Oh, don't be silly. This one did not set basketball back fifty years.
Fifty years ago, people could shoot.
Fifty years ago, whatever that was Purdue and Indiana played last night would not have been called "basketball." It would have been called "a crime against the sovereign state of Indiana, where kids learn what a release point is by the time they're out of Garanimals." It would have been called "the perfect argument to dig up James Naismith and ask him why he couldn't have just left the peach baskets alone."
Purdue won, 57-49, because Purdue is Purdue and Indiana is Indiana, which means they both are dedicated to driving their respective coaches and fan bases straitjacket crazy. You thought the Boilermakers were finished because they'd lost four in a row and failed to make an appearance in their last appearance, a soggy pizza slice of a loss to Michigan? You thought the Hoosiers had finally turned things around after winning three of four and showing some spine against Penn State in their last outing?
"Ha!" said the Purdues.
"Ha!" said the Indianas.
Here's how this one went: The team that won missed 35 of its 56 shots and 15 of its 17 3-point attempts. The team that lost missed 45 of its 59 shots, 19 of its 24 from the arc and 13 straight shots during one stretch of the first half. It failed to score a point in the final 3:44 of the first half and the first 6:33 of the second.
You've heard the expression, "Couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat"?
The Hoosiers couldn't even hit the boat. And they were sitting in it.
Lowlights included the starting five shooting a combined 9-of-36, and Devonte "10-of-15 Or 3-of-15" Green shooting, you guessed it, 3-of-15. The front line of Joey Brunk, Justin Smith and Trace Jackson-Davis missed a combined 17 of 23 attempts, a good number of those coming within spitting distance of the rim.
If you can't even make a layup, you usually get laid up. I believe that was one of Naismith's original axioms.
The only upside for Indiana is the Hoosiers have probably already done enough to get into the NCAA Tournament. They're 18-10 and they've got enough Tier 1 or Archipelago 1 or whatever they call it wins to gain entry. Even if that entry leads immediately to an exit, it's still a big deal for a program that's missed the Big Show the last three seasons.
And Purdue?
At 15-14 and 8-10 in the Big Ten they're probably looking at an NIT bid, although their Madness hopes still have a faint heartbeat. They stand 11th in a conference the wise guys say will get 10 NCAA bids, which means they'd likely have to make a deep Big Ten Tournament run to get in.
Of course, both Indiana and Purdue will have to make a shot or two first.
I think Naismith said that, too.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Thursday, February 27, 2020
The unspooling of days
I hate posts like this.
I hate being That Guy, the one who dodders anciently and shouts at clouds about the demise of Betamax and the 8-track. Who pulls a thick curtain of amnesia around himself and mourns for a Day that wasn't nearly as Back In as we seem to see through the curtain's folds.
Who wonders why we can't have single-class basketball anymore in Indiana, forgetting that it went away because it was increasingly becoming a 92-30, Mega-Central-Over-Hooterville theater of the absurd. And who refuses to recognize that everything that made high school basketball in Indiana such a cultural touchstone is still there if you know where to look for it.
I hate That Guy. I especially hate him because I'm really not him, even though Medicare and Social Security are on my front step, leaning on the doorbell and demanding that my almost-65-year-old self let them the hell in.
On the other hand, I hate That Guy because sometimes I am him. And because he sneaks up on me at the damnedest times.
This week it happened because I was checking out some high school basketball scores, on account of next week is sectional week and, even though I've been away from the sportswriting gig for almost six years, my pulse heats up a little this time of year. So I was scrolling through some scores, and, because I spent ten years of my professional life in Basketball Mecca (aka, Anderson, Indiana), I decided to see how the Indians were doing this year.
Imagine my shock when I saw they were 2-21.
Imagine my further shock when I saw they hadn't had a winning season in seven years, and that in those seven years they had gone 3-20 and 4-20 and 6-19, and that Anderson -- which used to host the most Hoosier Hysteria-est sectional in the state each year -- doesn't even have a sectional anymore.
No, sir. The Indians go to (ugh) fierce rival Muncie Central now for sectional play. And what a bitter pill that must be.
And, yes, I know, the days and weeks and months and years unspool without cease, and they rarely pack anything for the trip. And so Basketball Mecca is not Basketball Mecca anymore. The Wigwam, that cavernous old palace that was once one of the grandest high school venues in the nation, sits empty now. Madison Heights and Highland, two-thirds of one of the fiercest intercity rivalries ever, are both gone. And Anderson is 2-21 and goes out of town to play in the sectional now.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, 8,000-plus howling maniacs used to pack the Wigwam for the sectional, and immortals like Ray Tolbert and Troy Lewis and Shawn Teague and Winston Morgan and Stew Robinson used to play in it. And one year, the Anderson sectional featured the state's No. 1 team (Highland), its No. 8 team (Anderson) and its No. 9 team (Madison Heights.)
Now there is no sectional. And the Pirates (Heights) and Scots (Highland) are no more. And the town itself is a shell of its former self, hollowed out by the early-'80s recession and the betrayal of the American worker that began in the '80s and continues in various ways to this day.
But enough of that. Sectional week is coming, and five days from now Anderson goes to Muncie Central to play Mt. Vernon in the sectional. Its season will likely end some 90 minutes later.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, the Indians season went on and on, not ending until the state championship game four times in a seven-year span between 1979 and 1986.
I was there. I saw it.
It's all on Betamax if you want to see it.
I hate being That Guy, the one who dodders anciently and shouts at clouds about the demise of Betamax and the 8-track. Who pulls a thick curtain of amnesia around himself and mourns for a Day that wasn't nearly as Back In as we seem to see through the curtain's folds.
Who wonders why we can't have single-class basketball anymore in Indiana, forgetting that it went away because it was increasingly becoming a 92-30, Mega-Central-Over-Hooterville theater of the absurd. And who refuses to recognize that everything that made high school basketball in Indiana such a cultural touchstone is still there if you know where to look for it.
I hate That Guy. I especially hate him because I'm really not him, even though Medicare and Social Security are on my front step, leaning on the doorbell and demanding that my almost-65-year-old self let them the hell in.
On the other hand, I hate That Guy because sometimes I am him. And because he sneaks up on me at the damnedest times.
This week it happened because I was checking out some high school basketball scores, on account of next week is sectional week and, even though I've been away from the sportswriting gig for almost six years, my pulse heats up a little this time of year. So I was scrolling through some scores, and, because I spent ten years of my professional life in Basketball Mecca (aka, Anderson, Indiana), I decided to see how the Indians were doing this year.
Imagine my shock when I saw they were 2-21.
Imagine my further shock when I saw they hadn't had a winning season in seven years, and that in those seven years they had gone 3-20 and 4-20 and 6-19, and that Anderson -- which used to host the most Hoosier Hysteria-est sectional in the state each year -- doesn't even have a sectional anymore.
No, sir. The Indians go to (ugh) fierce rival Muncie Central now for sectional play. And what a bitter pill that must be.
And, yes, I know, the days and weeks and months and years unspool without cease, and they rarely pack anything for the trip. And so Basketball Mecca is not Basketball Mecca anymore. The Wigwam, that cavernous old palace that was once one of the grandest high school venues in the nation, sits empty now. Madison Heights and Highland, two-thirds of one of the fiercest intercity rivalries ever, are both gone. And Anderson is 2-21 and goes out of town to play in the sectional now.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, 8,000-plus howling maniacs used to pack the Wigwam for the sectional, and immortals like Ray Tolbert and Troy Lewis and Shawn Teague and Winston Morgan and Stew Robinson used to play in it. And one year, the Anderson sectional featured the state's No. 1 team (Highland), its No. 8 team (Anderson) and its No. 9 team (Madison Heights.)
Now there is no sectional. And the Pirates (Heights) and Scots (Highland) are no more. And the town itself is a shell of its former self, hollowed out by the early-'80s recession and the betrayal of the American worker that began in the '80s and continues in various ways to this day.
But enough of that. Sectional week is coming, and five days from now Anderson goes to Muncie Central to play Mt. Vernon in the sectional. Its season will likely end some 90 minutes later.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, the Indians season went on and on, not ending until the state championship game four times in a seven-year span between 1979 and 1986.
I was there. I saw it.
It's all on Betamax if you want to see it.
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
DebateBall
Well, now. Sounds like I missed quite the Sober Presidential Debate last night.
Liz pied Mike, who pied Bernie, who pied, I don't know, all those damn kids on his lawn. Pete and Amy complained that they weren't getting enough pies to throw at Mike and Bernie. Joe just wondered where all the pies came from, and if he could get him a slice of that coconut cream.
Meanwhile, people who tuned in were all mad about the pie-throwing, because they were expecting Serious Discussion on Matters Of Great Importance To The Nation.
This only proves those people were never sportswriters.
Sportswriters immediately recognize presidential debates for what they are, which are staged spectacles much like the Super Bowl, the NCAA Tournament and America's Got Talent. In other words, they're competitions proscribed by a set of rules that are either adhered to or ignored, depending on whether or not the Patriots or Astros are involved.
As such, like the Super Bowl or March Madness or Little Ricky And His Magic Accordion, they are meant to generate ratings for whatever network is airing them. They are not meant to give voters any particular insight into the qualifications of the candidates. Like the sign says: For Entertainment Purposes Only.
That's why this sportswriter did not watch last night's debate. Or the debate before that. Or any of the debates that have been going on, it seems, since Grover Cleveland was in the White House.
Grover Cleveland! Don't get me started on THAT guy ...
Enough, Bern. Enough.
In any case, this is why the Blob is always amused by all the pearl-clutching that attends these deals. Yes, the candidates are all pie-ing one another. Yes, they're behaving like schoolchildren. No, they're not telling you why they should be president, and what their vision is for the country.
Want to know why?
Because that's not what these things are. They're not debates, really; they're DebateBall. And that's what they're designed to be. It's why the moderators don't really try to moderate anything. They just sit back and let 'em have at it.
So if you're tuning in for anything other than Entertainment Purposes Only, you're wasting your time. Know what the debates are? They're like Media Day the week of the Super Bowl: Not really an actual media event, but a sideshow in which players are put on display in individual booths and "journalists" with sock puppets on their hands ask idiotic questions via the sock puppets.
One Media Day, for instance, Gilbert Gottfried was going around asking players what a football was.
Another Media Day, some guy in tights, a cape and a mask showed up to promote his show on Nickelodeon.
Personally, I think that guy was onto something. I mean, who wouldn't want to see Joe Biden in tights, a cape and a mask, for instance? Or Liz or Amy or Pete?
Now that's entertainment, by God.
Liz pied Mike, who pied Bernie, who pied, I don't know, all those damn kids on his lawn. Pete and Amy complained that they weren't getting enough pies to throw at Mike and Bernie. Joe just wondered where all the pies came from, and if he could get him a slice of that coconut cream.
Meanwhile, people who tuned in were all mad about the pie-throwing, because they were expecting Serious Discussion on Matters Of Great Importance To The Nation.
This only proves those people were never sportswriters.
Sportswriters immediately recognize presidential debates for what they are, which are staged spectacles much like the Super Bowl, the NCAA Tournament and America's Got Talent. In other words, they're competitions proscribed by a set of rules that are either adhered to or ignored, depending on whether or not the Patriots or Astros are involved.
As such, like the Super Bowl or March Madness or Little Ricky And His Magic Accordion, they are meant to generate ratings for whatever network is airing them. They are not meant to give voters any particular insight into the qualifications of the candidates. Like the sign says: For Entertainment Purposes Only.
That's why this sportswriter did not watch last night's debate. Or the debate before that. Or any of the debates that have been going on, it seems, since Grover Cleveland was in the White House.
Grover Cleveland! Don't get me started on THAT guy ...
Enough, Bern. Enough.
In any case, this is why the Blob is always amused by all the pearl-clutching that attends these deals. Yes, the candidates are all pie-ing one another. Yes, they're behaving like schoolchildren. No, they're not telling you why they should be president, and what their vision is for the country.
Want to know why?
Because that's not what these things are. They're not debates, really; they're DebateBall. And that's what they're designed to be. It's why the moderators don't really try to moderate anything. They just sit back and let 'em have at it.
So if you're tuning in for anything other than Entertainment Purposes Only, you're wasting your time. Know what the debates are? They're like Media Day the week of the Super Bowl: Not really an actual media event, but a sideshow in which players are put on display in individual booths and "journalists" with sock puppets on their hands ask idiotic questions via the sock puppets.
One Media Day, for instance, Gilbert Gottfried was going around asking players what a football was.
Another Media Day, some guy in tights, a cape and a mask showed up to promote his show on Nickelodeon.
Personally, I think that guy was onto something. I mean, who wouldn't want to see Joe Biden in tights, a cape and a mask, for instance? Or Liz or Amy or Pete?
Now that's entertainment, by God.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Gettin' handsy in Indy
This is the best of all weeks for a certain species of human, i.e. the ones who are on three different anxiety meds, who obsessively study ancient runes for Evil Portents, or who simply enjoy watching healthy young men run in shorts, jump in shorts and answer inappropriate questions about their mothers in shorts.
(OK, so they don't do that in shorts. That would be as silly as the questions.)
It's NFL Pre-Draft Combine Week, folks!
It's the grandest Festival O' Overthinking in all the land, an event in which sober analysis veers over the line into complete besotted derangement, because gazillions of simoleons are on the line and NFL teams are deathly afraid of spending them unwisely. Except, you know, when they do.
Anyway ... we're only a day in, and already there's this bombshell from Indy:
Heisman Trophy winner and prospective top draft pick Joe Burrow has TINY, TINY HANDS!
OK, so not tiny-tiny, but tiny, in the sense that his mitts measured nine inches from pinkie to thumb, and that means Joe Burrow will never play a down in the NFL. OK, so he will, probably, but he'll never be as good as, say, Chad Henne, who also has 9-inch hands, or Jared Goff and Ryan Tannehill, who also have 9-inch hands.
Chad Henne is a career NFL backup who, in 11 seasons, has played in more than four games in a season just four times. He's thrown more interceptions (63) than touchdowns (58) lifetime. Since 2008, he, Jared Goff and Ryan Tannehill are the only NFL quarterbacks with Tiny 9-Inch Hands who have attempted more than 300 passes in the NFL.
In other words: Tiny hands spell doom for an NFL quarterback. Doom, I tell you!
And, yeah, OK, so Goff quarterbacked the Rams to the Super Bowl in 2019 with his tiny hands, and Tannehill quarterbacked the Titans as they became the surprise team in the NFL playoffs this past season. But never mind that.
Joe Burrow is finished. Finished, I tell you!
And, yeah, OK, so it might be worth pointing out that the guy who just led the Kansas City Chiefs to the Lombardi Trophy, Patrick Mahomes, has hands that only measure 9 1/4 inches. But that is a very important extra quarter-inch. Sober combine analysis has conclusively proven it's that very quarter-inch that enables Mahomes to do what he does, and the fact he's also a freakin' wizard with an absolutely insane skill set is just an amazing coincidence.
Conclusion: Light a candle for the Cincinnati Bengals, who are poised to take Burrow with the top pick in the draft. Poor Bengals. Poor, poor Bengals.
(OK, so they don't do that in shorts. That would be as silly as the questions.)
It's NFL Pre-Draft Combine Week, folks!
It's the grandest Festival O' Overthinking in all the land, an event in which sober analysis veers over the line into complete besotted derangement, because gazillions of simoleons are on the line and NFL teams are deathly afraid of spending them unwisely. Except, you know, when they do.
Anyway ... we're only a day in, and already there's this bombshell from Indy:
Heisman Trophy winner and prospective top draft pick Joe Burrow has TINY, TINY HANDS!
OK, so not tiny-tiny, but tiny, in the sense that his mitts measured nine inches from pinkie to thumb, and that means Joe Burrow will never play a down in the NFL. OK, so he will, probably, but he'll never be as good as, say, Chad Henne, who also has 9-inch hands, or Jared Goff and Ryan Tannehill, who also have 9-inch hands.
Chad Henne is a career NFL backup who, in 11 seasons, has played in more than four games in a season just four times. He's thrown more interceptions (63) than touchdowns (58) lifetime. Since 2008, he, Jared Goff and Ryan Tannehill are the only NFL quarterbacks with Tiny 9-Inch Hands who have attempted more than 300 passes in the NFL.
In other words: Tiny hands spell doom for an NFL quarterback. Doom, I tell you!
And, yeah, OK, so Goff quarterbacked the Rams to the Super Bowl in 2019 with his tiny hands, and Tannehill quarterbacked the Titans as they became the surprise team in the NFL playoffs this past season. But never mind that.
Joe Burrow is finished. Finished, I tell you!
And, yeah, OK, so it might be worth pointing out that the guy who just led the Kansas City Chiefs to the Lombardi Trophy, Patrick Mahomes, has hands that only measure 9 1/4 inches. But that is a very important extra quarter-inch. Sober combine analysis has conclusively proven it's that very quarter-inch that enables Mahomes to do what he does, and the fact he's also a freakin' wizard with an absolutely insane skill set is just an amazing coincidence.
Conclusion: Light a candle for the Cincinnati Bengals, who are poised to take Burrow with the top pick in the draft. Poor Bengals. Poor, poor Bengals.
Monday, February 24, 2020
Your Bob Knight conspiracy theory for today
So, anyone see what happened to your Purdue Boilermakers over the weekend?
They got staked out on an anthill ... by the Michigan Wolverines ... in Mackey Arena, where less than a month ago they laminated the Iowa Hawkeyes by 36 points. And where, earlier this season, they beat two top-ten teams (Virginia and Michigan State) by 29 points each.
Not Saturday, though. Saturday, they looked like they were having an out-of-body experience. There was no life. There was no fight (and Purdue teams have always had fight). They looked like someone had hollowed them out and replaced the steel in their spines with marshmallow crème.
And I know just who that someone is.
Has anyone noticed the Purdues haven't won a game, and have been gutted twice in a row in Mackey, since they embarrassed Indiana in Assembly Hall on the day Bob Knight returned?
You say it's just a coincidence. I say the Bob Knight Mojo lives.
Did you notice what else happened over the weekend?
Your Indiana Hoosiers beat Penn State 68-60 after nearly blowing a huge lead (because that's just what they do). It was their second straight win in Assembly Hall since the day Bob Knight came back and their third win in four games since that day. And it happened on the 35th anniversary of this.
You think what you want. I think Bob Knight threw a cosmic chair at the Nittany Lions just when they were about to send the Hoosiers to another embarrassing home loss.
"You're an idiot," you're saying now.
Yeah, well. To quote the Dude: That's just your opinion, man.
They got staked out on an anthill ... by the Michigan Wolverines ... in Mackey Arena, where less than a month ago they laminated the Iowa Hawkeyes by 36 points. And where, earlier this season, they beat two top-ten teams (Virginia and Michigan State) by 29 points each.
Not Saturday, though. Saturday, they looked like they were having an out-of-body experience. There was no life. There was no fight (and Purdue teams have always had fight). They looked like someone had hollowed them out and replaced the steel in their spines with marshmallow crème.
And I know just who that someone is.
Has anyone noticed the Purdues haven't won a game, and have been gutted twice in a row in Mackey, since they embarrassed Indiana in Assembly Hall on the day Bob Knight returned?
You say it's just a coincidence. I say the Bob Knight Mojo lives.
Did you notice what else happened over the weekend?
Your Indiana Hoosiers beat Penn State 68-60 after nearly blowing a huge lead (because that's just what they do). It was their second straight win in Assembly Hall since the day Bob Knight came back and their third win in four games since that day. And it happened on the 35th anniversary of this.
You think what you want. I think Bob Knight threw a cosmic chair at the Nittany Lions just when they were about to send the Hoosiers to another embarrassing home loss.
"You're an idiot," you're saying now.
Yeah, well. To quote the Dude: That's just your opinion, man.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
Enduring echoes
Forty years gone now, and I am 24 years old and standing at a scorer's table in a high school gym in Elwood, Indiana, the official scorer turning the book around so I don't have to read it upside down, so I can take down the JV linescore and the names of all the players and who scored what.
Forty years -- half a lifetime -- and out on the floor the varsity teams are warming up and there's the low buzz of a hundred conversations coming down from the crowded bleachers, and just down the way the PA announcer leans into his mic and clicks it on.
"I have an Olympic hockey score ..." he begins.
And then: "United States 4, Soviet Union 3!"
And the place erupts.
And the 24-year-old sportswriter, this half-a-lifetime-ago kid, raises his fist and shakes it.
And maybe people start chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" because that was a thing then, but I really can't remember for sure because it's all so long ago now.
And of course, never that long ago.
Never, because Mike Eruzione, the captain who scored the winning goal with exactly 10 minutes to play, is still around, still traveling around the country telling the story.
Never, because you can cue up "Miracle" anytime you want, see Kurt Russell channeling Herb Brooks in that ugly-ass 1980 suit, listen to the pregame speech some of us have practically memorized by now. Or cue up the last minute of the game and listen once more to Al Michaels' iconic call.
So much now we remember about the Miracle on Ice, because its echoes go on and on and on. No sports montage of the 20th century is complete without it; there is Babe Ruth pigeon-toeing around the bases and Jackie Robinson stealing home and Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali, and then, always, there is that scrum of American boys flinging their sticks and gloves to the heavens and piling atop one another as the clock hits zeroes.
It all comes back, then. How the American boys, a bunch of college kids and bush league lifers, had been embarrassed 10-3 by the mighty Soviet machine barely two weeks before. How they came within seconds of losing to Sweden in their Olympic opener. How the game against the Soviets was considered such a foregone conclusion it wasn't even aired live.
How those last ten minutes seemed to crawl past on broken glass as we watched the replay, even though we all knew how it was going to come out. And how later, it dawned on some of us that this happened on George Washington's birthday, and how cosmic was that?
Look. Maybe the Miracle was the greatest upset in sports history and maybe it wasn't, but it's clearly the one that endures like no other. It's clearly the one that most resonates, and always will, because it was such a perfect convergence of time and moment.
And that's perhaps the biggest miracle of all.
Forty years -- half a lifetime -- and out on the floor the varsity teams are warming up and there's the low buzz of a hundred conversations coming down from the crowded bleachers, and just down the way the PA announcer leans into his mic and clicks it on.
"I have an Olympic hockey score ..." he begins.
And then: "United States 4, Soviet Union 3!"
And the place erupts.
And the 24-year-old sportswriter, this half-a-lifetime-ago kid, raises his fist and shakes it.
And maybe people start chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" because that was a thing then, but I really can't remember for sure because it's all so long ago now.
And of course, never that long ago.
Never, because Mike Eruzione, the captain who scored the winning goal with exactly 10 minutes to play, is still around, still traveling around the country telling the story.
Never, because you can cue up "Miracle" anytime you want, see Kurt Russell channeling Herb Brooks in that ugly-ass 1980 suit, listen to the pregame speech some of us have practically memorized by now. Or cue up the last minute of the game and listen once more to Al Michaels' iconic call.
So much now we remember about the Miracle on Ice, because its echoes go on and on and on. No sports montage of the 20th century is complete without it; there is Babe Ruth pigeon-toeing around the bases and Jackie Robinson stealing home and Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali, and then, always, there is that scrum of American boys flinging their sticks and gloves to the heavens and piling atop one another as the clock hits zeroes.
It all comes back, then. How the American boys, a bunch of college kids and bush league lifers, had been embarrassed 10-3 by the mighty Soviet machine barely two weeks before. How they came within seconds of losing to Sweden in their Olympic opener. How the game against the Soviets was considered such a foregone conclusion it wasn't even aired live.
How those last ten minutes seemed to crawl past on broken glass as we watched the replay, even though we all knew how it was going to come out. And how later, it dawned on some of us that this happened on George Washington's birthday, and how cosmic was that?
Look. Maybe the Miracle was the greatest upset in sports history and maybe it wasn't, but it's clearly the one that endures like no other. It's clearly the one that most resonates, and always will, because it was such a perfect convergence of time and moment.
And that's perhaps the biggest miracle of all.
Friday, February 21, 2020
Justice finds a way
Which is not exactly what Jeff Goldblum said in "Jurassic Park." But you get the idea.
You get the idea because a man named Bob Bertoni out in western Pennsylvania found a way where Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred did not, which suggests the wrong one of the two is in the Big Chair. What Bertoni did was decide that in his little corner of baseball, they were going to have no truck with cheaters. And so Bertoni, the head of District 16/31 Little League, decreed that none of the teams in the 23 Little Leagues he oversees will be named "Astros."
This is on account of the Houston Asterisk-os cheating their glutes off to win the 2017 World Series, and a whole pile of games in 2017 and 2018 besides. Calling your Little League team the "Astros," therefore, violates the Little League pledge, according to Bertoni. And that's because part of the pledge reads "I will play fair and strive to win."
The Asterisk-os did the latter while ignoring the former, of course. And except for their manager and general manager, they got away with it.
None of the players involved in the Asterisk-os' sign-stealing scheme were so much as suspended by the commish, essentially because he would have had to fight the players' union to do so. Or to put it more bluntly: He didn't punish the players because it would be too hard.
This does not exactly cast Manfred as the second coming of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who famously cast the Black Sox into outer darkness. What the Asterisk-os did was far worse, because it involved the entire organization and went on for at least two years. But Manfred, rather than throw the lot of them out on their ears, granted the players immunity anyway.
This of course makes him less a Mountain than a molehill. And no doubt has the Judge rolling his eyes and muttering to himself out there in the Great Beyond.
And yet: Justice finds a way. It does.
And so the Asterisk-os might want to invest in some body armor, because frontier retribution is coming. If you don't think there are some plunkings in their future from revenge-minded pitchers, you don't know baseball. The players are madder than hornets, and more and more of them are speaking out. And all the warnings in the world won't stop them from doing more than just talking.
The Asterisk-os, naturally, are crying foul over this, casting themselves as victims before the fact. It's the prevailing ethos here in Our Only Available Impeached President's America, where up is down, black is white, and calling out liars and cheaters is seen as persecution.
But there is still such a thing as truth, and here it is: Even if some of the Asterisk-os weren't involved in the cheating, they were still involved. In other words, they went along with it even if they didn't like it. No one in that clubhouse did what a team leader is supposed to do, which is lead. No one stood up and said: "You know, this is cheating and it needs to stop now. Because if it doesn't, I'm going to the commissioner."
Jose Altuve? George Springer? Alex Bregman? Anyone? No one?
Very well, then. Start duckin', boys.
You get the idea because a man named Bob Bertoni out in western Pennsylvania found a way where Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred did not, which suggests the wrong one of the two is in the Big Chair. What Bertoni did was decide that in his little corner of baseball, they were going to have no truck with cheaters. And so Bertoni, the head of District 16/31 Little League, decreed that none of the teams in the 23 Little Leagues he oversees will be named "Astros."
This is on account of the Houston Asterisk-os cheating their glutes off to win the 2017 World Series, and a whole pile of games in 2017 and 2018 besides. Calling your Little League team the "Astros," therefore, violates the Little League pledge, according to Bertoni. And that's because part of the pledge reads "I will play fair and strive to win."
The Asterisk-os did the latter while ignoring the former, of course. And except for their manager and general manager, they got away with it.
None of the players involved in the Asterisk-os' sign-stealing scheme were so much as suspended by the commish, essentially because he would have had to fight the players' union to do so. Or to put it more bluntly: He didn't punish the players because it would be too hard.
This does not exactly cast Manfred as the second coming of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who famously cast the Black Sox into outer darkness. What the Asterisk-os did was far worse, because it involved the entire organization and went on for at least two years. But Manfred, rather than throw the lot of them out on their ears, granted the players immunity anyway.
This of course makes him less a Mountain than a molehill. And no doubt has the Judge rolling his eyes and muttering to himself out there in the Great Beyond.
And yet: Justice finds a way. It does.
And so the Asterisk-os might want to invest in some body armor, because frontier retribution is coming. If you don't think there are some plunkings in their future from revenge-minded pitchers, you don't know baseball. The players are madder than hornets, and more and more of them are speaking out. And all the warnings in the world won't stop them from doing more than just talking.
The Asterisk-os, naturally, are crying foul over this, casting themselves as victims before the fact. It's the prevailing ethos here in Our Only Available Impeached President's America, where up is down, black is white, and calling out liars and cheaters is seen as persecution.
But there is still such a thing as truth, and here it is: Even if some of the Asterisk-os weren't involved in the cheating, they were still involved. In other words, they went along with it even if they didn't like it. No one in that clubhouse did what a team leader is supposed to do, which is lead. No one stood up and said: "You know, this is cheating and it needs to stop now. Because if it doesn't, I'm going to the commissioner."
Jose Altuve? George Springer? Alex Bregman? Anyone? No one?
Very well, then. Start duckin', boys.
Thursday, February 20, 2020
That thousand words thing
Every race fan loves him or her a photo finish. Right?
Well. Here's a photo finish you're not gonna forget anytime soon.
Yes, that's Ryan Newman, walking out of the hospital holding his girls' hands less than 48 hours after one of the more frightening crashes you're every going to see -- a crash that evoked Dale Earnhardt's 19 years a go because, like Earnhardt's, it happened on the last lap of the Daytona 500, and because there was that same certain gravity to the way everyone was either talking about it or not talking about it.
But there he is, walking out of the joint under his own steam after everyone thought he was paralyzed or half-dead or in some other way seriously messed up.
Listen. Sometimes you raise the camera and grab an image that's miraculous because, had you done it a split second sooner or later, the image would not be nearly as iconic. Think Joe Rosenthal and the flag raising on Iwo Jima, or Neil Leifer and Ali sneering triumphantly over a fallen Sonny Liston.
And other times?
Other times you grab an image that's miraculous simply because of what's in it.
Like Ryan Newman, walking away. In sock feet. Clutching the hands of his children.
Well. Here's a photo finish you're not gonna forget anytime soon.
Yes, that's Ryan Newman, walking out of the hospital holding his girls' hands less than 48 hours after one of the more frightening crashes you're every going to see -- a crash that evoked Dale Earnhardt's 19 years a go because, like Earnhardt's, it happened on the last lap of the Daytona 500, and because there was that same certain gravity to the way everyone was either talking about it or not talking about it.
But there he is, walking out of the joint under his own steam after everyone thought he was paralyzed or half-dead or in some other way seriously messed up.
Listen. Sometimes you raise the camera and grab an image that's miraculous because, had you done it a split second sooner or later, the image would not be nearly as iconic. Think Joe Rosenthal and the flag raising on Iwo Jima, or Neil Leifer and Ali sneering triumphantly over a fallen Sonny Liston.
And other times?
Other times you grab an image that's miraculous simply because of what's in it.
Like Ryan Newman, walking away. In sock feet. Clutching the hands of his children.
Your Not Much Of A Prediction, Continued
The Blob, just the other day: Now it's on to Minnesota, a traditional black hole for Indiana. Prediction: The Hoosiers put up a vicious fight this time but still lose, because they're away from Assembly Hall. Or they actually win.
This just in from Minneapolis: Indiana 68, Minnesota 56.
Next up: No. 9 Penn State, in Assembly Hall, on Sunday.
Prediction: Oh, come on. You know.
This just in from Minneapolis: Indiana 68, Minnesota 56.
Next up: No. 9 Penn State, in Assembly Hall, on Sunday.
Prediction: Oh, come on. You know.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Shedding a bad fit
John Beilein is out as coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, barely five months after he was in. And once again the revealed wisdom of what your mother once told you (or someone once told you) is up there on the marquee in hot neon.
MONEY AIN'T EVERYTHING, it says.
Which is to say, not even $4 million a year is worth it if the job fits you like a tuxedo fits a rhino, and that's where we are with Beilein. He's a 67-year-old career college basketball coach who got dollar-whipped into jumping to the NBA. Most people of a sane disposition looked at this and said, "Why?" The rest of those people looked at it and said, "This is never going to work."
And it didn't. And that was so, so obvious from the jump, that everything about Beilein screamed "college coach", screamed that a college campus was his true home place and "college coach at Michigan" in particular was as ironclad and proper an identity as it gets.
John Beilein as head coach of the Cavaliers never sounded right. Never looked right. Never felt right.
And so here we are in February, and the Cavs are 14-40 and dead last in the East, and Beilein was reportedly so unhappy he couldn't stand another minute in Cleveland, even though the season still has almost 30 games to run. He couldn't adjust to dealing with professional athletes, a circumstance anyone with any sense saw coming from a mile down the tracks. Implied at one point they'd been playing like "a bunch of thugs," which went over about as well as you'd expect. Abandoned almost immediately the offensive sets that worked so well at Michigan but didn't in the NBA because, well, the NBA is an entirely different animal.
All of this, every bit of it, was as easily predictable as sunrise. A man who's spent 40 years in the college bubble simply was never going to find enough oxygen to breathe outside it. It is a vastly different world out there, which is why the only college coaches who've become reasonably successful in the NBA -- Brad Stevens leaps to mind -- have been young coaches who were not fully set in their ways.
But a John Beilein?
Was never going to fly. Duh.
MONEY AIN'T EVERYTHING, it says.
Which is to say, not even $4 million a year is worth it if the job fits you like a tuxedo fits a rhino, and that's where we are with Beilein. He's a 67-year-old career college basketball coach who got dollar-whipped into jumping to the NBA. Most people of a sane disposition looked at this and said, "Why?" The rest of those people looked at it and said, "This is never going to work."
And it didn't. And that was so, so obvious from the jump, that everything about Beilein screamed "college coach", screamed that a college campus was his true home place and "college coach at Michigan" in particular was as ironclad and proper an identity as it gets.
John Beilein as head coach of the Cavaliers never sounded right. Never looked right. Never felt right.
And so here we are in February, and the Cavs are 14-40 and dead last in the East, and Beilein was reportedly so unhappy he couldn't stand another minute in Cleveland, even though the season still has almost 30 games to run. He couldn't adjust to dealing with professional athletes, a circumstance anyone with any sense saw coming from a mile down the tracks. Implied at one point they'd been playing like "a bunch of thugs," which went over about as well as you'd expect. Abandoned almost immediately the offensive sets that worked so well at Michigan but didn't in the NBA because, well, the NBA is an entirely different animal.
All of this, every bit of it, was as easily predictable as sunrise. A man who's spent 40 years in the college bubble simply was never going to find enough oxygen to breathe outside it. It is a vastly different world out there, which is why the only college coaches who've become reasonably successful in the NBA -- Brad Stevens leaps to mind -- have been young coaches who were not fully set in their ways.
But a John Beilein?
Was never going to fly. Duh.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
The price, and the legacy
Safety's come a long way in this sport, but sometimes we are reminded
that it is a very dangerous sport.
-- Jeff Gordon
The drivers, they always know first. They're the ones who know what looks bad from what is bad, what is merely a spectacular rending of sheet metal and what exacts the dearest of prices for whatever gets in a man's blood that makes him go hurtling along a ribbon of asphalt at cartoon speeds.
And so you listened to the drivers, early Monday evening, and you heard 2001 all over again.
You heard Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney and, hell, all of them, and once more you heard Darryl Waltrip. Once more you heard DW, in the middle of celebrating his brother's Daytona 500 win 19 years ago, stop and say, "Hope Dale's OK." Because he knew Dale Earnhardt wasn't.
Because Gordon and Hamlin and Blaney and, hell, all of them, knew Ryan Newman wasn't, knew that this wasn't just another guys-running-into-each-other deal at the end of another Daytona 500.
Not when Newman slid over to block Blaney as they fled toward the finish line, and got together, and Blaney turned Newman straight into the wall at 200 mph. Not when Newman went airborne and flipped and was T-boned spang on the driver's side door by Cory Lajoie on the way down. Not when he wound up sliding to a stop upside-down in a gout of flame.
This was bad. This looked and sounded and felt like it was really bad, the way 2001 turned out to be really bad.
Tuesday morning now, and it still is bad. But not in the way 2001 was bad, because 2001 changed everything.
The official report is that Newman is in serious condition in the hospital this morning, but that his injuries are "non-life threatening." This does not mean that Newman is OK, because, as with the way drivers talk about a crash, there is also a way team officials talk about a crash. It's not so much what they say as what they don't say -- and what they aren't saying here is what exactly those non-life threatening injuries are. And that can't be an accidental omission.
Still, he's alive. And once again Dale Earnhardt's most valuable legacy looms large.
Because he was not OK at the end of the Daytona 500 19 years ago, see, and because he was Dale Earnhardt, we now have mandatory head-and-neck restraints and a tighter safety cocoon surrounding NASCAR drivers than ever before. It might go against the sport's bullheaded libertarian ethos -- Aw, hell, just strap me in and let's go -- but it also keeps the stars who feed the sport alive.
No one has died in a Cup car since Earnhardt, and there have been plenty of occasions in the intervening 19 years when that might have happened. But it hasn't. And it didn't yesterday.
And however bad yesterday was, that is a legacy never more worth appreciating than now.
Monday, February 17, 2020
Cause and effect
And now an interesting convergence of circumstance, probably signifying nothing but perhaps one of those disturbances in the force that constitute commentary from a higher being.
Our Only Available Impeached President winged into Daytona yesterday to bless his kind of people and throw out the first pitch for the Daytona 500.
His kind of people cheered lustily. Our Only Available Impeached President did not blow his one line ("Gentlemen, start your engines!"). He even took a turn around the tri-oval in his presidential armored car.
After which it poured down rain, postponing the Great American Race until today.
Hmm.
Our Only Available Impeached President winged into Daytona yesterday to bless his kind of people and throw out the first pitch for the Daytona 500.
His kind of people cheered lustily. Our Only Available Impeached President did not blow his one line ("Gentlemen, start your engines!"). He even took a turn around the tri-oval in his presidential armored car.
After which it poured down rain, postponing the Great American Race until today.
Hmm.
Your Not Much Of A Prediction for today
So remember just the other day, when the Blob was cracking wise about the utter lack of consistency of your Purdue Boilermakers and your Indiana Hoosiers, and the Blob said this about the latter?
And (Archie) Miller's Hoosiers?
Re-energized by their invigorating win (over Iowa), they'll go up to Ann Arbor and get run out of the joint by Michigan.
This just in: Michigan 89, Indiana 65.
This also just in: The Blob is not puffing out its chest on this one, because it was about as hard to predict as sunrise. Hasn't this been the Hoosiers to a fare-thee-well all season? How many times has this happened, a big, allegedly corner-turning win followed by a puzzling no-show, followed by another big, allegedly corner-turning win?
The Blob actually looked it up. It's happened at least four times this season to one degree or another.
Here's how it happened this time: In the win over Iowa, the Hoosiers shot 52.4 percent from the 3-point line (aka, the bane of their existence), outrebounded the Hawkeyes 39-28, forced 18 turnovers and harassed Iowa into 4-of-14 shooting from the arc. Devonte Green hit 7-of-11 from 3 and scored 27 points off the bench to lead Indiana.
And Sunday in Ann Arbor?
Devonte Green was 1-of-7 and scored three points. Indiana shot 25 percent (3-of-12) from the arc. The Hoosiers were outrebounded 37-21. Michigan shot 53 percent from the arc and 57 percent overall and turned it over just eight times.
Now it's on to Minnesota, a traditional black hole for Indiana. Prediction: The Hoosiers put up a vicious fight this time but still lose, because they're away from Assembly Hall. Or they actually win.
Stay tuned.
And (Archie) Miller's Hoosiers?
Re-energized by their invigorating win (over Iowa), they'll go up to Ann Arbor and get run out of the joint by Michigan.
This just in: Michigan 89, Indiana 65.
This also just in: The Blob is not puffing out its chest on this one, because it was about as hard to predict as sunrise. Hasn't this been the Hoosiers to a fare-thee-well all season? How many times has this happened, a big, allegedly corner-turning win followed by a puzzling no-show, followed by another big, allegedly corner-turning win?
The Blob actually looked it up. It's happened at least four times this season to one degree or another.
Here's how it happened this time: In the win over Iowa, the Hoosiers shot 52.4 percent from the 3-point line (aka, the bane of their existence), outrebounded the Hawkeyes 39-28, forced 18 turnovers and harassed Iowa into 4-of-14 shooting from the arc. Devonte Green hit 7-of-11 from 3 and scored 27 points off the bench to lead Indiana.
And Sunday in Ann Arbor?
Devonte Green was 1-of-7 and scored three points. Indiana shot 25 percent (3-of-12) from the arc. The Hoosiers were outrebounded 37-21. Michigan shot 53 percent from the arc and 57 percent overall and turned it over just eight times.
Now it's on to Minnesota, a traditional black hole for Indiana. Prediction: The Hoosiers put up a vicious fight this time but still lose, because they're away from Assembly Hall. Or they actually win.
Stay tuned.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Lessons, unlearned, Part Deux
It was the good doctor, Major Clipton (played by James Donald), who delivered the appropriate epitaph at the end of David Lean's epic flick "The Bridge on the River Kwai."
"Madness ..." quoth the good doctor. "Madness!"
Allow the Blob -- a confirmed film buff for whom TBOTRK is a personal favorite -- to steal that line, sort of.
Dumbness ... Dumbness!
Which is about all you can say about what Carlos Correa of the Houston Asterisk-os did yesterday, who fired back at the Dodgers' Cody Bellinger for rightly taking the Asterisk-os to task for their blatant cheating. In so doing, he once again demonstrated that the Asterisk-os remain stupidly unrepentant, or at the very least stupidly unwilling to man up.
What Correa said, essentially: Cody, you got no idea what you're talking about. Yeah, we cheated to get to the World Series in '17, but we didn't cheat during the Series, and particularly in Game 7. Trust us, we didn't! Also, Jose Altuve was NOT wearing a wire, so to speak. The reason he didn't want anyone to touch his uniform jersey was because he had a fresh tattoo! Really!
And never MIND that the reason HE said he didn't want anyone touching his jersey was because his wife didn't want to see him take his shirt off on TV!
Good grief. Good ... grief.
And here I would say to Correa that this might be a good time to just STOP TALKING. And to remind him that when one finds himself stuck in a hole, the smart play is to STOP DIGGING.
But that's so obvious no one should really have to say it. Should he?
Dumbness. Dumbness!
"Madness ..." quoth the good doctor. "Madness!"
Allow the Blob -- a confirmed film buff for whom TBOTRK is a personal favorite -- to steal that line, sort of.
Dumbness ... Dumbness!
Which is about all you can say about what Carlos Correa of the Houston Asterisk-os did yesterday, who fired back at the Dodgers' Cody Bellinger for rightly taking the Asterisk-os to task for their blatant cheating. In so doing, he once again demonstrated that the Asterisk-os remain stupidly unrepentant, or at the very least stupidly unwilling to man up.
What Correa said, essentially: Cody, you got no idea what you're talking about. Yeah, we cheated to get to the World Series in '17, but we didn't cheat during the Series, and particularly in Game 7. Trust us, we didn't! Also, Jose Altuve was NOT wearing a wire, so to speak. The reason he didn't want anyone to touch his uniform jersey was because he had a fresh tattoo! Really!
And never MIND that the reason HE said he didn't want anyone touching his jersey was because his wife didn't want to see him take his shirt off on TV!
Good grief. Good ... grief.
And here I would say to Correa that this might be a good time to just STOP TALKING. And to remind him that when one finds himself stuck in a hole, the smart play is to STOP DIGGING.
But that's so obvious no one should really have to say it. Should he?
Dumbness. Dumbness!
Saturday, February 15, 2020
The dilemma of the new
The first robin of spring in Blob World is 43 muscled-up rolling billboards, grumbling to the green beneath the Florida sun. Its chirp is an ear-splitting testosterone blare, unleavened by sissified muffler-fication. And its natural coloration is an entire palette, reds and whites and greens and blacks and every shade of blue.
Forget that damn rodent. I know spring's coming when I crash down on my couch tomorrow afternoon, with the world outside still deep in slumber, and the Daytona 500 is on my TV.
Stock cars, going round and round and round. Harvick and Logano and Truex and the Busches, bitching about Keselowski and Bowman and Jones and Blaney. Alleged best drivers on planet Earth running into each other 15 times in the last 10 laps.
Daytona, baby. Gateway to spring, which ushers you toward summer.
Also, a fascinating look at folks who live in a time-bubble in which the Intimidator never died, Cale and the Allisons are still duking it out on the backstretch, and Richard Petty is still flogging that robin's-egg blue Plymouth while David Pearson stalks him in that No. 21 Ford.
NASCAR fans, the true diehards, don't cotton much to change, but change happens anyway. A series that was once the sole province of Detroit iron has been dominated by Toyota in recent years. They run unleaded gas in those Toyotas now, and it's not Union 76 anymore. And now NASCAR's poobahs are talking about ... hybrids.
Muscle cars with an electric component, so they can run off battery power from time to time. Just like, you know, your Toyota Prius.
As Liz Clarke of the Washington Post reports here, that's one of a raft of changes coming down the pike for NASCAR in the next few years, and the prospect makes the infield Bubbas queasy. After all, they come to Daytona and Charlotte and Bristol and Talladega for the Sound, not the technology. Mess with the Sound, and you mess with their universe.
The NASCAR suits assure the Bubbas the Sound will still be the same, but the Bubbas have heard enough of their assurances before to maintain a healthy skepticism. Not even the sport rolling out new cars next year that allegedly will closer resemble their distant street cousins can entirely appease them.
They remember the Car of Tomorrow, after all.
Which is why they cling to yesterday, even as it recedes as immutably as ever.
Forget that damn rodent. I know spring's coming when I crash down on my couch tomorrow afternoon, with the world outside still deep in slumber, and the Daytona 500 is on my TV.
Stock cars, going round and round and round. Harvick and Logano and Truex and the Busches, bitching about Keselowski and Bowman and Jones and Blaney. Alleged best drivers on planet Earth running into each other 15 times in the last 10 laps.
Daytona, baby. Gateway to spring, which ushers you toward summer.
Also, a fascinating look at folks who live in a time-bubble in which the Intimidator never died, Cale and the Allisons are still duking it out on the backstretch, and Richard Petty is still flogging that robin's-egg blue Plymouth while David Pearson stalks him in that No. 21 Ford.
NASCAR fans, the true diehards, don't cotton much to change, but change happens anyway. A series that was once the sole province of Detroit iron has been dominated by Toyota in recent years. They run unleaded gas in those Toyotas now, and it's not Union 76 anymore. And now NASCAR's poobahs are talking about ... hybrids.
Muscle cars with an electric component, so they can run off battery power from time to time. Just like, you know, your Toyota Prius.
As Liz Clarke of the Washington Post reports here, that's one of a raft of changes coming down the pike for NASCAR in the next few years, and the prospect makes the infield Bubbas queasy. After all, they come to Daytona and Charlotte and Bristol and Talladega for the Sound, not the technology. Mess with the Sound, and you mess with their universe.
The NASCAR suits assure the Bubbas the Sound will still be the same, but the Bubbas have heard enough of their assurances before to maintain a healthy skepticism. Not even the sport rolling out new cars next year that allegedly will closer resemble their distant street cousins can entirely appease them.
They remember the Car of Tomorrow, after all.
Which is why they cling to yesterday, even as it recedes as immutably as ever.
Friday, February 14, 2020
Harmonic convergence, Part Deux
And now, in this episode of Archie Miller and Matt Painter Fit Themselves For Straitjackets ...
This: Indiana 89, No. 21 Iowa 77.
The Hoosiers, last seen failing to hit water as they fell out of the boat, made 11-of-21 from their Kryptonite 3-point line, or a baffling 52.4 percent. Devonte Green, last seen shooting A) 2-for-11 or B) 10-for-15, led the way by hitting 7-of-11 from the behind arc and scoring 27 points to lead the Hoosiers, who had lost four straight coming in and looked like a team headed for five, six or seven straight.
They outrebounded Iowa 39-28. Harried the Hawkeyes into 4-of-14 shooting from three. Forced 18 turnovers. Looked like the 16-8 team they are now, instead of, I don't know, an 8-16 team.
So what's that tell you about the immediate future?
Thaaaat's right. If the harmonic convergence holds, it means Matt Painter's Purdue team will go to Columbus and take down Ohio State tomorrow, having just laid that enormous egg at home against Penn State. And Miller's Hoosiers?
Re-energized by their invigorating win, they'll go up to Ann Arbor and get run out of the joint by Michigan.
Because that's just how these Boilers and Hoosiers roll, apparently.
This: Indiana 89, No. 21 Iowa 77.
The Hoosiers, last seen failing to hit water as they fell out of the boat, made 11-of-21 from their Kryptonite 3-point line, or a baffling 52.4 percent. Devonte Green, last seen shooting A) 2-for-11 or B) 10-for-15, led the way by hitting 7-of-11 from the behind arc and scoring 27 points to lead the Hoosiers, who had lost four straight coming in and looked like a team headed for five, six or seven straight.
They outrebounded Iowa 39-28. Harried the Hawkeyes into 4-of-14 shooting from three. Forced 18 turnovers. Looked like the 16-8 team they are now, instead of, I don't know, an 8-16 team.
So what's that tell you about the immediate future?
Thaaaat's right. If the harmonic convergence holds, it means Matt Painter's Purdue team will go to Columbus and take down Ohio State tomorrow, having just laid that enormous egg at home against Penn State. And Miller's Hoosiers?
Re-energized by their invigorating win, they'll go up to Ann Arbor and get run out of the joint by Michigan.
Because that's just how these Boilers and Hoosiers roll, apparently.
Lessons, unlearned
This is not how you play it, in case there was any doubt. You do not cheat your glutes off, get caught, are somehow still allowed to keep the World Series banner you cheated your glutes off to acquire, and say, "Yeah, but ..."
No. Sorry. "Yeah, but ..." is not the appropriate response.
The appropriate response, if you're Houston Asterisk-os owner Jim Crane is something like this: "It's true, we gamed the absolute hell out of the system. In doing so, we disrespected not only our opponents, but the game itself. And because that's something no one who loves baseball should ever, ever do, our position is that we -- and by 'we,' I mean 'I' -- got off easy. Rob Manfred could have stripped our 2017 title and booted my entitled ass out of the MLB owners' club, but he didn't. And for that I am grateful.
"We've learned our lesson. Never, ever again will the Houston Astros blacken the good name of baseball. Never, ever again will we be a baseball swear word."
That's what you say. That's how you do it.
Instead, as pitchers and catchers reported down there in West Palm Beach, Jim Crane, in so many words, said "Yeah, but ..."
Yeah, but ... (cheating our glutes off) didn't impact the game.
Yeah, but ... I'm not responsible for what my organization does, those crazy kids.
Yeah, but ...
Yeah, but ...
Yeah, but ...
Holy guacamole. That is some serious self-immolation going on right there.
Not to mention an odd application of the principles of logic.
Because, listen, saying the Astros' sign-stealing scheme didn't impact the game -- in other words, didn't really matter -- is like saying the Russians getting three shots at a last-second shot in the '72 Olympics didn't really matter. It's like saying Rosie Ruiz riding a bus to victory in the Boston Marathon didn't really matter. It's like saying the President of the United States can break any law he wants as long as he decides it's in his -- er, the country's -- best interests.
Oh, wait. That was what Our Only Available Impeached President's lawyers argued in his impeachment trial. OK, so bad example.
I don't know this for sure, because I wasn't there. But wouldn't you have loved it if someone -- anyone -- had asked Crane the obvious question?
"So, Jim, if the sign stealing didn't really matter, why did it take you all of a nanosecond to fire Hinch and Luhnow?"
Would have loved to have been in the room for that response.
No. Sorry. "Yeah, but ..." is not the appropriate response.
The appropriate response, if you're Houston Asterisk-os owner Jim Crane is something like this: "It's true, we gamed the absolute hell out of the system. In doing so, we disrespected not only our opponents, but the game itself. And because that's something no one who loves baseball should ever, ever do, our position is that we -- and by 'we,' I mean 'I' -- got off easy. Rob Manfred could have stripped our 2017 title and booted my entitled ass out of the MLB owners' club, but he didn't. And for that I am grateful.
"We've learned our lesson. Never, ever again will the Houston Astros blacken the good name of baseball. Never, ever again will we be a baseball swear word."
That's what you say. That's how you do it.
Instead, as pitchers and catchers reported down there in West Palm Beach, Jim Crane, in so many words, said "Yeah, but ..."
Yeah, but ... (cheating our glutes off) didn't impact the game.
Yeah, but ... I'm not responsible for what my organization does, those crazy kids.
Yeah, but ...
Yeah, but ...
Yeah, but ...
Holy guacamole. That is some serious self-immolation going on right there.
Not to mention an odd application of the principles of logic.
Because, listen, saying the Astros' sign-stealing scheme didn't impact the game -- in other words, didn't really matter -- is like saying the Russians getting three shots at a last-second shot in the '72 Olympics didn't really matter. It's like saying Rosie Ruiz riding a bus to victory in the Boston Marathon didn't really matter. It's like saying the President of the United States can break any law he wants as long as he decides it's in his -- er, the country's -- best interests.
Oh, wait. That was what Our Only Available Impeached President's lawyers argued in his impeachment trial. OK, so bad example.
I don't know this for sure, because I wasn't there. But wouldn't you have loved it if someone -- anyone -- had asked Crane the obvious question?
"So, Jim, if the sign stealing didn't really matter, why did it take you all of a nanosecond to fire Hinch and Luhnow?"
Would have loved to have been in the room for that response.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Harmonic convergence
There are notions in the cosmos the Blob does not understand ("No kidding," you're saying). So don't come here looking for answers ("We never do," you're saying).
Maybe there was some sort of science-y brainwave transference going on this week, between Bloomington and West Lafayette. Or maybe it's simpler than that.
Maybe, Archie Miller's team and Matt Painter's team are simply in similar places right now. And it's not a place either coach particularly cares for.
Because both of are pretty darn disgusted at the moment.
First there was Miller, whose Indiana Hoosiers got called out by a caller on his radio show this week as a bunch of fainthearts who play with no passion or energy (and also can't shoot, but that's another issue). Miller did not disagree. In fact, he thought the caller was remarkably astute.
"It's actually a really good point," Miller responded. "Because I think part of our struggles with our team has been passion, emotion, togetherness ... An ugly face of this team has been when things are hard ... they tend to be more reserved, more quiet. Somebody has to fix it for them. To me, this team has to find a way to assert themselves, and nobody is fixing it for us right now."
Now, some folks might be disposed to say "Isn't that your job, Coach?", and those folks wouldn't be wrong. But 120 miles north and west, last year's Big Ten Coach of the Year was saying much the same thing about his Purdue Boilermakers, who are currently occupied with making Matt Painter rip out his hair in silvery shards.
If Miller's Hoosiers have been hard to figure out so far this season, see, Painter's Boilers have been an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a WTF? Hey, look they beat Iowa by 36 in Mackey Arena! They whupped archrival Indiana by 12 in Assembly Hall on the day Bob Knight came home! They've won three in a row!
And then ...
Um, and then, they then turned around and lost to Penn State in Mackey by a dozen after trailing by as many as 25. Never led. Allowed Penn State, a notoriously bad 3-point shooting team, to make 14 triples. Missed 13 of 17 threes after making 19-of-34 against Iowa in their last game in Mackey.
All of that induced Painter to administer a rare public tongue-lashing to his team in the postgame.
"I don't know what they're complacent about," he said, when informed that one of his players, Eric Hunter, used the dreaded C-word to explain the inexplicable. "Is your goal to win 14 games? Did you write that down before the season: 'Hey, I hope we get 14 this year?'
"That's not your goal. You got admitted into Purdue. You're smart enough to think about what's going on around here. Go out and play hard. You've got to fight people."
Conclusion: It's not going to be pleasant to be Eric Hunter this week.
Or the rest of the Purdues.
Or the Indianas.
Maybe there was some sort of science-y brainwave transference going on this week, between Bloomington and West Lafayette. Or maybe it's simpler than that.
Maybe, Archie Miller's team and Matt Painter's team are simply in similar places right now. And it's not a place either coach particularly cares for.
Because both of are pretty darn disgusted at the moment.
First there was Miller, whose Indiana Hoosiers got called out by a caller on his radio show this week as a bunch of fainthearts who play with no passion or energy (and also can't shoot, but that's another issue). Miller did not disagree. In fact, he thought the caller was remarkably astute.
"It's actually a really good point," Miller responded. "Because I think part of our struggles with our team has been passion, emotion, togetherness ... An ugly face of this team has been when things are hard ... they tend to be more reserved, more quiet. Somebody has to fix it for them. To me, this team has to find a way to assert themselves, and nobody is fixing it for us right now."
Now, some folks might be disposed to say "Isn't that your job, Coach?", and those folks wouldn't be wrong. But 120 miles north and west, last year's Big Ten Coach of the Year was saying much the same thing about his Purdue Boilermakers, who are currently occupied with making Matt Painter rip out his hair in silvery shards.
If Miller's Hoosiers have been hard to figure out so far this season, see, Painter's Boilers have been an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a WTF? Hey, look they beat Iowa by 36 in Mackey Arena! They whupped archrival Indiana by 12 in Assembly Hall on the day Bob Knight came home! They've won three in a row!
And then ...
Um, and then, they then turned around and lost to Penn State in Mackey by a dozen after trailing by as many as 25. Never led. Allowed Penn State, a notoriously bad 3-point shooting team, to make 14 triples. Missed 13 of 17 threes after making 19-of-34 against Iowa in their last game in Mackey.
All of that induced Painter to administer a rare public tongue-lashing to his team in the postgame.
"I don't know what they're complacent about," he said, when informed that one of his players, Eric Hunter, used the dreaded C-word to explain the inexplicable. "Is your goal to win 14 games? Did you write that down before the season: 'Hey, I hope we get 14 this year?'
"That's not your goal. You got admitted into Purdue. You're smart enough to think about what's going on around here. Go out and play hard. You've got to fight people."
Conclusion: It's not going to be pleasant to be Eric Hunter this week.
Or the rest of the Purdues.
Or the Indianas.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Clowns on unicycles, and baseball
Pitchers and catchers report this week to spring training, which is always the first sign that what lies outside your window in this part of the world will not always be gray on gray, with undertones of gray.
The return of baseball means there will be greens and blues and brick-dust reds in vivid chunks again soon, and people strolling about in their shirtsleeves beneath a benevolent sun, and the evocative pop of leather as baseballs sail back and forth across the high sky in Arizona and Florida.
It also means scribes all across America will be writing flowery junk like that, even if they try not to.
That's because these are the love-letter days for baseball, a Pastime that Passed its Time awhile back. It's the best time of year for our old national game -- which clings to its yesterdays to its own detriment so often, but which is allowed this small window of time every year when it's entirely appropriate to do so.
Of course, being baseball, it can even mess that up.
And so in this week of all weeks, MLB decided to roll out its latest new improved pproposals to Make Baseball Relevant Again. Bruited about are these changes: Adding four more wild card teams to the existing playoff structure; giving the teams with the best records a bye into the divisional round; turning the wild-card round into a best-of-three in which the teams with the better records will host all three games; and allowing those same teams to choose their own opponents via some sort of Selection Sunday show.
Clowns on unicycles, trapeze artists and bears reading Proust to follow, presumably.
The reaction to these proposals has included exactly the sort of hee-hawing and ridicule you might expect, which suggests to the Blob that this is all a trial balloon of sorts that will never see the light of reality. To begin with, adding four wild-card teams would mean almost half the majors -- 14 teams -- would make the playoffs. This would bring baseball perilously in line with the NHL, where practically everyone but the Saskatoon Macaroons make the playoffs.
Then, of course, there's that whole selecting-your-own-opponent business. Framing it in a Selection Sunday format doesn't present as a bold new approach; it only looks like a pathetic attempt to appear hip and relevant here in the new millennium. It's far more grasping than gripping, in other words.
It also changes the entire dynamic of athletic competition. There has always been at least a veneer of respect between opponents; this blows that veneer to shards. If Team A chooses Wild Card B as its opponent, after all, what does that say other than Team A thinks Wild Card B is a bunch of schlubs and stumblebums?
Yeah, we choose the Hooterville Mudeaters as our opponent, on account of they couldn't hit a beach ball and their pitchers are bunch of noodle-armed bushers. They suck worse than the Orioles, in other words. Bring 'em on.
What this does, of course, is lend credence to one of the oldest (and weariest) tropes on sports: No One Gave Us A Chance. The Mudeaters would eat that up with a spoon. And if they'd happen to win (because, in baseball, that happens all the time)?
Well. Twitter would roast Team A over an open flame. The hometown scribes would be merciless, and the ridicule (and howls of laughter) would be endless: Hey, look, these dopes are so sorry they couldn't even pick a team they could beat. How sad is THAT?
Of course, there's always a chance the aforementioned Mudeaters could be my cruddy Pittsburgh Pirates. With 14 of the 30 MLB teams making the playoffs, I suppose that could actually happen.
OK, so no. No, it couldn't.
The return of baseball means there will be greens and blues and brick-dust reds in vivid chunks again soon, and people strolling about in their shirtsleeves beneath a benevolent sun, and the evocative pop of leather as baseballs sail back and forth across the high sky in Arizona and Florida.
It also means scribes all across America will be writing flowery junk like that, even if they try not to.
That's because these are the love-letter days for baseball, a Pastime that Passed its Time awhile back. It's the best time of year for our old national game -- which clings to its yesterdays to its own detriment so often, but which is allowed this small window of time every year when it's entirely appropriate to do so.
Of course, being baseball, it can even mess that up.
And so in this week of all weeks, MLB decided to roll out its latest new improved pproposals to Make Baseball Relevant Again. Bruited about are these changes: Adding four more wild card teams to the existing playoff structure; giving the teams with the best records a bye into the divisional round; turning the wild-card round into a best-of-three in which the teams with the better records will host all three games; and allowing those same teams to choose their own opponents via some sort of Selection Sunday show.
Clowns on unicycles, trapeze artists and bears reading Proust to follow, presumably.
The reaction to these proposals has included exactly the sort of hee-hawing and ridicule you might expect, which suggests to the Blob that this is all a trial balloon of sorts that will never see the light of reality. To begin with, adding four wild-card teams would mean almost half the majors -- 14 teams -- would make the playoffs. This would bring baseball perilously in line with the NHL, where practically everyone but the Saskatoon Macaroons make the playoffs.
Then, of course, there's that whole selecting-your-own-opponent business. Framing it in a Selection Sunday format doesn't present as a bold new approach; it only looks like a pathetic attempt to appear hip and relevant here in the new millennium. It's far more grasping than gripping, in other words.
It also changes the entire dynamic of athletic competition. There has always been at least a veneer of respect between opponents; this blows that veneer to shards. If Team A chooses Wild Card B as its opponent, after all, what does that say other than Team A thinks Wild Card B is a bunch of schlubs and stumblebums?
Yeah, we choose the Hooterville Mudeaters as our opponent, on account of they couldn't hit a beach ball and their pitchers are bunch of noodle-armed bushers. They suck worse than the Orioles, in other words. Bring 'em on.
What this does, of course, is lend credence to one of the oldest (and weariest) tropes on sports: No One Gave Us A Chance. The Mudeaters would eat that up with a spoon. And if they'd happen to win (because, in baseball, that happens all the time)?
Well. Twitter would roast Team A over an open flame. The hometown scribes would be merciless, and the ridicule (and howls of laughter) would be endless: Hey, look, these dopes are so sorry they couldn't even pick a team they could beat. How sad is THAT?
Of course, there's always a chance the aforementioned Mudeaters could be my cruddy Pittsburgh Pirates. With 14 of the 30 MLB teams making the playoffs, I suppose that could actually happen.
OK, so no. No, it couldn't.
Monday, February 10, 2020
That other football
Hey, I gave it a shot. Flipped on the tube Saturday afternoon. Watched a bit of the Seattle ... Dragons, is it? vs. the DC ... Defenders, I believe. Tried to be objective about what I was seeing.
First thing I saw was the Dragons QB, Beat An SEC School Once While Playing For Troy (his real name escapes me), bounce a pass ten yards shy of his intended receiver on a medium square-out.
Second thing I saw was a Defenders running back, Became The All-Time Leading Rusher In NCAA Division I History While Playing At San Diego State, get tackled for a loss.
I saw some blocking and tackling and running plays and passing plays. I saw a sort of cool color scheme (Seattle's orange-and-green) and, later, helmets that reminded me a bit of the old Houston Oilers helmets (the Houston Roughnecks' helmets). Which, again, was sort of cool.
Nothing I saw made me gush the way some of the sports radio poodles did, who were all talking about what an entertaining product the XFL put out there on the first weekend of its second incarnation.
I didn't see that. I just saw normal football being played by a bunch of normal guys. In other words, it was just football. Same as the NFL, only played by dudes who couldn't make a 53-man NFL roster.
The hook for the XFL, pushed by the various game announcers all weekend, was that we were watching football played by people who were infinitesimally less talented than NFL players. Who were the last cuts in a lot of cases. Who were players you could be seeing in the NFL again very, very soon.
In other words, what we were watching was the AHL. Or Triple-A baseball. Minor-league football, but very high end minor-league football.
The problem with selling the XFL this way, of course -- one radio poodle even compared to the NBA's G-League -- is it endangers its existence as a football entity unto itself. And that's ostensibly its goal here. That's why it's absurd to compare it to the G-League, whose teams have specific affiliations with NBA parent clubs, and whose players regularly get called up and sent down by their parent clubs.
The XFL is not that. But if the players see it that way -- if they see it merely as a portal to the NFL (or, in a lot of cases, back to the NFL) -- then that's essentially what it becomes. And the XFL winds up as a mere feeder system, perpetually losing the stars it creates to Big Daddy.
Maybe the suits running the XFL figured that was going to be its role all along. And that's fine, if so. But somehow I thought the fact it was setting up as a spring league with different rules indicated it wanted to establish itself as something wholly unique.
I don't think Brandon Silvers or Donnel Pumphrey see it that way, though. Which are the real names, respectively, of Beat An SEC School Once While Playing For Troy and Became The All-Time Leading Rusher In NCAA Division I History While Playing At San Diego State.
I know. I looked them up.
First thing I saw was the Dragons QB, Beat An SEC School Once While Playing For Troy (his real name escapes me), bounce a pass ten yards shy of his intended receiver on a medium square-out.
Second thing I saw was a Defenders running back, Became The All-Time Leading Rusher In NCAA Division I History While Playing At San Diego State, get tackled for a loss.
I saw some blocking and tackling and running plays and passing plays. I saw a sort of cool color scheme (Seattle's orange-and-green) and, later, helmets that reminded me a bit of the old Houston Oilers helmets (the Houston Roughnecks' helmets). Which, again, was sort of cool.
Nothing I saw made me gush the way some of the sports radio poodles did, who were all talking about what an entertaining product the XFL put out there on the first weekend of its second incarnation.
I didn't see that. I just saw normal football being played by a bunch of normal guys. In other words, it was just football. Same as the NFL, only played by dudes who couldn't make a 53-man NFL roster.
The hook for the XFL, pushed by the various game announcers all weekend, was that we were watching football played by people who were infinitesimally less talented than NFL players. Who were the last cuts in a lot of cases. Who were players you could be seeing in the NFL again very, very soon.
In other words, what we were watching was the AHL. Or Triple-A baseball. Minor-league football, but very high end minor-league football.
The problem with selling the XFL this way, of course -- one radio poodle even compared to the NBA's G-League -- is it endangers its existence as a football entity unto itself. And that's ostensibly its goal here. That's why it's absurd to compare it to the G-League, whose teams have specific affiliations with NBA parent clubs, and whose players regularly get called up and sent down by their parent clubs.
The XFL is not that. But if the players see it that way -- if they see it merely as a portal to the NFL (or, in a lot of cases, back to the NFL) -- then that's essentially what it becomes. And the XFL winds up as a mere feeder system, perpetually losing the stars it creates to Big Daddy.
Maybe the suits running the XFL figured that was going to be its role all along. And that's fine, if so. But somehow I thought the fact it was setting up as a spring league with different rules indicated it wanted to establish itself as something wholly unique.
I don't think Brandon Silvers or Donnel Pumphrey see it that way, though. Which are the real names, respectively, of Beat An SEC School Once While Playing For Troy and Became The All-Time Leading Rusher In NCAA Division I History While Playing At San Diego State.
I know. I looked them up.
The balm, and curse, of years
Finally, then, he came to his home place, shuffling slowly, stooped and ancient now, clinging to a supporting arm here and a proffered elbow there. Wearing red again, as if time had at last peeled away all the bitter and the petty, and restored his natural coloration.
"Bob-by! Bob-by! Bob-by!" they thundered, beneath those five swaying national championship banners.
"Dee-fense! Dee-fense! Dee-fense!" they roared, as the ancient led them in the old chant, raising his fists and shaking them in a faint echo of the old days.
Yes, Bob Knight came back to Assembly Hall, finally, two decades after he blew up his career there.
Yes, he got the welcome we all expected, Hoosier Nation wrapping its arms around him the way Isiah Thomas did and Quinn Buckner did and all those former players who gathered for the Alumni Day game against arch-rival Purdue.
Yes, it touched him, brought tears to his eyes as his players surrounded him and he raised his hands to acknowledge the ovation.
But, no. No, it was not ... not really Bob Knight doing this.
This was not the basketball genius who snarled and bellowed and tested the aerodynamic properties of plastic chairs, who warred with the world not because the world wished to be warred with, but because he was his own worst enemy, always. This was a cold campfire, an empty concert hall. It was a 79-year-old man who looked 89, and you could see his sunset approaching.
And so as much as it was gratifying to see the balm of years heal the wounds and give the man some sort of closure, the very fact it was closure was inexpressibly sad to watch. You could revile the man for the way he bully-ragged players and media types and secretaries and even university officials (and, yes, extol him for graduating his players and performing all manner of good works, simply because he was Bob Knight and three of those banners at one end of Assembly Hall were his. But all of that is gone now.
This is a different time entirely, after all. The glory the faithful cling to recedes with every winter. The banners become artifacts. And so Saturday was not about looking forward but backward, because not only Knight but his old frenemy Gene Keady was in the house, too.
Where he watched his pupil, Matt Painter, whip the Hoosiers again, swatting by a dozen an IU team that looks to have misplaced its identity in a way Knight's teams never did.
The message: You can go home again, but not really. It is still home, but it is not the same and neither are you.
You can thank God for that or not, where Bob Knight is concerned. Or both.
"Bob-by! Bob-by! Bob-by!" they thundered, beneath those five swaying national championship banners.
"Dee-fense! Dee-fense! Dee-fense!" they roared, as the ancient led them in the old chant, raising his fists and shaking them in a faint echo of the old days.
Yes, Bob Knight came back to Assembly Hall, finally, two decades after he blew up his career there.
Yes, he got the welcome we all expected, Hoosier Nation wrapping its arms around him the way Isiah Thomas did and Quinn Buckner did and all those former players who gathered for the Alumni Day game against arch-rival Purdue.
Yes, it touched him, brought tears to his eyes as his players surrounded him and he raised his hands to acknowledge the ovation.
But, no. No, it was not ... not really Bob Knight doing this.
This was not the basketball genius who snarled and bellowed and tested the aerodynamic properties of plastic chairs, who warred with the world not because the world wished to be warred with, but because he was his own worst enemy, always. This was a cold campfire, an empty concert hall. It was a 79-year-old man who looked 89, and you could see his sunset approaching.
And so as much as it was gratifying to see the balm of years heal the wounds and give the man some sort of closure, the very fact it was closure was inexpressibly sad to watch. You could revile the man for the way he bully-ragged players and media types and secretaries and even university officials (and, yes, extol him for graduating his players and performing all manner of good works, simply because he was Bob Knight and three of those banners at one end of Assembly Hall were his. But all of that is gone now.
This is a different time entirely, after all. The glory the faithful cling to recedes with every winter. The banners become artifacts. And so Saturday was not about looking forward but backward, because not only Knight but his old frenemy Gene Keady was in the house, too.
Where he watched his pupil, Matt Painter, whip the Hoosiers again, swatting by a dozen an IU team that looks to have misplaced its identity in a way Knight's teams never did.
The message: You can go home again, but not really. It is still home, but it is not the same and neither are you.
You can thank God for that or not, where Bob Knight is concerned. Or both.
Saturday, February 8, 2020
Vacated, reconsidered
It could have been more egregious, one supposes. They could have hacked into one of our spy satellites and surveilled some poor unsuspecting catcher from on high.
The reality, after all, was deliberate and intricate enough, now that further details are coming out about the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scheme. And where it originated.
It originated from a then-intern in the front office, Derek Vignoa, currently still employed by the Astros as -- I'm not making this up -- their senior manager of team operations. According to the Wall Street Journal, it was an Excel-based application designed to decode opposing catchers' signs, and it was used both at home and on the road throughout 2017 and part of 2018. Dubbed "Codebreaker," it enabled Astros baseball operations staff to log catchers' signs and subsequent pitches into a spreadsheet, after which "Codebreaker" would correlate the two.
Then the information would be relayed to the batter by a baserunner. and eventually by Astros players banging out their own code on a trashcan. This means everyone knew about and participated in it, from general manager Jeff Luhnow to the front office personnel who ran the scheme to the players who were its delivery system.
Luhnow claims, dubiously, that he thought "Codebreaker" was only going to be used to decipher signs from the previous games, which would have been legal. But director of advance information Tom Koch-Weser (who also still has his job) told Major League Baseball that's a lot of horse pucky, that Luhnow would occasionally drop by the Astros' video room during road games and say, essentially, "So, you guys Codebreaking?"
Which has the Blob sort of rethinking all this Vacated business.
Initially it thought MLB stripping the Astros of their 2017 World Series title would be a meaningless symbolic gesture, because you can't change history and history records that the Astros did, in fact, win the World Series in 2017. Even if they had to cheat their glutes off to do it.
This is still true. But it is also true that sometimes the symbolic gesture is the appropriate gesture.
Now I'm thinking that the Astros' scheme was so brazen, and included individuals who are still employed by the ballclub, that perhaps there is some value to the simple seven-letter word "Vacated." I'm thinking, practical reality aside, removing "Houston Astros" from the official record for 2017 comes perilously close to a moral imperative for commissioner Rob Manfred.
I'm also thinking Henry Aaron might not be wrong with his get-off-my-lawn suggestion of the other day.
Ban 'em all, Henry said. Kick everyone involved out of the game and lock the gates behind them.
Because if you don't, you hand serial scuzzos like Pete Rose a way back into the game. Indeed, Pete is already ramping up his latest reinstatement crusade, using the Astros' scandal as a crowbar. If you're not going to ban the perpetrators of that fraud, after all, how can you continue to justify his ban, even as Pete continues to lie about the extent of his gambling on the game?
It's an excellent question. And one for which Manfred now has no legitimate answer.
The reality, after all, was deliberate and intricate enough, now that further details are coming out about the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scheme. And where it originated.
It originated from a then-intern in the front office, Derek Vignoa, currently still employed by the Astros as -- I'm not making this up -- their senior manager of team operations. According to the Wall Street Journal, it was an Excel-based application designed to decode opposing catchers' signs, and it was used both at home and on the road throughout 2017 and part of 2018. Dubbed "Codebreaker," it enabled Astros baseball operations staff to log catchers' signs and subsequent pitches into a spreadsheet, after which "Codebreaker" would correlate the two.
Then the information would be relayed to the batter by a baserunner. and eventually by Astros players banging out their own code on a trashcan. This means everyone knew about and participated in it, from general manager Jeff Luhnow to the front office personnel who ran the scheme to the players who were its delivery system.
Luhnow claims, dubiously, that he thought "Codebreaker" was only going to be used to decipher signs from the previous games, which would have been legal. But director of advance information Tom Koch-Weser (who also still has his job) told Major League Baseball that's a lot of horse pucky, that Luhnow would occasionally drop by the Astros' video room during road games and say, essentially, "So, you guys Codebreaking?"
Which has the Blob sort of rethinking all this Vacated business.
Initially it thought MLB stripping the Astros of their 2017 World Series title would be a meaningless symbolic gesture, because you can't change history and history records that the Astros did, in fact, win the World Series in 2017. Even if they had to cheat their glutes off to do it.
This is still true. But it is also true that sometimes the symbolic gesture is the appropriate gesture.
Now I'm thinking that the Astros' scheme was so brazen, and included individuals who are still employed by the ballclub, that perhaps there is some value to the simple seven-letter word "Vacated." I'm thinking, practical reality aside, removing "Houston Astros" from the official record for 2017 comes perilously close to a moral imperative for commissioner Rob Manfred.
I'm also thinking Henry Aaron might not be wrong with his get-off-my-lawn suggestion of the other day.
Ban 'em all, Henry said. Kick everyone involved out of the game and lock the gates behind them.
Because if you don't, you hand serial scuzzos like Pete Rose a way back into the game. Indeed, Pete is already ramping up his latest reinstatement crusade, using the Astros' scandal as a crowbar. If you're not going to ban the perpetrators of that fraud, after all, how can you continue to justify his ban, even as Pete continues to lie about the extent of his gambling on the game?
It's an excellent question. And one for which Manfred now has no legitimate answer.
Friday, February 7, 2020
Farewell tour
In the 111 years this blaring museum piece has sprawled across the west side of Indianapolis, there has never been a lap quite like it. And not just because it was February, not May, and a cold gray sky was weeping some sort of wintry mix, alchemizing the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's ancient 2.5 miles of asphalt into something halfway between wet and frozen.
Two black SUVs led the way. Two more brought up the rear. And in between, carrying the mortal remains of a man with a ringing name, the black hearse.
Turning one last stately lap, moving no faster than a caisson. Giving John Andretti one final ride.
There may be a more elegant and appropriate way for a racer to shuffle off the skin of this world. But if there is, no one has yet found it.
John Andretti -- son of Aldo, nephew of Mario, cousin of Michael and Jeff -- was hardly the brightest star in the Andretti constellation, but he was a racer's racer for all that. He ran 393 Cup races across 17 years, including 11 starts in the Brickyard 400. And he ran another 83 races in IndyCar, including 12 starts in the Indianapolis 500.
And so, when he died last week at 56 after a long, wearing battle with cancer, where else to take his leave but at the corner of 16th Street and Georgetown Road?
Would that we all earn such a bow, when it's our time.
Two black SUVs led the way. Two more brought up the rear. And in between, carrying the mortal remains of a man with a ringing name, the black hearse.
Turning one last stately lap, moving no faster than a caisson. Giving John Andretti one final ride.
There may be a more elegant and appropriate way for a racer to shuffle off the skin of this world. But if there is, no one has yet found it.
John Andretti -- son of Aldo, nephew of Mario, cousin of Michael and Jeff -- was hardly the brightest star in the Andretti constellation, but he was a racer's racer for all that. He ran 393 Cup races across 17 years, including 11 starts in the Brickyard 400. And he ran another 83 races in IndyCar, including 12 starts in the Indianapolis 500.
And so, when he died last week at 56 after a long, wearing battle with cancer, where else to take his leave but at the corner of 16th Street and Georgetown Road?
Would that we all earn such a bow, when it's our time.
Thursday, February 6, 2020
Meanwhile, in Mackey ...
That one scene in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Maybe that's the only way you explain this now.
You know the scene: Richard Dreyfuss is sitting in his truck at a railroad crossing and all of a sudden he's bathed in harsh white light and his truck dies, pffft, like that. He grinds the starter, but the thing is deader than roadkill. The glovebox pops open, and the contents start flying around the truck. The crossing sign starts swaying wildly back and forth.
Then the light disappears and it all stops. And Dreyfuss' truck magically starts running like a watch again.
It is, of course, all the work of a UFO.
Mackey Arena, well, kind of looks like a UFO.
So, there you go. Your official explanation for another inexplicable night for the basketball Purdues.
They're 13-10 and exactly what that record implies, which is good enough to win some nights and bad enough to lose on an almost equal number of nights. And here comes 17th-ranked Iowa, which has won six of its last seven games including an 18-point shellacking of then-No. 9 Maryland and a seven-point win over No. 20 Illinois, which itself had reeled off seven straight wins.
So what happens?
Purdue 104, Iowa 68 happens.
The Hawkeyes are humming right along, and then, like Richard Dreyfuss and the UFO, the lights blaze on and the truck dies and stuff starts flying around. They go 23-of-54 and 6-of-25 from the 3-point line while Purdue shoots 63 percent (41-of-65) and a ridiculous 56 percent from beyond the arc (19-of-34), and the Boilermakers tenderize them like Swiss steak. The 36-point win is the worst beatdown the Purdues have ever administered to a ranked team in Mackey, and it's the third such beatdown they've administered this season to a ranked team.
Virginia, then ranked fifth, limped away a 29-point loser in December. And Michigan State, then No. 8 in the polls, took a 29-point shot to its, um, self-esteem in January.
Now this. Now 104 points from a team that, not all that long ago, was managing just 37 in a loss to Illinois.
Of course, that was at Illinois. In Mackey, last night, the Purdues passed 37 points sometime shortly after the national anthem, or so it seemed. By halftime they had 61.
Sixty-one. At halftime.
That's exactly how many points they scored in the entire game in their last outing, a wheezing 61-58 W last Saturday at Northwestern, the worst team in the Big Ten.
Now it's on to the big in-state wrestling match with Indiana, which no one can figure out, either. The Hoosiers looked to have found their identity after solid wins over Ohio State, Nebraska and Michigan State, but then they gagged away a six-point lead in the last 68 seconds against Maryland and got dusted on the road by Penn State and those same Buckeyes. Now they get Purdue, their enigma-in-arms.
Not in Mackey, though. In Assembly Hall. So you know what that means.
Indiana, which has built more houses from the 3-point line this season than a dozen bricklayers, will hit every one they put up. Purdue will miss every one it puts up, and score 37 points again. And the Hoosiers will win going away.
Or not, you know. Or not.
You know the scene: Richard Dreyfuss is sitting in his truck at a railroad crossing and all of a sudden he's bathed in harsh white light and his truck dies, pffft, like that. He grinds the starter, but the thing is deader than roadkill. The glovebox pops open, and the contents start flying around the truck. The crossing sign starts swaying wildly back and forth.
Then the light disappears and it all stops. And Dreyfuss' truck magically starts running like a watch again.
It is, of course, all the work of a UFO.
Mackey Arena, well, kind of looks like a UFO.
So, there you go. Your official explanation for another inexplicable night for the basketball Purdues.
They're 13-10 and exactly what that record implies, which is good enough to win some nights and bad enough to lose on an almost equal number of nights. And here comes 17th-ranked Iowa, which has won six of its last seven games including an 18-point shellacking of then-No. 9 Maryland and a seven-point win over No. 20 Illinois, which itself had reeled off seven straight wins.
So what happens?
Purdue 104, Iowa 68 happens.
The Hawkeyes are humming right along, and then, like Richard Dreyfuss and the UFO, the lights blaze on and the truck dies and stuff starts flying around. They go 23-of-54 and 6-of-25 from the 3-point line while Purdue shoots 63 percent (41-of-65) and a ridiculous 56 percent from beyond the arc (19-of-34), and the Boilermakers tenderize them like Swiss steak. The 36-point win is the worst beatdown the Purdues have ever administered to a ranked team in Mackey, and it's the third such beatdown they've administered this season to a ranked team.
Virginia, then ranked fifth, limped away a 29-point loser in December. And Michigan State, then No. 8 in the polls, took a 29-point shot to its, um, self-esteem in January.
Now this. Now 104 points from a team that, not all that long ago, was managing just 37 in a loss to Illinois.
Of course, that was at Illinois. In Mackey, last night, the Purdues passed 37 points sometime shortly after the national anthem, or so it seemed. By halftime they had 61.
Sixty-one. At halftime.
That's exactly how many points they scored in the entire game in their last outing, a wheezing 61-58 W last Saturday at Northwestern, the worst team in the Big Ten.
Now it's on to the big in-state wrestling match with Indiana, which no one can figure out, either. The Hoosiers looked to have found their identity after solid wins over Ohio State, Nebraska and Michigan State, but then they gagged away a six-point lead in the last 68 seconds against Maryland and got dusted on the road by Penn State and those same Buckeyes. Now they get Purdue, their enigma-in-arms.
Not in Mackey, though. In Assembly Hall. So you know what that means.
Indiana, which has built more houses from the 3-point line this season than a dozen bricklayers, will hit every one they put up. Purdue will miss every one it puts up, and score 37 points again. And the Hoosiers will win going away.
Or not, you know. Or not.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Implausible deniability
OK, you doubters, you skeptics, you snicker-behind-your-hand-ers. I've got something to say to y'all.
I believe Mark Dantonio.
I believe his abrupt decision to step down as Michigan State's football coach after 13 seasons has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that, one day before his announcement, his former recruiting coordinator filed an update to an ongoing lawsuit claiming Dantonio and his staff committed a whole pile of recruiting violations while the recruiting coordinator was there.
I believe those allegations had, in Dantonio's words, "zero" impact on his deciding to leave his job, even if it was a really weird time to do so and leaves Michigan State having to chase prospective coaches who are already busy preparing for spring ball.
I believe, as Dantonio also said, there's "no relevance whatsoever" to the possibility the lawsuit could lead to sanctions against his program, and that he really is retiring to spend more time with his wife and kids, not to dodge the big hammer the NCAA seems poised to swing if the allegations prove true.
I believe, as Michigan State does, that there's absolutely nothing to those allegations, which include arranging for jobs for recruits and insisting on signing sketchy prospects who later were accused of sexual assault and various other crimes.
I believe Dantonio when he says all of this, vis-a-vis the timing of his announcement, was entirely coincidental, and shame on you for thinking otherwise. Because WIFE AND KIDS, DAMMIT. Weren't you listening?
'Cause if you weren't listening you're prolly just a bunch of haters who also think Our Only Available Impeached President is a lying crook, even though it ain't lying if enough people believe it and you're not a crook if you can get away with it. And even if he is a lying crook ... have you seen that stock market?
Yes, sir. I believe Mark Dantonio.
Now try to tell me there's not a giant invisible bird that flaps its wings to make the wind blow, and not a fat man in a red suit who comes down my chimney with 100-inch plasma TVs every Dec. 24, and not alien corpses in Area 51 that look like tiny Joe Bidens.
As if.
I believe Mark Dantonio.
I believe his abrupt decision to step down as Michigan State's football coach after 13 seasons has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that, one day before his announcement, his former recruiting coordinator filed an update to an ongoing lawsuit claiming Dantonio and his staff committed a whole pile of recruiting violations while the recruiting coordinator was there.
I believe those allegations had, in Dantonio's words, "zero" impact on his deciding to leave his job, even if it was a really weird time to do so and leaves Michigan State having to chase prospective coaches who are already busy preparing for spring ball.
I believe, as Dantonio also said, there's "no relevance whatsoever" to the possibility the lawsuit could lead to sanctions against his program, and that he really is retiring to spend more time with his wife and kids, not to dodge the big hammer the NCAA seems poised to swing if the allegations prove true.
I believe, as Michigan State does, that there's absolutely nothing to those allegations, which include arranging for jobs for recruits and insisting on signing sketchy prospects who later were accused of sexual assault and various other crimes.
I believe Dantonio when he says all of this, vis-a-vis the timing of his announcement, was entirely coincidental, and shame on you for thinking otherwise. Because WIFE AND KIDS, DAMMIT. Weren't you listening?
'Cause if you weren't listening you're prolly just a bunch of haters who also think Our Only Available Impeached President is a lying crook, even though it ain't lying if enough people believe it and you're not a crook if you can get away with it. And even if he is a lying crook ... have you seen that stock market?
Yes, sir. I believe Mark Dantonio.
Now try to tell me there's not a giant invisible bird that flaps its wings to make the wind blow, and not a fat man in a red suit who comes down my chimney with 100-inch plasma TVs every Dec. 24, and not alien corpses in Area 51 that look like tiny Joe Bidens.
As if.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
And now ... Other Football!
So now that Patrick Mahomes is off to Disney World and half of America has been scandalized at the spectacle of two scantily-clad women shaking their booties like, I don't know, practically every NFL cheerleader ever, football is finally over and we can all look forward to ... more football.
It's the Return of the XFL, people!
Coming to you this weekend just like the original XFL came to you, and also the fabled Alliance of American Football (AAF) -- which was the XFL with different letters, and whose lifespan failed to exceed that of the Iowa caucuses, speaking of total clusters.
This XFL will be different than First XFL and Other XFL, we're told, because it will feature some radical rule changes that will promote faster, more continuous action. It could achieve this simply by playing with a running clock, but no one wants that much continuous action. Let soccer keep that for itself.
The XFL is also pushing other differences between it and First XFL and Other XFL, in that it promises to give fans real football players people have really heard of. This does not mean the XFL has outbid the Patriots for Tom Brady or the Saints for Drew Brees, understand. According to Jordan Heck of The Sporting News, who's compiled a list of XFL players here, it means the XFL has successfully outbid every team in the NFL for the services of, um, Brogan Roback.
Whose name might not leap immediately to mind when considering accomplished pro quarterbacks, on account of he isn't one. But apparently he played a big role in "Hard Knocks" one year, so there you go.
Seriously. That's Brogan Roback's selling point.
Elsewhere, per Heck, you'll thrill to the exploits of Josh Johnson, a distinguished member of 13 NFL rosters. Also Matt McGloin, another esteemed NFL castoff. Also Connor Cook, Cardale Jones and Aaron Murray, who last made headlines at Michigan State, Ohio State and Georgia, respectively.
Michigan State, Ohio State and Georgia are not new NFL franchises Roger Goodell wants to put in London or Istanbul or someplace. They're college teams.
Now, I suppose the XFL might therefore get some Spartan, Buckeye and Bulldog alums to tune in the XFL. Or maybe some Navy tars to tune in to see Keenan Reynolds, a former Navy quarterback who once finished fifth -- fifth! -- in the Heisman voting. Or maybe some Steelers fans to tune in to see wideouts Sammie Coates and Eli Rogers, former Steelers receivers.
"Hey, I remember when we cut those guys," Steeler Fan will remember fondly.
Look. I hope the XFL is more successful than the AAF, or even the Iowa caucuses. But no matter how much you gimmick it up, it will still be minor league football, populated by minor league players. There's simply no getting around it.
Only one startup professional football league has successfully competed with the NFL, and that of course is the old AFL. It happened because the NFL only had 13 teams then. This meant that the pool of available talent was far deeper, and so was the pool of available owners with NFL-deep pockets.
Consequently, the AFL owners were able to outbid the NFL for top draft picks. The early AFL had a whole pile of players who would otherwise have been standouts in the NFL -- players such as LSU Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon, the marquee name in the AFL's inaugural season, when the new league stunned the NFL by signing 75 percent of its first-round picks.
Then along came Sonny Werblin of the Jets, who money-whipped the brightest star in the 1965 draft, Joe Namath, away from the NFL. The NFL agreed to a merger a year later.
None of that could possibly happen today, which is why the XFL can only hope to succeed to a certain degree. If it succeeds enough to hang around for three or four years, that will constitute victory. By then, after all, the Iowa caucuses might actually be over.
With Brogan Roback declared the winner. Why not.
It's the Return of the XFL, people!
Coming to you this weekend just like the original XFL came to you, and also the fabled Alliance of American Football (AAF) -- which was the XFL with different letters, and whose lifespan failed to exceed that of the Iowa caucuses, speaking of total clusters.
This XFL will be different than First XFL and Other XFL, we're told, because it will feature some radical rule changes that will promote faster, more continuous action. It could achieve this simply by playing with a running clock, but no one wants that much continuous action. Let soccer keep that for itself.
The XFL is also pushing other differences between it and First XFL and Other XFL, in that it promises to give fans real football players people have really heard of. This does not mean the XFL has outbid the Patriots for Tom Brady or the Saints for Drew Brees, understand. According to Jordan Heck of The Sporting News, who's compiled a list of XFL players here, it means the XFL has successfully outbid every team in the NFL for the services of, um, Brogan Roback.
Whose name might not leap immediately to mind when considering accomplished pro quarterbacks, on account of he isn't one. But apparently he played a big role in "Hard Knocks" one year, so there you go.
Seriously. That's Brogan Roback's selling point.
Elsewhere, per Heck, you'll thrill to the exploits of Josh Johnson, a distinguished member of 13 NFL rosters. Also Matt McGloin, another esteemed NFL castoff. Also Connor Cook, Cardale Jones and Aaron Murray, who last made headlines at Michigan State, Ohio State and Georgia, respectively.
Michigan State, Ohio State and Georgia are not new NFL franchises Roger Goodell wants to put in London or Istanbul or someplace. They're college teams.
Now, I suppose the XFL might therefore get some Spartan, Buckeye and Bulldog alums to tune in the XFL. Or maybe some Navy tars to tune in to see Keenan Reynolds, a former Navy quarterback who once finished fifth -- fifth! -- in the Heisman voting. Or maybe some Steelers fans to tune in to see wideouts Sammie Coates and Eli Rogers, former Steelers receivers.
"Hey, I remember when we cut those guys," Steeler Fan will remember fondly.
Look. I hope the XFL is more successful than the AAF, or even the Iowa caucuses. But no matter how much you gimmick it up, it will still be minor league football, populated by minor league players. There's simply no getting around it.
Only one startup professional football league has successfully competed with the NFL, and that of course is the old AFL. It happened because the NFL only had 13 teams then. This meant that the pool of available talent was far deeper, and so was the pool of available owners with NFL-deep pockets.
Consequently, the AFL owners were able to outbid the NFL for top draft picks. The early AFL had a whole pile of players who would otherwise have been standouts in the NFL -- players such as LSU Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon, the marquee name in the AFL's inaugural season, when the new league stunned the NFL by signing 75 percent of its first-round picks.
Then along came Sonny Werblin of the Jets, who money-whipped the brightest star in the 1965 draft, Joe Namath, away from the NFL. The NFL agreed to a merger a year later.
None of that could possibly happen today, which is why the XFL can only hope to succeed to a certain degree. If it succeeds enough to hang around for three or four years, that will constitute victory. By then, after all, the Iowa caucuses might actually be over.
With Brogan Roback declared the winner. Why not.
Monday, February 3, 2020
That Super thingy, observationed
Here's to all of 'em, first of all. All of that great host in the great state of Kansas or Missouri or Belarus or wherever the hell Kansas City is.
(An entirely gratuitous shot at our Geographer in Chief, Donald J. Magellan Trump, who initially congratulated everyone in the great state of Kansas for the Kansas City Chiefs' epic comeback win in the Big Roman Numeral. A fifth-grader would have known K.C. is in Missouri, but then the G-in-C isn't up to fifth grade yet, developmentally. Next year when you're a fourth grader maybe, Donny!)
Where was I?
Oh, yeah. Here's to all of 'em.
Here's to Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid and Travis Kelce and maybe Curley Culp, too, for all I know. Here's to all those Chiefs who looked up with nine minutes to play, saw they were down 10 to the 49ers, and said "No problem."
Here's to 21 points in the last half of the last quarter, and to the only running back to rush for 100 yards Sunday (Damien Williams), and to Mahomes again for figuring out a way on a day when he wasn't sharp and missed receivers and threw two interceptions for the first time since, I don't know, maybe the '60s.
Here's to the Chiefs Kingdom, God love 'em, and to the three Chiefs fans who took an out-of-town sportswriter to dinner with them epochs ago. God love them, too, wherever they are, and I hope they took today off. They deserve it, and probably need it.
And with that, a few observations on the day ...
* Anyone with a working knowledge of Super Bowl history knows it's defense that ultimately most leaves its imprint on these deals, either because it shuts down the opposition or utterly fails to. That was true in LIV, too.
For three quarters and a half, it was the 49ers defense that dictated terms, harrying Mahomes into uncharacteristic mistakes and nullifying the Chiefs' speed. Then it was the Chiefs' defense that took over; while Mahomes was leading the Chiefs to those 21 points in the last six minutes, the Chiefs' D shut out the 49ers in the fourth quarter and, when the Niners needed one score to put it away, forced a five-and-out, a three-and-out, a turnover on downs and an interception on San Francisco's last four possessions.
* Remember all that talk last week about Jimmy Garoppolo only throwing eight passes in the NFC title game, and if the Niners had to throw to win the game they might be in trouble?
Well ... the talk was kinda right, in the end.
Garoppolo's numbers Sunday: 20-of-31, 219 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. And a 40.6 QBR.
* Three observations about the entertainment portion of the evening:'
1. Demi Lovato stuck the anthem. But she still ain't Gaga.
2. The choreographers won halftime.
3. That Google ad, that Jason Momoa ad and Sam Elliott and his dancing 'stache won the Commercial Bowl. (Also, kudos to my friends Steve Penhollow and Jaclyn Garver, whose local car ad also aired during the game. The bright lights are callin', baby!)
And with that ... one final word on LIV from my Super Bowl decorations, Lil' Mahomes and Lil' Nick Bosa:
(An entirely gratuitous shot at our Geographer in Chief, Donald J. Magellan Trump, who initially congratulated everyone in the great state of Kansas for the Kansas City Chiefs' epic comeback win in the Big Roman Numeral. A fifth-grader would have known K.C. is in Missouri, but then the G-in-C isn't up to fifth grade yet, developmentally. Next year when you're a fourth grader maybe, Donny!)
Where was I?
Oh, yeah. Here's to all of 'em.
Here's to Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid and Travis Kelce and maybe Curley Culp, too, for all I know. Here's to all those Chiefs who looked up with nine minutes to play, saw they were down 10 to the 49ers, and said "No problem."
Here's to 21 points in the last half of the last quarter, and to the only running back to rush for 100 yards Sunday (Damien Williams), and to Mahomes again for figuring out a way on a day when he wasn't sharp and missed receivers and threw two interceptions for the first time since, I don't know, maybe the '60s.
Here's to the Chiefs Kingdom, God love 'em, and to the three Chiefs fans who took an out-of-town sportswriter to dinner with them epochs ago. God love them, too, wherever they are, and I hope they took today off. They deserve it, and probably need it.
And with that, a few observations on the day ...
* Anyone with a working knowledge of Super Bowl history knows it's defense that ultimately most leaves its imprint on these deals, either because it shuts down the opposition or utterly fails to. That was true in LIV, too.
For three quarters and a half, it was the 49ers defense that dictated terms, harrying Mahomes into uncharacteristic mistakes and nullifying the Chiefs' speed. Then it was the Chiefs' defense that took over; while Mahomes was leading the Chiefs to those 21 points in the last six minutes, the Chiefs' D shut out the 49ers in the fourth quarter and, when the Niners needed one score to put it away, forced a five-and-out, a three-and-out, a turnover on downs and an interception on San Francisco's last four possessions.
* Remember all that talk last week about Jimmy Garoppolo only throwing eight passes in the NFC title game, and if the Niners had to throw to win the game they might be in trouble?
Well ... the talk was kinda right, in the end.
Garoppolo's numbers Sunday: 20-of-31, 219 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. And a 40.6 QBR.
* Three observations about the entertainment portion of the evening:'
1. Demi Lovato stuck the anthem. But she still ain't Gaga.
2. The choreographers won halftime.
3. That Google ad, that Jason Momoa ad and Sam Elliott and his dancing 'stache won the Commercial Bowl. (Also, kudos to my friends Steve Penhollow and Jaclyn Garver, whose local car ad also aired during the game. The bright lights are callin', baby!)
And with that ... one final word on LIV from my Super Bowl decorations, Lil' Mahomes and Lil' Nick Bosa:
Sunday, February 2, 2020
That other football ... thing
Today is Big Game Sunday, which is what folks who are not paying the NFL goo-gobs of money to promote its Big Game are compelled to call it, because the NFL is so outlandishly greedy all you can do is laugh at it, and maybe poke it with a stick.
(Here's my poke: How hilarious is it that the term "Super Bowl," which the money-grubbing NFL will sue your pants off for using if it doesn't get to wet its beak, was actually a corporate ripoff itself? Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, named it that after the Super Ball, a toy manufactured by Wham-O. So maybe Wham-O should sue the pants off the NFL every time it uses the term "Super Bowl.")
But I digress.
("You do that a lot," you're saying.)
No, what I'm really up to here on Big Game Sunday is to look in on another professional football entity, or quasi-entity, or, you know, complete and utter scam. That would, of course, be the National Gridiron League, supposedly scheduled to begin play in May after being originally scheduled to begin play (supposedly) last May.
The NGL is of local interest because there are supposedly two Indiana teams, both named "Indiana," one in Fort Wayne and one in Evansville. The Fort Wayne entry is named the Blue Bombers. No one knows if the Blue Bombers actually exist, but that's OK. You can buy tickets anyway!
At any rate, the league's sole owner, Joe McClendon, promised when he pulled the plug on the inaugural season last May that the real inaugural season would launch (really!) this May. The run-up would begin with voluntary mini-camp--
I'm sorry? What's that?
Oh.
OK, so, according to the Evansville Courier & Press, it seems the run-up will not begin with voluntary mini-camps. Last weekend McClendon abruptly canceled them, without explanation. In the process, supposedly contracted players who were promised hotel accommodations and food were left hanging. Some of the Evansville players had come from as far away as Florida.
One of them, KeAaris Ardley, was quoted as saying "nobody has heard from Joe since." The Courier & Press hasn't heard from him, either, having left messages at the league "offices" in Atlanta and having tried to leave messages on the cellphone listed for him. Turns out it's been deactivated.
Translation: Joe's in the wind.
Further translation: Having been around for four previous incarnations of minor league indoor football in Fort Wayne, this does not surprise the Blob at all.
Wonder if Joe and Jeremy Golden know each other?
(Here's my poke: How hilarious is it that the term "Super Bowl," which the money-grubbing NFL will sue your pants off for using if it doesn't get to wet its beak, was actually a corporate ripoff itself? Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, named it that after the Super Ball, a toy manufactured by Wham-O. So maybe Wham-O should sue the pants off the NFL every time it uses the term "Super Bowl.")
But I digress.
("You do that a lot," you're saying.)
No, what I'm really up to here on Big Game Sunday is to look in on another professional football entity, or quasi-entity, or, you know, complete and utter scam. That would, of course, be the National Gridiron League, supposedly scheduled to begin play in May after being originally scheduled to begin play (supposedly) last May.
The NGL is of local interest because there are supposedly two Indiana teams, both named "Indiana," one in Fort Wayne and one in Evansville. The Fort Wayne entry is named the Blue Bombers. No one knows if the Blue Bombers actually exist, but that's OK. You can buy tickets anyway!
At any rate, the league's sole owner, Joe McClendon, promised when he pulled the plug on the inaugural season last May that the real inaugural season would launch (really!) this May. The run-up would begin with voluntary mini-camp--
I'm sorry? What's that?
Oh.
OK, so, according to the Evansville Courier & Press, it seems the run-up will not begin with voluntary mini-camps. Last weekend McClendon abruptly canceled them, without explanation. In the process, supposedly contracted players who were promised hotel accommodations and food were left hanging. Some of the Evansville players had come from as far away as Florida.
One of them, KeAaris Ardley, was quoted as saying "nobody has heard from Joe since." The Courier & Press hasn't heard from him, either, having left messages at the league "offices" in Atlanta and having tried to leave messages on the cellphone listed for him. Turns out it's been deactivated.
Translation: Joe's in the wind.
Further translation: Having been around for four previous incarnations of minor league indoor football in Fort Wayne, this does not surprise the Blob at all.
Wonder if Joe and Jeremy Golden know each other?
Saturday, February 1, 2020
Prognostificationation, or something
Everyone asks. It's what people do when you're a former sportswriter who ran off at the mouth for a bunch of years like he knew what he was talking about, which led to the unfortunate consequence that some folks think you actually do know what you're talking about.
And so, the question: "What's gonna happen in the Super Bowl?"
At which point I resist the urge to go Full Wiseass and say there will probably be some blocking and tackling involved, and some throwin' and catchin', and maybe some kickin' and ball-luggin'. Touchdowns might happen. Field goals could make an appearance. An overly officious zebra will enter from stage left to throw a flag at some imaginary infraction, because, hey, the Chiefs and 49ers ain't the only show out here, folks.
And then, the halftime show! Starring Georg Frederick Sebastian Ludwig Mozart or some similar star from yesteryear.
But I digress.
What's gonna happen in the Super Bowl?
Like I know.
I've been going over and over it in my head, plowed through all the percentages and spread sheets and charts and graphs, even read what Chris Berman thinks, God help me. And I'm still in coin flip country.
Only thing I keep coming back to is this: The Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes, and the 49ers do not.
And, yes, I know the 49ers have that scary running game and that even scarier defense, with the best defensive front in football. I know they made Aaron Rodgers and the Packers work to get to 20 points in the NFC title game. And I know, historically, dominant defenses tend to, well, dominate in the Big Roman Numeral.
And yet ... the Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes, and the 49ers do not.
I went back and did some research, and what I found is that quarterbacks with Mahomes' skill set do not come along very often, if ever. And when they do, they tend to look a lot like Russell Wilson of the Seahawks or Kyler Murray of the Cardinals or Lamar Jackson of the Ravens.
Wilson passed for 465 yards and three touchdowns in two meetings with the 49ers this year, one a 27-21 win. Murray passed for 391 yards and five scores in two meetings. And Lamar threw for 105, ran for 101 and accounted for two touchdowns for the Ravens in a 20-17 win.
I don't know if this means the 49ers will have trouble slowing down Mahomes. But everyone else has, so it's hard to think the Niners will be anymore than intermittently successful in doing so, scary D or not.
And so (deep breath, slow exhale): Chiefs 34, Niners 31.
Bookmark for future ridicule.
And so, the question: "What's gonna happen in the Super Bowl?"
At which point I resist the urge to go Full Wiseass and say there will probably be some blocking and tackling involved, and some throwin' and catchin', and maybe some kickin' and ball-luggin'. Touchdowns might happen. Field goals could make an appearance. An overly officious zebra will enter from stage left to throw a flag at some imaginary infraction, because, hey, the Chiefs and 49ers ain't the only show out here, folks.
And then, the halftime show! Starring Georg Frederick Sebastian Ludwig Mozart or some similar star from yesteryear.
But I digress.
What's gonna happen in the Super Bowl?
Like I know.
I've been going over and over it in my head, plowed through all the percentages and spread sheets and charts and graphs, even read what Chris Berman thinks, God help me. And I'm still in coin flip country.
Only thing I keep coming back to is this: The Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes, and the 49ers do not.
And, yes, I know the 49ers have that scary running game and that even scarier defense, with the best defensive front in football. I know they made Aaron Rodgers and the Packers work to get to 20 points in the NFC title game. And I know, historically, dominant defenses tend to, well, dominate in the Big Roman Numeral.
And yet ... the Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes, and the 49ers do not.
I went back and did some research, and what I found is that quarterbacks with Mahomes' skill set do not come along very often, if ever. And when they do, they tend to look a lot like Russell Wilson of the Seahawks or Kyler Murray of the Cardinals or Lamar Jackson of the Ravens.
Wilson passed for 465 yards and three touchdowns in two meetings with the 49ers this year, one a 27-21 win. Murray passed for 391 yards and five scores in two meetings. And Lamar threw for 105, ran for 101 and accounted for two touchdowns for the Ravens in a 20-17 win.
I don't know if this means the 49ers will have trouble slowing down Mahomes. But everyone else has, so it's hard to think the Niners will be anymore than intermittently successful in doing so, scary D or not.
And so (deep breath, slow exhale): Chiefs 34, Niners 31.
Bookmark for future ridicule.