Paul Daugherty's Morning Line: Is the West End being heard by FC Cincinnati?

ALEXA, please write The Morning Line. . .

One of those days, Morning Mob. Slammed my toe on a chair leg, spilled the coffee, nothing much on which to opine. Gotta play hurt. Makes me wanna holla, throw up both my hands.* Write bad about Trump or something.

Do-o-o-c. . .

Yeah, yeah.

(*Identify the tune win fabulous prizes chosen just for you.)

SO, FCC. AGAIN. The longer this strange MLS expansion “process,’’ if that’s what you want to call it, lingers, the less chance Cincinnati will be asked to join the club. IMO, of course. This tortured dance between FCC and MLS has taken so many turns, I doubt anyone knows what’s going to happen.

Doesn’t it seem to you that MLS is just waiting for Sacramento to get its billionaires in order? Was it that long ago that Sac-town was considered an MLS shoo-in? Don’t you feel as if Sac would have been named along with Nashville if the billionaire investor hadn’t skipped out?

At the moment, FC Cincinnati looks like a puppy pulling at a pant-leg. Jeff Berding is being pulled in so many directions, he’s going to need surgery to repair every ligament in his body.

Interesting opinion from the Enquirer’s Jason Williams, who has been following this story since it became a story. Read it here. His point: The West End is going to be gentrified sooner or later, same as OTR has been. Why not let the futbol club be the gentrifiers?

They’re local people, they’ve made a few promises already. Williams writes, basically, “You got a better idea?’’

The problem is, people don’t like to be pushed around. That might not be accurate in this case (and it might be very accurate), but it is the perception. Oakley told FCC to put on the brakes. Why shouldn’t the West End have the same right?

Maybe those folks don’t see this as some great boon for their neighborhood. Maybe they see rents rising and having to move. Jobs? That’s the great canard of any sports stadium campaign. Fact is, those jobs are seasonal and low paying.

Development! Housing and shops and restaurants! Right. Housing maybe they can’t afford, restaurants that don’t appeal to them. Shops? How about a big Kroger, a hardware, a bank, an Urgent Care? Things that people in the neighborhood can use.

I’m not saying all of this wouldn’t happen if FCC came to the West End. Maybe all of it would happen, or at least enough of it that the people who live there would see it as beneficial for them. I’m saying those whose neighborhood it needs to feel their say matters.

XAVIER. SPECIFICALLY, NAJI MARSHALL. . . A great thing about college b-ball is watching freshmen grow up right before our eyes. Marshall started just two of Xavier’s first 18 games. He has started 10 of its last 11. In those 10 starts, Marshall has averaged 11 points and 5 rebounds and shot 55 percent. In the last three games, the averages are 17 and 7 while shooting 60 percent.

For the year, the 6-7 forward is making 61 percent of his 2s.

He was 8-for-10 v. Georgetown Wednesday night, a night when T. Bluiett was missing nine of the 10 shots he took. All of which means XU has yet another big scoring option foes have to worry about. I would not want to have to game plan against the Musketeers next month. Now if they could only buckle up a little more on defense. ..

JAY BILAS remains Mr. Astute when it comes to analyzing the quasi-am game. Here, he writes for ESPN.com about one part of the penalties leveled by the NCAA against Louisville:

A show-cause penalty is never applied to an administrator, only to a coach or player. Andre McGee, the Louisville assistant who arranged for the dancers, received a 10-year show-cause penalty, which means he cannot be hired as a coach at an NCAA member school without the school showing cause why he should be hired. Of course, no such cause can be shown. But McGee can still work at an NCAA member school ... as a university president. Remember, former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel was given a show-cause penalty and fired, and he later was hired as -- wait for it -- a university president at Youngstown State. Not trustworthy enough to be a coach, but trustworthy enough to preside over all students as a university president. Good one. Only the NCAA.

AND THIS QUADRANT THING they’ve cooked up to rank tournament teams? It makes my brain hurt. Just tell me who’s in, three Sundays from now.

Now, then. . .

IF I COULD JUST MAKE A FEW PUTTS. . . The USGA has announced the courses for US Open local qualifying. Ours is Maketewah, on Monday May 14. Go get ‘em, kids.

JOEY’S A BARGAIN AT $25 MIL. . . when you consider some of the guys making more in ’18 than he is: Heyward, Pujols, Lester, Verlander, Cespedes and Greinke. Votto is tied for 12th-highest paid. Mike Trout is #1, at $34 mil.

Some of the numbers:

Pujols, 38 years old, .672 OPS last year, 53 runs.

Cespedes, 81 games in 2017.

Heyward, .715 OPS, 59 RBI, though he did win a Gold Glove.

Votto, OPS 1.032, 106 runs, 100 BI, .320 BA, 2nd in MVP balloting.

AND NOW, A FEW CHOICE HUNDRED FROM BEERMANDAVE. . .

Bit of a mixed bag this week. I was so excited to talk about my Woodburn visit last week, that I completely swept a Phoenix trip under the rug. Did anyone know there are over 100 microbreweries in Arizona? Color me surprised when I started investigating tap handles at the bar and the vast majority were local suds. Uncle Bear’s Brewery Mandarin Wheat totally intrigued me. Although it ended up being a strange sweet and sour taste combo, it would be great to see more non-IPA orange beers this spring. Mother Road Brewing offered a very easy to drink Tower Station IPA. Bottom line I need to schedule some more time in the desert to explore all that they have to offer. Back in the Nati, happy to report that Victory DirtWolf Double and Warped Wing Gamma Bomb IPA are both tasting great this year. Was lucky enough to try March First’s Ohio Pilsner and Fretboard’s Simple Imperial IPA at Halfcut. Although not a brewery, it is so convenient to always find 16 of the best brews around on tap a few minutes from my house. To be clear, I know this doesn’t count as an official brewery visit, and will hopefully be stopping by March First and Fretboard soon. Cheers! cincybeerguydave@gmail.com

STICK TO SPORTS. . . I watched the CNN Town Hall last night. The kids were all right. Better than that, actually. While a few overstepped their rhetorical bounds – and were properly cooled by moderator Jake Tapper – the rest asked valuable questions. They should give us hope that gun massacres can be eradicated, or at least slowed to a less unacceptable, disgusting, embarrassing pace.

Marco Rubio got better questions from high school kids and parents than he ever got from journalists in a Republican debate. "Can you tell me right now that you will not accept a single donation from the NRA?" one kid asked. Rubio could not, other than to say he’s all good with anyone who supports his (pro-NRA) agenda.

The woman from the NRA was all-in on background checks and blaming the government for mass shootings. Not so much for eliminating assault rifles. Again: Why can’t we do both? The smartest man on the dais was the sheriff from Broward County, who acknowledged the need for better checks and mental health care, but was also adamant about getting AR-15s, AK-47s etc – i.e. weapons designed to kill people, not game – off the streets.

If Americans and our elected officials had half the passion and guts those kids have showed, we wouldn’t be where we are now: Inert and accepting of gun violence.

Keep it up, children. You’re on the right track. Let’s hope their cries are heard and acted upon, lest we raise yet another generation of cynical and apathetic citizens, convinced their government doesn’t listen to them or care about them.

DOG UPDATE. . . Mobsters say, “Rescue a dog, feel better about yourself.’’ I tend to agree, but we want a female puppy and the shelters don’t have a lot of those. Thanks for the input. We’ll keep looking.

TUNE O' THE DAY. My man Nils reworks Peter and Gordon. Nice.