Gettin' vaxxy

 Sometimes I actually agree with Colin Cowherd, pre-eminent FoxSports fluff brain. It happens about as often as it hits 116 in Portland, Ore.

Which, coincidentally happened on Monday, prompting this reaction from climate change Flat Earthers: "Well, these things will happen." Across the ideological aisle, meanwhile, the reaction was this: "OMIGOD THE EARTH IS GOING TO TURN INTO A CINDER ON THE FOURTH OF JULY."

In any event, Portland hitting 116 and Cowherd and I agreeing on something happened the same day, which suggests a certain cosmic balance of the rare. What we agreed on was that women are smarter than men, and as proof Cowherd noted that of all the major professional sports leagues, the WNBA by far leads the way in the number of athletes who've been vaccinated against the Bastard Plague.

Ninety-nine percent of WNBA players have gotten their shots. That means all 12 teams are now considered fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile, the dopey men are still dragging ass on the vaccination front, some of them for the usual dopey anti-vaxxers reasons. Cole Beasley of the Buffalo Bills, for instance, recently said he didn't need to get vaccinated because he trusted in God to protect him, and didn't understand why more people didn't just trust in God.

Which immediately produced this thought bubble over the Almighty's head: "WHY DO YOU THINK I GAVE SCIENTISTS THE WISDOM TO COME UP WITH A VACCINE, YOU MORON?"

Look. I get it. There are crazy people everywhere in America, because in America you're allowed to be as crazy as you want, even if you're a certain ex-president or a congress critter with the initials "Marjorie Taylor Greene." And so President Biden's goal to get everyone vaccinated is likely doomed. There are simply too many crazies out there who believe the vaccine causes autism or athlete's foot or is Antifa's secret plan to control our minds and make us learn socialism (spelled, "Socialism! Aiee!") and Critical Race Theory.

Many of these crazies are men, and some are athletes of the man persuasion. And so even though the numbers tell us virtually everyone still winding up in the hospital with the Bastard Plague are the unvaccinated, there will still be a fair number of Cole Beasleys in the Man Sports.

Not in the WNBA, though. In the WNBA, the women figured it out a long time ago: The quicker you get the stupid shot, the quicker we'll put the Bastard Plague down for good. And the quicker we'll all get the freedom the anti-vaxxers are always caterwauling about -- and which certain lawmakers have fed into by passing laws prohibiting businesses from keeping diseased people out of their establishments.

Listen to the women of the WNBA, people. Get the shot.

Bracket busters 2.0

 I don't know when the Euro Cup soccer tournament turned into the first two days of the NCAA Tournament. But I do know some brackets are already cinders.

(This, of course, assumes there is such a thing as Euro Cup brackets. I suspect there aren't. That seems like an American thing. And besides, who gets to be Loyola?)

(Oh, right. That would be Switzerland.)

Yes, that's right, boys and girls. Switzerland, the land of picturesque mountains, numbered bank accounts and two official languages, just pulled a Loyola on one of the tournament favorites. The Swiss knocked out France yesterday on penalty kicks, a huge, Sister Jean-like upset. This came a day after the Netherlands got Clockwork Orange-d by the Czech Republic -- perhaps an even bigger upset because the Czechs won 2-0, which is like 28-0 on the Adjusted American Football Scale

So, two days, two 12-over-5s or some other equivalent. They must have been hootin' and hollerin' in the Czech Republic and Switzerland -- the latter, of course, in a restrained, orderly Swiss fashion, in French in Lausanne and Geneva and Swiss German (which sounds only vaguely like German German) in Lucerne and Zurich.

This no doubt caused great consternation among the Dutch and French, who are probably even now burning their respective team managers in effigy. Or at least demanding they be fired after an appropriate display of abject shame and remorse.

Old-school fans in Amsterdam and Paris, meanwhile, are no doubt wagging their heads in the outdoor cafes over how little respect These Kids Today have for the old traditions, and how little pride in country.

"If only we still had Van Persie and Robben!" Crabby Netherlands Guy laments.

"If only we still had Zidane and Henry!" Crabby French Guy echoes. 

And in America, meanwhile?

Some crabby Illinois basketball fan, still smarting over the March Madness loss to Loyola, is shaking his head knowingly.

"Welcome to my world," he's saying.

And then: "That damn nun."

Adulting, the fail edition

 The Blob has always maintained that youth sports would be a lot better, and more wholesome, maybe, if only the youth were allowed to participate.

Adults only muck things up, frequently. Especially the adults sitting in the bleachers, who labor under the delusion that little Jimmy could be the next Michael Jordan/Pele/Walter Payton/Willie Mays if the idiot refs would stop picking on him and that idiot coach would just let him play and keep all the other loser kids on the bench.

Also ... hey, let's throw tortillas at the Latino kids!

Which actually happened at a recent basketball game in San Diego, where players from Orange Glen, a predominantly Latino high school, were showered with tortillas by the opposing players after losing in a regional championship game. Here's the story, courtesy of Carron Phillips of Deadspin.

And who supplied the offenders with the tortillas?

Why, an alleged adult, of course!

No wonder kids don't know how to act these days.

And speaking of acting, how about this splendid example of adulting?

Seriously? Brawling at a bleeping tee ball game?

I mean, OK, it was Kentucky, but still. Why is the "coach" even disputing a call? Does he not realize he's not managing the Cubs or Yankees, but a bunch of 5-to-7-year-olds who (if my experience watching tee ball is any guide) are probably playing in the dirt at third base or sitting on first counting their toes? 

Yo, chief. You're not Sparky Anderson or Tommy Lasorda. You're just some neighborhood guy trying to keep a bunch of little kids from wandering off between innings. And "parents"?

The last I saw your little Jimmy, he was manning second base by staring out toward the outfield. And now he's probably in tears, thanks to you, because a lot of the kids in Kentucky were after the alleged grownups started throwing down and the cops showed up.

Yes, that's right, boys and girls. The police were called to break up a fight at a tee-ball game. I can only imagine what the officers who responded were thinking.

I'm guessing something along the lines of, "What the f***?"

And the Blob's reaction?

I say ban the alleged grownups. And no organized sports until a kid is, I don't know, 11 or 12. The gifted kids will still rise to the top -- and without all that AAU/travel ball noise, they'll probably be a hell of a lot more well-adjusted.

Works for me.

Tour de L0OK OUT!

 This morning the Blob checks in on the Tour de France, aka, That Bicycle Thingy, aka, That Bicycle Thingy No One In America Has Cared Much About Since Lance "The Mob Boss of Juicing" Armstrong Got Busted.

We're checking in on it because the other day a new stupid spectator champion was crowned.

That's because some doofus decided to hold out a "Hi Grandma" sign as the peloton swept down on him, causing a cyclist to hit the sign and fall, which in turn caused nearly the entire peloton to crash in a gigantic dogpile of expensive bicycling equipment. 

Here's the video. Impressive, no?

The Blob has searched the dim recesses of its mind (which would be pretty much all the recesses these days), and it can't think of another stupid spectator episode in which an entire sporting event came to such a catastrophic halt because of said stupid spectator.

I mean, fans have gotten onto various fields before and run around like idiots, and just a week or so ago a naked spectator burst onto the course at the U.S. Open, pulled out a club and a couple of balls and hit them, then frolicked around until corralled by course officials.

But none of the golfers ran into each other and wound up in a pile of logo caps and alpaca because of him. And all the idiots who've ever gotten onto various fields didn't bring any games to a screeching halt or cause possible injury to any of the competitors.

Although Mike "Mad Dog" Curtis did knock the crap out of one of the idiots once upon a time.

No, whoever this particular idiot was set a new standard for stupid spectator behavior. So here's to him.

Or, you know, not.

Crotchety old guy rant. The Stanley Cup edition.

A guy named Yanni Gourde scored a goal last night and another guy named Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped every shot the New York Islanders threw at him, so there will be no nostalgia walk for the Blob today.

No Mike Bossy references. No wondering what Billy Smith or Bryan Trottier or Clark Gillies or Denis Potvin are thinking. No Blobbish fake quotes from Bobby Nystrom or Butch Goring.

OK. Maybe a couple.

"Dammit!" (Butch Goring)

"Crap!" (Bobby Nystrom)

Guessing those are reasonably accurate because, as we've already observed, the Islanders lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning 1-0 in Game 7 of the conference finals. Which means the Lightning will face the Montreal Canadiens, a proper NHL hockey team, in the Stanley Cup Final.

If the Lighting win, and they probably will, they'll repeat as Cup champions. And that means Lord Stanley's chalice will stay in Florida.

All together now: Crap! 

Also, Dammit!

This is because I'm a crotchety old man who hates change and kids on his lawn and stupid clouds, and it's his considered opinion that a bunch of imposters from Florida winning Stanley is wrong, wrong, wrong. In my crotchety view, Stanley should never be allowed anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line that isn't St. Louis. 

That's because there are no real hockey towns down there. They're all posers.

I mean, come on. Last year Tampa Bay and Dallas played in the Stanley Cup Final, which was ridiculous. It was like turning on the Masters and hearing Jim Nantz say "A tradition unlike any other," except he's not at Augusta but Frozen Moose Country Club in FlinFlon. 

Wrong. So, so wrong.

And, yes, I know Florida's full of Canadian snowbirds and they got a big charge out of Tampa winning the Cup last year. But then they all slipped on their sunglasses and shower slippers, slathered on some SP 300 and headed to the beach. Maybe they even took Stanley parasailing instead of, you know, throwing him in a frozen canal the way tradition demands.

Stanley, parasailing. Or tarpon fishing. Or reeling around in his cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirt with a mojito in his hand.

Yeesh. Some images should not be allowed.

Forward to the past

 So the reviews are in as the Indiana Pacers announce they're going forward into the past, dusting off Rick Carlisle and naming him their new/old head coach.

In no particular order, here they are:

1. "Finally, an established coach!"

2. "Finally, a coach who's, like, 100 years old!"

And last but not least ...

3. "Rick Carlisle? Didn't he coach the Pacers when Freddie Lewis was playing for them?"

Please. Let's not exaggerate.

Carlisle's not 100 years old. He's only 61.

And he didn't coach Freddie Lewis, who's 77 now. He coached Reggie Miller and Dale Davis, who are only 55 and 52, respectively.

He went on from the Pacers to coach the Dallas Mavericks, who won the NBA title in 2011 with Carlisle on the bench. He coached the Mavs for 13 years, leaving at the end of this season amid reports that he and the Mavs' 22-year-old star Luka Doncic didn't see eye-to-eye.

This is not unusual for Carlisle, it seems. He's an old-school Oscar the Grouch type, and while he's an excellent coach -- in addition to the 2011 title, he coached the Pacers to 61 wins and the conference finals in 2003-04 -- he also has a history of wearing out his welcome. The knock on Carlisle is he's not a players coach nor a great communicator, which is why his returns tend to diminish over time.

That happened with the Pacers. It apparently happened in Dallas. And now he comes to a team whose players have basically run off the last two coaches because they couldn't get along with them.

The Pacers' solution: "Let's bring back a guy who's even harder to get along with than the last two guys!"

Which suggests the franchise is about to embark on a major roster turnover to accommodate its new coach, or the current roster is going to be tasked with a major attitude adjustment.

I'm leaning toward the latter, because, frankly, this is a roster that seems to need an attitude adjustment. They grumbled Nate Bjorken out of town; he was gone after one injury-plagued and underwhelming season. This was after they'd grumbled Nate McMillan out of town, too.

All he's done is go to Atlanta and coach the Hawks to the Eastern Conference finals. A big part of that, reportedly, is the bond he's formed with the team's young star, Trae Young.

Which indicates Nate McMillan wasn't the problem in Indianapolis.

It also indicates if there's a problem in Indianapolis again, it won't just be Rick Carlisle's famous inability to relate to his players. It'll be the players' famous inability to relate to their coaches.

Strap in, boys and girls. Gonna be a hell of a ride.

Les Habitants!

 You gotta love the Stanley Cup playoffs. They're the best of all playoffs because stuff happens there that rarely happens in any other playoffs.

Like the Montreal Canadiens, for instance.

Who, OK, have happened all the time in the Stanley Cup playoffs, but not recently. And by "recently" we mean "not since Tone Loc was a thing."

That would be 1993, which is the last time the Canadiens reached the Stanley Cup Final. That's 28 years to you and me, boys and girls, and that's a good stretch of time for a franchise that won the Cup every other year or so back when Rocket Richard and Guy Lafleur and Yvan Cournoyer (the most mispronounced name in hockey history) were doing their thing.

Now they're back in the Final again, thanks to a 3-2 overtime victory that rubbed out the Las Vegas Golden Knights in six games. This means hockey royalty has returned to its anointed place, sort of. And by "sort of," we mean "not really, because these Les Habitants are not the Richard/Lafeur/Cournoyer Les Habitants.

These Habs are as un-Habby as un-Habby gets.

They are, you see, the doggiest of underdogs, because they had the worst won-lost record of any team to make the playoffs this year. Their archrival, the Toronto Maple Leafs, were supposed to take them out in the first round.

Unfortunately for Leafs fans, the Leafs did their usual Leaf things, mainly choke big-time after forging a three-games-to-one lead. So on the Habs went and on they kept going against the form sheet, and now they're in the Final.

Which is great, understand, even if Carey Price is their goalie these days instead of Ken Dryden or Jacques Plante. And even if someone named Arrturi Lehkonen scored the clinching OT goal last night, and not, say, Serge Savard. 

It's great because it means an actual iconic hockey city has a shot at hoisting the Cup instead of, you know, some city in Florida or southern California or even Texas, for God's sake. And it's the underdog this time, which only makes rooting for them sweeter.

Thanks, hockey.