We will leave off the usual stuff about the NBA Finals today (LeBron! Steph! Other guys who've never been in the Finals before, unless you count the last four years!), and there are several good reasons why we will do that:
1. It's LeBron and Steph and other guys who've never been in the Finals before, unless you count the last four years.
2. In other words, it's the same old stuff for the fourth straight year.
3. And besides, the real story -- the story of the year, if it goes a certain way -- is happening in the only Final that really matters.
4. Which is the Stanley Cup Final.
Where, unlike the NBA's Johnny One-Note storyline, we've got two fresh storylines. There are the Alexander Ovechkin Capitals finally making the Cup Final after years of playoff heartbreak. And there are the Las Vegas Golden Knights -- currently up 1-0 in the series -- who, if they win the Cup, will be do something that's never been done in the history of not just the NHL, but the other three major sports as well.
They'll become the first expansion team ever to win a championship in an established league in its inaugural season.
(And, yes, Cleveland Browns fans, the Blob realizes they won the NFL title in their inaugural season. But given that they had already been around for four seasons, and had won four championships in another pro league before it folded, it's hardly the same thing.)
As for the Golden Knights, it was enormous enough that the Golden Knights even got to the Stanley Cup Final, after so many knowledgeable hockey people looked at their roster last fall and concluded they were going to be very bad, and perhaps historically bad. But if they win the Cup?
Sports story of the year. Nothing that can possibly happen from now until December that would come close to matching it.
Meanwhile, everyone is still talking about the NBA Finals, even though it's the same storyline it always is, or at least has been the last four years. Seriously, what new is there to say about Cavs vs.Warriors?
And what new isn't there to say about Capitals-vs.-Golden Knights? Especially if the latter wins?
Time to start paying more attention to the latter, and much less to the former.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Back to the future
Well, if this isn't deja, deja, deja vu all over again.
Hey, look, kids! It's the Cavaliers vs. the Warriors in the NBA Finals!
This is a total upset and has never happened before, unless you count every one of the last four years. The Cavaliers were not supposed to be here, everyone said so who forgot LeBron James plays for them. But then the greatest basketball player in the universe shifted into Superhero Mode (one click past the "Hero" setting) and would not let them lose, even though they were playing plainly better teams in every single round.
And the Warriors?
Well, you heard about the Plan, right? How the Houston Rockets singlemindedly decided to concentrate solely and obsessively on beating the reigning NBA dynasty?
It was working until Chris Paul got hurt and the Warriors decided to be the Warriors again. And then ... well, you know.
Steph Curry and Kevin Durant and Draymon Green and Klay Thompson and blah, blah, blah.
So now it's on to the Finals, where the Warriors will win in five or six. Unless it goes seven instead. In which case, are you really gonna bet against LeBron in a Game 7 at this point?
I didn't think so.
Hey, look, kids! It's the Cavaliers vs. the Warriors in the NBA Finals!
This is a total upset and has never happened before, unless you count every one of the last four years. The Cavaliers were not supposed to be here, everyone said so who forgot LeBron James plays for them. But then the greatest basketball player in the universe shifted into Superhero Mode (one click past the "Hero" setting) and would not let them lose, even though they were playing plainly better teams in every single round.
And the Warriors?
Well, you heard about the Plan, right? How the Houston Rockets singlemindedly decided to concentrate solely and obsessively on beating the reigning NBA dynasty?
It was working until Chris Paul got hurt and the Warriors decided to be the Warriors again. And then ... well, you know.
Steph Curry and Kevin Durant and Draymon Green and Klay Thompson and blah, blah, blah.
So now it's on to the Finals, where the Warriors will win in five or six. Unless it goes seven instead. In which case, are you really gonna bet against LeBron in a Game 7 at this point?
I didn't think so.
Did not. Tell. You.
The Blob is just a slow-learner zone, is what this comes down to. The lessons do not take. No amount of drilling them into its wooden head, over and over and over, ever seems to penetrate.
And so we come to Game 7, NBA Eastern Conference finals, Celtics vs. Cavaliers.
The Blob knew how this was going to go. It knew the shape of this series like the back of its hand. It knew ... well, everything but what it forgot.
Which is that you never, ever, ever bet against LeBron James in a Game 7.
Even if it's in a place where the home team was undefeated in the playoffs. Even if the Cavs' alleged second fiddle, Kevin Love, was out with a possible concussion. Even with Jeff Green, who averaged 10 points per game this season, starting in his place.
Even if the entire rhythm of this series virtually assured a Celtics victory.
But there was that other rhythm, and the Blob forgot it.
Never, ever, ever. Bet against LeBron. In a Game 7.
And so of course the Cavaliers won by eight, and Jeff Green, the 10-point-per-game scorer, went for 19 points and eight boards, and LeBron was on the high Hero Setting again, going for 35 points, 15 rebounds and nine assists while playing all 48 minutes. Along with the 46 points he scored in 46 minutes in Game 6, that means he scored 81 points while playing 94 minutes in the last two games of the series, both of which were elimination games for Cleveland.
Both of which the Cavs won to go to the NBA Finals for the fourth straight year. Both of which they won to send LeBron James to his eighth straight NBA Finals.
I don't know what the word for all that is. I don't know if there are any words to adequately describe it anymore, to describe a 33-year-old man who's been playing in the NBA for 15 years logging 94 minutes and scoring 81 points in the space of 48 hours.
I do know there's an acronym to describe it, however.
GOAT.
Greatest of all time. Don't even try to argue it.
And so we come to Game 7, NBA Eastern Conference finals, Celtics vs. Cavaliers.
The Blob knew how this was going to go. It knew the shape of this series like the back of its hand. It knew ... well, everything but what it forgot.
Which is that you never, ever, ever bet against LeBron James in a Game 7.
Even if it's in a place where the home team was undefeated in the playoffs. Even if the Cavs' alleged second fiddle, Kevin Love, was out with a possible concussion. Even with Jeff Green, who averaged 10 points per game this season, starting in his place.
Even if the entire rhythm of this series virtually assured a Celtics victory.
But there was that other rhythm, and the Blob forgot it.
Never, ever, ever. Bet against LeBron. In a Game 7.
And so of course the Cavaliers won by eight, and Jeff Green, the 10-point-per-game scorer, went for 19 points and eight boards, and LeBron was on the high Hero Setting again, going for 35 points, 15 rebounds and nine assists while playing all 48 minutes. Along with the 46 points he scored in 46 minutes in Game 6, that means he scored 81 points while playing 94 minutes in the last two games of the series, both of which were elimination games for Cleveland.
Both of which the Cavs won to go to the NBA Finals for the fourth straight year. Both of which they won to send LeBron James to his eighth straight NBA Finals.
I don't know what the word for all that is. I don't know if there are any words to adequately describe it anymore, to describe a 33-year-old man who's been playing in the NBA for 15 years logging 94 minutes and scoring 81 points in the space of 48 hours.
I do know there's an acronym to describe it, however.
GOAT.
Greatest of all time. Don't even try to argue it.
Power trip
I don't know who this man is, there on the TV screen. I don't know this ... this ... maniac, sitting in his car, helmet hair sticking up in crazy Einstein tangles, shaking his gloved fists and screaming, screaming, screaming at the baking sun-seared sky.
Good lord. Now look at him.
Now he's standing up in the car, shaking his fists again, screaming again, looking straight into the camera with a lunatic's eyes. Now here comes his wife, and he's screaming at her (We did it!!), and he's screaming at the 500 Festival queen, for God's sake, and milk is dripping off his chin. And now he's hugging his wife, and here come some more people, and he's grinning and hugging them and, dear heaven, has there ever been a display like this in Victory Lane at Indianapolis? Has there ever been this much pure, unrestrained joy, even when it's the Indianapolis 500 and you've just won it?
And would you ever have thought you'd see it from this guy?
"This guy" being Will Power, his time come 'round at last, and, listen, I don't know this man. I've talked to him half a dozen times over the years, and his public face was always that of a nice, polite, reserved guy from Toowoomba, Australia, a bit wary talking to a reporter he doesn't really know. A bit wary, too, at the inevitable line of questioning.
Which was always about his dominance on the road courses of IndyCar, and how his performance on the ovals never quite matched up. And then, later, when he got to the point where he could pretty much win anywhere -- when Will Power was just so damned good at times it was as if he was driving a different race car on an entirely different level from everyone around him -- it was about why he could win everywhere else in IndyCar except at Indianapolis on the last Sunday in May.
Oh, he'd come close. Finished second behind Juan Pablo Montoya in 2015, when he, Montoya and Scott Dixon waged a stirring Masters of the IndyCar Universe duel across the final laps. And for a fleeting few seconds Sunday, it looked as if he were going to merely come close again after looking for so long like this was going to be his day at last.
He'd been around the front all day, after all, and then he was in front, and the longer it went in the thick heat the more you got a sense that you were looking at your race winner. He was in the right pit window. His stops were flawless. He'd duck in first and come out first after the field reshuffled.
But in the last 20 laps, Oriol Servia, Stefan Wilson and Jack Harvey stayed out, gambling that a couple of late yellows gave them just enough laps to get to the checkers before their tanks ran dry. Servia got swallowed up on the last restart with seven to go, and suddenly Wilson looked like your winner and Power, running behind Wilson and Harvey but the fastest guy out there, looked like he was going to run out of laps before he could catch them both.
And then fate smiled on him. Go figure.
With three laps to run both Wilson and Harvey ran out of gas, ducking into the pits just in front of Power. After that it was just a matter of keeping it between the walls.
And after that ...
The screaming. The fist-shaking. All that joy, unleashed at last.
In those moments, it became obvious that what Power said for public consumption about winning the 500, and what was going on inside him, were vastly different. He would always answer the questions, but as the years ran along it became increasingly clear he'd grown weary of them. And so when he talked about how much he wanted to win Indy, it began to sound almost rote.
Likely that was mere perception on the listener's part. In truth, everyone who knew him, or got him to open up, would tell you he really, really wanted to win the 500. It was the only mountain he hadn't conquered. And of course, by winning it, it would finally put an end to all the questions.
And so maybe that was relief we were seeing from Will Power, there in Victory Lane. Maybe that was it as much as anything.
Nah.
That was just joy. Unbound, set-free-at-last joy.
Good lord. Now look at him.
Now he's standing up in the car, shaking his fists again, screaming again, looking straight into the camera with a lunatic's eyes. Now here comes his wife, and he's screaming at her (We did it!!), and he's screaming at the 500 Festival queen, for God's sake, and milk is dripping off his chin. And now he's hugging his wife, and here come some more people, and he's grinning and hugging them and, dear heaven, has there ever been a display like this in Victory Lane at Indianapolis? Has there ever been this much pure, unrestrained joy, even when it's the Indianapolis 500 and you've just won it?
And would you ever have thought you'd see it from this guy?
"This guy" being Will Power, his time come 'round at last, and, listen, I don't know this man. I've talked to him half a dozen times over the years, and his public face was always that of a nice, polite, reserved guy from Toowoomba, Australia, a bit wary talking to a reporter he doesn't really know. A bit wary, too, at the inevitable line of questioning.
Which was always about his dominance on the road courses of IndyCar, and how his performance on the ovals never quite matched up. And then, later, when he got to the point where he could pretty much win anywhere -- when Will Power was just so damned good at times it was as if he was driving a different race car on an entirely different level from everyone around him -- it was about why he could win everywhere else in IndyCar except at Indianapolis on the last Sunday in May.
Oh, he'd come close. Finished second behind Juan Pablo Montoya in 2015, when he, Montoya and Scott Dixon waged a stirring Masters of the IndyCar Universe duel across the final laps. And for a fleeting few seconds Sunday, it looked as if he were going to merely come close again after looking for so long like this was going to be his day at last.
He'd been around the front all day, after all, and then he was in front, and the longer it went in the thick heat the more you got a sense that you were looking at your race winner. He was in the right pit window. His stops were flawless. He'd duck in first and come out first after the field reshuffled.
But in the last 20 laps, Oriol Servia, Stefan Wilson and Jack Harvey stayed out, gambling that a couple of late yellows gave them just enough laps to get to the checkers before their tanks ran dry. Servia got swallowed up on the last restart with seven to go, and suddenly Wilson looked like your winner and Power, running behind Wilson and Harvey but the fastest guy out there, looked like he was going to run out of laps before he could catch them both.
And then fate smiled on him. Go figure.
With three laps to run both Wilson and Harvey ran out of gas, ducking into the pits just in front of Power. After that it was just a matter of keeping it between the walls.
And after that ...
The screaming. The fist-shaking. All that joy, unleashed at last.
In those moments, it became obvious that what Power said for public consumption about winning the 500, and what was going on inside him, were vastly different. He would always answer the questions, but as the years ran along it became increasingly clear he'd grown weary of them. And so when he talked about how much he wanted to win Indy, it began to sound almost rote.
Likely that was mere perception on the listener's part. In truth, everyone who knew him, or got him to open up, would tell you he really, really wanted to win the 500. It was the only mountain he hadn't conquered. And of course, by winning it, it would finally put an end to all the questions.
And so maybe that was relief we were seeing from Will Power, there in Victory Lane. Maybe that was it as much as anything.
Nah.
That was just joy. Unbound, set-free-at-last joy.
Monday, May 28, 2018
What was given
Always I remember the crosses, on this day. Pristine white, laid out row upon perfectly symmetrical row, they sprout like a field of wildflowers in this quiet green place, every cross representing a father or son or brother who didn't come back from what was naively termed the Great Adventure.
Every cross representing something given, without expectation of payment.
War is the great waster, thief of life and potential and what-might-have-been. It is never something to be glorified, to be held up as some shining beacon of human virtue. Even in a good cause -- and the good causes almost without exception look less so in retrospect -- it reveals the worst of what we are.
And also the best, in an oddly paradoxical way.
The latter is why, on this Memorial Day, we go to the cemeteries and place American flags on graves. It's why on this day I remember those white crosses in the St. Mihiel American Military Cemetery near Thiaucourt, France, where so many of our countrymen rest who died trying to reduce the St. Mihiel salient in September of 1918.
It was the first major American engagement of the First World War, and if it was a victory it was a costly one, part of less than six months of combat that would steal some 53,000 American lives. The cemetery at Thiaucourt lies at the center of the old salient, a peaceful place set down in the middle of lush French farmland. If you didn't know any better, you'd swear you were in Indiana somewhere -- at least until, in the middle of a field of wheat, you spied the crumbling remains of an old German pillbox.
Or looked out over all those crosses, row on perfectly symmetrical row. Or stepped into the cool marbled shade of the memorial, where name upon name is etched in gold on a black plaque that stretches almost from floor to ceiling. The names go on forever, representing eight different American divisions. They are the names of the American soldiers who fought in the St. Mihiel region, and who now "rest in unknown graves."
Outside, in a leafy alcove, stands a white marble monument with an American doughboy carved on it in bas relief. Bareheaded, eyes closed, he holds his helmet at his waist in his left hand. Beneath him is this inscription: "Blessed are they that have the home longing, for they shall go home."
Around it, beneath those crosses, other American doughboys sleep on. They are home at last, in a sense. And because they and so many of their brothers are, generations of other Americans got to sleep peacefully in their own homes.
And because we do, we remember them this day. And on all days.
Every cross representing something given, without expectation of payment.
War is the great waster, thief of life and potential and what-might-have-been. It is never something to be glorified, to be held up as some shining beacon of human virtue. Even in a good cause -- and the good causes almost without exception look less so in retrospect -- it reveals the worst of what we are.
And also the best, in an oddly paradoxical way.
The latter is why, on this Memorial Day, we go to the cemeteries and place American flags on graves. It's why on this day I remember those white crosses in the St. Mihiel American Military Cemetery near Thiaucourt, France, where so many of our countrymen rest who died trying to reduce the St. Mihiel salient in September of 1918.
It was the first major American engagement of the First World War, and if it was a victory it was a costly one, part of less than six months of combat that would steal some 53,000 American lives. The cemetery at Thiaucourt lies at the center of the old salient, a peaceful place set down in the middle of lush French farmland. If you didn't know any better, you'd swear you were in Indiana somewhere -- at least until, in the middle of a field of wheat, you spied the crumbling remains of an old German pillbox.
Or looked out over all those crosses, row on perfectly symmetrical row. Or stepped into the cool marbled shade of the memorial, where name upon name is etched in gold on a black plaque that stretches almost from floor to ceiling. The names go on forever, representing eight different American divisions. They are the names of the American soldiers who fought in the St. Mihiel region, and who now "rest in unknown graves."
Outside, in a leafy alcove, stands a white marble monument with an American doughboy carved on it in bas relief. Bareheaded, eyes closed, he holds his helmet at his waist in his left hand. Beneath him is this inscription: "Blessed are they that have the home longing, for they shall go home."
Around it, beneath those crosses, other American doughboys sleep on. They are home at last, in a sense. And because they and so many of their brothers are, generations of other Americans got to sleep peacefully in their own homes.
And because we do, we remember them this day. And on all days.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Predictions? We don't need no stinking ...
I want to pick Danica Patrick today. I do.
Like her I'm a fool for the happily-ever-after, the glass slipper and handsome prince and Disneyland ending. And it wouldn't really be all that Disney-ish, when you get down to cases. Her many detractors aside, she's always been good on this biggest day in motorsports. She's run up front more times than she hasn't -- six top tens in seven Indianapolis 500s do not just happen, people -- and after seven years away, she stepped right back into the seat last weekend and was quick again.
Made the Fast Nine on Saturday, she did. Qualified on the inside of Row 3, one spot better than three-time winner Helio Castroneves and two better than 2008 winner Scott Dixon, her rowmates.
That, too, doesn't just happen. So it wouldn't be completely insane, picking her. It wouldn't be like that year I picked Marco Andretti, knowing full well that ... well, that he's an Andretti, and this is the Greatest Spectacle In Jacking Up The Andrettis.
Besides, like Danica, I know a cushy narrative when I see one.
"That would be the perfect way to never come back. Don't you think?" she said earlier this month, daydreaming about a yard of brick, a checkered flag and an ice-cold bottle of milk. "Just mic-drop the thing."
I wish, for her sake and that of all the media grunts begging just once for a storyline that writes itself, that she really can mic-drop the thing. But I've been hanging around Indy in May long enough to know it tends to be hell on wishes.
So, no, I will not pick Danica to win. In fact I'm not going to pick anyone, because for once I have no feel whatsoever for what's going to happen when they come to the green shortly after noon today.
Could this be Castroneves' year to finally win No. 4, after coming so close so many times in the nine years since No. 3?
Maybe.
Could Will Power, who wins everywhere else and who just won the Indy Grand Prix here two weeks ago, finally win the Big One that's so long eluded him?
Could happen.
I could see Josef Newgarden, the charismatic American and reigning IndyCar champ, screaming down through the shadows to the checkers, accompanied by what would surely be an immense waterfall of sound from the requisite Indy Mass O' Humanity. I could see the hometown Butler boy Ed Carpenter, who always goes fast on Pole Day, becoming what would surely be the most popular 500 winner since ... well, maybe since forever.
Simon Pagenaud?
He's dominated here before in spots, so why not?
Dixon? Ryan Hunter-Reay? Super-rookie Robert Wickens? Tony Kanaan? Sebastien Bourdais, who (speaking of cushy narratives) could go from victim to victor after the horrific crash last May that turned his pelvis into a jigsaw puzzle?
Sure. Fine. Whatever.
Now, if you pushed me, I'd tell you it's gonna be Newgarden, for the completely inadequate reason that this seems to be his time. Or I'd tell you it's gonna be Carlos Munoz. He's starting back in Row 7, but he's finished second, fourth, second and 10th in five previous starts, and he always, always seems to find his way to the front when the laps get skinny.
Guy like that, his number's gotta come up sooner or later. Right?
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, maybe I should flip a coin. I'm pretty much at that point right now.
Only, I'm not ready to flip just one.
What the hell. Go ahead and give me 33 of 'em.
Like her I'm a fool for the happily-ever-after, the glass slipper and handsome prince and Disneyland ending. And it wouldn't really be all that Disney-ish, when you get down to cases. Her many detractors aside, she's always been good on this biggest day in motorsports. She's run up front more times than she hasn't -- six top tens in seven Indianapolis 500s do not just happen, people -- and after seven years away, she stepped right back into the seat last weekend and was quick again.
Made the Fast Nine on Saturday, she did. Qualified on the inside of Row 3, one spot better than three-time winner Helio Castroneves and two better than 2008 winner Scott Dixon, her rowmates.
That, too, doesn't just happen. So it wouldn't be completely insane, picking her. It wouldn't be like that year I picked Marco Andretti, knowing full well that ... well, that he's an Andretti, and this is the Greatest Spectacle In Jacking Up The Andrettis.
Besides, like Danica, I know a cushy narrative when I see one.
"That would be the perfect way to never come back. Don't you think?" she said earlier this month, daydreaming about a yard of brick, a checkered flag and an ice-cold bottle of milk. "Just mic-drop the thing."
I wish, for her sake and that of all the media grunts begging just once for a storyline that writes itself, that she really can mic-drop the thing. But I've been hanging around Indy in May long enough to know it tends to be hell on wishes.
So, no, I will not pick Danica to win. In fact I'm not going to pick anyone, because for once I have no feel whatsoever for what's going to happen when they come to the green shortly after noon today.
Could this be Castroneves' year to finally win No. 4, after coming so close so many times in the nine years since No. 3?
Maybe.
Could Will Power, who wins everywhere else and who just won the Indy Grand Prix here two weeks ago, finally win the Big One that's so long eluded him?
Could happen.
I could see Josef Newgarden, the charismatic American and reigning IndyCar champ, screaming down through the shadows to the checkers, accompanied by what would surely be an immense waterfall of sound from the requisite Indy Mass O' Humanity. I could see the hometown Butler boy Ed Carpenter, who always goes fast on Pole Day, becoming what would surely be the most popular 500 winner since ... well, maybe since forever.
Simon Pagenaud?
He's dominated here before in spots, so why not?
Dixon? Ryan Hunter-Reay? Super-rookie Robert Wickens? Tony Kanaan? Sebastien Bourdais, who (speaking of cushy narratives) could go from victim to victor after the horrific crash last May that turned his pelvis into a jigsaw puzzle?
Sure. Fine. Whatever.
Now, if you pushed me, I'd tell you it's gonna be Newgarden, for the completely inadequate reason that this seems to be his time. Or I'd tell you it's gonna be Carlos Munoz. He's starting back in Row 7, but he's finished second, fourth, second and 10th in five previous starts, and he always, always seems to find his way to the front when the laps get skinny.
Guy like that, his number's gotta come up sooner or later. Right?
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, maybe I should flip a coin. I'm pretty much at that point right now.
Only, I'm not ready to flip just one.
What the hell. Go ahead and give me 33 of 'em.
Yep
OK. So let's review, Blobophiles:
NBA Eastern Conference finals.
Elimination game for the Cavaliers.
In Cleveland.
And LeBron James ...
A. Says, "Geez, it's almost June. I'm tired, carrying these sorry humps around by myself. Can't I just start my summer early for once?"
B. Says, "Ah, hell, another elimination game? Can't K-Love take over this deal just ONE time?"
C. Drops 46 points in 46 minutes. Lifts Cavs to a 10-point win even though the Celtics got a combined 55 points from Terry Rozier and Jalen Brown. Forces Game 7 back in Boston.
Come on. You know the answer.
NBA Eastern Conference finals.
Elimination game for the Cavaliers.
In Cleveland.
And LeBron James ...
A. Says, "Geez, it's almost June. I'm tired, carrying these sorry humps around by myself. Can't I just start my summer early for once?"
B. Says, "Ah, hell, another elimination game? Can't K-Love take over this deal just ONE time?"
C. Drops 46 points in 46 minutes. Lifts Cavs to a 10-point win even though the Celtics got a combined 55 points from Terry Rozier and Jalen Brown. Forces Game 7 back in Boston.
Come on. You know the answer.
Friday, May 25, 2018
Wise words from a smart guy
You know why Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr is a cut above your average sideline suit in Sportsball World?
Because he has perspective that goes beyond the greaseboard.
Because he understands more than just how to get Steph Curry open looks.
Because he understands America, and what America should be, far better than most people, including 98 percent of our alleged national leaders.
Here, for instance, is what he had to say about the NFL knuckling under to Our Only Available President on the anthem issue:
Our leadership in the NBA understands when the NFL players were kneeling, they were kneeling to protest police brutality, to protest racial inequality. They weren't disrespecting the flag or the military. But our president decided to make it about that and the NFL followed suit, pandered to their fan base, created this hysteria.
It's kind of what's wrong with our country right now; people in high places are trying to divide us, divide loyalties, make this about the flag as if the flag is something other than what it really is -- which is a representation of what we're about, which is diversity, peaceful protests, right to free speech. It's ironic, actually.
Preach it, Coach. Preach it.
Because he has perspective that goes beyond the greaseboard.
Because he understands more than just how to get Steph Curry open looks.
Because he understands America, and what America should be, far better than most people, including 98 percent of our alleged national leaders.
Here, for instance, is what he had to say about the NFL knuckling under to Our Only Available President on the anthem issue:
Our leadership in the NBA understands when the NFL players were kneeling, they were kneeling to protest police brutality, to protest racial inequality. They weren't disrespecting the flag or the military. But our president decided to make it about that and the NFL followed suit, pandered to their fan base, created this hysteria.
It's kind of what's wrong with our country right now; people in high places are trying to divide us, divide loyalties, make this about the flag as if the flag is something other than what it really is -- which is a representation of what we're about, which is diversity, peaceful protests, right to free speech. It's ironic, actually.
Preach it, Coach. Preach it.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Told. Ya. Part Deux.
Game 5. NBA Eastern Conference finals. Couple days after LeBron James, on the full Hero Setting, got the Cavaliers even in the series with two relatively easy victories in Cleveland. People now saying maybe the Celtics just don't have the juice to beat a superstar of Bron's magnitude.
Final score: Boston 96, Cleveland 83.
Any guesses what happens in Game 6 back in Cleveland?
Again: Come on. This isn't that hard.
Final score: Boston 96, Cleveland 83.
Any guesses what happens in Game 6 back in Cleveland?
Again: Come on. This isn't that hard.
Muzzled by mandate
The kneeling, it was never about the song. It was never about the song or the flag or the troops or any of the other nonsense put forth by the demagogue in the White House, or by all his various fellow travelers in NFL stadiums and Sunday afternoon living rooms.
The kneeling, it was about injustice. It was a solemn, polite, respectful reminder that in America today people of color sometimes wind up dead in circumstances where others do not. And why should that be?
That's what the kneeling was about. It was never about the song, never about the rockets' red glare or the dawn's early light or any of the rest of it.
But the demagogue in the White House hijacked the narrative, because the demagogue in the White House doesn't believe the real narrative has any merit whatsoever. If people of color wind up dead or get torn from their families and sent back to places they've never known, it's because they're animals and had it coming.
That's what the President of the United States believes. That's his vision of America. That's why he called all those kneeling players SOBs and condemned them for dishonoring America, all of that sheer cowflop with which he successfully obscured the message of the kneelers. Obscuring, after all, is what this president does best.
Yesterday, the National Football League bought into the obscuring. Swallowed it whole, hook, line, sinker and bait.
It told its players there'll be no more protesting in its workplace, no more kneeling for the National Anthem, respectful gesture that it was. If you want to protest people of color sometimes winding up dead in circumstances where others do not, we don't want to hear about it. You can stay in the locker room, safely out of sight -- and mind.
Everyone else, you're going to stand. You're going to behave in a manner deemed by the NFL to be respectful. That's because the NFL is your employer, and so the NFL's opinion about what is respectful posture and what it isn't, though of no more merit than anyone else's, is the only opinion that matters.
Your rights as an American citizen?
You forfeit them when you walk in the NFL's door.
This isn't right, of course. But it's the way the wind's blowing these days in America.
Just the other day the Supreme Court undermined the National Labor Relations Act by ruling, in a 5-4 vote, that it was superseded by the precedent set by the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act. Which essentially says if you are a private sector employee, you no longer have the right to band together to protect yourself in labor disputes. You can sue as an individual, but you can't seek protection in numbers. Which essentially means you have no protections.
Your employer can do whatever he wants to you once you sign that arbitration agreement. What are you gonna do, take on Big Box Amalgamated all by your lonesome?
Good luck with that.
Good luck, too, to the NFL players. Because, as the Supreme Court decision made abundantly clear, in this America your employer holds all the cards and you hold none. If Roger Goodell decided to make the players wrap themselves in the American flag, stand on one foot and sing the National Anthem, he could do that. He could designate at what exact volume they had sing it. He could make them wear tutus and ballerina slippers and sing it.
Of course, the NFL being the NFL, the spin was in full force yesterday. Why, this new edict is a compromise which preserves the rights of the players to protest inequality! Because we're all about our players' social activism in the National Football League! It's a good thing! We encourage it!
Well. As long as it doesn't cost us money, that is. Or tick off the demagogue in the White House.
In the NFL, see, you can't use your head as a weapon. You can, however, duck it and cringe.
The kneeling, it was about injustice. It was a solemn, polite, respectful reminder that in America today people of color sometimes wind up dead in circumstances where others do not. And why should that be?
That's what the kneeling was about. It was never about the song, never about the rockets' red glare or the dawn's early light or any of the rest of it.
But the demagogue in the White House hijacked the narrative, because the demagogue in the White House doesn't believe the real narrative has any merit whatsoever. If people of color wind up dead or get torn from their families and sent back to places they've never known, it's because they're animals and had it coming.
That's what the President of the United States believes. That's his vision of America. That's why he called all those kneeling players SOBs and condemned them for dishonoring America, all of that sheer cowflop with which he successfully obscured the message of the kneelers. Obscuring, after all, is what this president does best.
Yesterday, the National Football League bought into the obscuring. Swallowed it whole, hook, line, sinker and bait.
It told its players there'll be no more protesting in its workplace, no more kneeling for the National Anthem, respectful gesture that it was. If you want to protest people of color sometimes winding up dead in circumstances where others do not, we don't want to hear about it. You can stay in the locker room, safely out of sight -- and mind.
Everyone else, you're going to stand. You're going to behave in a manner deemed by the NFL to be respectful. That's because the NFL is your employer, and so the NFL's opinion about what is respectful posture and what it isn't, though of no more merit than anyone else's, is the only opinion that matters.
Your rights as an American citizen?
You forfeit them when you walk in the NFL's door.
This isn't right, of course. But it's the way the wind's blowing these days in America.
Just the other day the Supreme Court undermined the National Labor Relations Act by ruling, in a 5-4 vote, that it was superseded by the precedent set by the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act. Which essentially says if you are a private sector employee, you no longer have the right to band together to protect yourself in labor disputes. You can sue as an individual, but you can't seek protection in numbers. Which essentially means you have no protections.
Your employer can do whatever he wants to you once you sign that arbitration agreement. What are you gonna do, take on Big Box Amalgamated all by your lonesome?
Good luck with that.
Good luck, too, to the NFL players. Because, as the Supreme Court decision made abundantly clear, in this America your employer holds all the cards and you hold none. If Roger Goodell decided to make the players wrap themselves in the American flag, stand on one foot and sing the National Anthem, he could do that. He could designate at what exact volume they had sing it. He could make them wear tutus and ballerina slippers and sing it.
Of course, the NFL being the NFL, the spin was in full force yesterday. Why, this new edict is a compromise which preserves the rights of the players to protest inequality! Because we're all about our players' social activism in the National Football League! It's a good thing! We encourage it!
Well. As long as it doesn't cost us money, that is. Or tick off the demagogue in the White House.
In the NFL, see, you can't use your head as a weapon. You can, however, duck it and cringe.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Told. Ya.
Game 4. NBA Western Conference finals. Couple days after the Warriors laminated the Rockets by 35.
Final score: Rockets 95, Warriors 92.
Any guesses what happens in Game 5?
Come on. This isn't that hard.
Final score: Rockets 95, Warriors 92.
Any guesses what happens in Game 5?
Come on. This isn't that hard.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Sticking to the (non-)script
OK, OK. So this time they had even the Blob hornswoggled.
This time even Mr. One Game, People, Just One Game bought into the notion that maybe, maybe, there was a trend at work here, and it favored the Celtics. They dominated Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. They dominated Game 2, even with LeBron James on the Hero Setting for the Cavaliers. Surely now the Cavs were in trouble, right? Finally?
Fast forward to this morning, and, hey, look, the series is all knotted up at 2-apiece. The Cavaliers came home, LeBron turned his personal gauge one more click to the Advanced Hero Setting, and the Cavs won by 30 in Game 3. Then they won again last night as James went for 44 -- his sixth 40-point game of the playoffs, his second in the last three games -- and what we've learned from that is what we should have learned by now. Which is two things:
1. One. Game. Everything is one game. Momentum in the NBA playoffs is a mirage, there are no discernible patterns, the only script you can follow is no script.
2. LeBron James is the greatest basketball player in the universe, probably the best ever to play the game, and when he decides it's time to go win a game he goes and wins a game.
The Blob, of course, has been saying both of those things all along, and then it forgot its own instruction after the Celtics won the first two games so handily. It should have known. It should have said "Pffft. This series is just getting started" after LeBron went for 40-plus in Game 2 and the Celtics won by 13 anyway because they put all five starters plus Marcus Smart in double figures.
Last night?
LeBron went for 40-plus, the Celtics put all five starters in double figures again, and this time the Cavaliers won by nine.
This a couple of days after the Warriors, blown out by the Rockets in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals, came home and thrashed the Rockets by 35 in Game 3.
Momentum is a myth. There is no pattern. The only script is no script.
So what happens next?
You know what happens next.
The Celtics go home and win handily, and everyone declares again that Brad Stevens is Hardwood Einstein. The Rockets find a way to win Game 4, and everyone declares again (as they did after Game 2) that the Warriors are not unbeatable after all.
Or not, of course. Or not.
This time even Mr. One Game, People, Just One Game bought into the notion that maybe, maybe, there was a trend at work here, and it favored the Celtics. They dominated Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. They dominated Game 2, even with LeBron James on the Hero Setting for the Cavaliers. Surely now the Cavs were in trouble, right? Finally?
Fast forward to this morning, and, hey, look, the series is all knotted up at 2-apiece. The Cavaliers came home, LeBron turned his personal gauge one more click to the Advanced Hero Setting, and the Cavs won by 30 in Game 3. Then they won again last night as James went for 44 -- his sixth 40-point game of the playoffs, his second in the last three games -- and what we've learned from that is what we should have learned by now. Which is two things:
1. One. Game. Everything is one game. Momentum in the NBA playoffs is a mirage, there are no discernible patterns, the only script you can follow is no script.
2. LeBron James is the greatest basketball player in the universe, probably the best ever to play the game, and when he decides it's time to go win a game he goes and wins a game.
The Blob, of course, has been saying both of those things all along, and then it forgot its own instruction after the Celtics won the first two games so handily. It should have known. It should have said "Pffft. This series is just getting started" after LeBron went for 40-plus in Game 2 and the Celtics won by 13 anyway because they put all five starters plus Marcus Smart in double figures.
Last night?
LeBron went for 40-plus, the Celtics put all five starters in double figures again, and this time the Cavaliers won by nine.
This a couple of days after the Warriors, blown out by the Rockets in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals, came home and thrashed the Rockets by 35 in Game 3.
Momentum is a myth. There is no pattern. The only script is no script.
So what happens next?
You know what happens next.
The Celtics go home and win handily, and everyone declares again that Brad Stevens is Hardwood Einstein. The Rockets find a way to win Game 4, and everyone declares again (as they did after Game 2) that the Warriors are not unbeatable after all.
Or not, of course. Or not.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Beginner's luck
You likely didn't hear much about this on ESPN, on account of LeBron 'n' them weren't involved. But the biggest sports story of the weekend just past was not the Cavaliers blowing out the Celtics or the Warriors blowing out the Rockets or Justify slopping to victory again in the mud and fog of the Preakness.
No, sir. The biggest sports story of the weekend happened miles north of all that, in Winnipeg.
That's where the Las Vegas Golden Knights won yet again to eliminate the hometown Jets in the NHL playoffs, which earned Vegas a spot in the Stanley Cup Final. This is significant because the Golden Knights have never played in the Stanley Cup Final. And that's because, until this year, they didn't exist.
That's right, folks. Not only did the Golden Knights reach the playoffs in their inaugural year as an expansion franchise, they swept the Kings in the first round, then beat the Sharks in the second round, then knocked out the Jets in five games in the conference final. Now it's on to the Stanley Cup Final, and maybe, the Chalice itself.
You know what the odds of them making the Final were at the beginning of the season?
Five hundred to one.
That's because expansion franchises not only are not supposed to make the playoffs, they're generally expected to finish dead last. That's what happened to the New York Mets in their inaugural season of 1962, when they went 40-120. It's what happened to the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints, both of whom finished 3-11 in their inaugural seasons of 1966 and 1967.
Closer to home, it's also what happened to the California Golden Seals in their inaugural NHL season of 1967-68, when they went 15-42-17.
Las Vegas, meanwhile, went 51-24-7 and won the Pacific Division in their first season.
What's astounding about that is, like most expansion franchises, Vegas put together a roster out of everyone's leftovers. This includes goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who had been decent but rarely spectacular between the pipes in 12 seasons with the Penguins. Last year, for instance, he was 18-10-7 with a goals-against of 3.02.
This season?
29-13-4 and 2.24. Oh, and 12-2-1 and 1.68 so far in the playoffs.
And so on the Golden Knights go behind their hot goalie, and if they win the Cup it will be the biggest sports story not just of one weekend but the entire year. Nothing else is going to remotely approach it. It won't quite be like Leicester winning the British Premier League in soccer a couple of years back, but it will be the most outrageous Cinderella story stateside since Team USA over Russia in the '80 Olympics, since Chaminade over Ralph Sampson and Virginia in the Maui Classic, since Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson in Tokyo.
Remember: 500-1.
Why, not even the hometown crowd in Lost Wages would have taken that action. Maybe.
No, sir. The biggest sports story of the weekend happened miles north of all that, in Winnipeg.
That's where the Las Vegas Golden Knights won yet again to eliminate the hometown Jets in the NHL playoffs, which earned Vegas a spot in the Stanley Cup Final. This is significant because the Golden Knights have never played in the Stanley Cup Final. And that's because, until this year, they didn't exist.
That's right, folks. Not only did the Golden Knights reach the playoffs in their inaugural year as an expansion franchise, they swept the Kings in the first round, then beat the Sharks in the second round, then knocked out the Jets in five games in the conference final. Now it's on to the Stanley Cup Final, and maybe, the Chalice itself.
You know what the odds of them making the Final were at the beginning of the season?
Five hundred to one.
That's because expansion franchises not only are not supposed to make the playoffs, they're generally expected to finish dead last. That's what happened to the New York Mets in their inaugural season of 1962, when they went 40-120. It's what happened to the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints, both of whom finished 3-11 in their inaugural seasons of 1966 and 1967.
Closer to home, it's also what happened to the California Golden Seals in their inaugural NHL season of 1967-68, when they went 15-42-17.
Las Vegas, meanwhile, went 51-24-7 and won the Pacific Division in their first season.
What's astounding about that is, like most expansion franchises, Vegas put together a roster out of everyone's leftovers. This includes goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who had been decent but rarely spectacular between the pipes in 12 seasons with the Penguins. Last year, for instance, he was 18-10-7 with a goals-against of 3.02.
This season?
29-13-4 and 2.24. Oh, and 12-2-1 and 1.68 so far in the playoffs.
And so on the Golden Knights go behind their hot goalie, and if they win the Cup it will be the biggest sports story not just of one weekend but the entire year. Nothing else is going to remotely approach it. It won't quite be like Leicester winning the British Premier League in soccer a couple of years back, but it will be the most outrageous Cinderella story stateside since Team USA over Russia in the '80 Olympics, since Chaminade over Ralph Sampson and Virginia in the Maui Classic, since Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson in Tokyo.
Remember: 500-1.
Why, not even the hometown crowd in Lost Wages would have taken that action. Maybe.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Things that go bump in the light
In those last hours, I remember standing behind Al Unser Jr.'s pit, watching the men in their matching shirts work. The sun was sliding down the late afternoon sky, slipping toward the great bank of grandstands to the west. They had bought a car -- a Reynard, if my hazy memory serves -- and now they were trying to get it shaken down, trying to find some speed before the day, and the month, ran out on them.
"You gonna have time to get this ready?" I asked one of the crewmen, as he leaned close to grab a tire.
He looked up blankly. Shrugged.
And that's pretty much when I knew the unthinkable was going to happen.
Roger Penske -- Roger Penske! -- was going to miss the Indianapolis 500.
Al Unser Jr., the defending champion, never did find the speed to get into the field. Emerson Fittipaldi, a two-time 500 winner for Penske, qualified and was bumped. And the lesson, that strange May of 1995, was that Indianapolis is a hard old place, and it doesn't play favorites. And that stuff just sorta happens sometimes on Bump Day.
Which brings to yesterday, and the first real Bump Day at Indy since 2011. There were two cars more than the allotted 33 in line, which meant you still had overwhelmingly decent odds to make the race. Pippa Mann, unfortunately, didn't beat those odds.
Neither did James Hinchcliffe.
Who won the pole position just two years ago. Who was expected to be in the Fast Nine, the nine cars who will run for the pole today. Who is, along with Helio Castroneves, indisputably the face of IndyCar, an engaging, witty guy you saw on "Dancing With The Stars" and see now on all those Honda commercials.
The last thing Indy needed was for Hinch not to make Race Day.
Which of course raised speculation that an exception might be made to expand the field to get Hinchcliffe and Mann into the show.
I doubt very much that's going to happen. And the reason I doubt it's going to happen goes back to 1995, when no exception was made to get Penske into the race, and to all the years before when no exception was made to get any number of fan favorites into the race.
Indy is a hard old place, to reiterate. And if you're going to make a big deal out of having an actual Bump Day for the first time since 2011, as the Speedway has, you can't turn around and wuss out on it because the wrong guy failed to qualify.
"Should they just start everyone? To me, I'm definitely a traditionalist," said Ed Carpenter, stepson of Tony George, who did expand the field back in 1997. "As tough as it is to watch a guy like Hinch, who has had great moments here, really tough moments, I feel for him, I feel for Pippa. We've all worked very hard to be here. I really feel for them.
"At the same time, Indianapolis, that's part of the lure of what makes this race so special and important to all of us. Growing up around this event, seeing years where Team Penske struggled and missed the race, Bobby Rahal missed the race one year, it's happened to great teams."
Even Hinchcliffe understands that.
"Everybody has been hoping for a Bump Day since 2012. It's part of the tradition of this race, the excitement of about this race. Thirty-three cars start, that's the deal. It always has been," Hinchcliffe said. "The purist in me, the motorsport enthusiast in me thinks this is good for the sport. That's more important than what's good for James Hinchcliffe today."
Hinch could, of course, get into the race by taking teammate Jay Howard's ride. Howard is racing Indy as a one-off; Hinchcliffe is fifth in the points right now and a threat to win the IndyCar title. So broader canvas considerations could move Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to put Hinchcliffe in the car Howard qualified.
That would be wrong, too, of course. But at least it would be a defensible business decision.
Expanding the field because Bump Day didn't come out the way you wanted it to?
Not defensible at all.
"You gonna have time to get this ready?" I asked one of the crewmen, as he leaned close to grab a tire.
He looked up blankly. Shrugged.
And that's pretty much when I knew the unthinkable was going to happen.
Roger Penske -- Roger Penske! -- was going to miss the Indianapolis 500.
Al Unser Jr., the defending champion, never did find the speed to get into the field. Emerson Fittipaldi, a two-time 500 winner for Penske, qualified and was bumped. And the lesson, that strange May of 1995, was that Indianapolis is a hard old place, and it doesn't play favorites. And that stuff just sorta happens sometimes on Bump Day.
Which brings to yesterday, and the first real Bump Day at Indy since 2011. There were two cars more than the allotted 33 in line, which meant you still had overwhelmingly decent odds to make the race. Pippa Mann, unfortunately, didn't beat those odds.
Neither did James Hinchcliffe.
Who won the pole position just two years ago. Who was expected to be in the Fast Nine, the nine cars who will run for the pole today. Who is, along with Helio Castroneves, indisputably the face of IndyCar, an engaging, witty guy you saw on "Dancing With The Stars" and see now on all those Honda commercials.
The last thing Indy needed was for Hinch not to make Race Day.
Which of course raised speculation that an exception might be made to expand the field to get Hinchcliffe and Mann into the show.
I doubt very much that's going to happen. And the reason I doubt it's going to happen goes back to 1995, when no exception was made to get Penske into the race, and to all the years before when no exception was made to get any number of fan favorites into the race.
Indy is a hard old place, to reiterate. And if you're going to make a big deal out of having an actual Bump Day for the first time since 2011, as the Speedway has, you can't turn around and wuss out on it because the wrong guy failed to qualify.
"Should they just start everyone? To me, I'm definitely a traditionalist," said Ed Carpenter, stepson of Tony George, who did expand the field back in 1997. "As tough as it is to watch a guy like Hinch, who has had great moments here, really tough moments, I feel for him, I feel for Pippa. We've all worked very hard to be here. I really feel for them.
"At the same time, Indianapolis, that's part of the lure of what makes this race so special and important to all of us. Growing up around this event, seeing years where Team Penske struggled and missed the race, Bobby Rahal missed the race one year, it's happened to great teams."
Even Hinchcliffe understands that.
"Everybody has been hoping for a Bump Day since 2012. It's part of the tradition of this race, the excitement of about this race. Thirty-three cars start, that's the deal. It always has been," Hinchcliffe said. "The purist in me, the motorsport enthusiast in me thinks this is good for the sport. That's more important than what's good for James Hinchcliffe today."
Hinch could, of course, get into the race by taking teammate Jay Howard's ride. Howard is racing Indy as a one-off; Hinchcliffe is fifth in the points right now and a threat to win the IndyCar title. So broader canvas considerations could move Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to put Hinchcliffe in the car Howard qualified.
That would be wrong, too, of course. But at least it would be a defensible business decision.
Expanding the field because Bump Day didn't come out the way you wanted it to?
Not defensible at all.
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Your brief, stupid thought for today
Watching the royal wedding this morning, or at least the royal wedding carriage ride, on account of it's Saturday morning and it's on every channel. And the Blob had one of its frequent ridiculous revelations.
"It's just like the Kentucky Derby!" I exclaimed.
Because, first of all, there are horses. Lots and lots of horses.
And also, lots and lots of women in bizarre hats.
All that's missing are the betting windows and the mint juleps. Also the twin spires.
Although Windsor Castle makes those look, well, common.
"It's just like the Kentucky Derby!" I exclaimed.
Because, first of all, there are horses. Lots and lots of horses.
And also, lots and lots of women in bizarre hats.
All that's missing are the betting windows and the mint juleps. Also the twin spires.
Although Windsor Castle makes those look, well, common.
Friday, May 18, 2018
J'accuse abuse
I wouldn't know Ruben Foster of the 49ers if he came off the edge and turned me into six feet of compound fractures. But I do know one thing about him.
I know he's apparently not part of the NFL's domestic violence problem.
I know this despite the fact he was arrested for beating up his girlfriend, and I know it because the girlfriend, Elissa Ennis, testified in a preliminary hearing this week that she made it all up. Said she "lied a lot" to the authorities about the alleged incident. Said she did it because she was angry he broke up with her, and so she wanted to ruin his career and milk him for as much dough as she could while she was at it.
Then she said she'd done the same thing to a previous boyfriend when he tried to break up with her.
You know what I know about that?
I know I'm damn glad that time, circumstance and geography never put me in contact with Elissa Ennis.
I also know she just became Public Enemy No. 1 for any woman who actually is getting beaten, sexually assaulted or otherwise abused by a spouse, boyfriend, boss or mere acquaintance.
The #MeToo movement already has drawn the predictable backlash, which is that men's lives are being ruined because woman finally are finding the courage to come forward and accuse them. This of course ignores all the women whose lives have been ruined since time immemorial because powerful men abused their positions of privilege. The #MeToo phenomenon therefore seems merely like a long-overdue balancing of the scales to anyone with any sense of justice at all.
Yet if we've learned anything at all these last few years, it's that justice has become a sad joke in a nation that has lost its sense of self in a mad descent into a bully's paradise. Now here comes Elissa Ennis, providing aid and comfort to that paradise.
I don't know if she understands this, or even has the capacity to understand it. Abused women already have the deck stacked against them for a variety of reasons, and Ennis just cluelessly stacked it higher. At the very moment they were finally finding their voice, one of their own saw fit to drown them out again.
I don't know what the punishment is for lying to the authorities. But I do know one thing.
I know they can't make it harsh enough.
I know he's apparently not part of the NFL's domestic violence problem.
I know this despite the fact he was arrested for beating up his girlfriend, and I know it because the girlfriend, Elissa Ennis, testified in a preliminary hearing this week that she made it all up. Said she "lied a lot" to the authorities about the alleged incident. Said she did it because she was angry he broke up with her, and so she wanted to ruin his career and milk him for as much dough as she could while she was at it.
Then she said she'd done the same thing to a previous boyfriend when he tried to break up with her.
You know what I know about that?
I know I'm damn glad that time, circumstance and geography never put me in contact with Elissa Ennis.
I also know she just became Public Enemy No. 1 for any woman who actually is getting beaten, sexually assaulted or otherwise abused by a spouse, boyfriend, boss or mere acquaintance.
The #MeToo movement already has drawn the predictable backlash, which is that men's lives are being ruined because woman finally are finding the courage to come forward and accuse them. This of course ignores all the women whose lives have been ruined since time immemorial because powerful men abused their positions of privilege. The #MeToo phenomenon therefore seems merely like a long-overdue balancing of the scales to anyone with any sense of justice at all.
Yet if we've learned anything at all these last few years, it's that justice has become a sad joke in a nation that has lost its sense of self in a mad descent into a bully's paradise. Now here comes Elissa Ennis, providing aid and comfort to that paradise.
I don't know if she understands this, or even has the capacity to understand it. Abused women already have the deck stacked against them for a variety of reasons, and Ennis just cluelessly stacked it higher. At the very moment they were finally finding their voice, one of their own saw fit to drown them out again.
I don't know what the punishment is for lying to the authorities. But I do know one thing.
I know they can't make it harsh enough.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Just doin' bidness
Perhaps it was Ebenezer Scrooge, a man whose crossover of the soul became the stuff of legend, who had the truest bead on this. Remember? That scene at 'Change, before the Ghosts came to call?
He had corn to sell. A clutch of buyers wanted it. But they waited a day too long, and so Scrooge upped the price on them, and one of the buyers, knowing he was over a barrel, protested that it wasn't fair.
"No," Scrooge snapped. "But it's business."
Which, in the Blob's famously circuitous way, brings us to the curious case of Romeo Langford.
The kid everyone wanted plucked the IU cap off the table instead of the Vanderbilt or Kansas cap, and loud celebrations ensued. It was understood Langford was only signing on for a year, maybe two, but that wasn't the point. The point was, he was a platinum-grade five-star recruit who picked an Indiana program Archie Miller is trying to restore to greatness, and by doing so made Miller's program a destination for other five-stars to follow.
Only now, according to the Washington Post, we find out he might not have been swayed by the merits of either Miller or what he's building in Bloomington. Turns out it might have been the usual suspect: Money.
The Post reported that Adidas, the apparel company for whom Indiana is a client, also decided (coincidentally, of course, wink-wink) to subsidize an AAU team run by Romeo Langford's father, Tim. Surprise, surprise, Romeo wound up at IU.
A blind man could see the quid pro quo.
What muddies this tale, mind you, is who told it. That would be Rick Pitino, the disgraced former Louisville coach. Personal experience has taught the Blob that if Pitino tells you the sky is blue, you'd best go outside and check.
On the other hand, his revelation isn't exactly a revelation, as Pitino himself noted. Arrangements such as the one he described, he said, are perfectly legal and happen all the time. And why is that, boys and girls?
Thaaat's right. Because as Scrooge said, it's business. And big-time college buckets are as purely and simply a business as the NBA or NFL or Microsoft.
We should know this by now, and we should also know who pulls the strings, thanks to those FBI wiretaps from last fall. What that investigation uncovered is, if college basketball is a business, it's the apparel companies who are the CEOs. They subsidize the programs. They to one degree or another subsidize the players, aided and abetted by their unholy alliance with AAU basketball, a teeming cesspool of corruption.
And the line between that corruption and what is just bidness is dismayingly thin. Which is what the FBI was looking into, and what should be the real cause for alarm in the Langford case.
Yes, their alleged deal was Just Bidness. It's how the sausage gets made everywhere in college basketball, and that's the simple truth.
But what if some agent for Adidas had decided to cut out the middle man and, on behalf of his client in Bloomington, come to Tim Langford with a wad of cash instead?
Well. Then you'd have reason to be shocked, shocked at the proceedings -- as would the authorities.
Such a fine line. Such a fine, shady line.
He had corn to sell. A clutch of buyers wanted it. But they waited a day too long, and so Scrooge upped the price on them, and one of the buyers, knowing he was over a barrel, protested that it wasn't fair.
"No," Scrooge snapped. "But it's business."
Which, in the Blob's famously circuitous way, brings us to the curious case of Romeo Langford.
The kid everyone wanted plucked the IU cap off the table instead of the Vanderbilt or Kansas cap, and loud celebrations ensued. It was understood Langford was only signing on for a year, maybe two, but that wasn't the point. The point was, he was a platinum-grade five-star recruit who picked an Indiana program Archie Miller is trying to restore to greatness, and by doing so made Miller's program a destination for other five-stars to follow.
Only now, according to the Washington Post, we find out he might not have been swayed by the merits of either Miller or what he's building in Bloomington. Turns out it might have been the usual suspect: Money.
The Post reported that Adidas, the apparel company for whom Indiana is a client, also decided (coincidentally, of course, wink-wink) to subsidize an AAU team run by Romeo Langford's father, Tim. Surprise, surprise, Romeo wound up at IU.
A blind man could see the quid pro quo.
What muddies this tale, mind you, is who told it. That would be Rick Pitino, the disgraced former Louisville coach. Personal experience has taught the Blob that if Pitino tells you the sky is blue, you'd best go outside and check.
On the other hand, his revelation isn't exactly a revelation, as Pitino himself noted. Arrangements such as the one he described, he said, are perfectly legal and happen all the time. And why is that, boys and girls?
Thaaat's right. Because as Scrooge said, it's business. And big-time college buckets are as purely and simply a business as the NBA or NFL or Microsoft.
We should know this by now, and we should also know who pulls the strings, thanks to those FBI wiretaps from last fall. What that investigation uncovered is, if college basketball is a business, it's the apparel companies who are the CEOs. They subsidize the programs. They to one degree or another subsidize the players, aided and abetted by their unholy alliance with AAU basketball, a teeming cesspool of corruption.
And the line between that corruption and what is just bidness is dismayingly thin. Which is what the FBI was looking into, and what should be the real cause for alarm in the Langford case.
Yes, their alleged deal was Just Bidness. It's how the sausage gets made everywhere in college basketball, and that's the simple truth.
But what if some agent for Adidas had decided to cut out the middle man and, on behalf of his client in Bloomington, come to Tim Langford with a wad of cash instead?
Well. Then you'd have reason to be shocked, shocked at the proceedings -- as would the authorities.
Such a fine line. Such a fine, shady line.
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Cleveland, we have a problem
OK. So if you're from the land of the flaming Cuyahoga, you now have the Blob's permission to cry "Fire!"
That's because one game has become two games in which LeBron James and the Cavaliers have gone up in smoke against the Boston Celtics, and this time it was despite the fact LeBron did his LeBron thing. He went for 42 points and a triple double, and it didn't matter a jot. The Celtics still cruised in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, 107-94.
Unlike Cleveland, which got 44.6 percent of its points from LeBron, all five Celtics starters, plus Marcus Smart off the bench, scored in double digits. This suggests, as Game 1 suggested, that the Celtics may just have too many weapons for even LeBron in Hero Mode to overcome.
Of course, there still is no such thing as momentum in the NBA. So maybe Hero Mode LeBron and the Cavs go back to Cleveland, win two and reverse the tide.
But right now, the Blob doesn't see how that happens.
Right now.
Stay tuned, in other words.
That's because one game has become two games in which LeBron James and the Cavaliers have gone up in smoke against the Boston Celtics, and this time it was despite the fact LeBron did his LeBron thing. He went for 42 points and a triple double, and it didn't matter a jot. The Celtics still cruised in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, 107-94.
Unlike Cleveland, which got 44.6 percent of its points from LeBron, all five Celtics starters, plus Marcus Smart off the bench, scored in double digits. This suggests, as Game 1 suggested, that the Celtics may just have too many weapons for even LeBron in Hero Mode to overcome.
Of course, there still is no such thing as momentum in the NBA. So maybe Hero Mode LeBron and the Cavs go back to Cleveland, win two and reverse the tide.
But right now, the Blob doesn't see how that happens.
Right now.
Stay tuned, in other words.
The tease is on
Time now to check in with the Blob's favorite baseball team, the stubbornly mediocre Pittsburgh Pirates, which means it's time for all of you to say things like "No!" and "Not again!" and "Nobody cares about the stupid Pirates, so enough crying and whinging!"
("Whinging," by the way, is a wonderfully under-utilized word, in the Blob's opinion. So I thought I'd throw it in there just give it a little love.)
Anyway, all you bellyachers out there, dummy up. As I frequently remind you, this is my Blob, so my rules. Them that don't like it can just high-tail it on outta here.
Back to the Pirates.
When I looked up this morning they were not battling it out with the Reds for last place, as expected. They were seven games over .500 (24-17) and tied for first in the NL Central with the Brewers. They're a game ahead of both the Cardinals and the Cubs, for heaven's sake. And it's mid-May.
This will not stand. I know, everyone knows, that the Pirates are not this good. I know, everyone knows, that eventually they're going to revert to being the Pirates again, which means sometime in, oh, mid-June or July they're going to go into a horrendous slide, lose eleventy-hundred games in a row and wind up fighting it out with the Reds for last place in the Central.
The Reds, by the way, are 14-29 and 11 games out. But after an inexcusably pathetic start which put the much-anticipated Battle for the Cellar in serious peril, they're winning a few games now. In fact, until they dropped their last two, they'd won six of their previous eight games.
Of course, as of this morning, the Pirates have won seven of their last 10.
Tempters, I tell you. Cruel, cruel tempters.
("Whinging," by the way, is a wonderfully under-utilized word, in the Blob's opinion. So I thought I'd throw it in there just give it a little love.)
Anyway, all you bellyachers out there, dummy up. As I frequently remind you, this is my Blob, so my rules. Them that don't like it can just high-tail it on outta here.
Back to the Pirates.
When I looked up this morning they were not battling it out with the Reds for last place, as expected. They were seven games over .500 (24-17) and tied for first in the NL Central with the Brewers. They're a game ahead of both the Cardinals and the Cubs, for heaven's sake. And it's mid-May.
This will not stand. I know, everyone knows, that the Pirates are not this good. I know, everyone knows, that eventually they're going to revert to being the Pirates again, which means sometime in, oh, mid-June or July they're going to go into a horrendous slide, lose eleventy-hundred games in a row and wind up fighting it out with the Reds for last place in the Central.
The Reds, by the way, are 14-29 and 11 games out. But after an inexcusably pathetic start which put the much-anticipated Battle for the Cellar in serious peril, they're winning a few games now. In fact, until they dropped their last two, they'd won six of their previous eight games.
Of course, as of this morning, the Pirates have won seven of their last 10.
Tempters, I tell you. Cruel, cruel tempters.
Monday, May 14, 2018
Place your bets
Well, now. Here's a sea change for you.
You know the 1992 law that bars state-authorized gambling on sporting events (except in Nevada, Montana, Oregon and Delaware)? The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act?
The Supremes just struck it down.
This means states can now legally offer sports betting. According to some researchers, as many as 32 states may do so in the next five years.
This is seismic. This is, yes, a sea change. This is the Blob speaking with its tongue firmly sutured to its cheek.
That's because the Blob admits to violating the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act on numerous occasions, most them in March. March, of course, is home to March Madness. March Madness is home to the NCAA Tournament, on which scads of people bet every year ("scads" being a casual term for the more numerically accurate "lots and lots.") Every single scad, unless they lived in the aforementioned four states, was technically violating the '92 statute.
And they all went to jail for doing so. Every single scad of them.
OK. So they didn't.
They didn't, because -- like Prohibition never stopped a soul who was so inclined from knocking back a few whiskey sours -- the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection never stopped a soul who was so inclined from betting on sports. The American Gaming Association, in fact, figures Americans illegally bet $150 billion on sports every year.
One hundred. Fifty. Billion. Every year.
Not only that, but the major professional and amateur sports don't seem to mind all this scofflawing. Oh, they don't encourage it, and in fact wring their hands in a fine show of concern over the prospect of legalized betting corrupting their sports. But it's mostly just that, a fine show.
After all, to cite one example, the NFL mandates that each team must release an injury report to the public every week. What possible purpose does that serve except to facilitate gambling?
Now, it's true that making all this legal could lead to another Black Sox situation. It could lead to NFL zebras making even more bizarre calls than they already do. It could lead to another Tim Donaghy-style expose in the NBA.
On the other hand, it also could lead to what the lifting of Prohibition led to. Which is people drinking who had already been drinking during Prohibition.
Again: $150 billion every year. And the states couldn't put their mitts on a dime of it.
Now they will, which could be a good thing if they put this new revenue stream to good use (always problematical, admittedly.) Is it possible making sports gambling legal will mean even greater sums being wagered, and increase the possibility for corruption? Maybe. But also maybe not, because $150 billion a year suggests that people inclined to bet on sporting events are already betting on them. And people who are not so inclined aren't likely to change their minds just because it's legal now.
During Prohibition, drinkers still drank and teetotalers teetotaled, and that didn't change when Prohibition was lifted. I could be wrong, but I sense the same dynamic at work here.
Gamblers are gonna gamble. Non-gamblers won't. Same today as yesterday.
You know the 1992 law that bars state-authorized gambling on sporting events (except in Nevada, Montana, Oregon and Delaware)? The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act?
The Supremes just struck it down.
This means states can now legally offer sports betting. According to some researchers, as many as 32 states may do so in the next five years.
This is seismic. This is, yes, a sea change. This is the Blob speaking with its tongue firmly sutured to its cheek.
That's because the Blob admits to violating the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act on numerous occasions, most them in March. March, of course, is home to March Madness. March Madness is home to the NCAA Tournament, on which scads of people bet every year ("scads" being a casual term for the more numerically accurate "lots and lots.") Every single scad, unless they lived in the aforementioned four states, was technically violating the '92 statute.
And they all went to jail for doing so. Every single scad of them.
OK. So they didn't.
They didn't, because -- like Prohibition never stopped a soul who was so inclined from knocking back a few whiskey sours -- the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection never stopped a soul who was so inclined from betting on sports. The American Gaming Association, in fact, figures Americans illegally bet $150 billion on sports every year.
One hundred. Fifty. Billion. Every year.
Not only that, but the major professional and amateur sports don't seem to mind all this scofflawing. Oh, they don't encourage it, and in fact wring their hands in a fine show of concern over the prospect of legalized betting corrupting their sports. But it's mostly just that, a fine show.
After all, to cite one example, the NFL mandates that each team must release an injury report to the public every week. What possible purpose does that serve except to facilitate gambling?
Now, it's true that making all this legal could lead to another Black Sox situation. It could lead to NFL zebras making even more bizarre calls than they already do. It could lead to another Tim Donaghy-style expose in the NBA.
On the other hand, it also could lead to what the lifting of Prohibition led to. Which is people drinking who had already been drinking during Prohibition.
Again: $150 billion every year. And the states couldn't put their mitts on a dime of it.
Now they will, which could be a good thing if they put this new revenue stream to good use (always problematical, admittedly.) Is it possible making sports gambling legal will mean even greater sums being wagered, and increase the possibility for corruption? Maybe. But also maybe not, because $150 billion a year suggests that people inclined to bet on sporting events are already betting on them. And people who are not so inclined aren't likely to change their minds just because it's legal now.
During Prohibition, drinkers still drank and teetotalers teetotaled, and that didn't change when Prohibition was lifted. I could be wrong, but I sense the same dynamic at work here.
Gamblers are gonna gamble. Non-gamblers won't. Same today as yesterday.
Today's obligatory reminder
So remember, oh, about a month ago, when the Indiana Pacers blew out the Cleveland Cavaliers by 18 in Game 1 of their first-round series, and held LeBron James in check, and looked deeper, fresher, smarter and tougher than the Cavaliers?
Remember how everyone was saying this could be the team to take down LeBron 'n' them, on account of they were deeper, fresher, smarter, etc., and besides, the Cavaliers are really a mediocre team when you can hold LeBron in check?
Refresh my memory. What happened after that?
Oh, yeah. The Cavs won Game 2. LeBron turned into LeBron again, which is to say, he leaped tall buildings in a single bound and earnest defensive schemes bounced off him like speeding bullets. And the Cavs won the series in seven games after LeBron went for 45 in the deciding game.
Refresh my memory again. What happened yesterday?
Oh, yeah. The Celtics ball-peened the Cavs by 25 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. Marcus orris, and others, put the glove on LeBron, who scored a playoff-low 15 points and missed all five of his 3-point attempts. The Cavs as a team were 4-of-26 from the arc. The Celtics looked far and away the deeper, fresher, smarter, etc., team.
Refresh my memory yet again. What did the Blob say after the Pacers smoked the Pacers in Game 1 a month ago? And what is the Blob saying again today?
One game, people. One. Game.
Remember how everyone was saying this could be the team to take down LeBron 'n' them, on account of they were deeper, fresher, smarter, etc., and besides, the Cavaliers are really a mediocre team when you can hold LeBron in check?
Refresh my memory. What happened after that?
Oh, yeah. The Cavs won Game 2. LeBron turned into LeBron again, which is to say, he leaped tall buildings in a single bound and earnest defensive schemes bounced off him like speeding bullets. And the Cavs won the series in seven games after LeBron went for 45 in the deciding game.
Refresh my memory again. What happened yesterday?
Oh, yeah. The Celtics ball-peened the Cavs by 25 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. Marcus orris, and others, put the glove on LeBron, who scored a playoff-low 15 points and missed all five of his 3-point attempts. The Cavs as a team were 4-of-26 from the arc. The Celtics looked far and away the deeper, fresher, smarter, etc., team.
Refresh my memory yet again. What did the Blob say after the Pacers smoked the Pacers in Game 1 a month ago? And what is the Blob saying again today?
One game, people. One. Game.
Saturday, May 12, 2018
That losin' feeling
So yesterday the Blob explored what happens when you win and never lose, or even come close losing.
Today?
Here's what happens when you win a lot -- like, more than everyone around you -- and then suddenly lose a few games at the worst possible time.
You become the Toronto Raptors.
Who less than a month ago were the best team in the NBA Eastern Conference, having won 59 games to earn their conference's top seed. It looked like their year, finally. It looked like they finally had all the pieces around their two stars, Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, to make a deep run, maybe even get to the Finals.
Then LeBron James happened to them again.
The best player in the world, and the rest of the Cavaliers, narrowly avoided a first-round elimination against the fifth-seeded Indiana Pacers, who pushed them to seven games. Now they were in against the top seed. They looked like they could be had.
Instead, LeBron 'n' them swept the Raptors in four straight for the second straight year, winning by 35 in the fourth and final game. They've now beaten the Raptors in 10 straight playoff games. And LeBron implanted himself even deeper in the Raptors' heads by winning Game 3 with a ridiculous dagger off glass at the horn.
And now?
Now, days after everyone was saying the Raptors finally had the all pieces in place, everyone is saying it's time to break 'em up. And their coach, Dwane Casey?
Two days after he was named the NBA's Coach of the Year, he was fired. All because of one bad week.
Timing, man. It really is everything.
Today?
Here's what happens when you win a lot -- like, more than everyone around you -- and then suddenly lose a few games at the worst possible time.
You become the Toronto Raptors.
Who less than a month ago were the best team in the NBA Eastern Conference, having won 59 games to earn their conference's top seed. It looked like their year, finally. It looked like they finally had all the pieces around their two stars, Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, to make a deep run, maybe even get to the Finals.
Then LeBron James happened to them again.
The best player in the world, and the rest of the Cavaliers, narrowly avoided a first-round elimination against the fifth-seeded Indiana Pacers, who pushed them to seven games. Now they were in against the top seed. They looked like they could be had.
Instead, LeBron 'n' them swept the Raptors in four straight for the second straight year, winning by 35 in the fourth and final game. They've now beaten the Raptors in 10 straight playoff games. And LeBron implanted himself even deeper in the Raptors' heads by winning Game 3 with a ridiculous dagger off glass at the horn.
And now?
Now, days after everyone was saying the Raptors finally had the all pieces in place, everyone is saying it's time to break 'em up. And their coach, Dwane Casey?
Two days after he was named the NBA's Coach of the Year, he was fired. All because of one bad week.
Timing, man. It really is everything.
Friday, May 11, 2018
That winnin' feeling
So, what is a W without the L?
Kinda boring, apparently.
Thus another piece of conventional sports wisdom is consigned to the flames, not to say the locker room speeches of coaches from Rockne to Leahy to Coach Slobberknocker from Head For The Hills High School in Hog Waller, Nebraska. As Vince Lombardi once never came close to saying, winning isn't everything, but when it's the only thing, it takes all the fun out of it. In fact it's an out-and-out bummer.
Sorry about that, kids. I know, it sucks being lied to all these years.
But the fact is, Ws are only sweet when there's a prospect of an L here or there, and when there's not, you wind up like the Wilson High School baseball team in Washington, D.C., whose sad tale is chronicled here by Dave McKenna of Deaspin. A rich suburban school blessed with the best of everything, Wilson recently won the D.C. public school title for the 26th straight time. In fact they haven't so much as lost a league game in 20 years, and they've lost only one in the last 26.
You will therefor not be surprised to learn that when they won it again the other night, they didn't even celebrate.
This will happen when you weren't even alive the last time your high school lost a league baseball game, as is the case with the 2018 squad. It will also happen when you are so dominant most of your league games are like watching the Yankees or Red Sox take on Chico's Bail Bonds.
“Most of our games are called after three to five innings because of the score,” Mitch Gore, Wilson’s athletic director told McKenna. “We’ll be up 20 runs, and we’re bunting to get the outs just to finish the game. That’s not fun.”
Indeed it's not. There is, in fact, no pleasure in winning under those circumstances whatsoever. It almost makes you feel sorry for the kids from Wilson.
But, you know, not that sorry.
That's because, unlike most of the schools in the D.C. league, Wilson has resources. They have batting cages. They have pitching machines. They dress out 51 varsity, JV and freshman players.
Contrast that to McKinley High, whom Wilson beat in the semifinals. McKinley not only doesn't have pitching machines and batting cages, it doesn't even have a home field. By McKenna's count, they dressed out 11 players for the semifinal game.
This all reminds me of my days as a sportswriter back in Anderson, when Madison Heights High School (killed by consolidation some years back, God rest its soul) played in the old Olympic Conference. Unfortunately, Carmel was also in the OC. And Carmel was to the rest of the OC what Wilson is to the D.C. league.
Which is to say, absurdly, ridiculously advantaged. It was also a school that cared about football, and had the money to care about it. Madison Heights, meanwhile, was a much smaller public school in a struggling factory town that revered basketball to the exclusion of almost all else.
And so Carmel would come to Heights or Heights would go to Carmel, and the ball-peening would begin. It was merciless and unrelenting and in a lot of ways cruel to watch, because, unlike the folks at Wilson, the folks at Carmel seemed to get a twisted joy out of watching their outrageous overdogs completely overwhelm a team like Heights, which couldn't hope to compete with them.
This brings us to a certain Friday night down at Carmel, where Heights was once again hopelessly outmatched. The Greyhounds dressed out their usual 120 kids, just to show they had the resources to dress out 120 kids. On the other sideline, Heights had maybe 40 bodies. The game ran its inevitable course, and pretty soon there were three seconds left and Carmel was ahead 47-0.
At which point the Carmel coach called timeout so he could bring in his ace field-goal kicker, who (if memory serves) was one field goal shy of the school record.
Of course, the kid made it. The game ended 50-0, and, later on, we found the Madison Heights coach pacing in the darkness of one end zone, tears of helpless rage in his voice. And, earlier, up in the pressbox, I had my own helpless reaction.
As the Carmel kicker's field goal cleared the crossbar, and the Carmel folks celebrated at the other end of the pressbox, I blurted out as loudly as I could: "That's bull***t."
It was unprofessional as hell. But I just couldn't help myself.
And I can only hope that, as with Wilson, the players, coaches and fans at Carmel secretly got very little pleasure out of it all. It would only be right.
Kinda boring, apparently.
Thus another piece of conventional sports wisdom is consigned to the flames, not to say the locker room speeches of coaches from Rockne to Leahy to Coach Slobberknocker from Head For The Hills High School in Hog Waller, Nebraska. As Vince Lombardi once never came close to saying, winning isn't everything, but when it's the only thing, it takes all the fun out of it. In fact it's an out-and-out bummer.
Sorry about that, kids. I know, it sucks being lied to all these years.
But the fact is, Ws are only sweet when there's a prospect of an L here or there, and when there's not, you wind up like the Wilson High School baseball team in Washington, D.C., whose sad tale is chronicled here by Dave McKenna of Deaspin. A rich suburban school blessed with the best of everything, Wilson recently won the D.C. public school title for the 26th straight time. In fact they haven't so much as lost a league game in 20 years, and they've lost only one in the last 26.
You will therefor not be surprised to learn that when they won it again the other night, they didn't even celebrate.
This will happen when you weren't even alive the last time your high school lost a league baseball game, as is the case with the 2018 squad. It will also happen when you are so dominant most of your league games are like watching the Yankees or Red Sox take on Chico's Bail Bonds.
“Most of our games are called after three to five innings because of the score,” Mitch Gore, Wilson’s athletic director told McKenna. “We’ll be up 20 runs, and we’re bunting to get the outs just to finish the game. That’s not fun.”
Indeed it's not. There is, in fact, no pleasure in winning under those circumstances whatsoever. It almost makes you feel sorry for the kids from Wilson.
But, you know, not that sorry.
That's because, unlike most of the schools in the D.C. league, Wilson has resources. They have batting cages. They have pitching machines. They dress out 51 varsity, JV and freshman players.
Contrast that to McKinley High, whom Wilson beat in the semifinals. McKinley not only doesn't have pitching machines and batting cages, it doesn't even have a home field. By McKenna's count, they dressed out 11 players for the semifinal game.
This all reminds me of my days as a sportswriter back in Anderson, when Madison Heights High School (killed by consolidation some years back, God rest its soul) played in the old Olympic Conference. Unfortunately, Carmel was also in the OC. And Carmel was to the rest of the OC what Wilson is to the D.C. league.
Which is to say, absurdly, ridiculously advantaged. It was also a school that cared about football, and had the money to care about it. Madison Heights, meanwhile, was a much smaller public school in a struggling factory town that revered basketball to the exclusion of almost all else.
And so Carmel would come to Heights or Heights would go to Carmel, and the ball-peening would begin. It was merciless and unrelenting and in a lot of ways cruel to watch, because, unlike the folks at Wilson, the folks at Carmel seemed to get a twisted joy out of watching their outrageous overdogs completely overwhelm a team like Heights, which couldn't hope to compete with them.
This brings us to a certain Friday night down at Carmel, where Heights was once again hopelessly outmatched. The Greyhounds dressed out their usual 120 kids, just to show they had the resources to dress out 120 kids. On the other sideline, Heights had maybe 40 bodies. The game ran its inevitable course, and pretty soon there were three seconds left and Carmel was ahead 47-0.
At which point the Carmel coach called timeout so he could bring in his ace field-goal kicker, who (if memory serves) was one field goal shy of the school record.
Of course, the kid made it. The game ended 50-0, and, later on, we found the Madison Heights coach pacing in the darkness of one end zone, tears of helpless rage in his voice. And, earlier, up in the pressbox, I had my own helpless reaction.
As the Carmel kicker's field goal cleared the crossbar, and the Carmel folks celebrated at the other end of the pressbox, I blurted out as loudly as I could: "That's bull***t."
It was unprofessional as hell. But I just couldn't help myself.
And I can only hope that, as with Wilson, the players, coaches and fans at Carmel secretly got very little pleasure out of it all. It would only be right.
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Your joke for today
I don't know how Brad Stevens is doing what he's doing. Magic, maybe. Some other iteration of the dark arts, perhaps.
I do know that the Boston Celtics he's coaching now are not the Boston Celtics that were supposed to be, and yet somehow they are in the Eastern Conference finals. This without either of the two players they brought in as the pillars of the franchise, Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. This without another key piece, Jalen Brown, slowed by a foot injury.
Yet here they are. Under Stevens' guidance, Al Horford is playing the best basketball of his career. Jayson Tatum is an emerging force. Ditto Terry Rozier. All of them say Stevens is a big part of that. Horford and Brown went so far as to call him a genius.
I don't know if that term ever applies to a basketball coach. I do know that whatever Stevens is, he should be acknowledged for it more than he has been.
A vote for NBA Coach of the Year would have been nice, for instance. Just one.
Instead, Stevens was shut out in the voting, while eight other coaches received votes. They include the Raptors' Dwane Casey, who won Coach of the Year. They include Brett Brown of the 76ers, whom Stevens' Celtics just eliminated in five games. They include the Rockets' Mike D'Antoni, the Pacers' Nate McMillan, the Spurs' Gregg Popovich, the Clippers' Doc Rivers, the Jazz' Quin Snyder and Portland's Terry Stotts.
All of them deserved the nod they got. That Stevens wasn't among them, however, is an absolute joke.
Not that Stevens thinks so, of course.
"The way that thing works is you get one vote. And I'm telling you, I looked at the sheet and there's no way that I would have voted for me over any of the other 29 people," Stevens said on ESPN.com. "And the guy that should have won got it. And the other guys that got votes, they're unbelievable.
"I'm stealing from those guys all the time. It's so incredible to have an opportunity to be one of 30. And I think it's a lot more important to just focus on competing with your team rather than trying to compare yourself to others. Because I'm telling you, if it gets to be a comparison contest, I'm screwed."
Um, no, not really. Look, humility is an admirable trait. But humility to this extent just makes you look silly.
No doubt Stevens' problem here is timing -- the Coach of the Year voting closes before the playoffs begin -- and expectation, in that the Celtics, at the beginning of the season, were widely acknowledged as the team to challenge the Cavaliers in the East. But then Hayward went down, and later Irving went down, and Casey's Raptors won 59 games and were the No. 1 seed in the East.
On the other hand, the diminished Celtics still won 55 games. They still finished second in the East. That should have at least earned Stevens one vote.
Instead, he'll have to be content with trying to knock out LeBron James and take the Celtics back to the NBA Finals for the first time in eight years.
And the Coach of the Year?
Embarrassed by LeBron and the Cavs in four straight, Dwane Casey may become the rarest of artifacts: The guy who was voted Coach of the Year and fired in the same season.
Think Stevens gets the better of that deal. Vote or no vote.
I do know that the Boston Celtics he's coaching now are not the Boston Celtics that were supposed to be, and yet somehow they are in the Eastern Conference finals. This without either of the two players they brought in as the pillars of the franchise, Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. This without another key piece, Jalen Brown, slowed by a foot injury.
Yet here they are. Under Stevens' guidance, Al Horford is playing the best basketball of his career. Jayson Tatum is an emerging force. Ditto Terry Rozier. All of them say Stevens is a big part of that. Horford and Brown went so far as to call him a genius.
I don't know if that term ever applies to a basketball coach. I do know that whatever Stevens is, he should be acknowledged for it more than he has been.
A vote for NBA Coach of the Year would have been nice, for instance. Just one.
Instead, Stevens was shut out in the voting, while eight other coaches received votes. They include the Raptors' Dwane Casey, who won Coach of the Year. They include Brett Brown of the 76ers, whom Stevens' Celtics just eliminated in five games. They include the Rockets' Mike D'Antoni, the Pacers' Nate McMillan, the Spurs' Gregg Popovich, the Clippers' Doc Rivers, the Jazz' Quin Snyder and Portland's Terry Stotts.
All of them deserved the nod they got. That Stevens wasn't among them, however, is an absolute joke.
Not that Stevens thinks so, of course.
"The way that thing works is you get one vote. And I'm telling you, I looked at the sheet and there's no way that I would have voted for me over any of the other 29 people," Stevens said on ESPN.com. "And the guy that should have won got it. And the other guys that got votes, they're unbelievable.
"I'm stealing from those guys all the time. It's so incredible to have an opportunity to be one of 30. And I think it's a lot more important to just focus on competing with your team rather than trying to compare yourself to others. Because I'm telling you, if it gets to be a comparison contest, I'm screwed."
Um, no, not really. Look, humility is an admirable trait. But humility to this extent just makes you look silly.
No doubt Stevens' problem here is timing -- the Coach of the Year voting closes before the playoffs begin -- and expectation, in that the Celtics, at the beginning of the season, were widely acknowledged as the team to challenge the Cavaliers in the East. But then Hayward went down, and later Irving went down, and Casey's Raptors won 59 games and were the No. 1 seed in the East.
On the other hand, the diminished Celtics still won 55 games. They still finished second in the East. That should have at least earned Stevens one vote.
Instead, he'll have to be content with trying to knock out LeBron James and take the Celtics back to the NBA Finals for the first time in eight years.
And the Coach of the Year?
Embarrassed by LeBron and the Cavs in four straight, Dwane Casey may become the rarest of artifacts: The guy who was voted Coach of the Year and fired in the same season.
Think Stevens gets the better of that deal. Vote or no vote.
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
History's stain, stained again
I don't know what Kylia Carter's boy had to endure as a basketball player at Duke University. But somehow I doubt it involved being chained together with several other African-Americans and thrown overboard in mid-ocean to lighten the ship's ballast.
I also doubt he was packed into said ship like so many pieces of cordwood instead of like human beings. I doubt he was torn from his family, shipped thousand of miles to a strange place, placed on an auction block and transported in chains to a world he could barely comprehend, and which regarded him as nothing more than a line on a ledger sheet, as if he were a plow or a dray horse.
I doubt he was whipped if he failed to set a proper pick or rotate defensively. I doubt if he had an appendage cut off if he failed to show up for practice on time.
In other words ... Kylia's boy, Wendell Carter Jr., was no slave. And intimating that he was diminishes the shameful and enduring legacy of slavery in this country, and gives cover to those who soft-pedal this American Holocaust and say African-Americans should "get over it already." In fact, by comparing playing high-end college basketball to the institution of slavery, she in a sense becomes their fellow traveler.
Which might be unduly harsh, admittedly. It is possible Kylia Carter spoke without thinking about what she was saying. It happens. It's happened to everyone everywhere on occasion.
And her point, horrid analogy aside, was a legitimate one. There is no question, none, that high-end college football and basketball is every bit as much a business as the NBA or NFL is, and is guided by the same corporate ethos. Wendell Carter Jr., all the Wendell Carter Jrs., are brought in not to be college students -- that is a secondary consideration, no matter what cowflop the NCAA likes to serve up -- but to shoot and rebound and defend and otherwise serve the interests of (in Carter's case) Duke Basketball Inc.
In return, they are housed, fed and receive a "free" education that in many cases turns out not to be completely free. That is considered sufficient payment for services rendered to a billion-dollar industry.
It is not. But it is not slavery, either. And to suggest as much, whether wittingly or not, is a crime against history.
Unfortunately, crimes against history -- sugarcoating and out-and-out lies -- tend to be rampant in these strange ugly days in America. I am too far down my own road to remember much about what I was taught in school about slavery, but I'm fairly certain it was as superficial and grossly inaccurate as so much else I do remember. And it seems to be even more so now; just recently, a charter "school" in Texas came under fire for having students list the "positive aspects" of slavery.
Good. God.
Now here comes Kylia Carter, distorting history even further with her grotesque comparison. And here comes Kanye West, claiming slavery was "a choice," that slaves accepted their fate compliantly and thus were collaborators in the system.
Guess the man never heard of the Stono Rebellion of 1739. Or the revolt led by a slave named Gabriel in 1800. Or the revolt in Louisiana led by Charles Deslondes in 1811, the largest and most sophisticated slave revolt in American history. Or Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831. Or names such as Denmark Vesey, Toussiant Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, all of whom led revolts against thei masters.
Or, for that matter, the approximately 185,000 men of color who joined the Union Army in the Civil War specifically to break the slave system in America forever.
Speaking of, you know, history. And other matters so many in this country treat so cavalierly these days.
I also doubt he was packed into said ship like so many pieces of cordwood instead of like human beings. I doubt he was torn from his family, shipped thousand of miles to a strange place, placed on an auction block and transported in chains to a world he could barely comprehend, and which regarded him as nothing more than a line on a ledger sheet, as if he were a plow or a dray horse.
I doubt he was whipped if he failed to set a proper pick or rotate defensively. I doubt if he had an appendage cut off if he failed to show up for practice on time.
In other words ... Kylia's boy, Wendell Carter Jr., was no slave. And intimating that he was diminishes the shameful and enduring legacy of slavery in this country, and gives cover to those who soft-pedal this American Holocaust and say African-Americans should "get over it already." In fact, by comparing playing high-end college basketball to the institution of slavery, she in a sense becomes their fellow traveler.
Which might be unduly harsh, admittedly. It is possible Kylia Carter spoke without thinking about what she was saying. It happens. It's happened to everyone everywhere on occasion.
And her point, horrid analogy aside, was a legitimate one. There is no question, none, that high-end college football and basketball is every bit as much a business as the NBA or NFL is, and is guided by the same corporate ethos. Wendell Carter Jr., all the Wendell Carter Jrs., are brought in not to be college students -- that is a secondary consideration, no matter what cowflop the NCAA likes to serve up -- but to shoot and rebound and defend and otherwise serve the interests of (in Carter's case) Duke Basketball Inc.
In return, they are housed, fed and receive a "free" education that in many cases turns out not to be completely free. That is considered sufficient payment for services rendered to a billion-dollar industry.
It is not. But it is not slavery, either. And to suggest as much, whether wittingly or not, is a crime against history.
Unfortunately, crimes against history -- sugarcoating and out-and-out lies -- tend to be rampant in these strange ugly days in America. I am too far down my own road to remember much about what I was taught in school about slavery, but I'm fairly certain it was as superficial and grossly inaccurate as so much else I do remember. And it seems to be even more so now; just recently, a charter "school" in Texas came under fire for having students list the "positive aspects" of slavery.
Good. God.
Now here comes Kylia Carter, distorting history even further with her grotesque comparison. And here comes Kanye West, claiming slavery was "a choice," that slaves accepted their fate compliantly and thus were collaborators in the system.
Guess the man never heard of the Stono Rebellion of 1739. Or the revolt led by a slave named Gabriel in 1800. Or the revolt in Louisiana led by Charles Deslondes in 1811, the largest and most sophisticated slave revolt in American history. Or Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831. Or names such as Denmark Vesey, Toussiant Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, all of whom led revolts against thei masters.
Or, for that matter, the approximately 185,000 men of color who joined the Union Army in the Civil War specifically to break the slave system in America forever.
Speaking of, you know, history. And other matters so many in this country treat so cavalierly these days.
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
The best ever. For now.
Now the jabber begins again, as we watch LeBron James once more humiliate the thoroughly cowed Raptors. As we watch him kiss another game-winner high off the glass over a frantic defender. As we watch him do things on a basketball floor we've hardly ever seen anyone do, and maybe never, unless we're willing to come down with a raging case of nostalgia disease.
Altogether now: Not even MICHAEL JORDAN did that ...
Also altogether now, from the nostalgia-plagued Cult of MJ: Don't even go there with me ...
Well. Guess what, boys and girls?
The Blob is going to go there.
The Blob is going to say LeBron James is doing things his admittedly faulty memory cannot recall ever seeing before, like carry a team the way Jordan never had to against (in the NBA Finals, anyway) more formidable opposition. Like doing so without the benefit of trotting out there every night flanked by two other Hall of Famers (as MJ did in his six-title run.)
So, yeah. The Blob is now ready with his verdict, which is a bit more nuanced than people usually like to hear.
MJ is the greatest pure scorer I've ever seen.
LeBron, a better passer and rebounder doing as much with less, is the greatest player.
For now.
For now, because there are always qualifiers in these arguments, and the qualifier in this one is you cannot fairly compare eras when it comes to judging over-arching greatness. It's just not possible.
And so Michael Jordan was the greatest player who'd ever come down the pike back in the ugly 1990s, when officials swallowed their whistles and defenders were allowed to manhandle superstars with impunity. And LeBron is the greatest player who's ever come down the pike now, when games are called far tighter but there is more overall athleticism in the League and more generational teams (the Tim Duncan Spurs, the current Warriors) than there were in Jordan's day.
And sometime in the future?
There will be another Greatest Ever in another Different Era. People will say Not even LeBron did that. Other people will say Don't even go there with me.
That's how it works, you see.
Ain't it grand?
Altogether now: Not even MICHAEL JORDAN did that ...
Also altogether now, from the nostalgia-plagued Cult of MJ: Don't even go there with me ...
Well. Guess what, boys and girls?
The Blob is going to go there.
The Blob is going to say LeBron James is doing things his admittedly faulty memory cannot recall ever seeing before, like carry a team the way Jordan never had to against (in the NBA Finals, anyway) more formidable opposition. Like doing so without the benefit of trotting out there every night flanked by two other Hall of Famers (as MJ did in his six-title run.)
So, yeah. The Blob is now ready with his verdict, which is a bit more nuanced than people usually like to hear.
MJ is the greatest pure scorer I've ever seen.
LeBron, a better passer and rebounder doing as much with less, is the greatest player.
For now.
For now, because there are always qualifiers in these arguments, and the qualifier in this one is you cannot fairly compare eras when it comes to judging over-arching greatness. It's just not possible.
And so Michael Jordan was the greatest player who'd ever come down the pike back in the ugly 1990s, when officials swallowed their whistles and defenders were allowed to manhandle superstars with impunity. And LeBron is the greatest player who's ever come down the pike now, when games are called far tighter but there is more overall athleticism in the League and more generational teams (the Tim Duncan Spurs, the current Warriors) than there were in Jordan's day.
And sometime in the future?
There will be another Greatest Ever in another Different Era. People will say Not even LeBron did that. Other people will say Don't even go there with me.
That's how it works, you see.
Ain't it grand?
Monday, May 7, 2018
And leading the league in steals ...
Well, now. I guess this is the part where the Blob must refrain from making catty remarks about the entitlement of some TV people.
(Although, if I weren't refraining, I'd talk about all the times some golden larynx horned his or her way into one of my interviews as if I weren't even there.)
(I'd also talk about the time a certain golden larynx cut in line in front of a bunch of sick kids so he could get his photo taken with Muhammad Ali. This after media had been asked nicely by the champ's family not to approach him. Needless to say, we were appalled. And that includes all the other TV media.)
Anyway, the point is, I will not generalize. OK, I will try not to generalize. OK, so I will mostly fail in that endeavor.
That's because when I read about a sportscaster for KGO-TV in San Francisco getting caught on a security camera stealing a jacket belonging to Ralph Walker, the Golden State Warriors’ director of team security and Steph Curry's bodyguard, I couldn't help myself. My first reaction: "A TV guy. Of course."
I'm not proud of that, mind you. Most of the TV people I know would never think of doing such a thing. But I'm just a bitter old newspaper guy, so there you go.
In any case, let me make amends by pointing out that the sportscaster, Mike Shumann, was summarily fired by KGO despite his 24 years of service. Hooray for them. Media in this country is getting bashed enough for doing its job these days without this sort of idiocy. I mean, Our Only Available President himself has publicly declared a free press "the enemy of the people." That's not the sort of language you generally hear outside a fascist state.
In that environment, the last thing the free press needs is for one of its own to behave like a common thief. Especially when he's been around far long enough to know better.
And should have known, as a TV guy, that in this day and age the cameras are always on you.
(Although, if I weren't refraining, I'd talk about all the times some golden larynx horned his or her way into one of my interviews as if I weren't even there.)
(I'd also talk about the time a certain golden larynx cut in line in front of a bunch of sick kids so he could get his photo taken with Muhammad Ali. This after media had been asked nicely by the champ's family not to approach him. Needless to say, we were appalled. And that includes all the other TV media.)
Anyway, the point is, I will not generalize. OK, I will try not to generalize. OK, so I will mostly fail in that endeavor.
That's because when I read about a sportscaster for KGO-TV in San Francisco getting caught on a security camera stealing a jacket belonging to Ralph Walker, the Golden State Warriors’ director of team security and Steph Curry's bodyguard, I couldn't help myself. My first reaction: "A TV guy. Of course."
I'm not proud of that, mind you. Most of the TV people I know would never think of doing such a thing. But I'm just a bitter old newspaper guy, so there you go.
In any case, let me make amends by pointing out that the sportscaster, Mike Shumann, was summarily fired by KGO despite his 24 years of service. Hooray for them. Media in this country is getting bashed enough for doing its job these days without this sort of idiocy. I mean, Our Only Available President himself has publicly declared a free press "the enemy of the people." That's not the sort of language you generally hear outside a fascist state.
In that environment, the last thing the free press needs is for one of its own to behave like a common thief. Especially when he's been around far long enough to know better.
And should have known, as a TV guy, that in this day and age the cameras are always on you.
Boston, by way of Indiana
I've been composing a piece of snail mail this a.m., a piece of snail mail addressed to Boston, a piece of snail mail that displays the general warmheartedness of us folk here in the Hoosier state.
You know the Boston Celtics? Legendary NBA franchise? Currently bound (inexorably, apparently) for the Eastern Conference finals after taking a three-games-to-none lead in the best-of-seven with Philadelphia?
Well, maybe you did or didn't see Game 3 the other night, when the Celtics won in overtime. Won on a layup by Al Horford off a play that was drawn up head coach Brad Stevens. Got it to overtime on a layup by Jalen Brown off a play that was drawn up by Stevens. Headed for the conference finals (presumably) even though Kyrie Irving is in street clothes, and Gordon Hayward is in street clothes, and Brown has been slowed by a foot injury.
Lots of people, including the Celtics players themselves, think they're where they are largely because of Brad Stevens. Horford and Brown even broke out the g-word in describing him the other day, as in "genius."
Anyway ... Brad Stevens, of course, is from Indiana. And remember that other guy who once led the Celtics to glory, one of the two greatest players in franchise history, oh, what was his name ...
Larry Bird. Yeah. That guy.
He, of course, is from Indiana, too.
And so the aforementioned piece of snail mail, which is brief and to the point.
Dear Boston:
You're welcome.
Yours in basketball,
Indiana.
You know the Boston Celtics? Legendary NBA franchise? Currently bound (inexorably, apparently) for the Eastern Conference finals after taking a three-games-to-none lead in the best-of-seven with Philadelphia?
Well, maybe you did or didn't see Game 3 the other night, when the Celtics won in overtime. Won on a layup by Al Horford off a play that was drawn up head coach Brad Stevens. Got it to overtime on a layup by Jalen Brown off a play that was drawn up by Stevens. Headed for the conference finals (presumably) even though Kyrie Irving is in street clothes, and Gordon Hayward is in street clothes, and Brown has been slowed by a foot injury.
Lots of people, including the Celtics players themselves, think they're where they are largely because of Brad Stevens. Horford and Brown even broke out the g-word in describing him the other day, as in "genius."
Anyway ... Brad Stevens, of course, is from Indiana. And remember that other guy who once led the Celtics to glory, one of the two greatest players in franchise history, oh, what was his name ...
Larry Bird. Yeah. That guy.
He, of course, is from Indiana, too.
And so the aforementioned piece of snail mail, which is brief and to the point.
Dear Boston:
You're welcome.
Yours in basketball,
Indiana.
Sunday, May 6, 2018
A senior moment
Well, steal my Geritol and call me "sonny." I've got the racing moment of the weekend, and it wasn't Justify's impressive win on the wettest day in Kentucky Derby history.
(Rumor sure to be, um, floated: He pulled it off by doing the backstroke.)
(Second rumor sure to be floated: Those Derby hats worn by the Hat Ladies doubled as flotation devices.)
(Third rumor, etc., etc.: That horse the Blob told you was going to win? Bolt D'Oro? The reason he disappeared so fast in the stretch is he went back for the horses trapped in steerage.)
Anyway ... what was I saying?
Oh, yeah. Racing moment of the weekend.
That happened in Tucson, Ariz., where a guy named Herschel McGriff had himself a big day.
First, he kicked off the K&N Pro Series West NASCAR event by playing the national anthem on his trombone.
Then he climbed in a car and raced in the K&N Pro Series West NASCAR event.
Alas, he didn't win. But allowances should be made. He is, after all, 90 years old.
Yes, that's right, boys and girls. At an age when most people are getting their car keys taken away by their snotty ungrateful children, Herschel McGriff said, "Up yours. I'm drivin'."
And if you're wondering how this was possible, well, it's because NASCAR doesn't have a maximum age limit. All you have to do to race is pass a physical and qualify. Which McGriff did, because, as you've probably guessed, he's not your average 90-year-old,
Nope. McGriff was named one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers back in 1998, and he's been racing longer than a lot of us have been alive. In fact, he won four races in what is now the Cup series way back in 1954, one year before the guy driving this sentence was born.
I'm 63 now. Let that marinate for a minute.
Let this marinate, too: Thirty-five years after that, when McGriff was 61, he won the last of the 35 races he's won in the K&N series. And 23 years after that, in 2012, he was still good enough to finish 18th in the K&N event at Sonoma Raceway.
Of course, he was only 84 then. Just barely gettin' started, one might say.
Steal my Geritol and call my "sonny," indeed.
(Rumor sure to be, um, floated: He pulled it off by doing the backstroke.)
(Second rumor sure to be floated: Those Derby hats worn by the Hat Ladies doubled as flotation devices.)
(Third rumor, etc., etc.: That horse the Blob told you was going to win? Bolt D'Oro? The reason he disappeared so fast in the stretch is he went back for the horses trapped in steerage.)
Anyway ... what was I saying?
Oh, yeah. Racing moment of the weekend.
That happened in Tucson, Ariz., where a guy named Herschel McGriff had himself a big day.
First, he kicked off the K&N Pro Series West NASCAR event by playing the national anthem on his trombone.
Then he climbed in a car and raced in the K&N Pro Series West NASCAR event.
Alas, he didn't win. But allowances should be made. He is, after all, 90 years old.
Yes, that's right, boys and girls. At an age when most people are getting their car keys taken away by their snotty ungrateful children, Herschel McGriff said, "Up yours. I'm drivin'."
And if you're wondering how this was possible, well, it's because NASCAR doesn't have a maximum age limit. All you have to do to race is pass a physical and qualify. Which McGriff did, because, as you've probably guessed, he's not your average 90-year-old,
Nope. McGriff was named one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers back in 1998, and he's been racing longer than a lot of us have been alive. In fact, he won four races in what is now the Cup series way back in 1954, one year before the guy driving this sentence was born.
I'm 63 now. Let that marinate for a minute.
Let this marinate, too: Thirty-five years after that, when McGriff was 61, he won the last of the 35 races he's won in the K&N series. And 23 years after that, in 2012, he was still good enough to finish 18th in the K&N event at Sonoma Raceway.
Of course, he was only 84 then. Just barely gettin' started, one might say.
Steal my Geritol and call my "sonny," indeed.
Saturday, May 5, 2018
Derby time!
In which the Blob again pledges its undying love for the Twin Spires (Two of 'em!), Hats That Look Like They Were Designed By Frank Lloyd Wright (Is that a condo on your head, or are you just glad to see me?) and Fetlocks: A Love Story (Because who doesn't like saying "fetlocks"?)
In other words ... It's Kentucky Derby time, Blobophiles!
The joke here, of course, is that the Blob knows nothing about horse racing, except that back in the day, when he was a working newspaperman, he was known as the Horse Guy because he somehow wound up on the Churchill Downs mailing list and got reams and reams of faxes in the weeks leading up to the Derby. This gave me access to valuable intel about which entries were "walking the shedrow," which ones were "breezing" and which ones were "hanging with the Hat Ladies and Kentucky Colonels while slurping down Vicks Formula 44, aka mint juleps."
(A "fax", by the way, was actual information printed on paper that came out of something called a "fax machine." It was the wonder of its age, boys and girls. Except for the periodic "paper jams.")
Anyway ... on to the annual Valuable Derby Intel:
1. That there's a fine-looking passel of horseflesh.
Which is to say, actual authentic Horse Guys are claiming this could be the strongest Derby field in some years. I have no idea if this true. I'm just passing it along. Me, I just see a lot of manes and tails and fetlocks, whatever they are. I also see that every horse in the field has the requisite number of legs and such.
In other words, they look real nice, as a bunch. No obvious mutts or anything.
2. Except for Firenze Fire and Combatant. Apparently they suck.
That's what the real Horse Guys say, anyway. They say Firenze Fire and Combatant, both 50-1 shots, are about to open a large can of Alpo on everyone today.
Firenze Fire starts from the dreaded 1 hole, first of all. This is like starting the Derby from Lexington, apparently. Plus, again, he apparently sucks.
Combatant, meanwhile, is so awful one of the Horse Guys wondered in print what the hell he was even doing here. He's has one win in eight starts and breaks from the 20 hole, which is almost as bad as the 1 hole.
Last I checked, though, both of them did have the requisite appendages, same as every other horse in the field. So I'd drop some large coin on them if I were you.
3. Also on Free Drop Billy. Supposedly he lathers prior to a race.
I have no idea what this means. Again, I'm just passing it along because his trainer said it, and his trainer should know. I'm guessing this does not mean that Free Drop Billy soaps up real good in the shower and then forgets to towel off before clopping out to the starting gate. But I suppose it could.
By the way, Free Drop Billy is a 30-1 shot. So take that and take the lather bit and bet accordingly.
In other words ... bet that at some point his owners will change his name to Irish Spring Billy.
3. The Apollo Curse is not what you think it is.
What you think it is, of course, is that at some point a 'roided-up Russian galoot is going to show up -- I'm guessing on the backstretch somewhere -- and kill a couple of the horses with one mighty punch.
But enough about Apollo Creed.
Apparently, the "Apollo" in question here is, surprise, a horse named Apollo. He's dead, but his Curse lives on. It seems he's the last horse to win the Derby who didn't race as a 2-year-old. That happened in 1882, so this is a Curse with legs.
Four of 'em, presumably.
Anyway ... the Apollo Curse has been bandied about a lot this week because two entries never raced as 2-year-olds. One, it turns out, is the 3-1 favorite Justify. He's apparently crushed it so far this year, and he's got a really good jockey, Mike Smith, and he's trained by that guy with the white hair everyone thinks so much of. Bob Baffle, Baffert, something like that.
But he's got the Apollo Curse working against him, so he's probably toast.
4. And then there's Mendelssohn.
I don't know why I like Mendelssohn, one of the faves at 5-1. Oh, wait, I do.
I like Mendelssohn because he's the foreign entry (Ireland), and foreign entries frequently have a mystique about them, and I have a weakness for mystique. He also won the United Arab Emirates Derby by 18 1/2 lengths, which seems pretty impressive. He's also trained by an Irishman named Aidan O'Brien, who works out of the wonderfully named Ballydoyle Stables and apparently is the Irish version of White-Haired Bob.
Also, he looks mighty spiffy in a top hat.
5. And now the part where the Blob tells you whom to bet on.
No, not Firenze Fire. Or Combatant or Free Drop Billy, either.
Actually, there are a lot of horses that real Horse Guys like, so lay down your money accordingly. They like Justify, but not a lot. They like Hofburg. They like Magnum Moon, who's apparently really fast. They like Good Magic and Mendelssohn and Audible and My Boy Jack.
Me, I say put your coin on Bolt d'Oro.
I say this because at least one Horse Guy has him winning. I also say it because Victor Espinoza is in the irons, and he's won two of the last four Derbies, and when in doubt (which is almost always) the Blob always bets the jockey.
So there you have it. Bolt d'Oro is your horse.
Or, you know, not. Probably not.
In other words ... It's Kentucky Derby time, Blobophiles!
The joke here, of course, is that the Blob knows nothing about horse racing, except that back in the day, when he was a working newspaperman, he was known as the Horse Guy because he somehow wound up on the Churchill Downs mailing list and got reams and reams of faxes in the weeks leading up to the Derby. This gave me access to valuable intel about which entries were "walking the shedrow," which ones were "breezing" and which ones were "hanging with the Hat Ladies and Kentucky Colonels while slurping down Vicks Formula 44, aka mint juleps."
(A "fax", by the way, was actual information printed on paper that came out of something called a "fax machine." It was the wonder of its age, boys and girls. Except for the periodic "paper jams.")
Anyway ... on to the annual Valuable Derby Intel:
1. That there's a fine-looking passel of horseflesh.
Which is to say, actual authentic Horse Guys are claiming this could be the strongest Derby field in some years. I have no idea if this true. I'm just passing it along. Me, I just see a lot of manes and tails and fetlocks, whatever they are. I also see that every horse in the field has the requisite number of legs and such.
In other words, they look real nice, as a bunch. No obvious mutts or anything.
2. Except for Firenze Fire and Combatant. Apparently they suck.
That's what the real Horse Guys say, anyway. They say Firenze Fire and Combatant, both 50-1 shots, are about to open a large can of Alpo on everyone today.
Firenze Fire starts from the dreaded 1 hole, first of all. This is like starting the Derby from Lexington, apparently. Plus, again, he apparently sucks.
Combatant, meanwhile, is so awful one of the Horse Guys wondered in print what the hell he was even doing here. He's has one win in eight starts and breaks from the 20 hole, which is almost as bad as the 1 hole.
Last I checked, though, both of them did have the requisite appendages, same as every other horse in the field. So I'd drop some large coin on them if I were you.
3. Also on Free Drop Billy. Supposedly he lathers prior to a race.
I have no idea what this means. Again, I'm just passing it along because his trainer said it, and his trainer should know. I'm guessing this does not mean that Free Drop Billy soaps up real good in the shower and then forgets to towel off before clopping out to the starting gate. But I suppose it could.
By the way, Free Drop Billy is a 30-1 shot. So take that and take the lather bit and bet accordingly.
In other words ... bet that at some point his owners will change his name to Irish Spring Billy.
3. The Apollo Curse is not what you think it is.
What you think it is, of course, is that at some point a 'roided-up Russian galoot is going to show up -- I'm guessing on the backstretch somewhere -- and kill a couple of the horses with one mighty punch.
But enough about Apollo Creed.
Apparently, the "Apollo" in question here is, surprise, a horse named Apollo. He's dead, but his Curse lives on. It seems he's the last horse to win the Derby who didn't race as a 2-year-old. That happened in 1882, so this is a Curse with legs.
Four of 'em, presumably.
Anyway ... the Apollo Curse has been bandied about a lot this week because two entries never raced as 2-year-olds. One, it turns out, is the 3-1 favorite Justify. He's apparently crushed it so far this year, and he's got a really good jockey, Mike Smith, and he's trained by that guy with the white hair everyone thinks so much of. Bob Baffle, Baffert, something like that.
But he's got the Apollo Curse working against him, so he's probably toast.
4. And then there's Mendelssohn.
I don't know why I like Mendelssohn, one of the faves at 5-1. Oh, wait, I do.
I like Mendelssohn because he's the foreign entry (Ireland), and foreign entries frequently have a mystique about them, and I have a weakness for mystique. He also won the United Arab Emirates Derby by 18 1/2 lengths, which seems pretty impressive. He's also trained by an Irishman named Aidan O'Brien, who works out of the wonderfully named Ballydoyle Stables and apparently is the Irish version of White-Haired Bob.
Also, he looks mighty spiffy in a top hat.
5. And now the part where the Blob tells you whom to bet on.
No, not Firenze Fire. Or Combatant or Free Drop Billy, either.
Actually, there are a lot of horses that real Horse Guys like, so lay down your money accordingly. They like Justify, but not a lot. They like Hofburg. They like Magnum Moon, who's apparently really fast. They like Good Magic and Mendelssohn and Audible and My Boy Jack.
Me, I say put your coin on Bolt d'Oro.
I say this because at least one Horse Guy has him winning. I also say it because Victor Espinoza is in the irons, and he's won two of the last four Derbies, and when in doubt (which is almost always) the Blob always bets the jockey.
So there you have it. Bolt d'Oro is your horse.
Or, you know, not. Probably not.
Thursday, May 3, 2018
Two bits. Four bits. Naughty bits.
It has always been a roll-your-eyes sort of proposition, ever since the Dallas Cowboys trotted out its chorus line of young women in hotpants and white go-go boots.
NFL cheerleaders are not your average high school cheerleaders, nor your average college cheerleaders. They are not there to pump up the crowd, even though NFL teams (allegedly) have strict rules about what their cheerleaders can and cannot do in terms of fraternization, and even though many of the cheerleaders are older, educated women with professional careers.
But let's face it: The league puts them out there to make its product sexier. They put them out there to add something extra to your regularly scheduled Sunday afternoon violence. That's the great unspoken here, and none of the cowflop the NFL puts out there about professionalism and integrity can erase the wink-wink, nudge-nudge that comes with it.
So I suppose we shouldn't be all that surprised that at least one organization apparently decided implication wasn't enough.
That would be the Washington Redskins, owned by the despicable Daniel Snyder, whose organization once sued a woman who broke her season-ticket contract because Danny Boy had jacked the prize beyond what she could pay. These are the sort of people who'd run over their grandmother if she stood between them and a dollar lying on the sidewalk.
They're also the sort of people who allegedly dispensed with the wink and nudge and decided to treat their cheerleaders -- again, older, educated women in a lot of cases -- like street-corner hookers.
According to claims made in a report in the New York Times, the Redskins cheerleaders were required to pose topless for a photo shoot in 2013, to which the club invited spectators. Some were then required to attend a nightclub event as escorts for some of the team's male sponsors. The cheerleaders said no sex was involved, but, still. All of this occurred on a trip to Costa Rica for which they were not paid.
Also among their duties was an annual boat trip with sponsors in which some of the cheerleaders claimed to have been dragged into below-decks twerking contests with cash prizes.
And, OK, here is the part where reasonable people can say one of two things. One, why the hell didn't the cheerleaders (again, many of them older, educated professionals) just tell the Redskins to stick it? And, two, clearly the ones talking to the Times did tell them to stick it.
In the meantime, the Redskins responded the way you'd expect a corporate entity to respond, with a lot of sweet corporate nothings.
"The Redskins' cheerleader program is one of the NFL's premier teams in participation, professionalism and community service," they said in a statement. "Each Redskin cheerleader is contractually protected to ensure a safe and constructive environment ..."
Which I guess means that boat they wind up on every year is entirely seaworthy.
Wink-wink. Nudge-nudge.
NFL cheerleaders are not your average high school cheerleaders, nor your average college cheerleaders. They are not there to pump up the crowd, even though NFL teams (allegedly) have strict rules about what their cheerleaders can and cannot do in terms of fraternization, and even though many of the cheerleaders are older, educated women with professional careers.
But let's face it: The league puts them out there to make its product sexier. They put them out there to add something extra to your regularly scheduled Sunday afternoon violence. That's the great unspoken here, and none of the cowflop the NFL puts out there about professionalism and integrity can erase the wink-wink, nudge-nudge that comes with it.
So I suppose we shouldn't be all that surprised that at least one organization apparently decided implication wasn't enough.
That would be the Washington Redskins, owned by the despicable Daniel Snyder, whose organization once sued a woman who broke her season-ticket contract because Danny Boy had jacked the prize beyond what she could pay. These are the sort of people who'd run over their grandmother if she stood between them and a dollar lying on the sidewalk.
They're also the sort of people who allegedly dispensed with the wink and nudge and decided to treat their cheerleaders -- again, older, educated women in a lot of cases -- like street-corner hookers.
According to claims made in a report in the New York Times, the Redskins cheerleaders were required to pose topless for a photo shoot in 2013, to which the club invited spectators. Some were then required to attend a nightclub event as escorts for some of the team's male sponsors. The cheerleaders said no sex was involved, but, still. All of this occurred on a trip to Costa Rica for which they were not paid.
Also among their duties was an annual boat trip with sponsors in which some of the cheerleaders claimed to have been dragged into below-decks twerking contests with cash prizes.
And, OK, here is the part where reasonable people can say one of two things. One, why the hell didn't the cheerleaders (again, many of them older, educated professionals) just tell the Redskins to stick it? And, two, clearly the ones talking to the Times did tell them to stick it.
In the meantime, the Redskins responded the way you'd expect a corporate entity to respond, with a lot of sweet corporate nothings.
"The Redskins' cheerleader program is one of the NFL's premier teams in participation, professionalism and community service," they said in a statement. "Each Redskin cheerleader is contractually protected to ensure a safe and constructive environment ..."
Which I guess means that boat they wind up on every year is entirely seaworthy.
Wink-wink. Nudge-nudge.
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Blah, blah, blah-blah-blah
OK, we get it. Charles Barkley doesn't like Draymond Green.
Being Barkley, of course, just saying he doesn't like Draymond is not enough. He's got to go on and say he'd like to punch him in the face. Which might seem more than a little out of line for a guy who's allegedly a professional studio analyst.
Apparently, though, his bosses decided long ago that professional decorum is not what you hire Barkley for. So it seems he has carte blanche to say whatever he wants to say, within reason.
(Or outside of it.)
In any case, Barkley going all get-off-my-lawn on Draymond seems less inappropriate than merely amusing, frankly. Draymond is, after all, half Barkley's age, just as big and far more fit. It also seems he's got Barkley's number, figuring correctly that this is just some old guy flapping his dentures.
Or so he said after the Warriors' 121-116 win over the Pelicans, when someone asked him about Barkley's comments.
Green pointed out that Barkley sees him numerous times throughout the year and thus has had numerous opportunities to (as Barkley put it) "punch his ass in the face." He hasn't done it, and he won't, because that would likely get him fired. So, as Green pointed out, it all amounts to a bunch of gasbagging from a senior citizen.
"Punch me in the face when you see me, or not. No one cares what you would have done," Green said. "He's old and it is what it is."
The truth hurts.
Being Barkley, of course, just saying he doesn't like Draymond is not enough. He's got to go on and say he'd like to punch him in the face. Which might seem more than a little out of line for a guy who's allegedly a professional studio analyst.
Apparently, though, his bosses decided long ago that professional decorum is not what you hire Barkley for. So it seems he has carte blanche to say whatever he wants to say, within reason.
(Or outside of it.)
In any case, Barkley going all get-off-my-lawn on Draymond seems less inappropriate than merely amusing, frankly. Draymond is, after all, half Barkley's age, just as big and far more fit. It also seems he's got Barkley's number, figuring correctly that this is just some old guy flapping his dentures.
Or so he said after the Warriors' 121-116 win over the Pelicans, when someone asked him about Barkley's comments.
Green pointed out that Barkley sees him numerous times throughout the year and thus has had numerous opportunities to (as Barkley put it) "punch his ass in the face." He hasn't done it, and he won't, because that would likely get him fired. So, as Green pointed out, it all amounts to a bunch of gasbagging from a senior citizen.
"Punch me in the face when you see me, or not. No one cares what you would have done," Green said. "He's old and it is what it is."
The truth hurts.
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
The rights of fans. And the wrongs.
The timing could have been better. No doubt Russell Westbrook understands this.
But his Thunder had just been eliminated by the Utah Jazz, and there undoubtedly was the requisite disappointment about that. And people are human. And so Westbrook opened his mouth and it all came flooding out.
But his Thunder had just been eliminated by the Utah Jazz, and there undoubtedly was the requisite disappointment about that. And people are human. And so Westbrook opened his mouth and it all came flooding out.
“I don’t confront fans, fans confront me," he said after the Thunder bowed out. "Here in Utah, man, a lot of disrespectful, vulgar things are said to the players. I think these fans, man, it’s truly disrespectful. Talk about your families, your kids, and it’s just a disrespect to the game. And I think it’s something that needs to be brought up."
And, sure, because of the timing, all of that came off as the sourest of grapes.
And, sure, it's almost never a winning move to carp about the fans, because it makes you look like an ungrateful whiner. If not Mr. Rabbit Ears himself.
But Westbrook had a point. And it bears mentioning.
First of all, he's not the first NBA player to comment on the fans in Utah, who apparently are notorious for being asshats. Second of all, he's absolutely right when he says there is a line fans should not be allowed to cross no matter how much they paid for their tickets. And that line is pretty clearly marked.
Taunt a player all you want, as long as you don't get racial or homophobic about it. But leave his family out of it.
Do that -- especially when you bring someone's kids into it -- and your ticket should be worthless. You should be ejected from the premises immediately.
Unfortunately, this doesn't happen nearly as much as it ought to. In some places more notoriously than others.
The other day, for instance, a former colleague of mine called to relate a story from the ECHL hockey playoffs. This happened in Toledo, where the Walleye were playing their bitter rivals, the Fort Wayne Komets. As the teams were warming up, a woman materialized by the glass, holding up a sign.
On it was a photo mocking a Komets player's mother. Moreover, the woman had discovered where this player's mother was sitting. And so she stood right next to her with the sign.
Classy. Very classy.
Also, it should be noted, quintessentially Toledo. Having grown up going to Komets games for 40 or 50 years, the Blob is well aware that -- whether it was the Walleye or the Goaldiggers or the Hornets or the Blades -- some of Toledo's fans have always been shy a few essentials. Most of them in the couth department.
So, no real surprise at my colleague's tale. And no surprise it apparently took security an inordinate amount of time to remove the woman and her sign.
Some places are just like that. And so good for Russell Westbrook for calling them on it.
And, sure, it's almost never a winning move to carp about the fans, because it makes you look like an ungrateful whiner. If not Mr. Rabbit Ears himself.
But Westbrook had a point. And it bears mentioning.
First of all, he's not the first NBA player to comment on the fans in Utah, who apparently are notorious for being asshats. Second of all, he's absolutely right when he says there is a line fans should not be allowed to cross no matter how much they paid for their tickets. And that line is pretty clearly marked.
Taunt a player all you want, as long as you don't get racial or homophobic about it. But leave his family out of it.
Do that -- especially when you bring someone's kids into it -- and your ticket should be worthless. You should be ejected from the premises immediately.
Unfortunately, this doesn't happen nearly as much as it ought to. In some places more notoriously than others.
The other day, for instance, a former colleague of mine called to relate a story from the ECHL hockey playoffs. This happened in Toledo, where the Walleye were playing their bitter rivals, the Fort Wayne Komets. As the teams were warming up, a woman materialized by the glass, holding up a sign.
On it was a photo mocking a Komets player's mother. Moreover, the woman had discovered where this player's mother was sitting. And so she stood right next to her with the sign.
Classy. Very classy.
Also, it should be noted, quintessentially Toledo. Having grown up going to Komets games for 40 or 50 years, the Blob is well aware that -- whether it was the Walleye or the Goaldiggers or the Hornets or the Blades -- some of Toledo's fans have always been shy a few essentials. Most of them in the couth department.
So, no real surprise at my colleague's tale. And no surprise it apparently took security an inordinate amount of time to remove the woman and her sign.
Some places are just like that. And so good for Russell Westbrook for calling them on it.
Getting their man
Well, that was quite the production.
"That" being the second coming of The Decision, which is what happened yesterday down in New Albany, where Romeo Langford made the entire state happy by picking up the IU cap instead of the Vanderbilt or Kansas cap. This in front of hundreds of fans/supporters/family/media, after speechifying and much drawing out of the dramatic pause.
(Which was all fine, by the way. A top-end athlete announcing his college choice is and always should be a production-number occasion -- not only for him but for college athletics, which as we all know is a major corporate entity whose revenue depends largely on how many Romeo Langfords they can attract.)
At any rate, this was a great day for Indiana University and head coach Archie Miller, who vowed he was going to make recruiting Indiana a priority. Getting Langford, the first Indiana Mr. Basketball to sign with IU since Cody Zeller in 2011, was therefore both essential and the ultimate validation of that vow. And it signaled that Indiana is once again a major player on the national recruiting scene, a not inconsiderable thing in itself.
Here's what you need to keep in mind, though: Getting Romeo, in terms of the impact on Miller's program, wasn't nearly as crucial as getting Jerome Hunter out of North Carolina or Jake Forrester out of Pennsylvania, or Damezi Anderson and Robert Phinsee out of Indiana.
That's because if Langford proves to be what everyone projects he'll be, he'll be at Indiana for one year and then declare for the NBA draft. The others, presumably, will be around for awhile longer. And therefore will be more crucial to Miller's program going forward.
Langford may well be the kind of player who can get the Hoosiers to the next level. But it will be the Hunters and Forresters and Andersons and Phinisees who will be charged with keeping them there. How they develop, and how the recruits who come after them develop, will define Indiana's program far more than Langford will.
So, yeah, celebrate Romeo staying home. But keep an eye on the ones who'll likely make that home what it becomes.
"That" being the second coming of The Decision, which is what happened yesterday down in New Albany, where Romeo Langford made the entire state happy by picking up the IU cap instead of the Vanderbilt or Kansas cap. This in front of hundreds of fans/supporters/family/media, after speechifying and much drawing out of the dramatic pause.
(Which was all fine, by the way. A top-end athlete announcing his college choice is and always should be a production-number occasion -- not only for him but for college athletics, which as we all know is a major corporate entity whose revenue depends largely on how many Romeo Langfords they can attract.)
At any rate, this was a great day for Indiana University and head coach Archie Miller, who vowed he was going to make recruiting Indiana a priority. Getting Langford, the first Indiana Mr. Basketball to sign with IU since Cody Zeller in 2011, was therefore both essential and the ultimate validation of that vow. And it signaled that Indiana is once again a major player on the national recruiting scene, a not inconsiderable thing in itself.
Here's what you need to keep in mind, though: Getting Romeo, in terms of the impact on Miller's program, wasn't nearly as crucial as getting Jerome Hunter out of North Carolina or Jake Forrester out of Pennsylvania, or Damezi Anderson and Robert Phinsee out of Indiana.
That's because if Langford proves to be what everyone projects he'll be, he'll be at Indiana for one year and then declare for the NBA draft. The others, presumably, will be around for awhile longer. And therefore will be more crucial to Miller's program going forward.
Langford may well be the kind of player who can get the Hoosiers to the next level. But it will be the Hunters and Forresters and Andersons and Phinisees who will be charged with keeping them there. How they develop, and how the recruits who come after them develop, will define Indiana's program far more than Langford will.
So, yeah, celebrate Romeo staying home. But keep an eye on the ones who'll likely make that home what it becomes.