Comes now the news that Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne is beginning talks with another start-up indoor football league, and this takes the Blob back some.
I was around for the first iteration of indoor football in Fort Wayne, you see. Also the second, third and fourth iterations.
This makes the Blob deeply skeptical about the entire enterprise, on account of indoor football is a niche sport that, on a level designed for markets the size of Fort Wayne, is always going to be problematical. Either you get scammed by quick-buck artists or you wind up with chronically under-capitalized ownership that can't pay its bills or in some cases its players. Both have happened in Fort Wayne; both have made the principals involved on the Coliseum side rightly cautious of jumping into this pool again.
Cautious, but not cowed.
This is not to say the product itself isn't attractive. It is, and it had a fiercely passionate core fan base in Fort Wayne. That was not the issue. The issue was the size of that core fan base (very small) and how the teams managed to augment it.
The first version of the Freedom, Fort Wayne's initial foray into the minor-league niche-ery of indoor football, drew extremely well, for instance. But it had to paper the house with free tickets to do so. Subsequent attempts didn't draw nearly as well, and had other issues endemic to the product.
The second attempt (the Fusion) lasted one season before the team's owner was kicked out of the league for basically being a con man. The same thing happened to the third attempt. The fourth attempt lasted less than one season; it had to cancel its last home game because its opponent went out of business.
None of that is an anomaly in minor-league indoor football, mind you. It's pretty much the nature of the beast.
This newest venture is tentatively named the National Gridiron League, which hopes to begin play next March with a dozen teams. It will be a single-owner entity with potential local investors, and Coliseum officials seem to think the overall structure is solid.
I know what I think.
I think I hear "single owner," and I immediately think "Isiah Thomas."
Who bought the venerable Continental Basketball Association during one of his hiatuses from running NBA franchises into the ground. And who destroyed a league that been around for decades in less than 18 months.
Please, God. Not again.
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Car talk
Details are now emerging about the Process, and no, not that other Process, although the team that popularized the term -- the Philadelphia 76ers -- did get in on the LeBron James Pitchathon, too.
No, this Process is subtitled How Magic Johnson Landed LeBron, and it includes this quirky tidbit: Apparently Magic arrived an hour early for his scheduled meeting with Bron, and waited in his car outside James' California home like ... oh, I don't know. A stalker, maybe?
Process server?
Benson and Stabler on a stakeout?
All sorts of fun analogies here, but the Blob, in its endless search for even more details, wants to know exactly how Magic spent that hour waiting in his car. Did he drink bad coffee and wonder why Munch and Fin didn't draw this gig? Watch old episodes of The Magic Hour (all eight weeks of them) on his phone? Marvel at how LeBron had just as cool a house as he had?
We take you now to the entirely imaginary transcript ...
Sometime on June 30. Inside a car parked outside LeBron James' California home.
MAGIC JOHNSON (taking a sip of coffee): Damn, this stuff is nasty! How do Benson and Stabler stand it?
(Rustling papers)
MAGIC (under his breath): Hey, LeBron ... Hey! LeBron! ... Beautiful home, you have here, LeBron ... Heeeeey! It's my man, the King!
(Brief pause)
Ooh. That's bad. That's reaaaally bad, Magic.
(More rustling papers)
MAGIC: OK, let's see here. LeBron, you and I are both champions, blah-blah ... know what it takes to build a winner, blah-blah ... young team, perfect mentor ... bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Business interests. Bullshit, bullshit. Film industry, family, you could own this town ... bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
(Brief pause)
Hmmm. "Own this town." Maybe I need to add something there.
(Rustling papers)
"And never ... mind ... what Kobe says ... or any .. of the idiots ... who think he was better than you are."
(Brief pause)
MAGIC: Ah. Perfect. Now what time is it?
(Brief pause)
MAGIC: Damn. Still 55 minutes to go.
No, this Process is subtitled How Magic Johnson Landed LeBron, and it includes this quirky tidbit: Apparently Magic arrived an hour early for his scheduled meeting with Bron, and waited in his car outside James' California home like ... oh, I don't know. A stalker, maybe?
Process server?
Benson and Stabler on a stakeout?
All sorts of fun analogies here, but the Blob, in its endless search for even more details, wants to know exactly how Magic spent that hour waiting in his car. Did he drink bad coffee and wonder why Munch and Fin didn't draw this gig? Watch old episodes of The Magic Hour (all eight weeks of them) on his phone? Marvel at how LeBron had just as cool a house as he had?
We take you now to the entirely imaginary transcript ...
Sometime on June 30. Inside a car parked outside LeBron James' California home.
MAGIC JOHNSON (taking a sip of coffee): Damn, this stuff is nasty! How do Benson and Stabler stand it?
(Rustling papers)
MAGIC (under his breath): Hey, LeBron ... Hey! LeBron! ... Beautiful home, you have here, LeBron ... Heeeeey! It's my man, the King!
(Brief pause)
Ooh. That's bad. That's reaaaally bad, Magic.
(More rustling papers)
MAGIC: OK, let's see here. LeBron, you and I are both champions, blah-blah ... know what it takes to build a winner, blah-blah ... young team, perfect mentor ... bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Business interests. Bullshit, bullshit. Film industry, family, you could own this town ... bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
(Brief pause)
Hmmm. "Own this town." Maybe I need to add something there.
(Rustling papers)
"And never ... mind ... what Kobe says ... or any .. of the idiots ... who think he was better than you are."
(Brief pause)
MAGIC: Ah. Perfect. Now what time is it?
(Brief pause)
MAGIC: Damn. Still 55 minutes to go.
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Statuesque
First, a confession: The Blob is shamefully late to this party. It realizes this. It apologizes.
It's been a couple of weeks, give or take, since Sammy Sosa came out and advocated for another statue to be erected outside Wrigley Field. This was not an unreasonable request, because there's plenty of candidates, given the Cubs' long, colorful and mostly heartbreaking history, for statuary.
What was unreasonable, not to say entirely inappropriate, was the statue Sosa was pounding the drum for was of himself.
Bad form to flog your own posterity, and for that Sosa deserved the raking he got in Chicago and elsewhere. But that doesn't mean he didn't have a point.
After all, he pretty much was the Cubs back in the late '90s and early Aughts. Between 1998 and 2001, the man hit 60 or more home runs in a season three times, and he hit 50 the other time. He drove in 100 or more runs nine straight years, and drove in 138 or more four straight years. He led the perennially playoff-anemic Cubs to the NL playoffs in '98, and for a period of five or six seasons he was a Chicago sports icon, and maybe the Chicago sports icon.
This certainly sounds statuary worthy to me.
Unfortunately, Sosa did all that in the shadow of the Steroids Era in baseball, and almost alone among the prime suspects of that era he remains a pariah among pariahs. Alex Rodriguez, an admitted serial PED user (Sosa never admitted nor was ever proven to be one) is now a national broadcaster, one of the public faces of Major League Baseball. People have largely forgiven Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the latter two of whom continue to creep closer to Hall of Fame eligibility every year. And outside ballparks all over the country, there are statues of icons who, if not products of the Steroids Era, were at least guilty of popping amphetamines to get through day games after night games.
That, too, was better baseball through chemistry. And yet no taint attaches to them.
And they certainly don't have the untouchable-ness of Sosa, who has been thoroughly shunned by the franchise and city he once all but owned.
Maybe he doesn't deserve a statue. But to somehow acknowledge what he once meant?
That doesn't seem unreasonable, either.
It's been a couple of weeks, give or take, since Sammy Sosa came out and advocated for another statue to be erected outside Wrigley Field. This was not an unreasonable request, because there's plenty of candidates, given the Cubs' long, colorful and mostly heartbreaking history, for statuary.
What was unreasonable, not to say entirely inappropriate, was the statue Sosa was pounding the drum for was of himself.
Bad form to flog your own posterity, and for that Sosa deserved the raking he got in Chicago and elsewhere. But that doesn't mean he didn't have a point.
After all, he pretty much was the Cubs back in the late '90s and early Aughts. Between 1998 and 2001, the man hit 60 or more home runs in a season three times, and he hit 50 the other time. He drove in 100 or more runs nine straight years, and drove in 138 or more four straight years. He led the perennially playoff-anemic Cubs to the NL playoffs in '98, and for a period of five or six seasons he was a Chicago sports icon, and maybe the Chicago sports icon.
This certainly sounds statuary worthy to me.
Unfortunately, Sosa did all that in the shadow of the Steroids Era in baseball, and almost alone among the prime suspects of that era he remains a pariah among pariahs. Alex Rodriguez, an admitted serial PED user (Sosa never admitted nor was ever proven to be one) is now a national broadcaster, one of the public faces of Major League Baseball. People have largely forgiven Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the latter two of whom continue to creep closer to Hall of Fame eligibility every year. And outside ballparks all over the country, there are statues of icons who, if not products of the Steroids Era, were at least guilty of popping amphetamines to get through day games after night games.
That, too, was better baseball through chemistry. And yet no taint attaches to them.
And they certainly don't have the untouchable-ness of Sosa, who has been thoroughly shunned by the franchise and city he once all but owned.
Maybe he doesn't deserve a statue. But to somehow acknowledge what he once meant?
That doesn't seem unreasonable, either.
Monday, July 9, 2018
The Battle, an update
And, please, no caterwauling.
The Blob knows you don't care about the Battle for the Cellar. It knows you don't care about its crappy baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. It doesn't care that you don't care. So there.
Thing is, this is the perfect time for a Battle update, given that we're a week away from the All-Star break and neither the Pirates nor the Reds, the hard-fightin' Battle participants, are going to have much of a presence there for the excellent reason that they both stink.
The All-Star rosters were released yesterday, and the Pirates have exactly one player (pitcher Felipe Vazquez) on the National League's. The Reds have three, none of them starters and none of them pitchers. And one of them is Joey Votto, who shouldn't really count because Votto's really, really good and pretty much an automatic All-Star every year.
This brings us back to the Battle, which has tightened again since we last checked in. The Reds have now closed to within 2 1/2 games of the Buccos, mainly because they've been playing some decent baseball while the Pirates have doggedly pursued their customary craptitude. In fact, their lead over the Reds was as low as a game-and-a-half until the Reds dropped two in a row to the Cubs over the weekend.
Can't wait to see what the rest of the season will bring.
Yeah, I know. I'm the only one.
The Blob knows you don't care about the Battle for the Cellar. It knows you don't care about its crappy baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. It doesn't care that you don't care. So there.
Thing is, this is the perfect time for a Battle update, given that we're a week away from the All-Star break and neither the Pirates nor the Reds, the hard-fightin' Battle participants, are going to have much of a presence there for the excellent reason that they both stink.
The All-Star rosters were released yesterday, and the Pirates have exactly one player (pitcher Felipe Vazquez) on the National League's. The Reds have three, none of them starters and none of them pitchers. And one of them is Joey Votto, who shouldn't really count because Votto's really, really good and pretty much an automatic All-Star every year.
This brings us back to the Battle, which has tightened again since we last checked in. The Reds have now closed to within 2 1/2 games of the Buccos, mainly because they've been playing some decent baseball while the Pirates have doggedly pursued their customary craptitude. In fact, their lead over the Reds was as low as a game-and-a-half until the Reds dropped two in a row to the Cubs over the weekend.
Can't wait to see what the rest of the season will bring.
Yeah, I know. I'm the only one.
That bicycle race
And now we check in on the Tour de France, which the Blob once christened the Tour de Syringe on account of cycling's hydra-headed drug scandals, and which once brought the cycling community's wrath down on my head for suggesting it wasn't unreasonable to wonder how Lance Armstrong was winning it so often and so easily.
Ah, those were the days.
And now?
Now we're two stages into this year's Tour de Syringe, and, be honest, I bet most of you weren't even aware it had begun. Lance is long gone, having been revealed not only to be a drug cheat, but something of a mafiaso among drug cheats for using intimidation and threats to strong-arm his team members into using, too. Chris Froome, the sport's new dominant figure, fell in the first stage after spending most of the run-up fighting his own drugging allegations (he was cleared).
Some guy named Peter Sagan is leading after two stages, and the big story yesterday was the leader of Team Sky, Froome's team, attacking the new president of cycling's ruling body, David Lappartient, for being biased against Team Sky and Froome in particular.
In other words, cycling is still cycling.
To the peloton, mon ami!
Ah, those were the days.
And now?
Now we're two stages into this year's Tour de Syringe, and, be honest, I bet most of you weren't even aware it had begun. Lance is long gone, having been revealed not only to be a drug cheat, but something of a mafiaso among drug cheats for using intimidation and threats to strong-arm his team members into using, too. Chris Froome, the sport's new dominant figure, fell in the first stage after spending most of the run-up fighting his own drugging allegations (he was cleared).
Some guy named Peter Sagan is leading after two stages, and the big story yesterday was the leader of Team Sky, Froome's team, attacking the new president of cycling's ruling body, David Lappartient, for being biased against Team Sky and Froome in particular.
In other words, cycling is still cycling.
To the peloton, mon ami!
Sunday, July 8, 2018
That's racin'
And now a brief moment to check in with NASCAR, which is still racing all these months after Daytona, and this weekend went back to Daytona for what used to be called the Firecracker 400, but now is called the Coke Zero Sugar 400 or the Coke Lite 400 or the Coke That Won't Make You Fat 400 or some such thing.
Anyway, they had a big ol' crash Saturday night in the Won't Make You Fat 400, same as ever at NASCAR's two restrictor plate tracks. Later, Brad Keselowski, who triggered it by lifting in the middle of the customary freight train, complained afterward it was because the kid who was leading, William Byron, moved over to block Keselowski in an inappropriate way.
Apparently there are appropriate ways and inappropriate ways to keep a guy from trying to pass you for the lead, which most normal people would regard as the whole point of auto racing. Byron, according to Keselowski, blocked him the wrong way. Or waited too late. Or ... something.
In any case, it set off that big ol' crash. Which, again, always happens at Daytona and Talladega no matter what, so why it was a bigger deal this time than any other time is beyond the Blob's comprehension.
Best guess from trying to decipher Keselowski's complaint is that Byron should have moved over and let Keselowski go by. Maybe thrown in a friendly wave, just for etiquette's sake.
After all, that's racin'.
Anyway, they had a big ol' crash Saturday night in the Won't Make You Fat 400, same as ever at NASCAR's two restrictor plate tracks. Later, Brad Keselowski, who triggered it by lifting in the middle of the customary freight train, complained afterward it was because the kid who was leading, William Byron, moved over to block Keselowski in an inappropriate way.
Apparently there are appropriate ways and inappropriate ways to keep a guy from trying to pass you for the lead, which most normal people would regard as the whole point of auto racing. Byron, according to Keselowski, blocked him the wrong way. Or waited too late. Or ... something.
In any case, it set off that big ol' crash. Which, again, always happens at Daytona and Talladega no matter what, so why it was a bigger deal this time than any other time is beyond the Blob's comprehension.
Best guess from trying to decipher Keselowski's complaint is that Byron should have moved over and let Keselowski go by. Maybe thrown in a friendly wave, just for etiquette's sake.
After all, that's racin'.
Saturday, July 7, 2018
Requiem for the New World
We like to think we're better, over here in the Western Hemisphere. We're newer, for one thing. We've got wide open spaces where we can swing our mighty elbows to our hearts' content. And we believe we brought the best of the Old World with us while jettisoning the worst of it, although that's not nearly as true as we assume it is.
And you know what else?
Most years, we can play soccer with the best of them.
Most years.
This year, however ... well let's just yesterday was a crummy day for the New World, which got old-schooled right out of the World Cup. France beat Uruguay and Belgium knocked out Brazil, a nominal favorite, and that's it for the Western Hemisphere. We're not even out of the quarterfinals and the Americas are out of it.
It's an all-Europe show now from here on out, and I don't know what there is to say about that except the Europes just play better soccer these days. The United States didn't even get into the World Cup. Mexico had the big day against Germany but that was pretty much it. Panama played the role of Automatic W for everyone it played. And Brazil and Argentina, the royal couple of South American soccer, never approached the level of play which was expected of them.
Uruguay, it turns out, was likely the best South American side. And it couldn't even get out of the quarters.
So now the New World has to watch the Old World divvy up the spoils, which is kind of where we came into all this, if you think about it. The Old World came here in the first place, after all, to divvy up our spoils. History, the great circle.
So who do you root for now?
Well, the logical choice here in the U.S. would be the mother country, England, because we're still kinda-sorta relatives. But the Blob is putting its chips on Belgium, and not only because they play a lovely brand of soccer. The Blob is putting its chips on Belgium because it's historically one of the most put-upon nations in Europe, and so deserves a moment in the sun. You get run over by the Germans twice in one century, the gods surely owe you something.
Germany, of course, is already out of it. Karma.
And as for England ...
I'm sure a lot of Americans are pulling for them. But I'm also sure a nation with as significant a population of Irish descendants in it means it's in no way an automatic thing. The Irish, after all, have no reason to love the British, for the very good reason that the British once upon a time tried to exterminate them. And I guess my opinion in this area is colored by an encounter I had in Florence, Italy, one night in 2012, when the Brits were playing the home country of Italy in the Euro Cup quarters.
Sitting next to me at the outdoor café where we were watching, it turned out, was a guy from Ireland. And at one point I leaned over and asked him if he were rooting for England. The Commonwealth, and all that.
He looked at me like I had two heads.
"Oh, hell, no!" he said.
I suppose he's rooting for Belgium now, too. All the best people do, I'm told.
And you know what else?
Most years, we can play soccer with the best of them.
Most years.
This year, however ... well let's just yesterday was a crummy day for the New World, which got old-schooled right out of the World Cup. France beat Uruguay and Belgium knocked out Brazil, a nominal favorite, and that's it for the Western Hemisphere. We're not even out of the quarterfinals and the Americas are out of it.
It's an all-Europe show now from here on out, and I don't know what there is to say about that except the Europes just play better soccer these days. The United States didn't even get into the World Cup. Mexico had the big day against Germany but that was pretty much it. Panama played the role of Automatic W for everyone it played. And Brazil and Argentina, the royal couple of South American soccer, never approached the level of play which was expected of them.
Uruguay, it turns out, was likely the best South American side. And it couldn't even get out of the quarters.
So now the New World has to watch the Old World divvy up the spoils, which is kind of where we came into all this, if you think about it. The Old World came here in the first place, after all, to divvy up our spoils. History, the great circle.
So who do you root for now?
Well, the logical choice here in the U.S. would be the mother country, England, because we're still kinda-sorta relatives. But the Blob is putting its chips on Belgium, and not only because they play a lovely brand of soccer. The Blob is putting its chips on Belgium because it's historically one of the most put-upon nations in Europe, and so deserves a moment in the sun. You get run over by the Germans twice in one century, the gods surely owe you something.
Germany, of course, is already out of it. Karma.
And as for England ...
I'm sure a lot of Americans are pulling for them. But I'm also sure a nation with as significant a population of Irish descendants in it means it's in no way an automatic thing. The Irish, after all, have no reason to love the British, for the very good reason that the British once upon a time tried to exterminate them. And I guess my opinion in this area is colored by an encounter I had in Florence, Italy, one night in 2012, when the Brits were playing the home country of Italy in the Euro Cup quarters.
Sitting next to me at the outdoor café where we were watching, it turned out, was a guy from Ireland. And at one point I leaned over and asked him if he were rooting for England. The Commonwealth, and all that.
He looked at me like I had two heads.
"Oh, hell, no!" he said.
I suppose he's rooting for Belgium now, too. All the best people do, I'm told.
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