PSA for today

 Which is to say, the Blob is off to Vermont and Boston for some tourist-ing tomorrow. And so do not expect the usual regularity of spew.

"Aw, gee, Dad!" you're saying.

Not.

Chaos theory

 America now being the home of insane ex-presidents and dogs and cats living together and what-not, the Blob pauses today to mourn a great missed opportunity. 

Kyrie Irving is not going to the Lakers.

It seems no one on his wish list, even the Lakers, wanted his crazy a**, so he's picked up his option and will play one more season for the Nets, the unlucky stiffs. The Nets will of course greet this news with public restraint, while behind the scenes muttering "Jeezly crow, another season with THAT wack-job. God help us."

As for the Lakers ... well, a great chance for some delicious chaos goes by the boards. Since Russell Westbrook opted into the last year of his contract, the Lake Show is stuck with him for another year, too, and they've gotta pay him $47 mill besides. Imagine if the Lakers had managed to swing a deal to bring Kyrie to town on top of it.

It's hard to see how they could have done it, even if they'd wanted to. It would certainly have had to be a sign-and-trade, and the Lakers don't really have any assets with enough heft to pull off the trade part. 

But just imagine: LeBron, Kyrie and Russ on the same team. Think of the chemistry! Think of the fit! Think of how many basketballs they would need!

Russ was a horrible fit for the Lakers, but adding Kyrie, too?   

Now that would be some quality entertainment. 

Think the Big One at Talladega and you've got it.

Buyer's remorse

 I feel for Freddie Freeman. I do.

What I don't do is understand him.

Look, I get that when you play for one team in one city for a pile of years, you form attachments, and a piece of your heart grows there you can't uproot with a neutron bomb. So I understand what happened last week, when his new team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, went back to Atlanta for the first time since Freeman took the money and ran, and Freddie spent most of the series bawling like a baby.

He never really wanted to leave Atlanta. That much is obvious, and that's probably going to tick off his Dodgers teammates, who will no doubt say "Hey, what about us?" I fact, Clayton Kershaw already sounded off about this, telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that while Freeman's homecoming was cool and all, he hopes Freddie doesn't consider the Dodgers "second fiddle."

To which I'd respond, "Welcome to free agency, Clayton." Teams no longer buy a player's unswerving loyalty, only his services. It's a big ol' mercenary world out there now, and has been since, I don't know, Wade Boggs left the Red Sox to go play for the Yankees (to name but one example). And in a mercenary world, where everything is about buying and selling, occasionally there will be buyer's remorse. 

This is pretty clearly what's happening here. So much so, that Freeman has apparently fired the agent who worked the Dodgers deal for him.

It seems his negotiating team overplayed its hand by issuing the Braves an ultimatum, to which the Braves responded by going out and signing another player to take Freeman's place. Which closed the door on Freeman returning.

"But Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "If Freeman really didn't want to leave Atlanta, why didn't he tell his negotiating team that? Why didn't he just say, 'Look, I want to play for the Braves, make it happen'? Doesn't his agent work for him?"

Well ... yeah. And that's the part where I don't understand. 

But, hey, maybe it works differently in these big-deal deals. Seems like it shouldn't, though. Seems like all Freeman should have to do is tell his agent what to do, and the agent does it.

In which case, if he's not where he wants to be, it's kinda his fault. Much as I feel for him.

Welcome to Oregon. Now go home.

 The Saudi LIV "We Aren't Just Thugs And Murderers, We Play Golf, Too!" Tour comes to the U.S. this weekend, specifically Oregon, even more specifically Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in tiny North Plains. And are the folks there amped for that!

OK, so ... not so much.

In fact, the mayor of North Plains, and several other mayors in surrounding cities, have sent the club's owner the ever-popular "We have concerns" letters. Some club members aren't too hot on the idea of playing host to a bunch of guys who've proved they'll take money from anyone. And Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has spoken out against the tournament, reminding people of the shenanigans the Saudis pulled a few years back right in Oregon's backyard.

What happened was, a Saudi student ran over a 15-year-old girl in nearby Portland and kept going. Charged with first-degree murder, he removed a tracking device and vanished. U.S. authorities are convinced the Saudi government facilitated his escape with a fake passport and private jet back to Saudi Arabia.

Seems a bunch of people in the Portland area (and Pumpkin Ridge is) haven't forgotten that. Just as other bunches of people haven't forgotten that 15 of the 19 terrorists who attacked the U.S. on 9/11 were Saudis, too. Some of the families of the lost on that dark day have spoken out against the LIV tour, and have scheduled a news conference for tomorrow morning, the first day of the tournament.

I can pretty guess what the gist of their comments will be. 

"How could you play golf for the people who murdered our sons/daughters/husbands/wives?" will likely be one theme.

"We don't want you here. Go home," will likely be another.

Both of those sentiments may be expressed using different verbiage, mind you. But here at the Blob we like to keep it at least marginally clean.

Dan on the lam

I know what Daniel Snyder is doing. He's looking for the one-armed man who killed his wife.

Heard he was hiding out in the French Riviera. On a yacht. On, you know, Daniel Snyder's yacht.

And, OK, so enough with the bad jokes from "The Fugitive." Even if Snyder is doing an excellent impression of Dr. Richard Kimble right now.

Like Kimble, he's on the lam, having fled to his yacht across the pond to avoid a subpoena from the U.S. House Oversight Committee. The committee wants him to testify about all the underhanded crap he's pulled over the years as owner of the Washington Commanders. You know, like intimidating witnesses, smearing former employees to take the heat off himself, feeling up Commanders cheerleaders and behaving like some street-corner pimp. All that cool stuff.

Now we learn that Snyder's not only a dirtbag, he's a fugitive from justice. 

He's overseas to avoid being served, and yesterday one of his attorneys refused to be served on his behalf. "Declined to accept" the subpoena, is how the ESPN story put it.

Declined to accept? Like, what, it was a dinner invitation or something?

The Blob is no legal scholar, so it's not surprising this is news to me. You can decline to accept a subpoena? Really? So if, God forbid, a process server ever came to my door, I could just say, "Nah, I'm good" and hand the subpoena back to him?

Of course I couldn't. But of course, I'm not Daniel Snyder, hiding out in the French Riviera behind my money and my Great Wall of Suits and my rich-white-guy privilege.

None of which changes what he is now.

I believe "common criminal" fits.

Field of pray

 I have seen prayer committed on football fields. Many times.

I have it seen committed on football fields where self-appointed arbiters of when it's appropriate to pray, and for what, and by whom, have booed it lustily. A sitting Vice-President, in a thoroughly choreographed act, once even walked out of a stadium to protest it.

On a certain Friday in 2001, I saw coaches and players from two public high schools kneel together in a small Indiana farming community while smoke still stained the sky over Manhattan.

One night, I saw a public high school kid named Drue Tranquill call his teammates and opponents together to pray for an opponent who'd been seriously injured in their just-concluded game.

So pardon me if I don't get the big deal over the Supremes ruling that a high school football coach fired for kneeling on the field with his players was free to do so. I've seen it a million times, so often it was just part of the backdrop of all the Friday nights I spent in high school football stadiums across 38 years. And you know what?

At no time did any of the kids who knelt with Coach look coerced  or emotionally scarred or, God forbid, violated in a constitutional sort of way. Even though peer pressure can be a powerful thing, kids are kids. What puts their parents in a lather, they just shrug at.

Know what else?

Like all such rulings and laws that attempt to govern public behavior, this one will have consequences. And those consequences may not play out the way supporters of the decision envisioned.

See: Prohibition.

See also: Last week's decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

There are a bunch of historic parallels between the two, and just as the former didn't work out the way those who pushed for it hoped it would, neither will the latter. If enough people want to drink, they'll find a way to make it happen. If enough people think women, and not the state. should control their own medical decisions, they'll find a way to make that happen, too. 

Ruling or no ruling. Law or no law.

And Coach kneeling to pray on the football field?

That his school overreached in canning him seems pretty obvious, given that there apparently was never any conclusive evidence he blatantly coerced any of his players to join him. But those who see this decision as a victory for religious freedom perhaps haven't fully considered what "religious freedom" means.

To them it seems to mean freedom for their religion. But what it really means is the Muslim coach kneeling at midfield to lead his team in a round of "Allah akbar!" is protected by this ruling, too. Or a Hindu coach who sends up prayers to Vishnu on behalf of his team.

In a multi-faith society, that could happen. And the celebrants of yesterday's ruling will of course be the first to say "Wait a minute ..."

But, hey. You sow, you reap. That's the name of that tune.

Wimbledon, clear as mud

 Wimbledon begins this week, less than 24 hours after the Colorado Avalanche hoisted the Stanley Cup in Tampa last night. I don't know what that says except the hockey season goes on so long a baby born on opening night is drawing Social Security by the time Stanley gets clean-and-jerked, and that just seems wrong somehow.

But what do I know. In my day hockey was about falling down a lot, losing the feeling in  my extremities and drinking hot chocolate. Now it's about board shorts, heatstroke and "How many burgers you want?"

And as for Wimbledon ...

Well, God bless its high-born, that-simply-isn't-done-old-sport reverence for self.

On the eve of the fortnight, Wimby club officials came out to explain themselves on their ludicrous Russian/Belorussian player ban, and it made about as much sense as you'd expect. Which is to say, hardly any.

Consider this gem, from All England Club chairman Ian Hewitt: "But also, it was very important to us that Wimbledon, given the profile that we have, should not be used in any way, by the propaganda machine which we know the Russian government employs in relation to its own people and how their position in the world is presented and that would be, we just would not countenance Wimbledon success or participation in Wimbledon being misused in that way ..."

Well, that's as clear as mud.

Look. The Blob has said this before, but it bears repeating: By blindly banning Russian and Belorussian players, Wimby is actually punishing some who've publicly decried Vladimir Putin's naked aggression against Ukraine.  Which of course in its own way gives the Russians a pass -- which would be exactly what the staunchly pro-Ukrainian British government has said it doesn't want, and is part of Ian Hewitt's rationale for the ban.

Also, there is the aforementioned self-reverence with which Wimbledon routinely swaddles itself. No one on God's earth would consider it a boost to Russia if Daniil Medvedev, the world No. 1, won the men's singles title. Hell, it's probably safe to say most of the world doesn't even know he's Russian. To them he's just a guy who spells "Daniel" weird.

So, no. It's beyond ridiculous to think anyone who sees Medvedev hoisting the Wimbledon trophy on Centre Court is going to think "Look! A Russian won Wimbledon! Damn, maybe Putin's right!"

Completely absurd. And not how it works, needless to say.

But Wimbledon is Wimbledon. You wear white. You keep quiet on the serve, you lot. And you certainly aren't going to let such a MONUMENTAL WORLD STAGE be used for propaganda purposes.

Why, you're not even going to use a tennis tournament for such purposes. Which of course is all Wimbledon is, in the end.