I became geography's orphan because of Roberto Clemente.
I was a Pittsburgh Pirates fan who grew up 320 miles and two states away in Indiana, dead center in Cubs-Tigers-White Sox country. It was the 1960s and the Lumber Company -- Clemente and Pops Stargell and Manny Sanguillen and Al Oliver -- was all the rage, and I got swept up. But mostly it was because of Clemente -- a legendary hypochondriac who was always moaning and groaning about this ache or that, then went out and played baseball the way a god would play it.
He hit for average, he hit for power, he ran the bases like a banshee wind. And no one ever played right field with more sheer grace. Watching him roam his domain was like watching Nureyev dance or Yo-Yo Ma play the cello. There was music in it -- and, at the end, a clap of thunder when he uncorked another sniper throw from that cannon of an arm.
Simply put, Clemente was the most mesmerizing baseball player I ever saw. And so of course I am going to pause to remember him today, which Major League Baseball has deemed Roberto Clemente Day.
There a million reasons to take that pause. Here, more eloquently stated than I ever could, are just a few of them.
So much truth there -- particularly the observation that Clemente is far more revered in death than he was in life, or likely would be if he were playing now. He was an intelligent, prideful man who suffered fools and bigots not at all. And that likely wouldn't go over well at a time when presidential candidates (or at least one) openly pander to the sort of racism, bigotry and ignorance Clemente, with his keen sense of social justice, not only refused to tolerate but openly raised hell about.
I can just imagine the enemies he would make among the yahoos, had he come along 60 years later than he did. And I can only daydream about what he'd say about the Game Show Host, and just how loudly and persistently he'd say it.
That's why I have a Clemente jersey hanging in my closet at home. It's why I have photos of him all over our den. And it's why I have his baseball card on one of the bookshelves in my office at Manchester University.
It is, of course, on the top shelf. But you probably knew that.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Sock-er
I could write about the NBA Finals today, LeBron 'n' them (and this time there will be a "them") against the Splash Brothers in Round 2, the Warriors having successfully executed a nifty escape from oblivion against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Well, sorry. Later for that.
Today will be given over to perception, and how divorced from reality it sometimes is.
Today will be about Alan Pulido, a Mexican soccer star, and how we've got it all wrong about soccer stars. Little guys with a theatrical bent, right? Little guys flopping to the ground like they were shot 15 times at the slightest hint of contact with another player. Little guys who then hop up, miraculously cured, after the ref yanks the yellow card on the (alleged) offender.
What do you say? I'm pretty close there, right?
Well, submitted for your approval, then, I offer this. I offer Pulido, who's not terribly big himself (5-9), but who apparently went all Rambo/Jason Bourne when he was kidnapped while playing for a team in Greece. Took on his captor barehanded, wrestled his gun away from him, and then cold-cocked him with a punch. Then directed the authorities to his location while his captor lay there unconscious, sent off to sleepy time by Pulido's fist.
And to think we used to talk about the Hand of God when Maradona was playing.
Well, sorry. Later for that.
Today will be given over to perception, and how divorced from reality it sometimes is.
Today will be about Alan Pulido, a Mexican soccer star, and how we've got it all wrong about soccer stars. Little guys with a theatrical bent, right? Little guys flopping to the ground like they were shot 15 times at the slightest hint of contact with another player. Little guys who then hop up, miraculously cured, after the ref yanks the yellow card on the (alleged) offender.
What do you say? I'm pretty close there, right?
Well, submitted for your approval, then, I offer this. I offer Pulido, who's not terribly big himself (5-9), but who apparently went all Rambo/Jason Bourne when he was kidnapped while playing for a team in Greece. Took on his captor barehanded, wrestled his gun away from him, and then cold-cocked him with a punch. Then directed the authorities to his location while his captor lay there unconscious, sent off to sleepy time by Pulido's fist.
And to think we used to talk about the Hand of God when Maradona was playing.
Monday, May 30, 2016
A few thoughts, the day after
I can see what this was now, after the sun has finally set on a day that began in the predawn darkness. This was Throwback Indy.
This was 350,000 souls jamming the roads and parking lots and every inch of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 1970s style -- you kept expecting to look out on the track and see A.J. Foyt's orange Coyote hunkered on the pole -- and there was an odd thrill to it, a certain electricity. Like when you heard, in some Speedway gift shop sometime on Sunday morning, that "there is now a 30-minute wait at the checkout line." Instead of groaning, you thought "Awesome."
This was '70s masses and a '60s feel, with a huge roar going up from those masses when Brazilians Tony Kanaan or Helio Castroneves went to the lead. Indy is the transcendent motorsports event in the world because everyone in the world races in it, making it a worldwide event and not just a backyard American brawl like NASCAR. And its audience loves that about it, roots as hard for its favorite foreign drivers as for its favorite Americans. And so when the roar went up for TK or Helio, it called to mind those moments in the '60s when flying Scots Jackie Stewart or Jim Clark went to the lead, or Graham Hill from England.
This was a '70s crowd with a '60s feel and a winner who felt familiar, too, in an odd sort of way. No one had heard of Alexander Rossi before he gambled and won yesterday, coasting across the yard of brick on dry tanks. It wasn't the most esthetically pleasing finish to the 100th 500, and Rossi wasn't the identifiable face a lot of people might have wanted. He wasn't even demonstrative enough for some in Victory Lane, looking more stunned than elated as he was coaxed through the ritual swigging-and-dumping-on-your-head of the milk.
All of which kind of took me back to a certain year in the '70s.
It was 1979 and another undemonstrative Californian won that day, and hardly anyone knew much about him, either. They would, of course, after Rick Mears went on to win four 500s and etch his name deeply into the thick history of the event and place. But in '79, he was barely two years removed from Roger Penske plucking him from the obscurity of off-road racing. And his demeanor ... well, flamboyance was not his thing, shall we say. Even at 26, he seemed more the cool calculator than a drop-the-hammer wild child, older somehow than he looked.
Rossi, same deal. At 24, toughened by seven years in Europe negotiating the political jungle of Formula One and its feeder system, he, too, seems older and wiser than his years. A young man of clearly immense self-assurance, he handled all the winner's hoopla with poise even though it clearly wasn't him -- and who, even in the moment, kept his eye on a prize far larger than just him or the fortunes of his race team.
"It won't sink in for awhile," he said in the postrace. "I don't want it to. I want to enjoy this moment, enjoy it with people around me. It's obviously a huge honor and privilege, something I'm going to carry with a great sense of responsibility.
"We need to really push this forward. It was an incredible event for the hundredth running of the 500. We need to do everything in our power to continue the momentum forward, make it even bigger next year."
Pretty remarkable perspective for a 24-year-old who'd just won the biggest race at Indy in a century. And oddly appropriate, in its way, for a day given over to history and its celebration.
This was 350,000 souls jamming the roads and parking lots and every inch of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 1970s style -- you kept expecting to look out on the track and see A.J. Foyt's orange Coyote hunkered on the pole -- and there was an odd thrill to it, a certain electricity. Like when you heard, in some Speedway gift shop sometime on Sunday morning, that "there is now a 30-minute wait at the checkout line." Instead of groaning, you thought "Awesome."
This was '70s masses and a '60s feel, with a huge roar going up from those masses when Brazilians Tony Kanaan or Helio Castroneves went to the lead. Indy is the transcendent motorsports event in the world because everyone in the world races in it, making it a worldwide event and not just a backyard American brawl like NASCAR. And its audience loves that about it, roots as hard for its favorite foreign drivers as for its favorite Americans. And so when the roar went up for TK or Helio, it called to mind those moments in the '60s when flying Scots Jackie Stewart or Jim Clark went to the lead, or Graham Hill from England.
This was a '70s crowd with a '60s feel and a winner who felt familiar, too, in an odd sort of way. No one had heard of Alexander Rossi before he gambled and won yesterday, coasting across the yard of brick on dry tanks. It wasn't the most esthetically pleasing finish to the 100th 500, and Rossi wasn't the identifiable face a lot of people might have wanted. He wasn't even demonstrative enough for some in Victory Lane, looking more stunned than elated as he was coaxed through the ritual swigging-and-dumping-on-your-head of the milk.
All of which kind of took me back to a certain year in the '70s.
It was 1979 and another undemonstrative Californian won that day, and hardly anyone knew much about him, either. They would, of course, after Rick Mears went on to win four 500s and etch his name deeply into the thick history of the event and place. But in '79, he was barely two years removed from Roger Penske plucking him from the obscurity of off-road racing. And his demeanor ... well, flamboyance was not his thing, shall we say. Even at 26, he seemed more the cool calculator than a drop-the-hammer wild child, older somehow than he looked.
Rossi, same deal. At 24, toughened by seven years in Europe negotiating the political jungle of Formula One and its feeder system, he, too, seems older and wiser than his years. A young man of clearly immense self-assurance, he handled all the winner's hoopla with poise even though it clearly wasn't him -- and who, even in the moment, kept his eye on a prize far larger than just him or the fortunes of his race team.
"It won't sink in for awhile," he said in the postrace. "I don't want it to. I want to enjoy this moment, enjoy it with people around me. It's obviously a huge honor and privilege, something I'm going to carry with a great sense of responsibility.
"We need to really push this forward. It was an incredible event for the hundredth running of the 500. We need to do everything in our power to continue the momentum forward, make it even bigger next year."
Pretty remarkable perspective for a 24-year-old who'd just won the biggest race at Indy in a century. And oddly appropriate, in its way, for a day given over to history and its celebration.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Morning at Indy
INDIANAPOLIS -- The best part of Race Day at Indy comes early, before the place is a living human carpet, before all the ceremony and pageantry and shrieking enignes.
It's a time of day when the sun touches only the top part of the blockhouses in Gasoline Alley, when the people lining the balconies overlooking A.J. Foyt's garages in Building A -- yes, people are lining the balconies, and it's barely 7 a.m. -- have to squint to see anything, have to shade their eyes as they look down on the nosecones and engine cowlings scattered about.
Everything is in tear-down mode, at this early hour. The engines are uncovered. Crew members hover over them. Outside polesitter James Hinchcliffe's garage, a crewman pulls out a wrench, gives a bolt on the rear wing a crank, stands back to study it. Then he leans in and gives it another crank or two.
A few garages over, an engine fires up, bap-bap-bap-bap. It's Buddy Lazier's No. 4, and as it growls and snaps, the first sharp tang of racing fuel taints the morning air.
It doesn't smell like victory, to quote Robert Duvall in "Apocalypse Now." But it does smell like race morning.
It also reminds you this is an occasion like few others, never more so than this year. There will be 350,000 souls or thereabouts in this vast expanse, before too long; not long after, the 33 will come to the green, and we'll get this party started.
But, first, a couple of random thoughts, entirely unconnected and perhaps of no consequence:
1. Winning the pole ain't what it used to be.
Twenty winners have come from the pole position, good news for Hinchcliffe. The bad news is no one has won from the pole since Helio Castroneves did it in 2009, his third 500 victory.
2. Once again, the winner will not be named Smith.
This is because, once again, no one named Smith is in the field. No one named Smith has ever been in the field in 100 years. I think I can speak for the entire Smith clan when I say this is a supreme disappointment.
3.Speaking of trivia, here's a personal favorite: No one named Smith has ever raced in the 500, but two guys named Dario have won it.
That would be Dario Resta (1916) and Dario Franchitti (2007, 2010, 2012). Even more deliciously bizarre, both were from Great Britain (Franchitti's a Scot) but also had Italian roots.
4. There are six former winners in the field. Four of them are starting from the fifth row on back.
In fact, there is a whole pile of guys used to running up front who are starting mid-pack and beyond: Scott Dixon (13th), Marco Andretti (14th) Juan Pablo Montoya (17th), Tony Kanaan (18th), Ed Carpenter (20th), Graham Rahal (26th). Which means there will be some interesting stuff going on back there once the green drops.
Can't wait.
It's a time of day when the sun touches only the top part of the blockhouses in Gasoline Alley, when the people lining the balconies overlooking A.J. Foyt's garages in Building A -- yes, people are lining the balconies, and it's barely 7 a.m. -- have to squint to see anything, have to shade their eyes as they look down on the nosecones and engine cowlings scattered about.
Everything is in tear-down mode, at this early hour. The engines are uncovered. Crew members hover over them. Outside polesitter James Hinchcliffe's garage, a crewman pulls out a wrench, gives a bolt on the rear wing a crank, stands back to study it. Then he leans in and gives it another crank or two.
A few garages over, an engine fires up, bap-bap-bap-bap. It's Buddy Lazier's No. 4, and as it growls and snaps, the first sharp tang of racing fuel taints the morning air.
It doesn't smell like victory, to quote Robert Duvall in "Apocalypse Now." But it does smell like race morning.
It also reminds you this is an occasion like few others, never more so than this year. There will be 350,000 souls or thereabouts in this vast expanse, before too long; not long after, the 33 will come to the green, and we'll get this party started.
But, first, a couple of random thoughts, entirely unconnected and perhaps of no consequence:
1. Winning the pole ain't what it used to be.
Twenty winners have come from the pole position, good news for Hinchcliffe. The bad news is no one has won from the pole since Helio Castroneves did it in 2009, his third 500 victory.
2. Once again, the winner will not be named Smith.
This is because, once again, no one named Smith is in the field. No one named Smith has ever been in the field in 100 years. I think I can speak for the entire Smith clan when I say this is a supreme disappointment.
3.Speaking of trivia, here's a personal favorite: No one named Smith has ever raced in the 500, but two guys named Dario have won it.
That would be Dario Resta (1916) and Dario Franchitti (2007, 2010, 2012). Even more deliciously bizarre, both were from Great Britain (Franchitti's a Scot) but also had Italian roots.
4. There are six former winners in the field. Four of them are starting from the fifth row on back.
In fact, there is a whole pile of guys used to running up front who are starting mid-pack and beyond: Scott Dixon (13th), Marco Andretti (14th) Juan Pablo Montoya (17th), Tony Kanaan (18th), Ed Carpenter (20th), Graham Rahal (26th). Which means there will be some interesting stuff going on back there once the green drops.
Can't wait.
Not dead yet
Zero chance. That's what we all thought, right?
Zero chance the Golden State Warriors would win to Oklahoma City in Game 6 last night, zero chance, with it win or go home, that they would do anything but go home. No way the Thunder wouldn't close it outat home, not after destroying the Warriors in OKC in Games 3 and 4. No way the Warriors could survive, down by seven in the skinny minutes and looking late for their own funeral.
So, of course, it didn't happen.
Klay Thompson went off for 41 points and 11 3-pointers, Steph Curry was Steph Curry (31 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists) and the Warriors reminded everyone that, ahem, they did win those 73 games. It wasn't just a happy Bay Area dream. Final score: 108-101. Next up: A Game 7 back home in the Oracle.
Which proves what again, children?
That's why they play the games. Very good.
And that's why we shouldn't assume the Warriors will close it out in Game 7 anymore than we shouldn't have assumed OKC would close it out in Game 6. Assumptions, in case you haven't figured it out by now, are death in sports.
And -- in case you haven't figured this out yet -- that's what makes them great.
Zero chance the Golden State Warriors would win to Oklahoma City in Game 6 last night, zero chance, with it win or go home, that they would do anything but go home. No way the Thunder wouldn't close it outat home, not after destroying the Warriors in OKC in Games 3 and 4. No way the Warriors could survive, down by seven in the skinny minutes and looking late for their own funeral.
So, of course, it didn't happen.
Klay Thompson went off for 41 points and 11 3-pointers, Steph Curry was Steph Curry (31 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists) and the Warriors reminded everyone that, ahem, they did win those 73 games. It wasn't just a happy Bay Area dream. Final score: 108-101. Next up: A Game 7 back home in the Oracle.
Which proves what again, children?
That's why they play the games. Very good.
And that's why we shouldn't assume the Warriors will close it out in Game 7 anymore than we shouldn't have assumed OKC would close it out in Game 6. Assumptions, in case you haven't figured it out by now, are death in sports.
And -- in case you haven't figured this out yet -- that's what makes them great.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Same stuff, different day
This was about bottom lines, in the end. Nothing else. It was about what men (and, yes, women, too) will do in service to the revenue stream, what they will ignore or pretend isn't happening because the revenue stream is all, high-end college athletics long ago abandoning the fiction that it's part of the larger university mission.
No, sir. High-end college athletics is a separate entity now, an engine of commerce only. And that especially pertains to football, the mightiest engine of commerce there is.
And so no praise today for Baylor University for "doing the right thing" by firing football coach Art Briles and demoting Ken Starr (yes, that Ken Starr) from university president to chancellor and law instructor. Baylor did not do this because it got a sudden attack of conscience, or because of some newfound sensitivity for the victims of the alleged sexual predators on its football team. It did this only because the cascade of revelations was threatening to hurt the football program.
In other words: Same motivation, different day.
The same instinct that led Baylor to pervert its own process regarding sexual assault allegations -- why would members of the football staff be allowed to interview alleged victims of the football team, unless it was to convince them to shut up? -- led it to purge Briles and demote Starr. And even at that, how does Ken Starr get to keep drawing a paycheck?
This was, after all, an institutional failure not just of athletics but of the university's policy regarding sexual assault on its campus. And the responsibility for that goes straight to the top. So how is Starr not on the street, too?
(Quick aside: What splendid irony this is. Ken Starr, who made his rep chasing Bill Clinton to the ends of the earth because of Clinton's sexual misconduct, presiding over sexual misconduct -- rampant sexual misconduct, apparently -- at Baylor. Seems his outrage over Monica Lewinsky's exploitation was not transferrable to Baylor. Clinton, after all, was only the President of the United States, not a football powerhouse in Texas.)
In any case, you could lose a bundle betting Baylor's actions yesterday indicated it had seen the error of its ways. More like seeing it got caught red-handed protecting the revenue stream, same as any other corporate interest.
Bidness is bidness, after all. Everything else is just everything else.
No, sir. High-end college athletics is a separate entity now, an engine of commerce only. And that especially pertains to football, the mightiest engine of commerce there is.
And so no praise today for Baylor University for "doing the right thing" by firing football coach Art Briles and demoting Ken Starr (yes, that Ken Starr) from university president to chancellor and law instructor. Baylor did not do this because it got a sudden attack of conscience, or because of some newfound sensitivity for the victims of the alleged sexual predators on its football team. It did this only because the cascade of revelations was threatening to hurt the football program.
In other words: Same motivation, different day.
The same instinct that led Baylor to pervert its own process regarding sexual assault allegations -- why would members of the football staff be allowed to interview alleged victims of the football team, unless it was to convince them to shut up? -- led it to purge Briles and demote Starr. And even at that, how does Ken Starr get to keep drawing a paycheck?
This was, after all, an institutional failure not just of athletics but of the university's policy regarding sexual assault on its campus. And the responsibility for that goes straight to the top. So how is Starr not on the street, too?
(Quick aside: What splendid irony this is. Ken Starr, who made his rep chasing Bill Clinton to the ends of the earth because of Clinton's sexual misconduct, presiding over sexual misconduct -- rampant sexual misconduct, apparently -- at Baylor. Seems his outrage over Monica Lewinsky's exploitation was not transferrable to Baylor. Clinton, after all, was only the President of the United States, not a football powerhouse in Texas.)
In any case, you could lose a bundle betting Baylor's actions yesterday indicated it had seen the error of its ways. More like seeing it got caught red-handed protecting the revenue stream, same as any other corporate interest.
Bidness is bidness, after all. Everything else is just everything else.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
The dream dissolves
It's never a pretty thing, watching the invincible become mortal. And so these days Golden State Warriors fans are challenging NBA analysts to fights in bars, and the team owner is getting into it with opposing fans at games, and, well, like we said. Not pretty.
It has, after all, been such a grand dream, seductive in the sense all grand dreams are seductive. You think it's never going to end, even though no dream in recorded history has ever not ended. That hasn't happened yet for the Warriors, but it's looking like it will.
This after the Warriors lost Game 1 of the Western Conference finals at home, where they lost just one game during their epic 73-win regular season, and then they went out to Oklahoma City and got embarrassed in a way no one imagined possible. The Thunder beat them like the noon crowd at the Y, once by 28 and once by 24. And now that OKC is up 3-1 in the series and looking as unstoppable as Golden State once looked, it's suddenly dawned on everyone that this Thunder team has two of the best five players in the world (Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook), and they're playing like two of the best five players in the world. And that makes them sort of, you know, formidable.
Even for an opponent that won 73 games and whose offense was such a masterpiece to watch Rembrandt could have painted it.
So, yes, Golden State people are losing it. They can't believe this team that looked so utterly unbeatable not only is down 3-1, but has been absolutely annihilated two times in a row. And so we have the spectacle of the Warriors owner getting into it with an obnoxious Thunder fan, and a Warriors fan challenging NBA analyst Charles Barkley to a fight because Barkley had the effrontery to pick the Thunder to win the series.
(An especially rash act considering Sir Charles once famously threw an obnoxious fan through a plate-glass window.)
The mossiest cliché in the book is the one that goes "This is why they play the games," but, well, this is why they play the games. They play the games because you never know when a Durant or a Westbrook is going to start playing like a Durant or a Westbrook. They play the games because you never know when a Steph Curry is going to suddenly begin looking mortal and weary after being so head-grabbing amazing for seven months. They play the games because there's no such thing as momentum in sports, a truism the Warriors must be clinging to right now the way a drowning man clings to a life preserver.
Because the way these playoffs have been going, they could easily come out tonight in the fortress that is their home court and obliterate OKC the way OKC obliterated them in Oklahoma. Just look at the East finals: After easily winning the first two games, the Cavaliers went up to Toronto and lost twice to a Raptors team that didn't look capable of sharing the same floor with them.
Then they came back to Cleveland last night -- and won by 38.
So, yeah. The dream hasn't ended yet for Golden State.
But the light of day isn't far off.
It has, after all, been such a grand dream, seductive in the sense all grand dreams are seductive. You think it's never going to end, even though no dream in recorded history has ever not ended. That hasn't happened yet for the Warriors, but it's looking like it will.
This after the Warriors lost Game 1 of the Western Conference finals at home, where they lost just one game during their epic 73-win regular season, and then they went out to Oklahoma City and got embarrassed in a way no one imagined possible. The Thunder beat them like the noon crowd at the Y, once by 28 and once by 24. And now that OKC is up 3-1 in the series and looking as unstoppable as Golden State once looked, it's suddenly dawned on everyone that this Thunder team has two of the best five players in the world (Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook), and they're playing like two of the best five players in the world. And that makes them sort of, you know, formidable.
Even for an opponent that won 73 games and whose offense was such a masterpiece to watch Rembrandt could have painted it.
So, yes, Golden State people are losing it. They can't believe this team that looked so utterly unbeatable not only is down 3-1, but has been absolutely annihilated two times in a row. And so we have the spectacle of the Warriors owner getting into it with an obnoxious Thunder fan, and a Warriors fan challenging NBA analyst Charles Barkley to a fight because Barkley had the effrontery to pick the Thunder to win the series.
(An especially rash act considering Sir Charles once famously threw an obnoxious fan through a plate-glass window.)
The mossiest cliché in the book is the one that goes "This is why they play the games," but, well, this is why they play the games. They play the games because you never know when a Durant or a Westbrook is going to start playing like a Durant or a Westbrook. They play the games because you never know when a Steph Curry is going to suddenly begin looking mortal and weary after being so head-grabbing amazing for seven months. They play the games because there's no such thing as momentum in sports, a truism the Warriors must be clinging to right now the way a drowning man clings to a life preserver.
Because the way these playoffs have been going, they could easily come out tonight in the fortress that is their home court and obliterate OKC the way OKC obliterated them in Oklahoma. Just look at the East finals: After easily winning the first two games, the Cavaliers went up to Toronto and lost twice to a Raptors team that didn't look capable of sharing the same floor with them.
Then they came back to Cleveland last night -- and won by 38.
So, yeah. The dream hasn't ended yet for Golden State.
But the light of day isn't far off.
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