Russell Westbrook is as right as dipping your fries in your chocolate shake. Professional athletes standing 6-foot-3 and weighing 200 pounds need more protection from tiny starstruck fans. A guy could get hurt.
Doubtless you've watched it more times than the Zapruder film by now, but here's the video of what happened the other night in Denver. Westbrook sort of tumbled out of bounds, and a little kid sitting courtside reached out and ...
"He hit me!" Westbrook said later.
"Shoved him," some media outlets reported.
"Struck him," others reported.
Well, no. Actually the kid didn't do any of that.
Actually he reached out and ... well, touched Westbrook. With, like, a finger. You could even argue he was trying to keep Westbrook, who was briefly off-balance, from falling.
Watch the video again. Show me the part where the kid "hit" him. Show me the part where he "shoved" him.
Take your time. I'll wait.
And while I'm waiting, let me say this: Westbrook handled the whole thing like a pro. He didn't get mad. He didn't scream at the kid or his parents. He calmly walked over, bent down and said a few quiet words -- presumably, "you can't be doing this." Then he patted the kid on the leg and returned to the floor.
So, kudos to him for that.
As for the rest ...
Well, there are mountains and there are molehills, and this seems far more the latter, even if Westbrook tried to make it the former with his postgame comments. Yes, fans shouldn't be making physical contact with players, no matter how slight. But there's a vast gulf between a little kid touching you (maybe just to assure himself you're real) and some drunken lout actually shoving you.
As far as I know, this rarely happens. Except for the clear exception of the Malice in the Palace some 15 years ago, physical confrontations between fans and players are virtually non-existent in the NBA, even if there is some occasional oral jousting (See: Spike Lee, Reggie Miller, the Garden). This despite the fact that so-called "Nicholson seats" -- i.e., courtside seats cheek-by-jowl with the team benches -- have become the norm.
The Blob's position on Nicholson seats is that they're a disaster waiting to happen. But we're still waiting all these years later, so perhaps I'm wrong about that.
And perhaps my stance is colored a bit by history.
Decades ago, see, when the NBA was in its infancy and the Pistons were still in Fort Wayne, they played their home games at North Side High School. The old North Side gym was, shall we say, a cozy place. So cozy, women fans sitting courtside used to stick opposing players with hatpins as they inbounded the ball. Visiting teams came to regard it simply as part of the Pistons' homecourt advantage.
Now?
Well, let's just say Westbrook is lucky women don't wear fancy hats to the games anymore.
A guy could get hurt.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Calling time
Forget all the noise about whether or not a guy who batted .249 last year and struck out 162 times is going to sign a deal worth more than the GNP of most developed nations (Hint: His initials are "Bryce Harper"). The real news out of baseball this morning involves clock management.
Or, you know, lack of same.
This is because Major League Baseball is on the verge of eighty-sixing the implementation of a pitch clock until at least 2022, and perhaps beyond. This is part of a wider initiative to speed up the pace of play, thereby returning baseball to its roots as a game that stepped along at a lively clip.
As opposed to today, when it so often tends to be what erosion would look like if it were a spectator sport.
The game a lot of us grew up with wasn't like that. Batters weren't refugees from some fashion runway, continually calling time to make sure their batting gloves and wristbands and helmet and hair were just-so. Pitchers didn't spend days contemplating the nature of man before coming set and throwing either to the plate or first base. Managers didn't bring in a reliever to pitch to one batter, and then another reliever to pitch to the next batter, and then another reliever to pitch to the batter after that.
Consequently, nine-inning baseball games did not drag on longer than the Peloponnesian War. Or, you know, longer than two Peloponnesian Wars if it happens to be the Red Sox and Yankees playing.
Old-school baseball types (are there any other, demographically, in 2019?) tend to forget this when they say one of baseball's charms is that it is unbound by time. This is true. But that was never a license to practice the sort of temporal anarchy we see today. The game's own history and traditions tell us as much.
And so, the pitch clock, a profoundly excellent idea. Ideally it would be unnecessary, because ideally both pitchers and umpires would self-govern. But they either can't, or they won't.
And now it seems they will continue not doing so, at least for the foreseeable future.
Calling time on time management. Such a baseball thing to do.
Or, you know, lack of same.
This is because Major League Baseball is on the verge of eighty-sixing the implementation of a pitch clock until at least 2022, and perhaps beyond. This is part of a wider initiative to speed up the pace of play, thereby returning baseball to its roots as a game that stepped along at a lively clip.
As opposed to today, when it so often tends to be what erosion would look like if it were a spectator sport.
The game a lot of us grew up with wasn't like that. Batters weren't refugees from some fashion runway, continually calling time to make sure their batting gloves and wristbands and helmet and hair were just-so. Pitchers didn't spend days contemplating the nature of man before coming set and throwing either to the plate or first base. Managers didn't bring in a reliever to pitch to one batter, and then another reliever to pitch to the next batter, and then another reliever to pitch to the batter after that.
Consequently, nine-inning baseball games did not drag on longer than the Peloponnesian War. Or, you know, longer than two Peloponnesian Wars if it happens to be the Red Sox and Yankees playing.
Old-school baseball types (are there any other, demographically, in 2019?) tend to forget this when they say one of baseball's charms is that it is unbound by time. This is true. But that was never a license to practice the sort of temporal anarchy we see today. The game's own history and traditions tell us as much.
And so, the pitch clock, a profoundly excellent idea. Ideally it would be unnecessary, because ideally both pitchers and umpires would self-govern. But they either can't, or they won't.
And now it seems they will continue not doing so, at least for the foreseeable future.
Calling time on time management. Such a baseball thing to do.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Combine time!
Or ... Men In Shorts Running And Jumping And Stuff For No Particular Reason.
Yes, the NFL combine's time has come 'round again, slouching toward irrelevance to be borne -- as T.S. Eliot almost said. T.S. had a killer 40 time, by the way. He looked good in shorts, too. But he bombed on the Wonderlic and in the one-on-one interviews, where he leaped across the desk and grabbed an NFL GM by the throat because the GM asked him if he had a thing for his mother.
No, really. This sort of stuff actually happens at the NFL combine.
It's the week when analysis veers across the line into utter lunacy, because the entire purpose is lunacy: Trying to accurately predict whether a prospective draft pick will be a boom or a bust. That this is clearly a hopeless task is obvious to anyone with a working brain cell, but bless their hearts, the NFL's poobahs try anyway. That they do it mostly via a series of non sequitirs only heightens the lunacy.
Seriously, folks. What does a prospective offensive lineman's 40 time tell you about anything?Because how many times is he ever going to have to run 40 yards in a game?
Same goes for pretty much anyone. If, say, a wide receiver, defensive back or running back is really fast, isn't that something NFL teams already know? Hey, look, Kyler Murray's really fast! Well, I'll be darned!
And this doesn't even address the obvious, which is that your 40 time in shorts, your vertical leap in shorts and your shuttle run time in shorts have absolutely zero to do with whether or not you can play football. Renaldo Nehemiah, the world class hurdler the 49ers signed as a wide receiver some years back, no doubt would have killed all of those. But he wasn't much of a football player.
Even sillier is the Wonderlic football IQ test, historically worthless for predicting NFL success. Dan Marino, for instance, scored 16 out of 50 on the Wonderlic; he's in the Hall of Fame now. Frank Gore's score of 6 is the fourth lowest Wonderlic score in NFL history. Someday he'll be in Canton, too.
And everyone else?
Well, combine week is mostly just make work a prospect has to slog through. In fact, that may be the method behind the madness; the suspicion is the combine is specifically designed to be 99 percent nonsense, because it's all about finding out how potential draft picks deal with, well, nonsense -- a useful skill for anyone who wants to work in the NFL.
Hence the irrelevant sprints and jumps and such. Hence the Wonderlic. Hence the bizarre interviews with GMs who seem inordinately interested in their prospects' relationships with their mothers.
Lot of GMs out there with mommy issues. That's the Blob's takeaway from that.
Though some of them run decent 40s, I hear.
Yes, the NFL combine's time has come 'round again, slouching toward irrelevance to be borne -- as T.S. Eliot almost said. T.S. had a killer 40 time, by the way. He looked good in shorts, too. But he bombed on the Wonderlic and in the one-on-one interviews, where he leaped across the desk and grabbed an NFL GM by the throat because the GM asked him if he had a thing for his mother.
No, really. This sort of stuff actually happens at the NFL combine.
It's the week when analysis veers across the line into utter lunacy, because the entire purpose is lunacy: Trying to accurately predict whether a prospective draft pick will be a boom or a bust. That this is clearly a hopeless task is obvious to anyone with a working brain cell, but bless their hearts, the NFL's poobahs try anyway. That they do it mostly via a series of non sequitirs only heightens the lunacy.
Seriously, folks. What does a prospective offensive lineman's 40 time tell you about anything?Because how many times is he ever going to have to run 40 yards in a game?
Same goes for pretty much anyone. If, say, a wide receiver, defensive back or running back is really fast, isn't that something NFL teams already know? Hey, look, Kyler Murray's really fast! Well, I'll be darned!
And this doesn't even address the obvious, which is that your 40 time in shorts, your vertical leap in shorts and your shuttle run time in shorts have absolutely zero to do with whether or not you can play football. Renaldo Nehemiah, the world class hurdler the 49ers signed as a wide receiver some years back, no doubt would have killed all of those. But he wasn't much of a football player.
Even sillier is the Wonderlic football IQ test, historically worthless for predicting NFL success. Dan Marino, for instance, scored 16 out of 50 on the Wonderlic; he's in the Hall of Fame now. Frank Gore's score of 6 is the fourth lowest Wonderlic score in NFL history. Someday he'll be in Canton, too.
And everyone else?
Well, combine week is mostly just make work a prospect has to slog through. In fact, that may be the method behind the madness; the suspicion is the combine is specifically designed to be 99 percent nonsense, because it's all about finding out how potential draft picks deal with, well, nonsense -- a useful skill for anyone who wants to work in the NFL.
Hence the irrelevant sprints and jumps and such. Hence the Wonderlic. Hence the bizarre interviews with GMs who seem inordinately interested in their prospects' relationships with their mothers.
Lot of GMs out there with mommy issues. That's the Blob's takeaway from that.
Though some of them run decent 40s, I hear.
Monday, February 25, 2019
Today in road trippin'
And now this from the Alliance of American Football, which is three games deep in its inaugural season and has given NFL washout Trent Richardson a new lease on his football life, seeing how he leads the AAF with six touchdowns so far.
But this isn't about the redemptive properties of the AAF. This is about the general weirdness that often attends startups, particularly in sports.
(For instance, the fledgling indoor football league Fort Wayne's gotten itself into for the umpteenth time. Apparently the Indiana Blue Bombers -- not to be confused with the other team called "Indiana" -- are recruiting players via indeed.com. Apparently this reaches a larger audience than standing out on Parnell wearing a sandwich board that says "Wanted: Football Players. Experience Preferred But Not Required.")
Anyway ... perhaps you know that one of the teams in the league is the Orlando Apollos, who are coached by former University of Florida coach Steve Spurrier. (He also briefly coached the Washington Redskins, but that probably best goes unmentioned.) The Apollos are also notable for having some interesting logistics; as initially reported by the Orlando Sentinel, they play their home games in Orlando, but live 140 miles away in Jacksonville and bus 30 miles into Georgia for practice everyday.
Some explanation is in order here.
See, it seems the state of Florida's workers' compensation laws don't cover professional athletes. This means their respective leagues have to find an insurance company willing to cover them. The AAF has not yet found an insurance company willing to cover all eight of its teams. This includes the Apollos.
Georgia law, however, does allow for pro athletes to collect workers' comp, provided those athletes spend 51 percent of their practice time in the state. Therefore the Apollos live in Jacksonville because of its proximity to Georgia, making it just logistically possible to practice there.
Eventually, you have to figure, the AAF will find an insurance company to cover the Apollos and the rest of the league's teams. Then again, it might not.
In the meantime, perhaps the Apollos should see if they can enlist the country music group Florida Georgia Line to sing the national anthem at all their home games. Talk about synergy.
But this isn't about the redemptive properties of the AAF. This is about the general weirdness that often attends startups, particularly in sports.
(For instance, the fledgling indoor football league Fort Wayne's gotten itself into for the umpteenth time. Apparently the Indiana Blue Bombers -- not to be confused with the other team called "Indiana" -- are recruiting players via indeed.com. Apparently this reaches a larger audience than standing out on Parnell wearing a sandwich board that says "Wanted: Football Players. Experience Preferred But Not Required.")
Anyway ... perhaps you know that one of the teams in the league is the Orlando Apollos, who are coached by former University of Florida coach Steve Spurrier. (He also briefly coached the Washington Redskins, but that probably best goes unmentioned.) The Apollos are also notable for having some interesting logistics; as initially reported by the Orlando Sentinel, they play their home games in Orlando, but live 140 miles away in Jacksonville and bus 30 miles into Georgia for practice everyday.
Some explanation is in order here.
See, it seems the state of Florida's workers' compensation laws don't cover professional athletes. This means their respective leagues have to find an insurance company willing to cover them. The AAF has not yet found an insurance company willing to cover all eight of its teams. This includes the Apollos.
Georgia law, however, does allow for pro athletes to collect workers' comp, provided those athletes spend 51 percent of their practice time in the state. Therefore the Apollos live in Jacksonville because of its proximity to Georgia, making it just logistically possible to practice there.
Eventually, you have to figure, the AAF will find an insurance company to cover the Apollos and the rest of the league's teams. Then again, it might not.
In the meantime, perhaps the Apollos should see if they can enlist the country music group Florida Georgia Line to sing the national anthem at all their home games. Talk about synergy.
Broadcast boos
They dressed in red-and-green, because it was that kind of occasion. Anderson High School was going to semistate, back when they threw everyone into a big one-size-fits-all pile in the Indiana high school basketball tournament. So this was a big deal, and they rocked those Christmas-y AHS school colors proudly.
No, not the fans. The radio guys.
The radio guys showed up in red-and-green over there at Mackey Arena, and if the print guys -- me included -- thought this was a quantum display of dorkishness, the Anderson fan contingent loved it. If those of us on the print side were scrupulously careful to wear neutral colors (especially when Anderson was playing its city brethren at Madison Heights or Highland), it was simply accepted that the radio guys would be blatantly partisan. They were, after all, the Anderson broadcasters.
All of which serves to illuminate what happened at Norwell High School the other night.
What happened was, the Norwell radio guy (OK, the radio guy for the Wells County Voice, an online broadcasting service) took that accepted partisanship to a whole new level. At one point during the Knights' loss to Homestead, one of the Homestead kids dunked and hung on the rim, mostly to regain his balance.
He was duly T-ed up. And the radio guy all but stood up, waved pompons and cheered.
"There's going to be a technical foul, showboat," he said.
And then: "He gets teched up for being a jackass."
And then: "Stay classy Homestead, may you lose in the first round like you always do."
Which is a weird thing to say about a school that won a 4A state title not all that long ago. But that's neither here nor there.
The more relevant point is Radio Guy showed his true colors, and they were not Norwell blue-and-gold. It is, after all, one thing for local radio to be partisan. It is entirely another to be the sort of master-class moron who calls a high school kid a "jackass."
To its credit, the Norwell athletic department issued a prompt Twitter apology to Homestead and everyone involved, saying such behavior did not represent either its opinion or its values. This was probably unnecessary, since Radio Guy has no affiliation with the school. Plus it goes without saying no one in the Norwell athletic department -- or any high school athletic department -- would tolerate even from its fans what Radio Guy did the other night.
I covered high school sports for almost 40 years, and I've lost count of the times I've seen ADs escort certain fans off the premises because they were behaving like idiots. And so the next step for Norwell is almost too obvious to mention.
Which is, the school should yank Radio Guy's credential and never let him back in the building again. Ever.
No, not the fans. The radio guys.
The radio guys showed up in red-and-green over there at Mackey Arena, and if the print guys -- me included -- thought this was a quantum display of dorkishness, the Anderson fan contingent loved it. If those of us on the print side were scrupulously careful to wear neutral colors (especially when Anderson was playing its city brethren at Madison Heights or Highland), it was simply accepted that the radio guys would be blatantly partisan. They were, after all, the Anderson broadcasters.
All of which serves to illuminate what happened at Norwell High School the other night.
What happened was, the Norwell radio guy (OK, the radio guy for the Wells County Voice, an online broadcasting service) took that accepted partisanship to a whole new level. At one point during the Knights' loss to Homestead, one of the Homestead kids dunked and hung on the rim, mostly to regain his balance.
He was duly T-ed up. And the radio guy all but stood up, waved pompons and cheered.
"There's going to be a technical foul, showboat," he said.
And then: "He gets teched up for being a jackass."
And then: "Stay classy Homestead, may you lose in the first round like you always do."
Which is a weird thing to say about a school that won a 4A state title not all that long ago. But that's neither here nor there.
The more relevant point is Radio Guy showed his true colors, and they were not Norwell blue-and-gold. It is, after all, one thing for local radio to be partisan. It is entirely another to be the sort of master-class moron who calls a high school kid a "jackass."
To its credit, the Norwell athletic department issued a prompt Twitter apology to Homestead and everyone involved, saying such behavior did not represent either its opinion or its values. This was probably unnecessary, since Radio Guy has no affiliation with the school. Plus it goes without saying no one in the Norwell athletic department -- or any high school athletic department -- would tolerate even from its fans what Radio Guy did the other night.
I covered high school sports for almost 40 years, and I've lost count of the times I've seen ADs escort certain fans off the premises because they were behaving like idiots. And so the next step for Norwell is almost too obvious to mention.
Which is, the school should yank Radio Guy's credential and never let him back in the building again. Ever.
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Criminal privilege
The jokes wrote themselves, when all this hit the fan. Deflategate jokes. Jokes about Robert Kraft getting a seventh "ring" to go with his six Super Bowl rings. The sort of jokes that bloom like English flower gardens whenever the rich and powerful do something that strips away their cultured veneer.
But after awhile, you stop laughing.
After awhile you wonder what sort of mindlessness compels one of the most powerful men in American sports to frequent a seedy strip-mall massage parlor whose workforce, according to Jupiter, Fla., police, are little more than slaves.
Robert Kraft is reportedly worth $6.6 billion. How does he wind up in a place where young women, most from China, are lured into a human trafficking ring that condemns them to virtual servitude, never being given days off or allowed to leave the premises?
It is the ultimate intersection of the powerful and the powerless, and if it does not expose in stark relief the vast chasm between, nothing ever will. Men such as Kraft frequent these sorts of places because they can; it is not mindlessness after all, but the bulletproof arrogance vast wealth confers. And the women they pay a pittance to service them?
If men such as Kraft cannot conceive of a world where there is any consequence, the women cannot conceive of a world that isn't entirely consequence -- the consequence of powerlessness.
One would hope that Kraft getting caught up in this sting -- and despite the protestations of his attorneys, they've got him on surveillance video -- would perhaps balance those scales a bit. But it's hard to not to be skeptical of that.
Men with Robert Kraft's virtually limitless means and status, after all, rarely meet a problem they can't make disappear by throwing money at it. And if the NFL finds it necessary to come down on one its most powerful figures, it strains credulity to think it will come down in any way that actually punishes him.
I mean, he only further exploited already exploited women. It's not like he knelt during the National Anthem or anything.
Then he'd really be in trouble.
But after awhile, you stop laughing.
After awhile you wonder what sort of mindlessness compels one of the most powerful men in American sports to frequent a seedy strip-mall massage parlor whose workforce, according to Jupiter, Fla., police, are little more than slaves.
Robert Kraft is reportedly worth $6.6 billion. How does he wind up in a place where young women, most from China, are lured into a human trafficking ring that condemns them to virtual servitude, never being given days off or allowed to leave the premises?
It is the ultimate intersection of the powerful and the powerless, and if it does not expose in stark relief the vast chasm between, nothing ever will. Men such as Kraft frequent these sorts of places because they can; it is not mindlessness after all, but the bulletproof arrogance vast wealth confers. And the women they pay a pittance to service them?
If men such as Kraft cannot conceive of a world where there is any consequence, the women cannot conceive of a world that isn't entirely consequence -- the consequence of powerlessness.
One would hope that Kraft getting caught up in this sting -- and despite the protestations of his attorneys, they've got him on surveillance video -- would perhaps balance those scales a bit. But it's hard to not to be skeptical of that.
Men with Robert Kraft's virtually limitless means and status, after all, rarely meet a problem they can't make disappear by throwing money at it. And if the NFL finds it necessary to come down on one its most powerful figures, it strains credulity to think it will come down in any way that actually punishes him.
I mean, he only further exploited already exploited women. It's not like he knelt during the National Anthem or anything.
Then he'd really be in trouble.
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Object lesson
This shard of a shoe over here. There's your teachable moment for today.
In its immediately previous life it swaddled the left foot of a man-child, Zion Williamson, and then suddenly it didn't. It went off like a roadside bomb, disintegrating as the man-child backpedaled down the floor barely half a minute into the latest Duke-North Carolina melodrama Wednesday night. Completely came apart, sending Williamson into an awkward sprawl, his right knee turning in a way knees aren't supposed to turn.
Not a great moment for Nike, whose chunky shoe deal with Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke program saddles the Blue Devils with exploding footwear. But an appropriate object for this object lesson.
Which is, why was Zion Williamson even on the floor last night?
Only the NBA's absurd 19-year-old rule put him out there, after all. Without it, he's in the first year of a lucrative pro contract as a 2018 lottery pick. Instead he's forced to play at being a college student as an unpaid mercenary, brought in to help Duke cash a fat NCAA Tournament check.
Now he's out with a knee injury, and if he's lucky it really is just the mild sprain Krzyzewski maintained after Carolina took his top-ranked Blue Devils apart. But luck shouldn't have factored into this at all.
Scottie Pippen took some heat from some old-school types not long ago by saying Williamson should have bailed on the season after fulfilling his eligibility requirements (i.e., attending fall semester classes). But now he looks like a seer. Now he looks like a man merely speaking an obvious truth, which is that players such as Zion Williamson are not really college students, but valuable commodities compelled to spend a season in what amounts to a fancy waiting room.
As such, the top priority should not be dozing through a lecture on Nathaniel Hawthorne or Sir Francis Bacon. It should be protecting the assets.
And if that makes a farce of the entire notion of Zion Williamson playing college basketball, so be it. Because it is a farce. The NBA's rule makes it so.
Class dismissed. So to speak.
In its immediately previous life it swaddled the left foot of a man-child, Zion Williamson, and then suddenly it didn't. It went off like a roadside bomb, disintegrating as the man-child backpedaled down the floor barely half a minute into the latest Duke-North Carolina melodrama Wednesday night. Completely came apart, sending Williamson into an awkward sprawl, his right knee turning in a way knees aren't supposed to turn.
Not a great moment for Nike, whose chunky shoe deal with Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke program saddles the Blue Devils with exploding footwear. But an appropriate object for this object lesson.
Which is, why was Zion Williamson even on the floor last night?
Only the NBA's absurd 19-year-old rule put him out there, after all. Without it, he's in the first year of a lucrative pro contract as a 2018 lottery pick. Instead he's forced to play at being a college student as an unpaid mercenary, brought in to help Duke cash a fat NCAA Tournament check.
Now he's out with a knee injury, and if he's lucky it really is just the mild sprain Krzyzewski maintained after Carolina took his top-ranked Blue Devils apart. But luck shouldn't have factored into this at all.
Scottie Pippen took some heat from some old-school types not long ago by saying Williamson should have bailed on the season after fulfilling his eligibility requirements (i.e., attending fall semester classes). But now he looks like a seer. Now he looks like a man merely speaking an obvious truth, which is that players such as Zion Williamson are not really college students, but valuable commodities compelled to spend a season in what amounts to a fancy waiting room.
As such, the top priority should not be dozing through a lecture on Nathaniel Hawthorne or Sir Francis Bacon. It should be protecting the assets.
And if that makes a farce of the entire notion of Zion Williamson playing college basketball, so be it. Because it is a farce. The NBA's rule makes it so.
Class dismissed. So to speak.
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