a legitimate case for immortality, the selection committee will not suffer for a lack of choices.
Here is a tiered ranking of active NHL players based on their current Hall of Fame cases. We’ve picked the brain of Hockey Hall of Fame expert Paul Pidutti of Adjusted Hockey to help figure out the locks, the maybes, “the Hall of Very Good” and which young stars are on the path to greatness.
Let’s begin with the two players who have defined this century of hockey, and another player whose legend has grown to the point where he’s a sure-thing Hall of Famer.
“Honestly, when we lose, I don’t even get in the shower until early this morning. I’ll just be mad. I just brush my teeth. It’s like, I don’t deserve soap.” — Syracuse head coach Fran Brown
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located behind the “sorry, not sorry” bouquet of water hemlocks sent to the Big 12 officiating office from Utah athletic director Mark Harlan, we know all too well the sting of losing football games. We see it every week in every game we watch.
Yeah, yeah, we know what you’re thinking. “Come on, dummy, someone loses every game that anyone watches.” That’s true. At least now it is. We are also old enough to remember when games ended in ties. That was way worse.
But here in the Bottom 10 Cinematic Universe, losses are worse because that’s all you experience. You’d think we’d get used to it, numb from the pain like when you keep accidentally biting that same spot on your tongue to the point that it just becomes sensory free. But instead, it’s like Bruce Banner explained about being the Hulk: “You see, I don’t get a suit of armor. I’m exposed. Like a nerve. It’s a nightmare.”
However, as we learned in “Age of Ultron,” even after one of his worst losses, Bruce Banner does take a shower. So, Coach Brown, take it from us, in a world where every team has a helluva lot more losses than Syracuse … dude, wash up. Seriously. We can smell you from here. And we’re in Kent, Ohio.
With apologies to Mr. Clean, former Miami (Ohio) quarterback Mike Bath, former Southern Illinois running back Wash Henry and Steve Harvey, here are the post-Week 11 Bottom 10 rankings.
The Golden(plated) Flashes are still America’s last winless FBS team, losing their 18th straight game when they were edged by Ohio 41-0. Now they travel to My Hammy of Ohio, where they are given a 2.8% chance to win by the ESPN Analytics Ouija board, er, I mean Matchup Predictor. But honestly, that game will only be the appetizer ahead of the, yes, Week 13 main course that is the Wagon Wheel showdown with Akronmonious. And by appetizer we mean way-past-the-expiration-date freezer-burned mini-pizza bagels.
The New Owls not only used their talons to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at UTEP, losing in double overtime, they earned Bottom 10 Bonus Points for firing their head coach — and during their first year as an FBS team, no less. Though the AD issued a statement that Brian Bohannon had “stepped down,” Bohannon himself responded on social media: “Contrary to what’s been reported, I want to be clear that I did not step down.” But there is no confusion as to whether the Owls have stepped up or down in these rankings, where every move up is also a move down.
Brett Favre Funding U. lost to We Are Marshall 37-3, meaning all eight of their defeats this season have been by double digits. In related news, I also received double digit political texts on Election Day — and one of those was from Favre. No, for real. I wonder, did he cover the data charges himself or did he steal change from the donation jar at his grocery store checkout?
Sometimes in this life we are asked to do things that go against the fiber of our being. Like taking your daughter to the concert of an artist you’ve never heard of. Or me having to use Earth’s most annoying instrument, the leaf blower. This weekend this team of Minutemen will be asked to try to defeat Liberty.
5. The Sunshine State
The Coveted Fifth Spot has never been more crowded. The FBS, FCS and NFL teams of Florida posted a 1-11 record over the weekend, salvaged only by the Miami Dolphins’ win over the Los Angeles Rams on “Monday Night Football.” UC(not S)F, US(not C)F, FA(not I)U, Stetson, Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman all lost, led in misery by the Wildcats’ five-overtime loss to Southern. The Flori-duh Gate Doors celebrated the announced retaining of coach Billy Napier by losing to Texas in a squeaker 49-17. And My Hammy of Florida finally spotted an opponent a lead too large for a Cam Ward comeback and took its first loss of the season, falling to unranked Georgia Tech. If only someone else in the state could relate to that …
The Semi-No’s are continuing to work around the Coveted Fifth Spot by earning their Bottom 10 keep the old-fashioned way, not only losing to semi/sorta/kinda ACC member Notre Dame by a scant 52-3, but also earning a pile of their own Bottom 10 Bonus Points not by firing head coach Mike Norvell, but because Norvell fired both his offensive and defensive coordinators and a wide receivers coach. In related news, over the weekend a friend of mine steered his bass boat into a giant pile of sharp rocks and reacted by throwing his shirt and hat overboard.
It was three weekends ago that the Buttermakers lost to then-second-ranked Oregon 35-0. On Saturday, they lost to then-second-ranked Ohio State 45-0. Now they play sixth-ranked Penn State, and in two weeks end their season playing currently eighth-ranked Indiana. We have to assume that a team of professors from Purdue’s legendary mechanical engineering department is studying this experience as a way to assess the stress put on a school bus that is attempting to drive over a lava field covered in landmines.
The Minors have a weekend off to continue their post-Kennesaw victory party. And what’s the best way to snap yourself out of a two-week hangover? Hair of the dog? A cold bucket of water over the head? How about the hair of a coontick hound and a bucket of water from the river during a Week 13 trip to Neyland Stadium to play Tennessee?
Whatever is left of UTEP after Knoxville will then play whatever is left of the Other Aggies after their Week 12 trip to face the OG Aggies of Texas A&M. If there’s any justice in this world, then the loser and/or winner of that Aggie Bowl would go on to play …
The Other Other Aggies lost to the one-loss team the nation forgot about, Warshington State. But if you consider the week before that, we find a Bottom 10 conundrum. Utah State beat WhyOMGing? but the week before that lost to Whew Mexico by five points. Meanwhile, Wyoming, who lost to Utah State two weeks ago, spent last weekend beating New Mexico by five points. Perhaps we will be given some clarity when Wyoming ends the year at Washington State. Or perhaps we will have already given up. As so many here in the Bottom 10 seem to do.
Waiting list: Miss Sus Hippie State, Georgia State Not Southern, FA(not I)U, Akronmonious, Meh-dle Tennessee, WhyOMGing?, Temple of Doom, Living on Tulsa Time, You A Bee?, Standfird, people who put all those election signs up but now won’t take them down.
NEW YORK — An arbitrator upheld five-year suspensions of the chief executives of Bad Bunny’s sports representation firm for making improper inducements to players and cut the ban of the company’s only certified baseball agent to three years.
Ruth M. Moscovitch issued the ruling Oct. 30 in a case involving Noah Assad, Jonathan Miranda and William Arroyo of Rimas Sports. The ruling become public Tuesday when the Major League Baseball Players Association filed a petition to confirm the 80-page decision in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan.
The union issued a notice of discipline on April 10 revoking Arroyo’s agent certification and denying certification to Assad and Miranda, citing a $200,000 interest-free loan and a $19,500 gift. It barred them from reapplying for five years and prohibited certified agents from associating with any of the three of their affiliated companies. Assad, Miranda and Arroyo then appealed the decision, and Moscovitch was jointly appointed as the arbitrator on June 17.
Moscovitch said the union presented unchallenged evidence of “use of non-certified personnel to talk with and recruit players; use of uncertified staff to negotiate terms of players’ employment; giving things of value – concert tickets, gifts, money – to non-client players; providing loans, money, or other things of value to non-clients as inducements; providing or facilitating loans without seeking prior approval or reporting the loans.”
“I find MLBPA has met its burden to prove the alleged violations of regulations with substantial evidence on the record as a whole,” she wrote. “There can be no doubt that these are serious violations, both in the number of violations and the range of misconduct. As MLBPA executive director Anthony Clark testified, he has never seen so many violations of so many different regulations over a significant period of time.”
María de Lourdes Martínez, a spokeswoman for Rimas Sports, said she was checking to see whether the company had any comment on the decision. Arroyo did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment.
Moscovitch held four in-person hearings from Sept. 30 to Oct. 7 and three on video from Oct. 10-16.
“While these kinds of gifts are standard in the entertainment business, under the MLBPA regulations, agents and agencies simply are not permitted to give them to non-clients,” she said.
“While it is true, as MLBPA alleges, that Mr. Arroyo violated the rules by not supervising uncertified personnel as they recruited players, he was put in that position by his employers,” Moscovitch wrote. “The regulations hold him vicariously liable for the actions of uncertified personnel at the agency. The reality is that he was put in an impossible position: the regulations impose on him supervisory authority over all of the uncertified operatives at Rimas, but in reality, he was their underling, with no authority over anyone.”