Luck of the draw (or not)

 And now a sporadically recurring Blob favorite, What They Were Really Thinking, which today focuses on the NFL Draft, plus dark portents involving a certain quarterback in Green Bay, Wis.:

Zach Wilson, upon learning he'd been drafted by the Jets, as expected: "All right! I'm a Jet!"

(What he was really thinking: "Omigod! The Jets! They've ruined more careers than hotel surveillance video!")

Justin Fields, upon learning the Bears had traded up to draft him: "I can't wait to begin my new life as a CHICAGO BEAR!" 

(What he was really thinking: "Omigod! The Bears! They've ruined more careers than Craig T. Nelson in 'All The Right Moves'!")

Mac Jones, upon learning he'd dropped to the 15th pick, where the Patriots snatched him: "Gosh. I kinda dropped like a rock."

(What he was really doing/thinking: Breaking into Steve Martin's Happy Feet dance while shouting "Woo-hoo! I'm a PATRIOT!")

And finally ...

Almost every GM in the NFL, to his current QB, upon learning Aaron Rodgers is not happy in Green Bay and allegedly wants out: "Not to worry, bud.  You're still our guy. We have absolute faith in you."

(What almost every GM was really doing/thinking: Breaking into Steve Martin's Happy Feet dance while dialing Aaron Rodgers' agent and shouting "Holy s***! AARON FREAKIN' RODGERS!")

The dumbness of stereotyping

 I try to avoid giving racists and other niblet-brains sunlight. I also am not very good at doing that.

And so the other day I was riding the fence line on my social media spread when I came across a particularly vile post attributed to David Clarke, the Buford T. Justice sheriff up in Wisconsin who's the darling of the fringe righties these days because he supposedly "tells it like it is." 

This time Clarke was telling it like it is about LeBron James, who drew fire for blasting the police in Columbus, Ohio, for shooting to death a 15-year-old black girl who was wielding a knife at two other girls. Unlike so many other similar police shootings, this one actually might have been semi-defensible -- which might have been why LeBron  took down his original post, saying he didn't want to add to the prevailing hatred.

No matter. Clarke was gonna say what he was gonna say anyway. The fact he himself is black was no cover at all for the weary stereotypes about young black men he trotted out there.

"If LeBron James wasn't playing basketball he'd be on the block drinking malt liquor from a paper bag. He's the epitome of a dumb jock!" is how the quote attributed to Clarke went.

Since it's the internet, who knows if he actually said this. But if he did, it was an appallingly racist thing for anyone to say, let alone another black man; the whole "hanging out on the block drinking malt liquor from a paper bag" is an old lazy-black-man trope, the sort of thing you'd expect to grace a Klan pamphlet. And it revealed that the only dumbness here belonged to the speaker.

Of course, white persons of a partiKular Kulture no doubt ate up Clarke's alleged quote with a spoon, not being brain surgeons themselves. That is just the country we seem to be these days.

And it is endlessly exhausting to those of us who know better.

I covered sports for 40 years in Indiana, and I can't count the times I saw the "dumb jock" thing -- and specifically, the "dumb black jock" thing -- get blown to shards. I met people from all walks of life in those 40 years, see. Some of the dumbest turned out to be what we used to call captains of industry in this country; some of the smartest were those alleged "dumb jocks."

More than a few were dumb jocks of color, too.

I had the distinct pleasure, for instance, of interviewing the late Arthur Ashe once upon a time. A more perceptive, thoughtful individual I will never hope to meet again in this lifetime. No "dumb jock", he.

Ditto the late Eugene Parker, one of America's most astute and successful sports attorneys. Ditto Tiffany Gooden, now an attorney of note herself. Ditto many, many others.

And LeBron James?

Last I looked, he was not only the greatest basketball player of his generation, but a successful businessman who owns a video production company, pizza franchises and endorsement deals with Pepsi and AT&T. According to Forbes, he's the fifth richest athlete in the world, with close to $95 million in  annual earnings.

Most of that comes from sources outside of basketball.

"Yes, but basketball made it all possible," some people will say.

"Yes, but if he was really just another dumb jock, how much of that would already be gone?" is my answer.

I'll give those of you of a certain mindset time to think about that. I realize you may need it.

Not to stereotype or anything.

Gettin' drafty up in here

 By now, loyal Blobophile(s) know my position on the NFL Draft. I think it's great theater and well worth the forty-umpteen hours of primetime programming it will take up tomorrow night.

Psych! Of course I don't think that.

No, I think it's such must-avoid TV I'll watch old reruns of the Andy Griffith Show rather than tune in to see if the Lions, with the seventh pick, take an offensive lineman from Bemidji State. Give me Ernest T. Bass all day over that -- and not just because Ernest T. frequently makes more sense than Mel Kiper Jr.

That said, it's fascinating to see how the NFL Draft has evolved from Yay! We Got Tony Dorsett/John Elway/Eric Dickerson! to Oh, God, Please Don't Let Us Screw Up And Take Ryan Leaf Instead Of Peyton Manning. Which has led to the hilarious festival of second-guessing and over-analysis that the NFL Draft today has become.

And the most hilarious thing about it is the more teams learn about a prospective draft pick, the less they seem to know.

After all, 20 years after Leaf-over-Manning, the Bears took Mitch Trubisky over Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes. How did nine teams pass on Mahomes, for heaven's sake?  How did the Cleveland Browns not pass on Johnny Manziel?

Sure seemed a lot easier, and less of a gamble, back when the Cowboys took Emmitt Smith just because My God, have you seen the man PLAY? Less overthinking meant less second-guessing, it seems to me. And less second-guessing meant less talking oneself out of an Emmitt Smith.

Which brings us to your 2020 Heisman Trophy winner, wide receiver DeVonta Smith from Alabama.

By all rights he ought to be the first wideout taken, because My God, have you seen the man PLAY? But some mock drafts have him going anywhere from 10th to 16th, behind two other receivers (one of whom is Smith's Alabama teammate Jaylen Waddle). And why is that?

Because DeVonta Smith is kind of shrimpish at 6-foot and 166 pounds.

This seems to matter more than it should to some folks, and certainly more than it did when Dan Marino was throwing all those home run balls to Mark Dufer (5-9, 185) and Mark Clayton (5-9, 177). Lots of people passed over both of them; Duper went in the second round and Clayton in the eighth, which doesn't even exist anymore.  Couple years later, what do you suppose all those people were saying?

"Geez. How'd we miss those guys?"

"Wait, we coulda had Duper AND Clayton?"

"Wait, we traded up to take Trubisky instead of Deshaun Watson or Patrick Mahomes??"

Oops, sorry. That was the Bears in 2019 or so.

Or someone a couple years from now, after passing on DeVonta Smith.

Logic 101

So now we have this kerfuffle over whether or not Madison Bumgarner, who pitched a no-hitter the other night, actually pitched a no-hitter.

Major League Baseball says no, on account of it happened in a seven-inning doubleheader game.

Everyone who's not an obsessive-compulsive seamhead says yes, because seven innings in this case constituted a complete game.

And why did it constitute a complete game, you ask?

Because MLB decreed doubleheader games would now be seven innings in duration.

Ergo, Madison Bumgarner pitched an official no-hitter, because MLB in essence said so. And never mind what it's saying now.

See how easy logic is, people?

And that's even in baseball, which frequently avoids it.

Like, you know, now.

Star of the day

 Last night was Oscar night, which compels the Blob to make at least a couple obligatory (and possibly gratuitous) comments.

One, the powered-down awards show for once didn't last 47 hours. So that was good. 

Two, the late Chadwick Boseman got screwed, apparently because the Academy figured too many people of color were winning awards, so they threw a bone to the customary Old White Guy (Anthony Hopkins, 83).

Three, because people of color and previously ignored nationalities did win so many awards, the Blob fully expects a backlash from the usual quarters -- something along the lines of WHY AREN'T WHITE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO WIN OSCARS ANYMORE.

But enough about that. Let's talk about the real star of Sunday. 

You probably didn't watch the IndyCar race yesterday, because, let's face it, hardly anyone watches an IndyCar race unless it's the Indianapolis 500. Besides, the usual NASCAR wreckfest was going on at Talladega at the same time, and NASCAR still commands the fattest slice of the American auto racing market.

(This is because there aren't enough discerning motorsports viewers in America, in the Blob's opinion. But my arm's grown weary from banging that particular drum.)

In any event, for the second straight week, a young'un put on a show. This time it was 21-year-old Colton Herta, who won the pole and then led 97 of the 100 laps down there on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla.

It was an historically dominant performance made more so by the fact Herta had to survive two restarts in the last 22 laps, both with Josef Newgarden nipping at his heels. Newgarden, seasoned veteran and two-time IndyCar champion, was even out there on reds, softer tires that presumably were a smidge quicker than the blacks upon which Herta was riding.

Yet Herta never blinked. On both restarts he simply drove away from Newgarden, eventually winning by 2.49 seconds.

This was Herta's fourth victory in just 34 starts for Andretti Autosport, and, again, he's still only 21. Which suggests we might be looking at the next great IndyCar racer -- a Scott Dixon in embryo, if you will.

That's not the Blob indulging in its usual overreaction, by the way. That's no less an authority than Mario Andretti saying that.

"Look at what he's done in the last two years," Andretti told Nathan Brown of the Indianapolis Star. "He's the most complete race driver as anyone I've ever known at this stage of his career. Every race he's won, he's won with speed, not strategy, not fuel mileage ...

"I love seeing how complete he is, and the future he has? I'll tell you what, you only find one of those every 35 years."

That's some high praise indeed. And from on high, no less.

Now all the kid's gotta do is live up to it.

Numerical advantages

Somewhere in Football Heaven last week, Old 77 surely was laughing at Tom Brady. So was Old 99. Prolly Old 00, too.

In order, those gentlemen would be Red Grange, Tom Harmon and Jim Otto, and you figure they were laughing because the NASH-unal FOOT-ball League, heretofore America's uniform Nazis, decided to loosen its Windsor knot the other day. Henceforth, uniform numbers will not be as narrowly regimented as before. If you're a defensive back and you want to wear No. 1, you can. And so forth.

This prompted a hilariously unhinged response from Brady, who ranted, sure, let's just let anyone to wear any number he wants. No rules, Red Grange! Total anarchy, Tom Harmon! Dogs and cats, living together, Jim Otto!

Brady was rightly bashed from all quarters for this, even though it fit the man's buttoned-up world view to a T. This is a man who so monitors his diet, remember, that nothing as blasphemous as strawberries will ever touch his kale-fortified lips. So it figures he'd get bent out of shape by the NFL allowing defensive backs and linebackers to wear different numbers than usual.

Apparently he  believes his offensive linemen will be confused by this or some such thing. Which of course is ridiculous, because these are the best offensive linemen on the planet. One presumes they identify linebackers from where they line up in a defensive set, not because they're all wearing 51 or 55 or 58.

And, gee, one would think the GOAT would be able to sort out man coverage from Tampa Two even if the D-backs are wearing No. 4 or 6 instead of, say, 21.

That said, I might be able to even marginally accept this if I hadn't watched Jaylon Smith play linebacker once upon a time.

Wearing No. 9, if memory serves.

In high school. 

Where, presumably, quarterbacks would be more easily confused than Tom Brady two decades deep in a legendary NFL career.

And now I'm laughing, too.

Dream sequence

 Sometimes I dwell too much on my cruddy Pittsburgh Pirates, here on the Blob. That's absolutely true.

("No s***, Sherlock!" you're saying)

I do this even now, when the Cruds actually are only semi-cruddy, and in fact not nearly as cruddy right now as those pinstriped devils in New York. Which I find highly gratifying, mainly because the pinstriped devils are the sort of snotty entitled fat cats my Cruds could never hope to be unless the current owners sold the team to someone who actually was interested in fielding a major-league team.

In any event, I dwell too much. And I know this because when you start having dreams about something, you know you're over-dwelling on that something.

And so last night, I had a dream.

In my dream, I drove out to Pittsburgh to watch my Cruds play the first game of the NLCS. They'd reached the NLCS by beating the Dodgers in the opening round of the playoffs, for which the Cruds had qualified even though they were the worst team in baseball by several nautical miles.

(No, that doesn't make any sense. But that's how dreams work.)

Anyway, the Cruds were playing the Cubs, in my dream. Even the locals thought that was ridiculous. They knew the Cruds were the Cruds, and the Cubs, who in my dream had the best record in the National League, were probably gonna laminate 'em. 

Well, one thing led to another, all of them completely random because that's also how dreams work. I remember PNC Park had this weird layout in which half the crowd, including me, wound up watching the game on TV monitors on some sort of concourse outside the ballpark. And so I spent most of the game walking around stumbling into various luxury suites from which I was rather rudely evicted.

"You! Out!" some usher in a yellow Pirates blazer would shout at me. And also, "You're not allowed in here!"

Finally, the game was over. And the Cruds, absurdly enough, had won 9-0. And all of us Cruds fans were yukking it up because we could just imagine how steamed all the Cubs fans must be, losing to such a hideous baseball team by such a lopsided score.

After which I swiped some candy from one of the luxury suites and headed back to my car.

"Oh, who cares about your stupid dream," you're saying, especially if you're a Cubs fan.

Yeah, I know. I'm sure you don't.

But that candy, man. It was really good.