A third-degree burn

 And now a new feature the Blob just made up, Today In Platinum-Grade Dissing, a purpose-built construct created only because Zlatan Ibrahimovic is, shall we say, a fairly plain-spoken dude.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is not a Bond villain, an MMA fighter or a groundstroke monster from Zagreb working on his fourth or fifth Wimbledon title. He's an international soccer player who was a teammate of Lionel Messi's with Barcelona, and who still thinks very highly of the aging virtuoso.

What he doesn't think so highly of is the team he's playing for now, Inter Miami from the MLS.

Inter Miami just got booted from the FIFA Club World Cup by another of Messi's former teams, Paris St. Germain, in the round of 16. The final score was 4-0 (Adjusted NFL Score: 52-0). And Zlatan put the blame for that not on Messi but his Inter Miami teammates, whom he called a bunch of losers.

OK, so he didn't. What he actually said was this: "Messi plays with statues, not teammates."

"He's surrounded by players who run as if they were carrying bags of cement," Ibrahimovic went on in an ESPN.com piece. "If you put him in a real team, he'd go all-out. There are no coaches, no stars, not even players who understand how to move without the ball. If he were on a real team, any great team, you'd  see the real lion."

Gee, Zlatan. Tell us what you really think.

And, OK, sure, he was only saying out loud what a lot of European pros think about  MLS, which is that it's a league for schlubs and aging stars looking to scoop some coin before they hang up the kit. Presumably that's what Messi is doing with Inter Miami, considering he's 38 now and well down the slope of his career.

His return to play European sides in the Club World Cup sparked discussion of whether or not the Argentine master could still play with the big boys, which presumably sparked Ibrahimovic's defense of him.

Not to say his third-degree burn of Messi's current mates.

Who, by the way, became the first MLS club ever to beat European club in official play when they beat FC Porto 2-1 in the group stage. It made Inter Miami the only MLS club to reach the knockout round of the tournament.

So there, Zlatan. Or not "so there," considering the part about Inter Miami being the only MLS rep in the knockout round.

In any case, it's Lionel against the world by Ibrahimovic's lights.

"Messi plays alone because he loves the game, because he can still do what 99% of players can't," Zlatan said.

"Plays alone"!

Wow. Fourth-degree burn right there.

All hail the horseman

 D. Wayne Lukas went to the Big Shedrow In The Sky over the weekend, and if you don't know who that is it's because you never dropped coin on the nose of Glue Shu Pork in the sixth at Keeneland or some such thing. Because that was D. Wayne's world, and he owned it.

He was a high school basketball coach who became one of the top horsemen of his age, and no one ever loved or cared for or knew the quirks of high-strung thoroughbreds better. The man trained mounts that won 15 Triple Crown races in his long career, including seven Preakness and four Kentucky Derby wins. If he'd been so inclined he could have carpeted his spread with the red roses and black-eyed susans his horses collected in those wins.

D. Wayne wasn't so inclined, however. He leaned more toward the rhythms of barn and stable and pasture, and loamy expanses of dirt. Almost until the day he died at 89, he was up with the dawn and on a horse to do the work, because the work was all. 

He was close friends with the other Rushmore trainer of this era, Bob Baffert, and best buds with Bob Knight and other like-minded folks. Knight, in fact, once called him the "Babe Ruth of thoroughbred racing."

If not that, he was damn close. Like his pal Knight, he was relentless, driven and obsessed with detail. Unlike him, the athletes he was charged with overseeing required more finesse to bring out their best.

From the Associated Press obit: "The whole secret of this game, I think, is being able to read the horse: Read what he needs, what he doesn't need, what he can't do, what he can do,"  Lukas said in May before his 34th and final Preakness Stakes. "That's the whole key. Everybody's got a blacksmith, everybody's got the same bed available, the feed man. We all can hire a good jockey. We all can hire a pretty good exercise rider if we've got the means, so what the hell is the difference? The horse is the difference and what we do with him in reading him."

In which case, D. Wayne Lukas was as literate as the next guy. And far more so than almost all of them.

That other guy

 Aaron Judge mashed his 29th and 30th home runs of the season yesterday, as the New York Yankees swatted the hopeless Oakland/Sacramento/Hooterville A's 12-2. 

Now, I don't know if 30 bombs by the Fourth of July is the same as corn being knee-high by the Fourth of July, but I do know Judge is breathing rarified air these days. The two-homer day was the 44th of his career, moving him into third on the Yankees' alltime list ahead of Lou Gehrig. Just ahead sits Mickey Mantle with 46 two-homer days; way, waaaay ahead is (of course) Babe Ruth, who hit two homers in a game a ridiculous 68 times.

The Blob can't add two plus two and come up with four more than about half the time, but by my calculation 30 home runs in his first 83 games means Judge is working on a 59-homer season. This is significant, but not half as significant as this: Even at his currently robust clip, Judge does not lead the American League in round-trippers.

No, sir. That honor belongs to Caleb John Raleigh, who goes by "Cal." And is a 28-year-old catcher for the Seattle Mariners who, until this summer, had made his mark in the bigs not as a big bopper but as a big stopper.

Won a Gold Glove last season, Cal did. Even won the AL Platinum Glove Award as the best defensive player in the league.

So far this season, though, with the Fourth still four days off, he's given 32 baseballs the long ride. The Mariners have 79 games left, same as the Yankees. This means Cal Raleigh is working on a 62-homer season.

And if at this point you're asking, "Who the hell is this guy?", there are several answers. One, for sure, would be "That other guy," as in, "That other guy who's not Aaron Judge."

Beyond that?

Well, let's start with the fact Cal Raleigh hails from Cullowhee, N.C., and he played his high school ball at Smoky Mountain High School in nearby Sylva. Went on to star at Florida State. Played for the Harwich Mariners in the Cape Cod League one summer. Arrived in the Show in 2021, and, before last weekend's games, he had a career batting average of .227 with 125 homers and 320 RBI.

Last season he batted just .220, with a slugging percentage of .489. But he hit 34 homers and drove in 100 runs, both of which were career highs.

This season?

Thirty-two dingers, as noted. Also 69 RBI. Also a .275 average and a .643 slugging percentage.

Oh, yeah. And one other tidbit about Cal Raleigh: According to Wikipedia, his nickname is "The Big Dumper." Which doesn't sound entirely complimentary, but what do I know?

Besides more about Cal Raleigh than I did before this morning, that is.

Untimely

 Sometimes the world is a cold, cold place, and, well, surprise, surprise, surprise. You want fair, the county's got one. Comes around every summer, or so I hear.

In the meantime, let us contemplate the life of Dave Parker.

Which ended the other day after 74 years, and wasn't that a hell of thing. Back in the day, see, they called him the Cobra, and he was a 6-foot-5 specimen of humanity who sent baseballs on some prodigious rides. In 19 seasons in the majors -- 11 of them with the stately Pittsburgh Pirates before they devolved into the laugh-a-minute Cruds -- he hit 339 homers, drove in 1,493 runs and won back-to-back NL batting titles in 1977 and '78.

He also won two World Series rings -- one with the Buccos in '79, and one with the Oakland A's ten years later.

Those '79 Pirates, of course, are who I remember best. That was the "We Are Fam-a-lee" bunch, and they were something to see in those silly pillbox caps of theirs. They had Pops Stargell as a kind of Father Christmas, and the young Cobra, and a skinny, bespectacled reliever named Kent Tekulve who threw a mean submarine ball but looked more like nerdy prey for the school bully.

He might ring you up, or he might get his lunch money stolen and his books kicked into the gutter. Always looked like even-money one or the other.

Anyway, Dave Parker has left all that, and here comes the cold, cold part: In not much more than a month, he was scheduled to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Now someone else will give his acceptance speech, and the Cobra will be helpless to do anything but watch from somewhere beyond the mortal coil.

I don't know how much more unfair the world can get than that. Or how much more untimely a death can be.

I also don't know how the people who vote for the Hall of Fame can be more addle-pated, because this on them. Had they voted in Parker years ago the way they should have, he'd have still been around to thank everyone. But of course they horse-assed around until he was an old man, and (as it turned out) too late.

Shame on those chumps.

And here's to the Cobra, swingin' for the fences in the Great Beyond. May the current cheapo Pirates ownership un-padlock its wallet and put up a statue of the man to join Pops, Roberto and Honus Wagner standing silent vigil outside PNC Park.

Tennessee vs. Spaceman Spiff

 (In which the Blob again books passage from Sportsball World to Bizarre Acid-Trip Real World. You know the drill.)

So the other day I'm reading a blog post from Charles Pierce, an H.L. Mencken of sorts for our utterly mad modern times. And he included an item from the great state of Tennessee, where Davy Crockett was born on a mountaintop and everyone else seems to have crawled fully formed from the primordial ooze.

I say this because it seems the Trumpian creatures running the show there are off on another save-our-children-from-ideas toot, in the standard not-hysterical-at-all manner. They're clearing school library shelves of harmful concepts like Very Hungry Caterpillars (brainchild of the subversive Eric Carle) and Magic Tree Houses (take a bow, Mary Pope Osborne) and Giving Trees (hello there, Shel Silverstein, nice to see you on the book-banners' dartboard again).

Also, Calvin and Hobbes, by that notorious Commie, Bill Watterson.

This is where I drop the gloves and start swingin'.

Calvin and Hobbes, see, is the Blob's all-time favorite comic strip that isn't The Far Side. Back in my sportswriter days, I papered my dumpster of a cubicle with C-and-H strips. Two in particular were my faves.

One had Calvin writing what he called a "fictional autobiography", in which the story of his life was enlivened by the non-fact that he had a flamethrower.

The other was a drawing Calvin made of Martians attacking Indianapolis.

I don't know why either would get Tennesseans so wound up. I mean, isn't Indianapolis one of the Titans' blood enemies?

I guess we can put it down to the fact that certain Tennessee politicos have either had their senses of humor surgically removed, or never had a sense of humor to begin with. Good lord, what a dour bunch of brooding nutjobs. If this were 1692, they'd no doubt be burning poor Watterson at the stake for corrupting Our Children with a mischievous 6-year-old and his stuffed tiger.

Apparently they think exposing them to the admittedly subversive Calvin would put all sorts of unapproved notions in their heads. Why, just look at the little psycho: He hates school, disobeys his parents, torments little girls and has an extremely vivid imagination that regularly gets him sent to the principal's office.

The latter, of course, is the most dangerous of Calvin's subversions. It means he has an active mind that goes where grownups can't follow. Nothing more terrifies the brooding nutjobs, and the politicos who represent them. It's why in certain extremist precincts they're death on Harry Potter, fantasy board games and the musical "Wicked" -- which, after all, is about a witch.

Calvin, on the other hand, only pretends he's A) a rampaging dinosaur; B) Captain Stupendous; and C) Spaceman Spiff.

Who's constantly fighting the hideous space aliens he imagines his teachers, principals and parents to be. In other words, authority figures.

Apparently this means if Our Children are allowed access to Spaceman Spiff, they'll grow up to be Abbie Hoffman. Seriously, that's the reasoning that's going on here.

Which of course is not reasoning at all, but its polar opposite.

Then again, that's me saying this.

Me, who thought the idea of Calvin with a flamethrower was hilarious. 

Best keep me away from your kids. Fair warning.

Skin, thinned

 Hey, I'm as appreciative as the next guy that pro golfer Collin Morikawa has given folks like me permission to write whatever we want. It means I can write the following about Collin Morikawa:

The man seems a trifle touchy these days.

Which is to say, his skin is thin enough to see through. At least where the media is concerned.

His discontent with the people who cover his and his fellow golfers' tournaments (and thereby help publicize them) has become a thing now, dating back to earlier in the year when he said he didn't owe anyone anything and the media duly, and accurately, quoted him. Now he's gotten into it with Adam Schupak of Golfweek, who approached Morikawa to ask about a recent caddie change during the pro-am for the Rocket Classic.

"Ask me anything you want in my press conference later, I'm with my pro-am partners now," said.

A reasonable response. Which Schupak quoted in his report.

And which Morikawa took issue with in the ensuing presser.

"I read the article you wrote," he told Schupak. "Look, I'm not here to tell people how to do their jobs, but I don't get why you would make me sound bad because you put out my quote that (I was) playing with pro-am partners out front."

Now, I wasn't there, so I don't know how Schupak reacted. But I can guess what he was thinking, and I'm betting it was what several other people said out loud on social media: "What the hell are you talking about, Collin?"

They said that because ... well, because what the hell was he talking about? Nothing about what Morikawa was quoted as saying -- a reasonable request reasonably made -- could possibly be construed as making him look bad in any known universe. Except, apparently, the one in which Morikawa resides.

No, what made Collin Morikawa look bad everywhere outside the Morikawa multiverse was Morikawa himself making a whole thing about it. He launched into this whole spiel about how people pay a lot of money to play in the pro-ams and that's important for the tournament and how dare Schupak put out a quote that not only "put me down" but belittled the importance of the pro-am. 

Or so his implication seemed to be.

Fun fact to know and tell: There is no indication Schupak was remotely peeved about being asked to wait until the presser to ask his caddie question.

Second fun fact to know and tell: Therefore, he had no reason to try to make Morikawa look bad, assuming Morikawa's theory was right.

Third fun fact to know and tell: It wasn't.

No, it was just another instance of a professional athlete trying to tell people (i.e., the media) how to do their jobs. Which is what every professional athlete is doing when he says he's not trying to tell people how to do their jobs.

"You can write whatever you want, this is America, but don't put me down like that ..." Morikawa said.

In other words: You can write whatever you want. Just not that.

Got it, Collin.

OK. So not really.

The forever season

 OK, Blobophiles, listen up. Today is pop-quiz day ("Aw, gee, Mr. Blob"), and so no hall passes will be issued, no one will pretend he's suddenly come down with bubonic plague, and no copying off your neighbor unless your neighbor is poor old lint-for-brains Merle back there.

Ready?

First question: Which is longer, the NBA season or ...

1. The Pleistocene Age

2. The Ming Dynasty

3. The Hundred Years War

4. "Titanic", the director's cut

Second question: If the Mavericks, as expected, select 18-year-old Cooper Flagg as the No. 1 pick in tonight's NBA draft, how old will Cooper Flagg be when the season ends next year?

1. 38

2. 45

3. Older than dirt

4. Older than the hills

Third (and last) question: If a baby is born on the first day of the NBA season, what will he/she be doing at the end of the season?

1. Attending first grade

2.  Graduating from high school

3. Doing his/her residency in thoracic medicine

4. Being honored for 40 years service at that Tire Barn out by the interstate

In other words ...

In other words, the NBA season is ridiculously, preposterously long. And all so a bunch of folks with more money than they know what to do with can make even more money than they know what to do with.

The Blob makes it a practice never to be in sync with radio blowhole Colin Cowherd, on the assumption it's one of the first signs of cognitive decline. But the other day Cowherd went on the air to say the NBA season is JUST TOO DAMN LONG, and, doggone it, I'm in full agreement.

I blame my age (70) and my habit of killing brain cells with an occasional cocktail or three for this lapse. Obviously I must be heading down the same unraveling mental trail our current President is blazing so well these days.

Anyway, yes, the NBA is JUST TOO DAMN LONG. It begins before Halloween, and, this year, ended on Sunday, the 22nd of June. The 22nd of June. You know what was nearly half over on that date? The baseball season.

The baseball season.

Partly this is because the NBA playoffs themselves last longer than a politician's stump speech. The Indiana Pacers, for instance, played their first game on April 19, beating the Milwaukee Bucks 117-98. They played their last game on Sunday.

That's more than two months.

That's 76 days after Florida snipped the nets in college buckets.

That's so long Milwaukee might not even be there anymore. Maybe it is, but I haven't checked lately.

In any event, this is beyond absurd. The back-in-my-day crowd likes to sneer at today's NBA players as pampered sissies compared to the he-men of yore, but what the codgers forget is how much shorter the NBA season was then. When I was growing up, Bill Russell 'n' them used to wrap up the title sometime in mid-April. Now the playoffs don't even begin until then.

So what to do?

Probably nothing. The folks with more money than they know what to do with aren't going to be disposed to make less, no matter what sort of Everest O' Cash they've summited. Saner people would either lop six-to-ten games off the regular season or make the first two rounds of the playoffs best-of-five instead of best-of-seven, but the saner people are not in charge. The money men are.

Me? I'd eliminate the play-in games and go best-of-five in the first two rounds. The play-in games give two extra teams per conference a shot at the playoffs, which means only 10 of the 30 teams are eliminated outright after an 82-game regular season. That's just wrong.

No, 16 teams in the playoffs are enough. If you want to be one of those 16, play harder during the regular season. You've got 82 chances to do so.

I know, I know. Losin' my marbles, right?