Well. That didn't take long.
Remember yesterday, when the Blob was noting there must be considerable sweating going on in college buckets, now that three prize recruits (i.e.: revenue generators) from the class of 2020 had opted for the NBA's G-League pathway program?
Suddenly all those prospective one-and-dones had an alternative to spending a limbo year helping What's This School Again add to its pile. Instead, now they can get themselves started on making their own pile -- and, being the good American capitalists they are, that sounded like a much better deal.
You will thus not be at all shocked the NCAA's top governing body came out Wednesday in support of a proposal that cuts college athletes in on the endorsement pie. That is, if a school's apparel partner wants to use the student-athletes' images to sell shoes and tees, the student-athletes should be able to sign their own deals with those companies to do so. And, OK, they should also be able to get paid for other work, as long as it's not their schools that are paying them.
Amazing how a little leverage can bring people around.
The G-League pathway program provides just that leverage, and, lord, how the unbelievers were converted. The colleges, after all, long have maintained the fruits of their lucrative enterprise were for them alone. The kids were getting a free education, weren't they? So they should quit bellyachin' and keep being complacent billboards for their schools' bidness deals.
Meanwhile, the jing kept rolling in and coaches kept making more and more money, blithely reneging on their juicy contracts the moment Bigger U. dangled a juicier one. They could leave, but the kids couldn't unless Coach signed off on it.
And then ...
And then, that old debbil Choice showed up for some of those kids. And the colleges miraculously began sighing and saying, "Yeah, OK, you got us. You're right. We've been screwin' you all along."
The free market, baby. It's a beautiful thing.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
A path no longer resisted
You don't know who Daishen Nix is, unless you're one of those obsessed individuals who cruise recruiting websites 24/7 and hang on the word of every teenager with a crossover dribble. But maybe you should.
He's blazing a trail, you see. Same as Dan'l Boone and Lewis and Clark .'n' them, kinda.
Daishen Nix, it seems, is one of those teenagers with a crossover dribble, a five-star point guard from Nevada whom UCLA thought it had locked up. That was until Nix decided to de-commit -- and not to go to some other bulwark of academics and chunky apparel deals.
No, sir. Nix ain't doin' the college thing. He's going straight to the NBA via the G-League, which the NBA made accessible in the fall of 2018 by unveiling the G-League pathway program.
The way it works is, a kid coming out of high school can go to the G-League for a year until he turns 19 and is eligible for the NBA draft. That way he can spend a year learning what the pro life is all about, and skip making a pile for John Calipari or Mike Krzyzewski.
The Blob has been pounding the drums for this for a good long while, although why the NBA doesn't go all the way with it is beyond me. In other words, why still make a kid wait a year? If he wants to enter the draft straight out of Millard Fillmore High, let him do it. Then, if he gets drafted, assign him to the G-League for a year.
That's essentially what the NBA is already doing, after all.
In any event, Nix is now the third player from the class of 2020 to opt for the G-League, enough of a trend to perhaps have the colleges sweating and yanking at their collars a bit. But it's hard to feel very sorry for them, given that this pretty much just their chickens coming home to roost.
See. as much as they lament the advent of the one-and-done culture in college basketball, and blame the NBA's asinine 19-year-old rule for it, they've certainly not been shy about exploiting it. There are One-and-Done U.'s all over America now, baldly transactional programs banking all the coin they can from their short-timer mercenaries. How can they now complain when those mercenaries decide to act like, well, mercenaries?
Seems to me that's just the kids getting what they're supposed to get from their college experience.
An education.
He's blazing a trail, you see. Same as Dan'l Boone and Lewis and Clark .'n' them, kinda.
Daishen Nix, it seems, is one of those teenagers with a crossover dribble, a five-star point guard from Nevada whom UCLA thought it had locked up. That was until Nix decided to de-commit -- and not to go to some other bulwark of academics and chunky apparel deals.
No, sir. Nix ain't doin' the college thing. He's going straight to the NBA via the G-League, which the NBA made accessible in the fall of 2018 by unveiling the G-League pathway program.
The way it works is, a kid coming out of high school can go to the G-League for a year until he turns 19 and is eligible for the NBA draft. That way he can spend a year learning what the pro life is all about, and skip making a pile for John Calipari or Mike Krzyzewski.
The Blob has been pounding the drums for this for a good long while, although why the NBA doesn't go all the way with it is beyond me. In other words, why still make a kid wait a year? If he wants to enter the draft straight out of Millard Fillmore High, let him do it. Then, if he gets drafted, assign him to the G-League for a year.
That's essentially what the NBA is already doing, after all.
In any event, Nix is now the third player from the class of 2020 to opt for the G-League, enough of a trend to perhaps have the colleges sweating and yanking at their collars a bit. But it's hard to feel very sorry for them, given that this pretty much just their chickens coming home to roost.
See. as much as they lament the advent of the one-and-done culture in college basketball, and blame the NBA's asinine 19-year-old rule for it, they've certainly not been shy about exploiting it. There are One-and-Done U.'s all over America now, baldly transactional programs banking all the coin they can from their short-timer mercenaries. How can they now complain when those mercenaries decide to act like, well, mercenaries?
Seems to me that's just the kids getting what they're supposed to get from their college experience.
An education.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Derby time (kinda)
Well, this is welcome news.
The first Saturday in May is this Saturday, and guess what, America? The Kentucky Derby is on like Donkey Kong!
Which is not the name of a 50-1 shot who once ran a very strong fifth in a claiming race. Although it could be.
And that's the exciting part of all this!
See, the Kentucky Derby is not actually on on this Saturday. The Bastard Plague took care of that. But, following auto racing's lead, there will be a virtual Derby. Churchill Downs is sponsoring a day-long remote Derby party culminating in a replay of American Pharoah's win in 2015, and a virtual Kentucky Derby featuring the 13 Triple Crown winners.
So there will be those Colonel Sanders guys and women in hats designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and that song by Dan Fogelberg, and mint juleps -- which, if you don't have the ingredients in your Plague Bunker, you can approximate by throwing a handful of Smith Brothers cough drops into a glass of bourbon.
And then, "My Old Kentucky Home"!
Which you'll be required to sing along with, although there'll be no way of telling if you cheated and sang "Back Home Again In Indiana" instead, just to spite Moscow Mitch McConnell.
The best part of it all, of course, will be the virtual Derby pitting all those Triple Crown winners against one another. Secretariat should win again, as the greatest racehorse of all time. But you never know with computer models.
It could be Whirlaway. It could be Citation or Affirmed or Seattle Slew. It could be My Friend Flicka.
OK. So it won't be My Friend Flicka.
But it's a virtual race, so why not?
In fact, let's really mix this up and throw 'em all in there. My Friend Flicka. Trigger. Robert E. Lee's horse Traveller. That horse from the Michael Murphy song.
Or how about Mr. Ed?
Yes, that's right, the talking horse who inspired my own ill-considered talking horse, Mr. Ted. Back in the day, Mr. Ted (who was Mr. Ed's son) appeared in a couple of my yearly tongue-in-cheek Derby columns. No, I don't know why. I was stupid and young -- like, 45 or something. And none of my editors stopped me, which they should have, even though I'm not blaming them.
Well, OK. Kind of I am.
But, hey. Water under the bridge, right? Especially because it's occurred to me that a virtual Derby might be the very occasion to resurrect Mr. Ted from his literary grave an--
OK, no. No.
But you gotta admit: He'd be a hell of a post-race interview.
The first Saturday in May is this Saturday, and guess what, America? The Kentucky Derby is on like Donkey Kong!
Which is not the name of a 50-1 shot who once ran a very strong fifth in a claiming race. Although it could be.
And that's the exciting part of all this!
See, the Kentucky Derby is not actually on on this Saturday. The Bastard Plague took care of that. But, following auto racing's lead, there will be a virtual Derby. Churchill Downs is sponsoring a day-long remote Derby party culminating in a replay of American Pharoah's win in 2015, and a virtual Kentucky Derby featuring the 13 Triple Crown winners.
So there will be those Colonel Sanders guys and women in hats designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and that song by Dan Fogelberg, and mint juleps -- which, if you don't have the ingredients in your Plague Bunker, you can approximate by throwing a handful of Smith Brothers cough drops into a glass of bourbon.
And then, "My Old Kentucky Home"!
Which you'll be required to sing along with, although there'll be no way of telling if you cheated and sang "Back Home Again In Indiana" instead, just to spite Moscow Mitch McConnell.
The best part of it all, of course, will be the virtual Derby pitting all those Triple Crown winners against one another. Secretariat should win again, as the greatest racehorse of all time. But you never know with computer models.
It could be Whirlaway. It could be Citation or Affirmed or Seattle Slew. It could be My Friend Flicka.
OK. So it won't be My Friend Flicka.
But it's a virtual race, so why not?
In fact, let's really mix this up and throw 'em all in there. My Friend Flicka. Trigger. Robert E. Lee's horse Traveller. That horse from the Michael Murphy song.
Or how about Mr. Ed?
Yes, that's right, the talking horse who inspired my own ill-considered talking horse, Mr. Ted. Back in the day, Mr. Ted (who was Mr. Ed's son) appeared in a couple of my yearly tongue-in-cheek Derby columns. No, I don't know why. I was stupid and young -- like, 45 or something. And none of my editors stopped me, which they should have, even though I'm not blaming them.
Well, OK. Kind of I am.
But, hey. Water under the bridge, right? Especially because it's occurred to me that a virtual Derby might be the very occasion to resurrect Mr. Ted from his literary grave an--
OK, no. No.
But you gotta admit: He'd be a hell of a post-race interview.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Virtual-ness 1. Reality 0.
So I see Lando Norris won the virtual IndyCar race Saturday at virtual Circuit of the Americas in Texas, and this made me smile. That's because it was something that could never have made me smile in the time before the Bastard Plague, on account of it could never have happened.
Lando Norris, you see, is not an IndyCar driver. He's the 20-year-old wunderkind who wheels one of McLaren's Formula One entries in that other world, the one the Bastard Plague has put on hold.
Yesterday he drove a virtual Arrow McLaren Indy car to virtual victory, beating back a challenge from Arrow McLaren "teammate" Patricio O'Ward in the final laps. Needless to say, this would never have happened in what we now wistfully call Real Life, because Indy drivers and F1 drivers never mix it up for a variety of reasons -- most of them contractual.
And that is a shame.
That is a shame because the Indianapolis 500 was never better or more intriguing than when the F1 boys used to jump the pond in May. You had A.J. and Mario and the Unsers, all the usual characters, but you also had Jim Clark and Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart and Jochen Rindt and Denis Hulme -- and of course Dan Gurney, who had a foot in both worlds.
It made the 500 what it truly never has been since, an international event. Until Fernando Alonso showed up for McLaren a couple of years ago, a full-time, marquee F1 driver hadn't answered the green on Memorial Day weekend in Indy since Clay Regazzoni in 1977. And even though Nigel Mansell and Emerson Fittipaldi ran IndyCar after their F1 days -- and even though IndyCar is a veritable United Nations now -- it has never quite been the same.
So hooray for virtual-ness, in this case. And that's coming from someone who, right this second, is looking at the bookshelf just off my left elbow.
On it are an old Indianapolis 500 commemorative glass and a couple of prints of iconic Indy 500 cars, and two photographs. Both are from 1965.
One is an action shot of a green-and-yellow Lotus-Ford, No. 82, cruising through one of the Speedway's corners. And the other?
The other catches the driver of that Lotus, Jim Clark, grinning in the cockpit the day after winning the '65 500. Kneeling alongside him is Lotus designer Colin Chapman, matching Clark grin-for-grin, one hand clutching the rollbar.
As you can probably guess, Jimmy Clark is an alltime favorite of mine. He was also a two-time F1 champion who won 25 Grand Prix before dying in a Formula Two race at Hockenheim, Germany, in 1968. I keep those two photographs on the bookshelf to remember him, and also to remember a golden, far too brief moment in time at Indianapolis.
Lando Norris kind of brought that time back yesterday. So here's to him.
And here's to Virtual-ness 1, Reality 0.
Lando Norris, you see, is not an IndyCar driver. He's the 20-year-old wunderkind who wheels one of McLaren's Formula One entries in that other world, the one the Bastard Plague has put on hold.
Yesterday he drove a virtual Arrow McLaren Indy car to virtual victory, beating back a challenge from Arrow McLaren "teammate" Patricio O'Ward in the final laps. Needless to say, this would never have happened in what we now wistfully call Real Life, because Indy drivers and F1 drivers never mix it up for a variety of reasons -- most of them contractual.
And that is a shame.
That is a shame because the Indianapolis 500 was never better or more intriguing than when the F1 boys used to jump the pond in May. You had A.J. and Mario and the Unsers, all the usual characters, but you also had Jim Clark and Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart and Jochen Rindt and Denis Hulme -- and of course Dan Gurney, who had a foot in both worlds.
It made the 500 what it truly never has been since, an international event. Until Fernando Alonso showed up for McLaren a couple of years ago, a full-time, marquee F1 driver hadn't answered the green on Memorial Day weekend in Indy since Clay Regazzoni in 1977. And even though Nigel Mansell and Emerson Fittipaldi ran IndyCar after their F1 days -- and even though IndyCar is a veritable United Nations now -- it has never quite been the same.
So hooray for virtual-ness, in this case. And that's coming from someone who, right this second, is looking at the bookshelf just off my left elbow.
On it are an old Indianapolis 500 commemorative glass and a couple of prints of iconic Indy 500 cars, and two photographs. Both are from 1965.
One is an action shot of a green-and-yellow Lotus-Ford, No. 82, cruising through one of the Speedway's corners. And the other?
The other catches the driver of that Lotus, Jim Clark, grinning in the cockpit the day after winning the '65 500. Kneeling alongside him is Lotus designer Colin Chapman, matching Clark grin-for-grin, one hand clutching the rollbar.
As you can probably guess, Jimmy Clark is an alltime favorite of mine. He was also a two-time F1 champion who won 25 Grand Prix before dying in a Formula Two race at Hockenheim, Germany, in 1968. I keep those two photographs on the bookshelf to remember him, and also to remember a golden, far too brief moment in time at Indianapolis.
Lando Norris kind of brought that time back yesterday. So here's to him.
And here's to Virtual-ness 1, Reality 0.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Today in second-guessing
Fresh, never-before-seen news from the NFL Draft, where ALL the news is fresh and hasn't, you know, turned all brown and slimy like that forgotten lettuce in the back of the refrigerator:
The Colts and Bears did a thing!
Yes, sir. The Colts, in the second round, took a stud wideout from USC named Michael Pittman Jr., who caught 101 balls last year, is a big target at 6-4 and 224 pounds and gets after-contact yards. Then they took Jonathan Taylor out of Wisconsin, possibly the best running back in college football last year.
And the Bears?
Took Notre Dame tight end Cole Kmet, the latest exquisitely finished product from a program that has a history of churning out exquisitely finished tight ends, from Dave Casper right on up to the current models, Tyler Eifert and Kyle Rudolph.
This is the best part of the Draft, if you're a fan of such things or just a fan of pro football. It's watching your team not screw up like you were sure it was going to -- and then, after a few minutes reflection, returning to what is the Draft's very life-giving sustenance: Second-guessing.
And so in some circles today there are people wondering why the Colts didn't swing some kind of backroom deal to trade up and draft quarterback Jordan Love out of Utah State, because Philip Rivers is only going to be around for a couple of years and eventually they're going to have to find another franchise quarterback.
Which prompts the Blob to say: Oh, come on. You got two great pieces and you still want to harp on the quarterback thing?
Look, I get it, eventually the Horsies are going to have to find their next franchise QB. And even if the Packers had to trade up to take Jordan Love with the 26th pick, that's no reflection on Love's projected career arc. Franchise QBs historically have emerged from everywhere in the draft, after all. So why not the 26 pick in the first round?
But. But. The Colts landed two components they needed. The Blob loves the picks, and loves the Bears taking Cole Kmet.
Which of course violates yet more NFL Draft etiquette.
You're never supposed to say you loved your team's picks, at least out loud. Good lord, man, how un-cool can you be?
The Colts and Bears did a thing!
Yes, sir. The Colts, in the second round, took a stud wideout from USC named Michael Pittman Jr., who caught 101 balls last year, is a big target at 6-4 and 224 pounds and gets after-contact yards. Then they took Jonathan Taylor out of Wisconsin, possibly the best running back in college football last year.
And the Bears?
Took Notre Dame tight end Cole Kmet, the latest exquisitely finished product from a program that has a history of churning out exquisitely finished tight ends, from Dave Casper right on up to the current models, Tyler Eifert and Kyle Rudolph.
This is the best part of the Draft, if you're a fan of such things or just a fan of pro football. It's watching your team not screw up like you were sure it was going to -- and then, after a few minutes reflection, returning to what is the Draft's very life-giving sustenance: Second-guessing.
And so in some circles today there are people wondering why the Colts didn't swing some kind of backroom deal to trade up and draft quarterback Jordan Love out of Utah State, because Philip Rivers is only going to be around for a couple of years and eventually they're going to have to find another franchise quarterback.
Which prompts the Blob to say: Oh, come on. You got two great pieces and you still want to harp on the quarterback thing?
Look, I get it, eventually the Horsies are going to have to find their next franchise QB. And even if the Packers had to trade up to take Jordan Love with the 26th pick, that's no reflection on Love's projected career arc. Franchise QBs historically have emerged from everywhere in the draft, after all. So why not the 26 pick in the first round?
But. But. The Colts landed two components they needed. The Blob loves the picks, and loves the Bears taking Cole Kmet.
Which of course violates yet more NFL Draft etiquette.
You're never supposed to say you loved your team's picks, at least out loud. Good lord, man, how un-cool can you be?
Friday, April 24, 2020
The loyal supposition
And now we press pause, again, on the doings of Sportsball World, which this morning includes Joe Burrow (Cincinnati), Tua Tagovailoa (Miami) and Justin Herbert (Los Angeles Chargers), who found their professional homes last night in the first round of the NFL Draft.
Oh, and with the No. 3 pick, the Lions took a cornerback to replace the Pro Bowl cornerback they traded away (Darius Slay) for three magic beans and a sixer of Vernors.
But enough about that.
First, let's have a moment of silence.
Let's have a moment of silence as another daily newspaper goes under, this one right here in the Fort. The News-Sentinel effectively ceased operations yesterday when it furloughed the only remaining staffer, longtime reporter and columnist (and my college roomie) Kevin Leininger.
Management, spinning like Dorothy Hamill, characterized this merely as a "staff adjustment." Which is kind of like the captain of the Titanic saying the stern section of the ship was perfectly capable of continuing on after the bow section went to the bottom.
In any event, from the perspective of someone who worked across the hall at The Journal Gazette, the loyal opposition is gone. Only the loyal supposition survives, apparently.
This is more bad news in the continuing cascade of bad news for my former profession, which has been diligently trying to Kevorkian itself for years now. This would not be so appalling if my former profession manufactured widgets. But local journalism is the foundation of the Fourth Estate in any society worth the bother, and local journalism has mostly best been practiced by the ink-stained wretches.
In other words, it's the newspaper grunts who most often break the big stories in a market the size of the Fort. It's the newspaper grunts who are the most diligent guardians of the public trust. And two newspapers are always better than one.
We had our battles, the N-S and the JG. And that was good for everyone, because those battles made us better, and I like to think they made the N-S better.
On the sports side, at least, that never resulted in us throwing rocks at one another, which was mostly a function of the commonality we shared as sports guys. We were all subject to the same nonsense: Crummy weather, cramped pressboxes, grumpy coaches and laptops that did heinous things to us at the worst possible time. We bonded over Boiler Dogs at Purdue and porkburgers at 'Busco.
That's mostly because there were profoundly decent people on both sides of the hall, and some astonishing talent as well. One of my best friends in the business, the legendary Steve Warden, started out as my opposite number as the N-S's sports columnist. Later, when he jumped to the JG, we shared adjoining cubicles -- and also an unshakeable belief that every situation in life can best be explained by a quote from "Young Frankenstein," "Blazing Saddles" or "The Big Lebowski."
Now all of that is gone. And the Fort is ill-served by it. Fewer ink-stained wretches holding public figures accountable means more public figures who need to be held accountable.
And that ain't good, folks. That ain't good at all.
Oh, and with the No. 3 pick, the Lions took a cornerback to replace the Pro Bowl cornerback they traded away (Darius Slay) for three magic beans and a sixer of Vernors.
But enough about that.
First, let's have a moment of silence.
Let's have a moment of silence as another daily newspaper goes under, this one right here in the Fort. The News-Sentinel effectively ceased operations yesterday when it furloughed the only remaining staffer, longtime reporter and columnist (and my college roomie) Kevin Leininger.
Management, spinning like Dorothy Hamill, characterized this merely as a "staff adjustment." Which is kind of like the captain of the Titanic saying the stern section of the ship was perfectly capable of continuing on after the bow section went to the bottom.
In any event, from the perspective of someone who worked across the hall at The Journal Gazette, the loyal opposition is gone. Only the loyal supposition survives, apparently.
This is more bad news in the continuing cascade of bad news for my former profession, which has been diligently trying to Kevorkian itself for years now. This would not be so appalling if my former profession manufactured widgets. But local journalism is the foundation of the Fourth Estate in any society worth the bother, and local journalism has mostly best been practiced by the ink-stained wretches.
In other words, it's the newspaper grunts who most often break the big stories in a market the size of the Fort. It's the newspaper grunts who are the most diligent guardians of the public trust. And two newspapers are always better than one.
We had our battles, the N-S and the JG. And that was good for everyone, because those battles made us better, and I like to think they made the N-S better.
On the sports side, at least, that never resulted in us throwing rocks at one another, which was mostly a function of the commonality we shared as sports guys. We were all subject to the same nonsense: Crummy weather, cramped pressboxes, grumpy coaches and laptops that did heinous things to us at the worst possible time. We bonded over Boiler Dogs at Purdue and porkburgers at 'Busco.
That's mostly because there were profoundly decent people on both sides of the hall, and some astonishing talent as well. One of my best friends in the business, the legendary Steve Warden, started out as my opposite number as the N-S's sports columnist. Later, when he jumped to the JG, we shared adjoining cubicles -- and also an unshakeable belief that every situation in life can best be explained by a quote from "Young Frankenstein," "Blazing Saddles" or "The Big Lebowski."
Now all of that is gone. And the Fort is ill-served by it. Fewer ink-stained wretches holding public figures accountable means more public figures who need to be held accountable.
And that ain't good, folks. That ain't good at all.
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Catching a draft
So it's NFL Draft Day at last, and here I am thinking about David Klingler.
Whatta you mean you don't remember David Klingler?
Why, he used to throw the football all over the lot back when he was playing for the University of Houston Cougars. Threw so many footballs over so many lots, in fact, that the Cincinnati Bengals took him with their first pick in the 1992 NFL draft, which was the No. 6 pick overall.
Alas, David Klingler did not throw the Bengals to any Super Bowl titles. In six NFL seasons, he threw only 16 touchdown passes to go with 22 interceptions, and was out of the game by 1998.
And now I'm thinking of Akili Smith, whom the Bengals took with the third pick in the 1999 draft, and who didn't throw them to any Super Bowls, either. Ditto Jack Thompson and Greg Cook and Carson Palmer, who were also quarterbacks the Bengals took in the first round.
Palmer, at least, turned out to be pretty darn good. Just like this Joe Burrow guy from LSU, who won the Heisman last season and whom the Bengals are expected to take with the No. 1 pick tonight.
That's if they don't Bengal it up. Or Bengal up poor Burrow, which is another distinct possibility.
Because the Bengals are the Bengals, see, they haven't had a whole lot of luck taking quarterbacks with their first pick, Palmer being the notable exception. So if I'm Burrow, maybe I'm kinda-sorta hoping the Bengals do Bengal it up and take, I don't know, Sammy Baugh with the first pick.
Which would be a perfectly fine selection if Sammy Baugh hadn't died 11 years ago.
In any event, this will be the fun part of the Draft, aside from the fact real live news will be happening. No one ever got all giddy anticipating Mel Kiper Jr. raving about Billy "Jack" "Tommy" Thompson's burst or tight skin or how he's no waist-bender, but the times are strange ones. People might actually hang on his every word when he talks about that offensive tackle from Bemidji State the Cowboys just took in the fourth round.
Me?
I won't be watching, because the Draft is boring and, besides, you can follow it online without all the filler commentary. Not that I follow it all that closely anyway. I mean, I am the last guy to come to if you want to know who the Colts are going to take with the 34th pick (it better be a wideout), or if the Lions will Lion it up with the third pick as badly as the Bengals Bengal it up with Joe Burrow.
My prediction: Go with the Lions. It's been a heck of a long time since they drafted Barry Sanders, after all.
Whatta you mean you don't remember David Klingler?
Why, he used to throw the football all over the lot back when he was playing for the University of Houston Cougars. Threw so many footballs over so many lots, in fact, that the Cincinnati Bengals took him with their first pick in the 1992 NFL draft, which was the No. 6 pick overall.
Alas, David Klingler did not throw the Bengals to any Super Bowl titles. In six NFL seasons, he threw only 16 touchdown passes to go with 22 interceptions, and was out of the game by 1998.
And now I'm thinking of Akili Smith, whom the Bengals took with the third pick in the 1999 draft, and who didn't throw them to any Super Bowls, either. Ditto Jack Thompson and Greg Cook and Carson Palmer, who were also quarterbacks the Bengals took in the first round.
Palmer, at least, turned out to be pretty darn good. Just like this Joe Burrow guy from LSU, who won the Heisman last season and whom the Bengals are expected to take with the No. 1 pick tonight.
That's if they don't Bengal it up. Or Bengal up poor Burrow, which is another distinct possibility.
Because the Bengals are the Bengals, see, they haven't had a whole lot of luck taking quarterbacks with their first pick, Palmer being the notable exception. So if I'm Burrow, maybe I'm kinda-sorta hoping the Bengals do Bengal it up and take, I don't know, Sammy Baugh with the first pick.
Which would be a perfectly fine selection if Sammy Baugh hadn't died 11 years ago.
In any event, this will be the fun part of the Draft, aside from the fact real live news will be happening. No one ever got all giddy anticipating Mel Kiper Jr. raving about Billy "Jack" "Tommy" Thompson's burst or tight skin or how he's no waist-bender, but the times are strange ones. People might actually hang on his every word when he talks about that offensive tackle from Bemidji State the Cowboys just took in the fourth round.
Me?
I won't be watching, because the Draft is boring and, besides, you can follow it online without all the filler commentary. Not that I follow it all that closely anyway. I mean, I am the last guy to come to if you want to know who the Colts are going to take with the 34th pick (it better be a wideout), or if the Lions will Lion it up with the third pick as badly as the Bengals Bengal it up with Joe Burrow.
My prediction: Go with the Lions. It's been a heck of a long time since they drafted Barry Sanders, after all.
That crazy dude to the rescue
... and by "crazy dude," we of course mean "Rob Gronkowski."
I mean, who better to rescue Sportsball World from another day of best-of lists, athletes playing video games and the 1978 NBA Western Conference semi-finals on the History Channel?
Gronk had been filling his "retirement" by futzing around in the WWE, but obviously he hated the scripts. And so ... he's baaack!
And with his old sidekick Tom Brady in Tampa Bay, no less!
Yes, that's right, Gronk is coming out of retirement to play for the Buccaneers, because the Patriots, who still owned his rights, traded him to the Bucs for a fourth-round pick. Florida in November and December versus New England in November and December? Hells yeah, man!
This immediately makes Tampa Bay, a 7-9 "meh"-fest last year, even more of a Super Bowl favorite than it already was according to the experts. And just think if the Bucs sign, I don't know, Todd Gurley? Or Antonio Brown when he gets out of jail/counseling/his own way?
But that's just crazy talk.
The crazy dude, however, actually gave starving sportswriters real actual news to report on. And it happened in a week when the NFL Draft will give them even more actual news to report on, despite the fact the NFL Draft drags on and on for eternity -- or at least until the last left-footed kicker from Northern Alabama College of Musical Knowledge is drafted.
By the Buccaneers, no doubt. It's their year, after all.
I mean, who better to rescue Sportsball World from another day of best-of lists, athletes playing video games and the 1978 NBA Western Conference semi-finals on the History Channel?
Gronk had been filling his "retirement" by futzing around in the WWE, but obviously he hated the scripts. And so ... he's baaack!
And with his old sidekick Tom Brady in Tampa Bay, no less!
Yes, that's right, Gronk is coming out of retirement to play for the Buccaneers, because the Patriots, who still owned his rights, traded him to the Bucs for a fourth-round pick. Florida in November and December versus New England in November and December? Hells yeah, man!
This immediately makes Tampa Bay, a 7-9 "meh"-fest last year, even more of a Super Bowl favorite than it already was according to the experts. And just think if the Bucs sign, I don't know, Todd Gurley? Or Antonio Brown when he gets out of jail/counseling/his own way?
But that's just crazy talk.
The crazy dude, however, actually gave starving sportswriters real actual news to report on. And it happened in a week when the NFL Draft will give them even more actual news to report on, despite the fact the NFL Draft drags on and on for eternity -- or at least until the last left-footed kicker from Northern Alabama College of Musical Knowledge is drafted.
By the Buccaneers, no doubt. It's their year, after all.
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Mad Dog blues
This has not been a bang-up spring so far, according to Mr. Obvious. The country has been shut down by a deadly pandemic. Crazy people -- including Our Only Available Impeached President, the Crazy in Chief -- are duping desperate citizens into believing it's all a hoax cooked up by the president-hating media. And for those of us of a certain age ...
Well. It's like some malevolent higher being has decided to kill off large chunks of our childhoods.
First Al Kaline, Mr. Tiger, shuffled off this mortal coil.
Then the second baseman of the 1960s Cubs, Glenn Beckert, passed to his reward.
And now Mike "Mad Dog" Curtis is gone, too, at the age of 77.
If you grew up in the '60s and early '70s, and you followed pro football and the Baltimore Colts in particular, you knew about Mad Dog. He was the middle linebacker who anchored the Colts' soul-crushing defense in those years, a guy who was drafted as a fullback and then switched to the defensive side where he could better indulge his thirst for ruining opponents' days. Four times a Pro Bowler and twice first team All-Pro, he was the AFC Defensive Player of the Year in 1970.
Which was the year the Colts beat the Cowboys in Super Bowl V, and Mike Curtis sealed the win with a late interception.
Oh, yeah. And he also did this. Which might been the most greatest tackle of his career.
You didn't mess with Mad Dog, or with his game. You just didn't.
Well. It's like some malevolent higher being has decided to kill off large chunks of our childhoods.
First Al Kaline, Mr. Tiger, shuffled off this mortal coil.
Then the second baseman of the 1960s Cubs, Glenn Beckert, passed to his reward.
And now Mike "Mad Dog" Curtis is gone, too, at the age of 77.
If you grew up in the '60s and early '70s, and you followed pro football and the Baltimore Colts in particular, you knew about Mad Dog. He was the middle linebacker who anchored the Colts' soul-crushing defense in those years, a guy who was drafted as a fullback and then switched to the defensive side where he could better indulge his thirst for ruining opponents' days. Four times a Pro Bowler and twice first team All-Pro, he was the AFC Defensive Player of the Year in 1970.
Which was the year the Colts beat the Cowboys in Super Bowl V, and Mike Curtis sealed the win with a late interception.
Oh, yeah. And he also did this. Which might been the most greatest tackle of his career.
You didn't mess with Mad Dog, or with his game. You just didn't.
Monday, April 20, 2020
Herding GOATs
The first two episodes of "The Last Dance" dropped on ESPN last night, and here we go again with the Great Debate. Michael or LeBron? Who's the GOAT?
It's firing up all over the interwhatsis this morning, now that we're getting a look at '90s Jordan and those '90s Bulls with fresh eyes. And as you might imagine, imperfect memory has tended to haze a few things.
The Jordan of our memory never missed a shot, defied gravity to an alien degree, could not be beaten by anyone at anytime anywhere. Or so we remember.
But also ... damn he was good.
So was he the very, very best of all time?
Well. That's another question.
The Blob's position on this has always been that Jordan is the greatest scorer of all time, and quite possibly the greatest competitor. The latter guaranteed that he would also not be particularly likeable. In fact, the guy was a platinum-grade asshat, which of course was a big piece of his greatness. You couldn't beat him precisely because he knew you couldn't beat him, and he wasn't shy about telling you so.
But if you're asking me if he was the greatest player of all time -- both ends of the floor, in every phase -- I'd have to say no. LeBron, simply because of his size and because he's called on to do more of it, is a better rebounder. He's also the best passer for his size since Larry Bird, who is merely the most inventive passer ever.
(And, yes, I know, 6-3 Jordan in titles won. To which I'll only say LeBron has never played in a lineup with two other Hall of Famers in it the way Jordan did.)
On the other hand, LeBron isn't my GOAT, either.
No, sir. That honor goes to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
I say this not only because the sheer weight of his numbers crush all argument. In 20 seasons as a pro he averaged a career double-double (24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds.) He's the NBA's all-time leader in points scored (38,387), field goals made (15,837) and minutes played (57,446). His 17,440 rebounds rank him third all-time behind Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, and he even found time to dish out 1,160 assists while matching MJ in NBA titles with six.
But, again, it's not just the numbers. The esthetics count, too: Kareem also refined the hook shot into the unstoppable skyhook, arguably the most recognizable signature shot in NBA history.
And my top five of all time, since we're on the subject?
In no particular order: Kareem, MJ, LeBron, Wilt and Larry.
The floor is now open for debate and/or ridicule.
It's firing up all over the interwhatsis this morning, now that we're getting a look at '90s Jordan and those '90s Bulls with fresh eyes. And as you might imagine, imperfect memory has tended to haze a few things.
The Jordan of our memory never missed a shot, defied gravity to an alien degree, could not be beaten by anyone at anytime anywhere. Or so we remember.
But also ... damn he was good.
So was he the very, very best of all time?
Well. That's another question.
The Blob's position on this has always been that Jordan is the greatest scorer of all time, and quite possibly the greatest competitor. The latter guaranteed that he would also not be particularly likeable. In fact, the guy was a platinum-grade asshat, which of course was a big piece of his greatness. You couldn't beat him precisely because he knew you couldn't beat him, and he wasn't shy about telling you so.
But if you're asking me if he was the greatest player of all time -- both ends of the floor, in every phase -- I'd have to say no. LeBron, simply because of his size and because he's called on to do more of it, is a better rebounder. He's also the best passer for his size since Larry Bird, who is merely the most inventive passer ever.
(And, yes, I know, 6-3 Jordan in titles won. To which I'll only say LeBron has never played in a lineup with two other Hall of Famers in it the way Jordan did.)
On the other hand, LeBron isn't my GOAT, either.
No, sir. That honor goes to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
I say this not only because the sheer weight of his numbers crush all argument. In 20 seasons as a pro he averaged a career double-double (24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds.) He's the NBA's all-time leader in points scored (38,387), field goals made (15,837) and minutes played (57,446). His 17,440 rebounds rank him third all-time behind Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, and he even found time to dish out 1,160 assists while matching MJ in NBA titles with six.
But, again, it's not just the numbers. The esthetics count, too: Kareem also refined the hook shot into the unstoppable skyhook, arguably the most recognizable signature shot in NBA history.
And my top five of all time, since we're on the subject?
In no particular order: Kareem, MJ, LeBron, Wilt and Larry.
The floor is now open for debate and/or ridicule.
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Fear's fools
I'm putting aside virtual matters of Sportsball today, even though what Nebraska just did -- conduct a virtual spring football game in which it inserted into the lineup Cornhuskers' legends like Tommie Frazier and Mike Rozier and Eric Crouch -- was all kinds of cool.
I'd have liked to seen my alma mater, Ball State, do the same thing. And put Art Yaroch at quarterback and Bernie Parmalee at running back and Willie Snead out there on the flank, with Shafer Suggs anchoring the secondary.
But there'll be another day for that. Today, let's talk about something else.
Let's talk about fear.
Specifically, let's talk about how it files down reason to a bare nub, and balances everyone's psyche on the thinnest of knife's edges. And how it sets all of us against one another with unsettling ease, aided and abetted by the usual suspects who live to strum our rawest nerve.
Yesterday, on another platform, I posted a news story about how South Carolina was poised to re-open its beaches and retail businesses next week, even as COVID-19 still rages and no vaccine or flattening of the curve is yet in sight. And I included a comment to the effect that this was lunacy, that among the inalienable rights Americans have there wasn't one that said they could buy that lounge chair they've always wanted today.
My cousin weighed in with the comment that I might feel differently if I owned a business. Which I might, although I pointed out that if I owned a business, I would want to be very, very careful about this, because if I put my customers at risk by opening up in the midst of a pandemic, nothing would kill my business faster.
My cousin lives in Wyoming, and she and her husband own a business deemed "essential." So they've been open all along, and I'm sure are taking all the proper precautions.
She was immediately attacked by others who claimed she was suggesting it was OK for all businesses to re-open. One person even asked if she was OK with killing people.
Thus did the thread go completely off the rails, with people weighing in with comments that had nothing whatever to do with her initial comment. It got so bad I had to go back on there and remind them this was my thread, and if they couldn't be civil or stay on topic they could get the hell off it.
All of which gets me back to fear, and what it makes us do.
It makes us say vile things to people we've never met.
It makes people defy common-sense guidelines regarding public gatherings by declaring they had a constitutional right to assemble and no one could tell them they couldn't -- ignoring the obvious fact that by assembling they were defeating their own argument.
Turns out no one was barring them from assembling, because they assembled. And since no one got arrested for doing so ... what were they protesting again?
Oh, yes. That state lockdown orders were denying them their freedoms. Which they aren't, because no one's going to jail for disregarding those orders. No one was even arrested for, in some cases, showing up on the steps of a government building packing military-grade weaponry -- even though this could have been deemed a security issue if the authorities were anywhere near as draconian as the protesters claimed.
Yet I'll refrain here from labeling these people merely stupid or ignorant, as many have. What they are, mostly, is scared. And as noted previously, fear steals your reason.
What I see here in these protests are not people who are stupid or ignorant, but people who have, with help, taken leave of their senses. What I see are people who are actually begging to be infected, and to infect others, because the money's running out and their healthcare is tied to their employment, so they want to go back to work.
That's not stupidity or selfishness talking. That's need and desperation.
What's contemptible about this is how that need and desperation are being exploited by demagogues and fear-mongers who do what demagogues and fear-mongers always do -- foment unrest with absurd fairy tales and loony conspiracy theories. They know their audience, the demagogues and fear-mongers. The Demagogue-in-Chief is particularly adept at this; his only genius is that he knows exactly which buttons to push to stir up his duped acolytes.
And so all those silly "Liberate Michigan!" and "Liberate Minnesota!" tweets. And so the mixed messaging from the presidential bully pulpit, Our Only Available Impeached President saying one day he defers to the nation's governors for re-opening their states, then encouraging protest against them literally the next day.
Obligatory Mr. Obvious comment here: Yes, OOAIP is nuttier than a Payday.
And his administration is a veritable assembly line of them, with one deranged individual actually comparing the protesters to Rosa Parks.
Yet more proof that fear makes fools of us all.
I'd have liked to seen my alma mater, Ball State, do the same thing. And put Art Yaroch at quarterback and Bernie Parmalee at running back and Willie Snead out there on the flank, with Shafer Suggs anchoring the secondary.
But there'll be another day for that. Today, let's talk about something else.
Let's talk about fear.
Specifically, let's talk about how it files down reason to a bare nub, and balances everyone's psyche on the thinnest of knife's edges. And how it sets all of us against one another with unsettling ease, aided and abetted by the usual suspects who live to strum our rawest nerve.
Yesterday, on another platform, I posted a news story about how South Carolina was poised to re-open its beaches and retail businesses next week, even as COVID-19 still rages and no vaccine or flattening of the curve is yet in sight. And I included a comment to the effect that this was lunacy, that among the inalienable rights Americans have there wasn't one that said they could buy that lounge chair they've always wanted today.
My cousin weighed in with the comment that I might feel differently if I owned a business. Which I might, although I pointed out that if I owned a business, I would want to be very, very careful about this, because if I put my customers at risk by opening up in the midst of a pandemic, nothing would kill my business faster.
My cousin lives in Wyoming, and she and her husband own a business deemed "essential." So they've been open all along, and I'm sure are taking all the proper precautions.
She was immediately attacked by others who claimed she was suggesting it was OK for all businesses to re-open. One person even asked if she was OK with killing people.
Thus did the thread go completely off the rails, with people weighing in with comments that had nothing whatever to do with her initial comment. It got so bad I had to go back on there and remind them this was my thread, and if they couldn't be civil or stay on topic they could get the hell off it.
All of which gets me back to fear, and what it makes us do.
It makes us say vile things to people we've never met.
It makes people defy common-sense guidelines regarding public gatherings by declaring they had a constitutional right to assemble and no one could tell them they couldn't -- ignoring the obvious fact that by assembling they were defeating their own argument.
Turns out no one was barring them from assembling, because they assembled. And since no one got arrested for doing so ... what were they protesting again?
Oh, yes. That state lockdown orders were denying them their freedoms. Which they aren't, because no one's going to jail for disregarding those orders. No one was even arrested for, in some cases, showing up on the steps of a government building packing military-grade weaponry -- even though this could have been deemed a security issue if the authorities were anywhere near as draconian as the protesters claimed.
Yet I'll refrain here from labeling these people merely stupid or ignorant, as many have. What they are, mostly, is scared. And as noted previously, fear steals your reason.
What I see here in these protests are not people who are stupid or ignorant, but people who have, with help, taken leave of their senses. What I see are people who are actually begging to be infected, and to infect others, because the money's running out and their healthcare is tied to their employment, so they want to go back to work.
That's not stupidity or selfishness talking. That's need and desperation.
What's contemptible about this is how that need and desperation are being exploited by demagogues and fear-mongers who do what demagogues and fear-mongers always do -- foment unrest with absurd fairy tales and loony conspiracy theories. They know their audience, the demagogues and fear-mongers. The Demagogue-in-Chief is particularly adept at this; his only genius is that he knows exactly which buttons to push to stir up his duped acolytes.
And so all those silly "Liberate Michigan!" and "Liberate Minnesota!" tweets. And so the mixed messaging from the presidential bully pulpit, Our Only Available Impeached President saying one day he defers to the nation's governors for re-opening their states, then encouraging protest against them literally the next day.
Obligatory Mr. Obvious comment here: Yes, OOAIP is nuttier than a Payday.
And his administration is a veritable assembly line of them, with one deranged individual actually comparing the protesters to Rosa Parks.
Yet more proof that fear makes fools of us all.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Your nostalgia hit for today
I am in this photo, somewhere. Behind the glass in the pressbox, way back there in the background. One of those dots in the grandstands, more likely. But I am there, on the chill damp evening of April 19, 1993, with Wayne the Wizard and those fresh-faced kids in their clean white unis, and Dan Fox the trainer standing next to Wayne there.
Twenty-seven years ago tomorrow. Holy guacamole.
I was 38 years old then and baseball had returned to the Fort, taking up a weave that stretched back to the 1870s. The Kekiongas played here, in the game's infancy. Babe Ruth hit a barnstorming home run here. The Daisies made history here and the Fort Wayne Colored Giants played here, and Chuck Klein and Bill Wambsganss and Steve Hargan and Eric Wedge and a whole pile of others either came from here or played baseball here before moving on to the bigs.
So, yeah. This was fertile ground. And so Memorial Stadium went up and the Wizards came and I remember that night, remember everyone sitting in slack-jawed wonder at the ballpark and the players and whole idea of professional baseball in Fort Wayne.
It's a pleasant thing to contemplate, on this counterfeit morning with the April sun shining on snowy rooftops in this strange and counterfeit time in Bastard Plague America.
I remember spending part of that night sitting next to a delightful man named John "Red" Braden, 80-something and a part of our splendid baseball weave for decades. He's looking out at the lights and the diamond and the ballplayers, and he's seeing 1928. He's seeing himself as a teenager, going door-to-door with a petition to bring a Cardinals minor-league team to Fort Wayne.
It didn't happen then. It wouldn't happen for another six-and-a-half decades. Now Red Braden was in the twilight of his life, present and account for at the dawn of his ancient dream.
"All of a sudden I'm seein' what I was ..." he said.
And couldn't really finish. Just kept staring out at the lights and the players and the green April grass.
I remember that. I remember walking around the ballpark on this dreary evening when nothing matched its gray flannel sky. People were lining up at the concession stands. Kids were scurrying everywhere, everywhere. A young man named Ramon Valette christened the new ballpark with its first home run, a shot into the netting above the left-field fence. Another young man named Scott Moten rang up the first strikeout.
The Wizards beat Peoria, 7-2. And went on to finish 68-67, drawing north of 300,000 fans for the inaugural season.
And now it is 27 years later, and the Wizards are now the TinCaps. And Memorial Stadium is a parking lot. Ramon Valette hasn't played baseball in 22 years; Scott Moten last pitched for Orlando in Double-A ball in 1997.
And Red Braden?
Waiting somewhere, no doubt, for the lights to come up again. And for the ballplayers to take the field. And for all of it to start up again.
Same as the rest of us, in other words. Same as the rest of us.
Twenty-seven years ago tomorrow. Holy guacamole.
I was 38 years old then and baseball had returned to the Fort, taking up a weave that stretched back to the 1870s. The Kekiongas played here, in the game's infancy. Babe Ruth hit a barnstorming home run here. The Daisies made history here and the Fort Wayne Colored Giants played here, and Chuck Klein and Bill Wambsganss and Steve Hargan and Eric Wedge and a whole pile of others either came from here or played baseball here before moving on to the bigs.
So, yeah. This was fertile ground. And so Memorial Stadium went up and the Wizards came and I remember that night, remember everyone sitting in slack-jawed wonder at the ballpark and the players and whole idea of professional baseball in Fort Wayne.
It's a pleasant thing to contemplate, on this counterfeit morning with the April sun shining on snowy rooftops in this strange and counterfeit time in Bastard Plague America.
I remember spending part of that night sitting next to a delightful man named John "Red" Braden, 80-something and a part of our splendid baseball weave for decades. He's looking out at the lights and the diamond and the ballplayers, and he's seeing 1928. He's seeing himself as a teenager, going door-to-door with a petition to bring a Cardinals minor-league team to Fort Wayne.
It didn't happen then. It wouldn't happen for another six-and-a-half decades. Now Red Braden was in the twilight of his life, present and account for at the dawn of his ancient dream.
"All of a sudden I'm seein' what I was ..." he said.
And couldn't really finish. Just kept staring out at the lights and the players and the green April grass.
I remember that. I remember walking around the ballpark on this dreary evening when nothing matched its gray flannel sky. People were lining up at the concession stands. Kids were scurrying everywhere, everywhere. A young man named Ramon Valette christened the new ballpark with its first home run, a shot into the netting above the left-field fence. Another young man named Scott Moten rang up the first strikeout.
The Wizards beat Peoria, 7-2. And went on to finish 68-67, drawing north of 300,000 fans for the inaugural season.
And now it is 27 years later, and the Wizards are now the TinCaps. And Memorial Stadium is a parking lot. Ramon Valette hasn't played baseball in 22 years; Scott Moten last pitched for Orlando in Double-A ball in 1997.
And Red Braden?
Waiting somewhere, no doubt, for the lights to come up again. And for the ballplayers to take the field. And for all of it to start up again.
Same as the rest of us, in other words. Same as the rest of us.
Friday, April 17, 2020
A Master-ful jumble
It's late November out there today, or at least it wears the disguise. The rooftops are white with snow. There's a corresponding skein of white on the grass, punking out beneath the trees, where it gives in to the green beneath. And the sky?
The sky is that particular shade of gray that comes when the sun rides the southern rim of the world, not to warm our faces again until April.
Which is what this actually is, all play-acting aside. April 17. Thirty-four degrees and going down. Snow falling lightly on bursting forsythia and about-to-bloom trees.
So odd. So odd like all of this is odd, coming at you in fits and starts, arriving in unsettling flashes at times you don't expect.
It's Friday. Maybe I'll go have a drink somewhere late-- Oh.
I'd really like to go see that movie toda-- Oh.
Where do you want to go for dinner tonig-- Oh.
That sort of thing.
A November landscape in April only intensifies the sense of dislocation, and so I look outside and drink my coffee and shake my head at yet another layer of weird-on-weird. And then I look down at my laptop, and check out my news feed.
And see the PGA has rolled out its re-worked schedule for 2020, subject of course to the Bastard Plague.
And also see the Masters is now scheduled for -- yep, you guessed it -- November.
November 12-15, to be precise, and here is the oddness washing over you again. The Masters, ancient rite of spring, going off in the shadow of Thanksgiving? In the season of harvest instead of the season of planting? With winter tugging at our sleeves instead of summer?
So hard to wrap one's head around it. And that is especially true because, like no other golf tournament in the world, the Masters is wedded to the rhythms and flora of its season and place. If it is about birdies and bogies and the unraveling of psyches on the back nine on Sunday, it is as much about the magnolias and azaleas and the greening time of nature.
Watching a leader stumble at Augusta on a Sunday in early April is like watching a man being tortured in unspeakable ways in the middle of an English garden. The juxtaposition is like nothing else in sports.
But in November?
No azaleas. No magnolias. No English garden. Nature going quiet for the winter, instead of gaudily announcing its entrance.
This may be a more appropriate backdrop to watching the leader dunk one in Rae's Creek on Sunday afternoon. But it's that delicious juxtaposition that makes the Masters, the Masters. Appropriate backdrops are entirely inappropriate there.
Kind of like looking outside, on April 17, and seeing late November look back.
The sky is that particular shade of gray that comes when the sun rides the southern rim of the world, not to warm our faces again until April.
Which is what this actually is, all play-acting aside. April 17. Thirty-four degrees and going down. Snow falling lightly on bursting forsythia and about-to-bloom trees.
So odd. So odd like all of this is odd, coming at you in fits and starts, arriving in unsettling flashes at times you don't expect.
It's Friday. Maybe I'll go have a drink somewhere late-- Oh.
I'd really like to go see that movie toda-- Oh.
Where do you want to go for dinner tonig-- Oh.
That sort of thing.
A November landscape in April only intensifies the sense of dislocation, and so I look outside and drink my coffee and shake my head at yet another layer of weird-on-weird. And then I look down at my laptop, and check out my news feed.
And see the PGA has rolled out its re-worked schedule for 2020, subject of course to the Bastard Plague.
And also see the Masters is now scheduled for -- yep, you guessed it -- November.
November 12-15, to be precise, and here is the oddness washing over you again. The Masters, ancient rite of spring, going off in the shadow of Thanksgiving? In the season of harvest instead of the season of planting? With winter tugging at our sleeves instead of summer?
So hard to wrap one's head around it. And that is especially true because, like no other golf tournament in the world, the Masters is wedded to the rhythms and flora of its season and place. If it is about birdies and bogies and the unraveling of psyches on the back nine on Sunday, it is as much about the magnolias and azaleas and the greening time of nature.
Watching a leader stumble at Augusta on a Sunday in early April is like watching a man being tortured in unspeakable ways in the middle of an English garden. The juxtaposition is like nothing else in sports.
But in November?
No azaleas. No magnolias. No English garden. Nature going quiet for the winter, instead of gaudily announcing its entrance.
This may be a more appropriate backdrop to watching the leader dunk one in Rae's Creek on Sunday afternoon. But it's that delicious juxtaposition that makes the Masters, the Masters. Appropriate backdrops are entirely inappropriate there.
Kind of like looking outside, on April 17, and seeing late November look back.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
A very American imperative
Ron DeSantis is only the governor of the nation's looniest state, but he channels the wisdom of the emperors during Rome's gasping last.
The people, Florida's guv declared in so many words the other day, need their gladiators.
And so he's declared the WWE, and also professional sports, "essential services" amid the Bastard Plague. People are "starved for content" in these trying times, the Guv said. Why, even Our Only Available Impeached President, descending into madness daily now on national TV, says he's tired of watching old games.
So let's re-start 'Murica!
And that includes football and baseball and basketball and steroidal entertainers in tights, their hockey hair fluttering in the breeze as they fly off the top rope to crush other steroidal entertainers.
"People are chomping at the bit," the Guv declared to reporters, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Well, of course they are. Particularly in a nation as addicted to bread and circus as this one.
We are the country of micro attention spans, forever flitting from one distraction to the next until the distractions become an end in themselves. It's why professional sports are their own economy now, employing thousands and sustaining thousands more whose livelihood depends on their continued existence. It's why college athletics are no longer sis-boom-bah here's-to-dear-old-Whatsamatta-U., but an economy itself -- driven by the imperatives of any economy, and desperately trying to maintain the laughable fiction that their employees are not employees but "student-athletes."
And all because we are "starved for content." All because we are "chomping at the bit," and have come to regard our diversions as a sacred American right, like the vote and 2-for-1 sales.
Thus all the harebrained schemes to start baseball and finish the NBA and NHL seasons and, yes, to declare Vince McMahon's WWE empire an "essential service." OOAIP, in between gnashing his teeth and howling at the moon, therefore added Vince, plus all the major sports commishes, to his Committee to Put America Back To Work (And Also To Re-Elect Me, Because I'm Doing Such A Great Job.)
This makes a certain amount of sense, given that OOAIP and Vince have so much in common. Both have presided over failed professional football leagues, after all.
Where the wicket gets sticky is how willing we are as a nation to put lives at risk just to keep us from being bored, which essentially is what all this boils down to. The evidence suggests we would be pretty willing; as quarantining and shelter-in-place orders continue, people are becoming increasingly restless.
Thousands may be sickening and dying, but they want their jobs back. They want their normal back, whatever that is now. And so the more desperate among them have abandoned their senses and taken to the streets in Michigan and Ohio, begging to be thrown into the maw of the Bastard Plague. And they are egged on, as they always are, by demagogues like our very own Tennessee Trey Hollingsworth, who thinks a few dead bodies here and there are worth it if it gets the Great American Money Machine up and humming again.
This notion has always had legs in America, but few have been so witless as to give it such a clear voice. Which perhaps suggests there's some desperation at work there, too.
Hard telling where all this desperation ends. But I do know one thing.
We can live without LeBron and Alex Ovechkin and Mike Trout driving one into the gap for awhile yet. And without whoever that is flying off the top rope, hockey hair fluttering in the breeze.
The people, Florida's guv declared in so many words the other day, need their gladiators.
And so he's declared the WWE, and also professional sports, "essential services" amid the Bastard Plague. People are "starved for content" in these trying times, the Guv said. Why, even Our Only Available Impeached President, descending into madness daily now on national TV, says he's tired of watching old games.
So let's re-start 'Murica!
And that includes football and baseball and basketball and steroidal entertainers in tights, their hockey hair fluttering in the breeze as they fly off the top rope to crush other steroidal entertainers.
"People are chomping at the bit," the Guv declared to reporters, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Well, of course they are. Particularly in a nation as addicted to bread and circus as this one.
We are the country of micro attention spans, forever flitting from one distraction to the next until the distractions become an end in themselves. It's why professional sports are their own economy now, employing thousands and sustaining thousands more whose livelihood depends on their continued existence. It's why college athletics are no longer sis-boom-bah here's-to-dear-old-Whatsamatta-U., but an economy itself -- driven by the imperatives of any economy, and desperately trying to maintain the laughable fiction that their employees are not employees but "student-athletes."
And all because we are "starved for content." All because we are "chomping at the bit," and have come to regard our diversions as a sacred American right, like the vote and 2-for-1 sales.
Thus all the harebrained schemes to start baseball and finish the NBA and NHL seasons and, yes, to declare Vince McMahon's WWE empire an "essential service." OOAIP, in between gnashing his teeth and howling at the moon, therefore added Vince, plus all the major sports commishes, to his Committee to Put America Back To Work (And Also To Re-Elect Me, Because I'm Doing Such A Great Job.)
This makes a certain amount of sense, given that OOAIP and Vince have so much in common. Both have presided over failed professional football leagues, after all.
Where the wicket gets sticky is how willing we are as a nation to put lives at risk just to keep us from being bored, which essentially is what all this boils down to. The evidence suggests we would be pretty willing; as quarantining and shelter-in-place orders continue, people are becoming increasingly restless.
Thousands may be sickening and dying, but they want their jobs back. They want their normal back, whatever that is now. And so the more desperate among them have abandoned their senses and taken to the streets in Michigan and Ohio, begging to be thrown into the maw of the Bastard Plague. And they are egged on, as they always are, by demagogues like our very own Tennessee Trey Hollingsworth, who thinks a few dead bodies here and there are worth it if it gets the Great American Money Machine up and humming again.
This notion has always had legs in America, but few have been so witless as to give it such a clear voice. Which perhaps suggests there's some desperation at work there, too.
Hard telling where all this desperation ends. But I do know one thing.
We can live without LeBron and Alex Ovechkin and Mike Trout driving one into the gap for awhile yet. And without whoever that is flying off the top rope, hockey hair fluttering in the breeze.
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
The corrosive power of That Word
Kyle Larson is likely the last person NASCAR figured would raise the head of its racist past. And the first person who should have known better.
What Larson did, during a live-streamed virtual race, is drop the Extinction Event of racial epithets into a hot mic.
Now, the n-word, used in this context, doesn't immediately tag Larson as a tabacky-chewing good ol' boy just tryin' to keep the vote reserved for white folk -- in other words, NASCAR's original core constituency. Still, that in no way softens the impact. The weight of its freighted history alone ensures that.
And there's scarcely anyone in NASCAR who should have been more aware of that than Kyle Larson.
As one of only two drivers of Asian descent in NASCAR, he's half-Japanese on his mother's side, and he grew up hearing stories from his maternal grandparents, who were interned during World War II for the "crime" of being of Japanese descent. So he knows about racism. He's also a proud graduate of NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program -- which makes this doubly vexing for NASCAR, which began D4D precisely to eradicate for good its redneck past.
Kyle Larson dropping the n-word must have had them all tearing their hair out by the roots.
In 2020, That Word is as radioactive as Pripyat after Chernobyl reactor No.4 blew up, which is why Larson is unemployed three days after he dropped it. First his sponsors dropped him like a hot brick, then Chip Ganassi Racing dropped him, That sequence tells you everything you need to know about the economics of motorsports.
Simply put, a guy the sponsors won't touch is a guy no viable racing team will touch. It doesn't matter how talented you are -- and Larson, a rising star at 27, is supremely talented. Three days ago, he was regarded as the top free agent in NASCAR.
Now?
Now his phone has gone silent. And that's not because he's forgotten how to wheel a race car; it's because he no longer has any sponsor dollars to bring to the table. It's a dynamic that has driven decisions in the sport longer than you think it has.
A story: Thirty-three years ago, in 1987, a driver showed up at Indianapolis in May without a ride. That happens a lot at Indy, but this case was somewhat unique.
This particular driver, see, was Al Unser Sr. Who'd already won the 500 three times.
But he had no sponsors, and so he had no ride. Danny Ongais saved him. Driving one of Roger Penske's cars, he suffered a concussion after crashing in practice, which Danny Ongais had a tendency to so. With few other options at such a late date, Penske hired Unser to fill the vacant seat, which turned out to be a year-old car that had been sitting in a hotel lobby not long before.
So of course Al stuck it in the field and then went on to win his fourth 500, and Penske's sixth. But if Ongais hadn't crashed, Big Al likely would have been a spectator.
No dough, no show: That's how the wheel turns in motorsports. It's not the speed that matters; it's the speed of the economics.
As Kyle Larson, in less than 48 hours, has painfully learned.
What Larson did, during a live-streamed virtual race, is drop the Extinction Event of racial epithets into a hot mic.
Now, the n-word, used in this context, doesn't immediately tag Larson as a tabacky-chewing good ol' boy just tryin' to keep the vote reserved for white folk -- in other words, NASCAR's original core constituency. Still, that in no way softens the impact. The weight of its freighted history alone ensures that.
And there's scarcely anyone in NASCAR who should have been more aware of that than Kyle Larson.
As one of only two drivers of Asian descent in NASCAR, he's half-Japanese on his mother's side, and he grew up hearing stories from his maternal grandparents, who were interned during World War II for the "crime" of being of Japanese descent. So he knows about racism. He's also a proud graduate of NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program -- which makes this doubly vexing for NASCAR, which began D4D precisely to eradicate for good its redneck past.
Kyle Larson dropping the n-word must have had them all tearing their hair out by the roots.
In 2020, That Word is as radioactive as Pripyat after Chernobyl reactor No.4 blew up, which is why Larson is unemployed three days after he dropped it. First his sponsors dropped him like a hot brick, then Chip Ganassi Racing dropped him, That sequence tells you everything you need to know about the economics of motorsports.
Simply put, a guy the sponsors won't touch is a guy no viable racing team will touch. It doesn't matter how talented you are -- and Larson, a rising star at 27, is supremely talented. Three days ago, he was regarded as the top free agent in NASCAR.
Now?
Now his phone has gone silent. And that's not because he's forgotten how to wheel a race car; it's because he no longer has any sponsor dollars to bring to the table. It's a dynamic that has driven decisions in the sport longer than you think it has.
A story: Thirty-three years ago, in 1987, a driver showed up at Indianapolis in May without a ride. That happens a lot at Indy, but this case was somewhat unique.
This particular driver, see, was Al Unser Sr. Who'd already won the 500 three times.
But he had no sponsors, and so he had no ride. Danny Ongais saved him. Driving one of Roger Penske's cars, he suffered a concussion after crashing in practice, which Danny Ongais had a tendency to so. With few other options at such a late date, Penske hired Unser to fill the vacant seat, which turned out to be a year-old car that had been sitting in a hotel lobby not long before.
So of course Al stuck it in the field and then went on to win his fourth 500, and Penske's sixth. But if Ongais hadn't crashed, Big Al likely would have been a spectator.
No dough, no show: That's how the wheel turns in motorsports. It's not the speed that matters; it's the speed of the economics.
As Kyle Larson, in less than 48 hours, has painfully learned.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Essential flying mares
I used to love pro wrestling, back in the days when Dick the Bruiser was beating up Baron Von Raschke and Hulk Hogan was getting hit with folding chairs by Rowdy Roddy Piper, the dirty scoundrel. But then came Joe Exotic and crazy hillbilly chic, so my Cheesy Quasi-Entertainment dance card is full enough these days.
I couldn't tell you anything about the WWE now, except that it employs Rob Gronkowski and Ronda Rousey for some reason. So I'm probably not the guy to ask if you're wondering if pro wrestling is an "essential business."
Apparently in Florida it is.
This should come as no surprise to those of us who know the Sunshine State as the national capital of crazy, but still, it does give one pause. Bread, milk and the Flying Mare are never going to come first to mind in any grouping of life essentials, at least for some of us. I don't know about you, but I can live without the Sunset Flip, and also the Camel Clutch. And the Iron Claw hasn't been a vital part of the American economy since Von Raschke was using it on the Bruiser.
The Bruiser always got out of it, though. Or so I remember.
In any case, the Claw and the Mare and the Flip and the Clutch were all legendary pro wrestling moves, back in the day. I don't know what we call the move the state of Florida just made, except that in Florida certain notions occur that don't occur anywhere else. And so the WWE has been deemed an essential business, which means it can continue with its schedule of live shows as long as there's no live audience, only essential personnel are on hand and everyone practices social distancing.
OK. So that last isn't true.
I mean, I don't know how you keep six feet of distance between you and your opponent when you're slapping the Camel Clutch on him or her. So the performers will be put at risk in order for Vince McMahon to keep stacking his pile.
In other words, same-old, same-old here in America.
Or in Florida, at least.
I couldn't tell you anything about the WWE now, except that it employs Rob Gronkowski and Ronda Rousey for some reason. So I'm probably not the guy to ask if you're wondering if pro wrestling is an "essential business."
Apparently in Florida it is.
This should come as no surprise to those of us who know the Sunshine State as the national capital of crazy, but still, it does give one pause. Bread, milk and the Flying Mare are never going to come first to mind in any grouping of life essentials, at least for some of us. I don't know about you, but I can live without the Sunset Flip, and also the Camel Clutch. And the Iron Claw hasn't been a vital part of the American economy since Von Raschke was using it on the Bruiser.
The Bruiser always got out of it, though. Or so I remember.
In any case, the Claw and the Mare and the Flip and the Clutch were all legendary pro wrestling moves, back in the day. I don't know what we call the move the state of Florida just made, except that in Florida certain notions occur that don't occur anywhere else. And so the WWE has been deemed an essential business, which means it can continue with its schedule of live shows as long as there's no live audience, only essential personnel are on hand and everyone practices social distancing.
OK. So that last isn't true.
I mean, I don't know how you keep six feet of distance between you and your opponent when you're slapping the Camel Clutch on him or her. So the performers will be put at risk in order for Vince McMahon to keep stacking his pile.
In other words, same-old, same-old here in America.
Or in Florida, at least.
Monday, April 13, 2020
Old man tricks
I used to have this killer H-O-R-S-E shot. No, really. I did.
I perfected it in my driveway -- which is the only place I could ever really make it, homecourt advantage being what it is. It involved driving to the right of the lane and then flipping the ball with my right hand, behind my head, so it banked off the backboard and went in.
Used to frustrate my best friend no end when we played one-on-one.
"You only beat me because of those s*** shots," he used to complain.
I'd just smile and let him believe that.
Anyway ... that all came back to me this morning, reading about the first round of the NBA HORSE Challenge. The biggest upset in the first round, and the most delicious, was Chauncey Billups beating NBA wonder rookie Trae Young.
Chauncey Billups is 43 years old.
He hasn't played in the NBA in six years.
But he pulled out the full array of old man tricks to beat the young'un, which was all kinds of wonderful. The one-legged, bank 3-pointer from the top of the key. The corner-out-of-bounds three. All that.
So, Chauncey Billups is my guy now. He's old like me, comparatively. And he knows how to beat people with s*** shots.
Next up for him is the ambidextrous Mike Conley Jr., who easily beat Tamika Catchings in the first round.
Ambidextrous guys are always monsters at H-O-R-S-E. So Chauncey's gonna have to dig deep into his old man guile to beat him.
My suggestion: Haul out the behind-the-head flip banker.
Trust me, Chaunce. It'll drive Conley nuts.
I perfected it in my driveway -- which is the only place I could ever really make it, homecourt advantage being what it is. It involved driving to the right of the lane and then flipping the ball with my right hand, behind my head, so it banked off the backboard and went in.
Used to frustrate my best friend no end when we played one-on-one.
"You only beat me because of those s*** shots," he used to complain.
I'd just smile and let him believe that.
Anyway ... that all came back to me this morning, reading about the first round of the NBA HORSE Challenge. The biggest upset in the first round, and the most delicious, was Chauncey Billups beating NBA wonder rookie Trae Young.
Chauncey Billups is 43 years old.
He hasn't played in the NBA in six years.
But he pulled out the full array of old man tricks to beat the young'un, which was all kinds of wonderful. The one-legged, bank 3-pointer from the top of the key. The corner-out-of-bounds three. All that.
So, Chauncey Billups is my guy now. He's old like me, comparatively. And he knows how to beat people with s*** shots.
Next up for him is the ambidextrous Mike Conley Jr., who easily beat Tamika Catchings in the first round.
Ambidextrous guys are always monsters at H-O-R-S-E. So Chauncey's gonna have to dig deep into his old man guile to beat him.
My suggestion: Haul out the behind-the-head flip banker.
Trust me, Chaunce. It'll drive Conley nuts.
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Spell? Check.
And now -- just for you, America, and because EPSN has nothing left to air without regressing to monster truck shows and poker -- it's time for a Spellathon!
Yes, that's right, on this Easter Sunday, a swarm of Bees will descend upon all of us. Bees, that is, as in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. ESPN today is airing Bees of the past beginning at noon today.
(And, no, I have no idea why ESPN starting airing the National Spelling Bee. It's hardly a sport, because they haven't added it to the Olympics yet. But then neither is poker, and ESPN made that one goober in the sunglasses famous by airing that.)
In any case, it's action-packed holiday watching as terrified young people stumble over the second "r" in "pyrrhuloxia." Which, like most of the words in the Bee, is completely made up because the kids in the Bee know all the real words forewords and backwards. Literally.
And so you get words like "bouquetière," and "thamakau" and "caudillismo." Also "ch'a'ckduluth," which is Klingonese for "Damn it's cold in Duluth."
"Wait," the suddenly nervous young speller said. "I was told there would be no Klingon."
Judge Worf merely laughed ...
Of course, I'm lying. "Bouquetiere", "thamakau" and "caudillismo" are actual words, allegedly. And no words with a Klingonese derivation are allowed. Although for some reason it's OK to slip a Vulcan word in there occasionally, just to throw off the generally un-throw-off-able spellers.
Sorry. Lied again.
Yes, that's right, on this Easter Sunday, a swarm of Bees will descend upon all of us. Bees, that is, as in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. ESPN today is airing Bees of the past beginning at noon today.
(And, no, I have no idea why ESPN starting airing the National Spelling Bee. It's hardly a sport, because they haven't added it to the Olympics yet. But then neither is poker, and ESPN made that one goober in the sunglasses famous by airing that.)
In any case, it's action-packed holiday watching as terrified young people stumble over the second "r" in "pyrrhuloxia." Which, like most of the words in the Bee, is completely made up because the kids in the Bee know all the real words forewords and backwards. Literally.
And so you get words like "bouquetière," and "thamakau" and "caudillismo." Also "ch'a'ckduluth," which is Klingonese for "Damn it's cold in Duluth."
"Wait," the suddenly nervous young speller said. "I was told there would be no Klingon."
Judge Worf merely laughed ...
Of course, I'm lying. "Bouquetiere", "thamakau" and "caudillismo" are actual words, allegedly. And no words with a Klingonese derivation are allowed. Although for some reason it's OK to slip a Vulcan word in there occasionally, just to throw off the generally un-throw-off-able spellers.
Sorry. Lied again.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Today's Sportsball highlights
And now, from the man who brought you Dog E(eating)-sports ...
Here's your latest Bastard Plague Sportsball Highlights. Starring Olive and Mabel, with Scottish sportscaster Andrew Cotter on the call.
(Although Johnny Most rasping "Havlicek stole the ball! Havlicek stole the ball!" would be most appropriate for this, too.)
And all the NBA and ESPN can come up with is virtual H-O-R-S-E. Pffft.
Here's your latest Bastard Plague Sportsball Highlights. Starring Olive and Mabel, with Scottish sportscaster Andrew Cotter on the call.
(Although Johnny Most rasping "Havlicek stole the ball! Havlicek stole the ball!" would be most appropriate for this, too.)
And all the NBA and ESPN can come up with is virtual H-O-R-S-E. Pffft.
Friday, April 10, 2020
Desperate measures
In the interest of kinda-sorta research this morning, I looked up the population for Grand Forks, N.D. It's about halfway between 56,000 and 57,000.
So once again I was wrong. My guess was 12.
Still, it's not a lot of souls when you consider North Dakota, whose state motto would be A Big Ol' Expanse O' Nothin' if it weren't Come For The Windchill, Stay For The Mind-Numbing Isolation. So I guess if the NHL were going to go hide out somewhere and finish its season in windswept Bastard Plague-resistant splendor, North Dakota would be a logical choice.
That's the plan, by the way. Or at least a plan.
Yes, the National Hockey League is thinking of finishing its season in Grand Forks come summer, playing all its remaining games in front of nobody in Ralph Engelstad Arena. Just fly in all 31 teams and 713 players, quarantine and regularly test them for COVID-19, then have every team play every game in one arena in front of echoes and silent seatbacks.
After which the team that wins the Stanley Cup gets to parade around an indoor vacant lot while "We Are The Champions" bounces off all that big empty.
Weee (we-we-we) are the champions (ons-ons-ons) ...
Yeesh. Talk about a bushel of silliness.
But desperate times call for desperate measures, and so the NHL is not alone in desperately clinging to this fantasy of finishing its season. The NBA is talking about doing much the same thing in Vegas. And the other day Major League Baseball floated the idea of starting its season in late May or early June in Phoenix, because it's home to so many of the clubs' spring training facilities.
So, Baseball in a Bubble, Basketball in a Bubble, Hockey in a Bubble. And just as easy to burst.
Set aside for a moment the astounding impracticability of keeping hundreds of restless premier athletes not only apart from the general populace but from each other, except when it's unavoidable. Instead, think for a nanosecond about the splendid optics of professional athletes getting ready access to the testing most of the great unwashed still don't have.
Yeah, boy. If that doesn't get folks storming the Bastille, nothing will.
And, sure, I get it, the people who run professional sports in this country are desperate to keep the money tap flowing. It's why college football (which counts as a professional sport) could wind up playing in the dead of winter, or even next spring, because a season lost to COVID-19 would blow to shards all those Power-5 athletic budgets.
Certainly it would be nice to have sports back again, even as weird and truncated and out-of-season as they would be. In fact that's been the disingenuous selling point for the sports execs: We're doing this for the fans! They need us more than ever right now!
No, mostly they just need the revenue stream more than ever. Because let's face it, Sabers vs. Flyers in an empty building on a Sunday afternoon doesn't mean jack to someone who's got a parent or grandparent or aunt or uncle on a ventilator somewhere.
Even if that someone does have a throwback Bobby Clarke jersey. Or Gilbert Perreault.
So once again I was wrong. My guess was 12.
Still, it's not a lot of souls when you consider North Dakota, whose state motto would be A Big Ol' Expanse O' Nothin' if it weren't Come For The Windchill, Stay For The Mind-Numbing Isolation. So I guess if the NHL were going to go hide out somewhere and finish its season in windswept Bastard Plague-resistant splendor, North Dakota would be a logical choice.
That's the plan, by the way. Or at least a plan.
Yes, the National Hockey League is thinking of finishing its season in Grand Forks come summer, playing all its remaining games in front of nobody in Ralph Engelstad Arena. Just fly in all 31 teams and 713 players, quarantine and regularly test them for COVID-19, then have every team play every game in one arena in front of echoes and silent seatbacks.
After which the team that wins the Stanley Cup gets to parade around an indoor vacant lot while "We Are The Champions" bounces off all that big empty.
Weee (we-we-we) are the champions (ons-ons-ons) ...
Yeesh. Talk about a bushel of silliness.
But desperate times call for desperate measures, and so the NHL is not alone in desperately clinging to this fantasy of finishing its season. The NBA is talking about doing much the same thing in Vegas. And the other day Major League Baseball floated the idea of starting its season in late May or early June in Phoenix, because it's home to so many of the clubs' spring training facilities.
So, Baseball in a Bubble, Basketball in a Bubble, Hockey in a Bubble. And just as easy to burst.
Set aside for a moment the astounding impracticability of keeping hundreds of restless premier athletes not only apart from the general populace but from each other, except when it's unavoidable. Instead, think for a nanosecond about the splendid optics of professional athletes getting ready access to the testing most of the great unwashed still don't have.
Yeah, boy. If that doesn't get folks storming the Bastille, nothing will.
And, sure, I get it, the people who run professional sports in this country are desperate to keep the money tap flowing. It's why college football (which counts as a professional sport) could wind up playing in the dead of winter, or even next spring, because a season lost to COVID-19 would blow to shards all those Power-5 athletic budgets.
Certainly it would be nice to have sports back again, even as weird and truncated and out-of-season as they would be. In fact that's been the disingenuous selling point for the sports execs: We're doing this for the fans! They need us more than ever right now!
No, mostly they just need the revenue stream more than ever. Because let's face it, Sabers vs. Flyers in an empty building on a Sunday afternoon doesn't mean jack to someone who's got a parent or grandparent or aunt or uncle on a ventilator somewhere.
Even if that someone does have a throwback Bobby Clarke jersey. Or Gilbert Perreault.
Thursday, April 9, 2020
Wildcat strike ... three
I played for the Beckerts, back before the dinosaurs died and became oil. Had the signature red-and-blue cap. Had the signature white tee with blue piping and the snarling wildcat on the front. Had an official Ted Williams baseball glove that mostly served as a counterfeit prop.
Wildcat baseball, where Everybody Makes The Team. It does take a body back.
Takes me to McMillen Park, to left field, to a lot of standing around observing nature in those mid-1960s summers. Miles away, at the plate, tiny batters swung and missed. I was so far from the action I couldn't even chirp "Heyyyy, battah, battah," which proved our coach was an astute man who knew how to strategically place his troops.
See, I was never really a baseball player. I got walked a few times. Once I stuck out my bat just so it would look like I wasn't dead, and accidentally made contact.
Single to right.
OK. So almost to right.
And yet ...
And yet, I think of my boyhood summers now, and Wildcat baseball bubbles right up. The heat. The dirt. Opening my glove one miraculous morning, and finding the baseball there.
And so I opened up the Journal Gazette this morning and saw they were calling off Wildcat baseball this summer, and I felt a pang. It's not like I didn't know it was coming, of course. The bastard plague has taken everything else, after all. No way Wildcat would be spared.
"You try to think of some alternative, and there isn't any," League President Bill Derbyshire said.
"We're in wholly, wholly unfamiliar ground. We have dealt with floods, and heat, and bugs and bees, one thing after another, but nothing like this."
Nothing like this for all of us, truth be known. For Wildcat, it will mark the first time in the organization's 59-year history there will be no season. No blue-and-red caps. No white shirts with blue piping. No "Heyyy, battah, battah," no Beckerts or Fords or Mantles or car names.
That is how Wildcat's always done it, see. Either your Kitty team was named for a major-league player -- the Beckerts, of course, being named for Cubs second baseman Glenn Beckert -- or your Kat team was the Thunderbirds or Plymouths or Dodges.
Some leagues in some locations were named for candy bars. Some had animal names. Some even had NFL team names. All of them taught kids the summer American game, and left them with enduring summer memories.
Next year, surely, that will happen again. I'll stroll past the two Wildcat diamonds over by Arlington Park Elementary, and parents will be lined up in their lawn chairs and kids in caps and shirts will swing and miss and occasionally connect. "Heyyyy, battah, battah" will rise into the blue air again, the anthem of our summer mornings for six decades.
But this year, as with so much else, the diamonds will be empty and the anthem stilled. And something will go out of my morning walks.
Heyyyy, COVID-19, COVID-19. Up yours.
Wildcat baseball, where Everybody Makes The Team. It does take a body back.
Takes me to McMillen Park, to left field, to a lot of standing around observing nature in those mid-1960s summers. Miles away, at the plate, tiny batters swung and missed. I was so far from the action I couldn't even chirp "Heyyyy, battah, battah," which proved our coach was an astute man who knew how to strategically place his troops.
See, I was never really a baseball player. I got walked a few times. Once I stuck out my bat just so it would look like I wasn't dead, and accidentally made contact.
Single to right.
OK. So almost to right.
And yet ...
And yet, I think of my boyhood summers now, and Wildcat baseball bubbles right up. The heat. The dirt. Opening my glove one miraculous morning, and finding the baseball there.
And so I opened up the Journal Gazette this morning and saw they were calling off Wildcat baseball this summer, and I felt a pang. It's not like I didn't know it was coming, of course. The bastard plague has taken everything else, after all. No way Wildcat would be spared.
"You try to think of some alternative, and there isn't any," League President Bill Derbyshire said.
"We're in wholly, wholly unfamiliar ground. We have dealt with floods, and heat, and bugs and bees, one thing after another, but nothing like this."
Nothing like this for all of us, truth be known. For Wildcat, it will mark the first time in the organization's 59-year history there will be no season. No blue-and-red caps. No white shirts with blue piping. No "Heyyy, battah, battah," no Beckerts or Fords or Mantles or car names.
That is how Wildcat's always done it, see. Either your Kitty team was named for a major-league player -- the Beckerts, of course, being named for Cubs second baseman Glenn Beckert -- or your Kat team was the Thunderbirds or Plymouths or Dodges.
Some leagues in some locations were named for candy bars. Some had animal names. Some even had NFL team names. All of them taught kids the summer American game, and left them with enduring summer memories.
Next year, surely, that will happen again. I'll stroll past the two Wildcat diamonds over by Arlington Park Elementary, and parents will be lined up in their lawn chairs and kids in caps and shirts will swing and miss and occasionally connect. "Heyyyy, battah, battah" will rise into the blue air again, the anthem of our summer mornings for six decades.
But this year, as with so much else, the diamonds will be empty and the anthem stilled. And something will go out of my morning walks.
Heyyyy, COVID-19, COVID-19. Up yours.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Worst. Week. Ever.
So John Prine is gone, killed by the bastard plague, and there are songs in my head now. I'm an Angel from Montgomery and a ruin of a man named Sam Stone, broken in the service of his country. I'm Jesus wandering through his Missing Years. I'm Donald, and also Lydia.
I've been to Lake Marie and Paradise and Mars and the Twin Cities. I've eaten pork chops and Beaujolais, lonely little hotdog buns and four Italian sausages, cookin' on the outdoor grill.
And, man, they was sssssizzlin'.
All of the above and more were in the music of John Prine, who wrote some of the most memorable ballads, and lyrics, of your time and mine. Bob Dylan thought he was a genius. Roger Ebert stumbled on him one night in a Chicago joint only because the popcorn was too salty in a nearby movie theater. A kid country-and-western artist named Kacey Musgraves wrote a song about him.
"Burn One with John Prine." Maybe you've heard it.
In any case, you already know my allegiance to the man -- soundtrack to our honeymoon, all that. And you know the bastard plague made the Blob all kinds of wrong in just 24 hours, because 24 hours ago I wrote that 2020 was being a gaping orifice.
I was wrong about that. Just this week is a gaping orifice.
First it took Bill Withers.
Then it took Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline.
Now John Prine.
That's a hell of an asshat week.
And here's a hell of an out for this post, because John Prine could sign off from this earthly realm a whole lot better than any of us could:
Oodles of light what a beautiful sight
Both of God's eyes are shining tonight
Rays and beams of incredible dreams
And I am a quiet man
Rest easy, quiet man.
I've been to Lake Marie and Paradise and Mars and the Twin Cities. I've eaten pork chops and Beaujolais, lonely little hotdog buns and four Italian sausages, cookin' on the outdoor grill.
And, man, they was sssssizzlin'.
All of the above and more were in the music of John Prine, who wrote some of the most memorable ballads, and lyrics, of your time and mine. Bob Dylan thought he was a genius. Roger Ebert stumbled on him one night in a Chicago joint only because the popcorn was too salty in a nearby movie theater. A kid country-and-western artist named Kacey Musgraves wrote a song about him.
"Burn One with John Prine." Maybe you've heard it.
In any case, you already know my allegiance to the man -- soundtrack to our honeymoon, all that. And you know the bastard plague made the Blob all kinds of wrong in just 24 hours, because 24 hours ago I wrote that 2020 was being a gaping orifice.
I was wrong about that. Just this week is a gaping orifice.
First it took Bill Withers.
Then it took Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline.
Now John Prine.
That's a hell of an asshat week.
And here's a hell of an out for this post, because John Prine could sign off from this earthly realm a whole lot better than any of us could:
Oodles of light what a beautiful sight
Both of God's eyes are shining tonight
Rays and beams of incredible dreams
And I am a quiet man
Rest easy, quiet man.
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Worst. Year. Ever.
You know what this is now, three months deep in another year. This is 2020 just being a gaping orifice, and you know which one.
Us: Good lord! Can 2020 get any worse?
2020: Hold my beer.
And then takes Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline, just to be even more of a jerk.
A few words about Al Kaline, who died Monday at 85. He played right field for the Detroit Tigers for 22 seasons, which is how he earned the handle "Mr. Tiger." Also, he batted .297 with 399 home runs, 1,583 RBI and 3,007 hits across those 22 years. Also, he played right field like he invented it, was so good he went to the majors straight out of high school, and, when he was 20 years old, batted .340 to become the youngest player in baseball history to win a batting title.
That's who Al Kaline was.
Now let me tell you who else he is.
He's the guy who made me think of my father just now.
This happens a lot with baseball, because baseball more than almost anything ties generations together in America. Partly this is because it's been around for so many generations; partly it's because, across those generations, it has been an American father's duty to introduce his sons and daughters to the American game. Your father did it and his father did it and on and on back to the days when one of the few things that tied Billy Yank and Johnny Reb together, even when they were busy slaughtering one another, was baseball.
Billy played it on his side of the national divide, and Johnny played it on his. It was irrefutable proof that, even in the midst of a civil war, both sides were still fundamentally American under the skin. A strike was still a strike and the ump still needed glasses whether you were clambering up Little Round Top or standing fast on its boulder-strewn crest.
But back to my father.
He was never much of a baseball fan, but when I heard Al Kaline had passed, a specific memory bubbled up. The year was 1968, Kaline's Tigers were down a 3-1 hole in the World Series against Bob Gibson and the Cardinals, and Dad was in the hospital recovering from back surgery. And one day he sent me a note to see how I was doing -- how I was doing, get that -- and in it he mentioned the Series, and how the Tigers were "really going to have to hustle to pull this one out of the fire."
I don't know why I remember that part, word for word. I remember nothing else about his note so exactly, except for that.
But this is what baseball does, I suppose. Its shared experience imprints upon us memories that are somehow clearer and more precise than virtually any other cultural touchstone in American life. And in those days, if you lived in Fort Wayne, baseball meant the Tigers, unless it meant the Cubs (or, in the odd circumstance, the White Sox.)
Geography had much to do with that; so did the fact one of the local TV stations occasionally aired Tigers and Cubs games. So you grew up with Bill Freehan and Mickey Lolitch and Norm Cash and Willie Horton and Jim Northrup -- and of course the Tiger-est Tiger of them all, Al Kaline.
Who batted .379 in the '68 Series, and hit two dingers, and drove in eight runs. And, yes, played right field like he invented it, as the Tigers indeed rallied to pull this one out of the fire.
And now he's gone. But not, blessedly, before leaving me with a little piece of my father, who is also gone.
Stick that one up your orifice, 2020.
Us: Good lord! Can 2020 get any worse?
2020: Hold my beer.
And then takes Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline, just to be even more of a jerk.
A few words about Al Kaline, who died Monday at 85. He played right field for the Detroit Tigers for 22 seasons, which is how he earned the handle "Mr. Tiger." Also, he batted .297 with 399 home runs, 1,583 RBI and 3,007 hits across those 22 years. Also, he played right field like he invented it, was so good he went to the majors straight out of high school, and, when he was 20 years old, batted .340 to become the youngest player in baseball history to win a batting title.
That's who Al Kaline was.
Now let me tell you who else he is.
He's the guy who made me think of my father just now.
This happens a lot with baseball, because baseball more than almost anything ties generations together in America. Partly this is because it's been around for so many generations; partly it's because, across those generations, it has been an American father's duty to introduce his sons and daughters to the American game. Your father did it and his father did it and on and on back to the days when one of the few things that tied Billy Yank and Johnny Reb together, even when they were busy slaughtering one another, was baseball.
Billy played it on his side of the national divide, and Johnny played it on his. It was irrefutable proof that, even in the midst of a civil war, both sides were still fundamentally American under the skin. A strike was still a strike and the ump still needed glasses whether you were clambering up Little Round Top or standing fast on its boulder-strewn crest.
But back to my father.
He was never much of a baseball fan, but when I heard Al Kaline had passed, a specific memory bubbled up. The year was 1968, Kaline's Tigers were down a 3-1 hole in the World Series against Bob Gibson and the Cardinals, and Dad was in the hospital recovering from back surgery. And one day he sent me a note to see how I was doing -- how I was doing, get that -- and in it he mentioned the Series, and how the Tigers were "really going to have to hustle to pull this one out of the fire."
I don't know why I remember that part, word for word. I remember nothing else about his note so exactly, except for that.
But this is what baseball does, I suppose. Its shared experience imprints upon us memories that are somehow clearer and more precise than virtually any other cultural touchstone in American life. And in those days, if you lived in Fort Wayne, baseball meant the Tigers, unless it meant the Cubs (or, in the odd circumstance, the White Sox.)
Geography had much to do with that; so did the fact one of the local TV stations occasionally aired Tigers and Cubs games. So you grew up with Bill Freehan and Mickey Lolitch and Norm Cash and Willie Horton and Jim Northrup -- and of course the Tiger-est Tiger of them all, Al Kaline.
Who batted .379 in the '68 Series, and hit two dingers, and drove in eight runs. And, yes, played right field like he invented it, as the Tigers indeed rallied to pull this one out of the fire.
And now he's gone. But not, blessedly, before leaving me with a little piece of my father, who is also gone.
Stick that one up your orifice, 2020.
Monday, April 6, 2020
Adventures in virtuality
You've gotta hand it to those NASCAR folks. They're keepin' as real as they can keep it here in Plague America.
Yesterday, they took their iRacing show to Bristol, virtually speaking, and all manner of hijinks ensued. Jimmie Johnson "fired" his "spotter" 20 laps into the race after crashing into another car he had supposedly cleared. Internet issues caused Erik Jones to miss qualifying. Daniel Suarez was bitching real-life style after Kyle Larson "wrecked" him.
Oh, and Clint Bowyer pined for another beer after Bubba Wallace "pushed" him out of line. Then Bubba got honked off and bailed out of the game, just like actual gamers do all the time.
His fans subsequently began ripping him on Twitter, as if this were real or something. Blu-Emu, one of his sponsors "fired" him. And Wallace had a good laugh at all the silliness.
"I ruined so many people's day by quitting ... a video game," he marveled.
Well, hey, Bubba. Everybody's got their way to cope.
Me?
Well, yesterday I flipped on the tube and saw CBS was airing the 2012 NCAA championship game between Kentucky and Kansas, which reminded me that today would have been the day of the title game in a world gone sane. So this afternoon, I think I'll tape "One Shining Moment," walk down to the playground and play it while I shoot free throws.
We do what we can.
Yesterday, they took their iRacing show to Bristol, virtually speaking, and all manner of hijinks ensued. Jimmie Johnson "fired" his "spotter" 20 laps into the race after crashing into another car he had supposedly cleared. Internet issues caused Erik Jones to miss qualifying. Daniel Suarez was bitching real-life style after Kyle Larson "wrecked" him.
Oh, and Clint Bowyer pined for another beer after Bubba Wallace "pushed" him out of line. Then Bubba got honked off and bailed out of the game, just like actual gamers do all the time.
His fans subsequently began ripping him on Twitter, as if this were real or something. Blu-Emu, one of his sponsors "fired" him. And Wallace had a good laugh at all the silliness.
"I ruined so many people's day by quitting ... a video game," he marveled.
Well, hey, Bubba. Everybody's got their way to cope.
Me?
Well, yesterday I flipped on the tube and saw CBS was airing the 2012 NCAA championship game between Kentucky and Kansas, which reminded me that today would have been the day of the title game in a world gone sane. So this afternoon, I think I'll tape "One Shining Moment," walk down to the playground and play it while I shoot free throws.
We do what we can.
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Mad skills
Look, I get it. Desperation is the mother of more desperation, or some such thing.
Which is why I'm not going to snicker (much) at the news that the NBA and ESPN are trying to put together a H-O-R-S-E competition starring some of the top names in pro buckets. The way it would work is -- I think -- players would go to gyms near where they're sheltering in place and compete against one another remotely. And ESPN would telecast it.
Yes, it's kind of a silly idea, but no sillier than the All-Star dunk contest has become. Once Blake Griffin jumped that car, the dunk contest jumped the shark. Now it's just a bunch of supremely athletic guys being supremely athletic. This tends to take the drama out of things.
But you can only air that 30-for-30 about the Spirits of St. Louis so many times. ESPN's got to do something to fill all those endless hours.
Hence, Luka Doncic vs. Giannis Antetokounmpo in H-O-R-S-E. First one to make a left-handed hook shot from behind the backboard wins.
If he proves it.
Skills competitions have always been the court of last resort to fill All-Star weekends and such, and Plague America is an All-Star weekend on steroids. So maybe, in addition to a remote H-O-R-S-E tournament, we should start thinking about a remote Home Run Derby, a remote Closest-To-The-Hole, a remote Shoot-The-Puck-Through-A-Little-Slot-At-The-Bottom-Of-A-Boarded-Up-Goal.
Winner gets a free car. Not that he can drive anywhere in it.
In any event, this is what we have to look forward to for the foreseeable future. At the moment, even college football and NFL seasons are up in the air. Remote Punt, Pass and Kick tournaments, anyone?
In the meantime, the Blob offers a preview of the H-O-R-S-E tournament.
Off the floor, off the scoreboard, off the backboard, no rim. Killer.
Which is why I'm not going to snicker (much) at the news that the NBA and ESPN are trying to put together a H-O-R-S-E competition starring some of the top names in pro buckets. The way it would work is -- I think -- players would go to gyms near where they're sheltering in place and compete against one another remotely. And ESPN would telecast it.
Yes, it's kind of a silly idea, but no sillier than the All-Star dunk contest has become. Once Blake Griffin jumped that car, the dunk contest jumped the shark. Now it's just a bunch of supremely athletic guys being supremely athletic. This tends to take the drama out of things.
But you can only air that 30-for-30 about the Spirits of St. Louis so many times. ESPN's got to do something to fill all those endless hours.
Hence, Luka Doncic vs. Giannis Antetokounmpo in H-O-R-S-E. First one to make a left-handed hook shot from behind the backboard wins.
If he proves it.
Skills competitions have always been the court of last resort to fill All-Star weekends and such, and Plague America is an All-Star weekend on steroids. So maybe, in addition to a remote H-O-R-S-E tournament, we should start thinking about a remote Home Run Derby, a remote Closest-To-The-Hole, a remote Shoot-The-Puck-Through-A-Little-Slot-At-The-Bottom-Of-A-Boarded-Up-Goal.
Winner gets a free car. Not that he can drive anywhere in it.
In any event, this is what we have to look forward to for the foreseeable future. At the moment, even college football and NFL seasons are up in the air. Remote Punt, Pass and Kick tournaments, anyone?
In the meantime, the Blob offers a preview of the H-O-R-S-E tournament.
Off the floor, off the scoreboard, off the backboard, no rim. Killer.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Anti-social distancing
No one ever went broke betting on human beings' ability to be awful and stupid. It's a growth industry, as they say.
And so we come to the latest stupid human trick: Zoom-bombing.
If you don't know what Zoom is yet, why, you're just a caveman staring at fire, technologically speaking. Zoom is the new social media thing, here in Plague America. It's like FaceTime only you can hook up a whole pile of people at once and conduct family chats, virtual happy hours and kinda-sorta birthday parties without resorting to human contact with the possibly diseased.
(Or family members with whom you'd just as soon not have human contact. If you know what I mean.)
Anyway ... it's a poor substitute for the social ramble. But we do what we can in these strange and science-fiction-y times.
Leave it to human beings to ruin even that, however.
See, what some of the more soulless among us are doing (aside from gobbling nacho-cheese Bugles as they hunch over their devices in the darkness of mom's basement) is jumping people's Zoom feeds and filling them with pornographic images and other niceties. Presumably when they're not doing that, they're pulling the wings off flies or some such thing.
This brings us to New York Rangers prospect K'Andre Miller, and a Zoom encounter gone horribly wrong.
Miller, who is African-American, was taking part in a 20-minute Q&A with fans on Zoom Friday afternoon when the section for questions was swamped with Zoom-bombers publishing the Queen Mother of racial slurs over and over again. It got so bad the comments section had to be shut down.
Nice, huh?
Thankfully, the Rangers, the NHL and several of Miller's teammates immediately reacted, calling the Zoom-bomber cowards and racists on Twitter. Both were accurate assessments.
Several others come to mind, but this being a nominally family-friendly Blob, we will refrain.
Except to say there are some sick people in this world. And COVID-19's got nothing to do with it.
And so we come to the latest stupid human trick: Zoom-bombing.
If you don't know what Zoom is yet, why, you're just a caveman staring at fire, technologically speaking. Zoom is the new social media thing, here in Plague America. It's like FaceTime only you can hook up a whole pile of people at once and conduct family chats, virtual happy hours and kinda-sorta birthday parties without resorting to human contact with the possibly diseased.
(Or family members with whom you'd just as soon not have human contact. If you know what I mean.)
Anyway ... it's a poor substitute for the social ramble. But we do what we can in these strange and science-fiction-y times.
Leave it to human beings to ruin even that, however.
See, what some of the more soulless among us are doing (aside from gobbling nacho-cheese Bugles as they hunch over their devices in the darkness of mom's basement) is jumping people's Zoom feeds and filling them with pornographic images and other niceties. Presumably when they're not doing that, they're pulling the wings off flies or some such thing.
This brings us to New York Rangers prospect K'Andre Miller, and a Zoom encounter gone horribly wrong.
Miller, who is African-American, was taking part in a 20-minute Q&A with fans on Zoom Friday afternoon when the section for questions was swamped with Zoom-bombers publishing the Queen Mother of racial slurs over and over again. It got so bad the comments section had to be shut down.
Nice, huh?
Thankfully, the Rangers, the NHL and several of Miller's teammates immediately reacted, calling the Zoom-bomber cowards and racists on Twitter. Both were accurate assessments.
Several others come to mind, but this being a nominally family-friendly Blob, we will refrain.
Except to say there are some sick people in this world. And COVID-19's got nothing to do with it.
Friday, April 3, 2020
The devil gets his due
OK, so not the devil devil. That is stretching your Team Hate to absurd lengths.
The Team in question, in this case, is the New England Patriots, whom a whole lot of folks west of the Berkshires detest with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. But in this Year of the Bastard Plague, nothing is so simple anymore. This tends to happen when people get sick and people die at unfathomable rates, and what we always assumed was the invulnerability of American life turns out not to be invulnerable at all.
So it is with our what we always assumed were our invulnerable sensibilities, too.
The article of faith that our team was good and the Patriots were bad, very bad, almost as bad as the Astros, even, is looking pretty shredded right now. This upon the news that the Patriots handed over their team plane to the state of Massachusetts for a mercy mission -- i.e., flying 1.2 million N95 masks from China to Massachusetts to help battle the COVID-19 epidemic.
So the Bastard Plague comes and suddenly we can't even hate the Patriots anymore.
Of course, we could all assume this is just a nefarious plot on the part of the Patriots to make it impossible to hate them anymore. But that one really doesn't have any legs at all.
No, the narrative now is the Patriots are the good guys. Whether we like it or not.
Dammit.
The Team in question, in this case, is the New England Patriots, whom a whole lot of folks west of the Berkshires detest with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. But in this Year of the Bastard Plague, nothing is so simple anymore. This tends to happen when people get sick and people die at unfathomable rates, and what we always assumed was the invulnerability of American life turns out not to be invulnerable at all.
So it is with our what we always assumed were our invulnerable sensibilities, too.
The article of faith that our team was good and the Patriots were bad, very bad, almost as bad as the Astros, even, is looking pretty shredded right now. This upon the news that the Patriots handed over their team plane to the state of Massachusetts for a mercy mission -- i.e., flying 1.2 million N95 masks from China to Massachusetts to help battle the COVID-19 epidemic.
So the Bastard Plague comes and suddenly we can't even hate the Patriots anymore.
Of course, we could all assume this is just a nefarious plot on the part of the Patriots to make it impossible to hate them anymore. But that one really doesn't have any legs at all.
No, the narrative now is the Patriots are the good guys. Whether we like it or not.
Dammit.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Welcome to Make Your Own Fun Day
So it's April now, baseball season, and in my dreams it is 1971 and Steve Blass is pitching and Manny Sanguillen is catching, and Roberto the Magnificent is throwing that guy out at third, on the fly, from deepest right field.
It's April, and down in Augusta, Ga., it is 1986 and the azaleas are blooming and Jack is taking that leisurely stroll up the 18th fairway, the place pouring out its love on his doddering old head.
In my dreams, it's April, and Havlicek is stealing the ball. It's May, and Mario's taking the checkers at Indy. It's July, and Borg is lashing one last sizzler down the line while McEnroe, utterly spent, falls to the Centre Court grass and lies unmoving.
The imagination is our playground now, with all the real playgrounds gone dark. Your memories are your high-def TV with theater seating and surroundsound, and you enhance them by cruising YouTube or flipping on your actual TV and watching replays of old NCAA Tournament games, old World Series games, old wars between Bird and Magic, Sayers and Nitschke, Ali and Frazier.
Me?
Indy gearhead that I am, I've taken to watching highlight packages of ancient Indianapolis 500s. Here's Mario winning. Here's Parnelli Jones in the STP turbine, breaking with four laps to run. Here's Lloyd Ruby breaking, endlessly, endlessly.
Al Unser and the Johnny Lightning Special. Jimmy Clark and that green Lotus-Powered-By-Ford. Mark Donohue and the navy Sunoco McLaren, No. 66 always in our hearts and minds.
I've got an endless supply of these, are at least 103 of them. But then I've got an endless supply of hours right now, being 65 and mostly retired and with nowhere to go but the grocery for who knows how long.
Before long, I'll be doing what my good friend and former colleague, the esteemed Hall of Famer Steve Warden, did on his Facebook page recently. Said he didn't know what anyone else was going to do, but he was going to watch baseball. And then posted that wonderful clip of Jack Nicholson calling an imaginary World Series in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest."
Yessir. That's about where we are now.
It's April, and down in Augusta, Ga., it is 1986 and the azaleas are blooming and Jack is taking that leisurely stroll up the 18th fairway, the place pouring out its love on his doddering old head.
In my dreams, it's April, and Havlicek is stealing the ball. It's May, and Mario's taking the checkers at Indy. It's July, and Borg is lashing one last sizzler down the line while McEnroe, utterly spent, falls to the Centre Court grass and lies unmoving.
The imagination is our playground now, with all the real playgrounds gone dark. Your memories are your high-def TV with theater seating and surroundsound, and you enhance them by cruising YouTube or flipping on your actual TV and watching replays of old NCAA Tournament games, old World Series games, old wars between Bird and Magic, Sayers and Nitschke, Ali and Frazier.
Me?
Indy gearhead that I am, I've taken to watching highlight packages of ancient Indianapolis 500s. Here's Mario winning. Here's Parnelli Jones in the STP turbine, breaking with four laps to run. Here's Lloyd Ruby breaking, endlessly, endlessly.
Al Unser and the Johnny Lightning Special. Jimmy Clark and that green Lotus-Powered-By-Ford. Mark Donohue and the navy Sunoco McLaren, No. 66 always in our hearts and minds.
I've got an endless supply of these, are at least 103 of them. But then I've got an endless supply of hours right now, being 65 and mostly retired and with nowhere to go but the grocery for who knows how long.
Before long, I'll be doing what my good friend and former colleague, the esteemed Hall of Famer Steve Warden, did on his Facebook page recently. Said he didn't know what anyone else was going to do, but he was going to watch baseball. And then posted that wonderful clip of Jack Nicholson calling an imaginary World Series in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest."
Yessir. That's about where we are now.
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
April fooled
(Editor's note if the Blob had an editor: I wrote this for my old employer, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Please subscribe. Nothing is of more value in a free society in a time of crisis than your local press. It's your beacon through the mad times. You can subscribe online here.)
This was all so easy, back in the before time. First of April, and off you'd go, inventing.
This was all so easy, back in the before time. First of April, and off you'd go, inventing.
“We've decided to trade Bryant, Rizzo and Baez for a box of Cracker Jacks because Cracker Jacks are DELICIOUS,” you'd invent Theo Epstein saying.
Or:
“We've decided to let Coach Miller go because the Crazy Internet People make SO MUCH SENSE,” some Indiana University official would not really announce.
But it's no plush gig anymore, pranking the rubes as April slips in.
COVID-19 came and people got sick and people began to die, and life was suddenly nothing to prank about. Social beings to our last follicle, we live in a sort of national dimness now, isolated one from another in a way we can scarcely imagine even as it's happening. If this is an April foolie, it's a profoundly unfunny one.
It's also made the entire concept all but obsolete, because there's no wiggle room for invention when reality has become a mad scientist.
And so I can't concoct an April Fool's scenario in which Roger Penske, the new bus driver for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, announces he's moving the Indianapolis 500 from May to late August. Because that's actually happening.
I can't invent an empty Wrigley Field, an empty Fenway Park, an empty Yankee Stadium, because that's happening, too.
I can't fool anyone into believing an April without the Masters or Final Four, a May without the 500 or Kentucky Derby, a June without the NBA Finals or Stanley Cup Final. I can't even joke about the NFL and college football being affected, because that could actually happen, too.
Making stuff up is no fun when it's not making stuff up. Home truth.
Now, I suppose I could garnish these new realities with a few fake quotes, if I were desperate enough. Like have Roger Penske, who never sweats, say he's moving the 500 to the equatorial heat of August because he wants to see 250,000 other people sweat.
Or have Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick say Notre Dame fans won't miss coming to the Stadium on those blue-gray-sky October afternoons, because they all live in the past anyway. So they'll just fire up a few clips of Harry Stuhldreyer running the Notre Dame Box or Terry Hanratty winging it to Jim Seymour, and they'll be happy as clams.
But fake quotes without the fake framework to support them are a non-starter. And none of this is funny, anyway. It's just weird and awful, like living inside the first 200 pages of a Stephen King novel.
Although ...
Didja hear Philip Rivers is, um, an INDIANAPOLIS COLT now? And Tom Brady has left the Patriots to become – let's see – a TAMPA BAY BUCCANEER?
April Foo--!
Ah, shoot.
Or:
“We've decided to let Coach Miller go because the Crazy Internet People make SO MUCH SENSE,” some Indiana University official would not really announce.
But it's no plush gig anymore, pranking the rubes as April slips in.
COVID-19 came and people got sick and people began to die, and life was suddenly nothing to prank about. Social beings to our last follicle, we live in a sort of national dimness now, isolated one from another in a way we can scarcely imagine even as it's happening. If this is an April foolie, it's a profoundly unfunny one.
It's also made the entire concept all but obsolete, because there's no wiggle room for invention when reality has become a mad scientist.
And so I can't concoct an April Fool's scenario in which Roger Penske, the new bus driver for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, announces he's moving the Indianapolis 500 from May to late August. Because that's actually happening.
I can't invent an empty Wrigley Field, an empty Fenway Park, an empty Yankee Stadium, because that's happening, too.
I can't fool anyone into believing an April without the Masters or Final Four, a May without the 500 or Kentucky Derby, a June without the NBA Finals or Stanley Cup Final. I can't even joke about the NFL and college football being affected, because that could actually happen, too.
Making stuff up is no fun when it's not making stuff up. Home truth.
Now, I suppose I could garnish these new realities with a few fake quotes, if I were desperate enough. Like have Roger Penske, who never sweats, say he's moving the 500 to the equatorial heat of August because he wants to see 250,000 other people sweat.
Or have Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick say Notre Dame fans won't miss coming to the Stadium on those blue-gray-sky October afternoons, because they all live in the past anyway. So they'll just fire up a few clips of Harry Stuhldreyer running the Notre Dame Box or Terry Hanratty winging it to Jim Seymour, and they'll be happy as clams.
But fake quotes without the fake framework to support them are a non-starter. And none of this is funny, anyway. It's just weird and awful, like living inside the first 200 pages of a Stephen King novel.
Although ...
Didja hear Philip Rivers is, um, an INDIANAPOLIS COLT now? And Tom Brady has left the Patriots to become – let's see – a TAMPA BAY BUCCANEER?
April Foo--!
Ah, shoot.