June swoon. Er, swoons

 And now a quick check-in with my Pittsburgh Cruds, prompting the usual loud protests from the usual suspects.

 (These include "Nobody cares about your stupid baseball team!", and also "Gaaah! Baseball! Why can't we talk about stuff Americans care about, like soccer and Irish hurling?" To name just two of the usual protests.)

In any case, if you haven't been paying attention ("Oh, HELL, no!"), the Cruds are making a valiant effort to defend their last-place title. They've lost six in a row now and are 10 games below .500.

However ...

However, they're still in third place in NL Central, because the stupid Cubs and the stupid Reds won't cooperate.

The stupid Cubs, see, have also lost six in a row, and remain a game-and-a-half adrift of the Cruds. And the Reds have lost five of their last six to remain in last, two-and-a-half games behind the Cubs and four behind my Cruds.

This is, of course, an intolerable situation. Because if the Cubs and the Reds continue to stubbornly suck, too, and the Cruds wind up finishing third, management will say "See?   Our 30-year plan to be a farm team to actual major-league teams is working!" And they'll continue not to invest in the team ("Because if we can finish third without trying, why actually try?"), and the Blob will be pushing up daisies before they finish above .500 again.

Gaaah!

To coin a phrase.

Freedom of delusion

 Hey, we all get it. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Sometimes it's a defensive coordinator in Washington, D,C.

That would be Jack Del Rio of the Washington Commanders, who the other day posted some spectacular denial on social media. Right out loud, he wondered why Congress was making such an all-fired deal about that minor "dust-up" at the Capitol, because what about all the protestors who rioted after George Floyd was murdered by a psycho cop?

To which a lot of folks responded, "Huh?"

Also, "Jeezly crow, what a dumbass."

Also, "Um, yeah, a violent attack on the seat of American government is just a 'dust-up'. Sure. And where's your rubber room these days, Mr. Del Rio?"

Here's the thing, though: I don't recall anyone coming forward to say Del Rio's dumbassery was "hurtful," or said, "Ouch, that hurt!", or otherwise was rendered wounded and sorrowful by said dumbassery.

Commanders head coach Ron Rivera sure thought otherwise, however.

He released a statement expressing his disappointment with Del Rio's comments, then said he was fining Del Rio $100,000 for his comments that were "extremely hurtful to our great community here in the DMV." Rivera characterized those comments as wrong, and an opinion that would not be tolerated by the organization.

Now, I don't have a problem with Rivera fining Del Rio. He's his boss. He can fine him for wearing a crappy-looking tie if he wants to.

What I have a problem with is punishing him for expressing an opinion, no matter how lint-brained.

That January 6 was, as Rivera called it, an act of domestic terrorism is beyond debate now  for any rational person. The Congressional committee investigating the events of that day laid out its case fact by fact by fact the other night, and it was devastating. It made crystal that Jan. 6 was the bloody end game of an orchestrated effort by a sitting president to keep himself in power by erasing the results of a democratic election.

I don't know what else you can call that except a coup attempt. It's pretty much the very definition.

All that said, Del Rio is entitled to his delusions. He's entitled to express them. Fining him for a "wrong" opinion comes perilously close to George Orwell's groupthink.

What you do if you're Rivera, and you're smart, is you express your opinion -- "My defensive coordinator is an idiot," for example -- and let Del Rio twist in the wind. Eventually the Requisite Media Frenzy would force Del Rio to resign, or force the Commanders to fire him. 

The Commanders could then get themselves off the hook by saying they weren't firing him because of his opinions, but because they'd caused a "distraction."

Which is NFL-speak for "This guy's a pain in the ass and we just don't want him around anymore."

The right-wing victim machine would still martyr-ize Del Rio as a casualty of political correctness, and yada-yada-yada. But the Commanders would at least have some cover.

Instead, they decided to go full Orwell. A damn shame, and not terribly bright.

Battle lines, drawn

 Well, now I guess it's a war for real. The rebs have fired on Sumter. The Sons of Liberty have beaten back the redcoats at Concord. Yamamoto has blown up Battleship Row.

And, in less momentous conflict news, the PGA has kicked 17 players out of the club for taking what even one of the banned (Phil Mickelson) has admitted is blood money.

Among the names of the officially banished are Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Lee Westwood, Charl Schwartzel and Sergio Garcia. Also an assortment of Graeme McDowells, Louis Oosthuizens, Ian Poulters and Martin Kaymers.

All are presumably in London this weekend, playing for gory Saudi dough while LIV Series security goons duck-walk reporters out of news conferences for asking embarrassing questions about dismembered journalists and murdered women and children and the like.

The latter actually happened, by the way. 

It's not a good look for the LIV, and a tiny contrarian part of the Blob thinks the PGA's ban of the LIV defectors is not a good look, either.  It smacks of exactly the authoritarianism the defectors are supposedly defecting to protest. Way to make their point for them, ya dopes.

Still ...

Still, it's hard to feel sorry for the Mickelsons and DJs 'n' them. Just as it's hard to feel sorry for anyone who compromises principle for cash.

A lot of people do it, of course, and they all deserve the appropriate scorn. Giving a bunch of rich golfers a pass because of that, as some folks out there seem to want to, is the flimsiest of debate strategies. It's the sort of whataboutism people resort to when they can't defend a thing.

And what these guys are doing is indefensible. Just like, yes, F1 and World Cup soccer crawling in bed with Middle Eastern thugs and the NBA crawling in bed with Chinese thugs is indefensible.

No single one mitigates any other one. Try again, boys and girls.

But back to the LIV.

All that money luring already moneyed golfers to help the Saudis "sportswash" their hideousness is an offense that carries its own punishment, or so the Blob thinks. Because of  all those chunky appearance fees and guaranteed payouts the LIV is offering, the public not unreasonably may view it as nothing but a series of exhibitions. Because if everyone in the field gets a wad of cash, for what are they really competing at the end of the day?

Yes, the winners get more, but so what? A guy who's already richer than God getting even richer is not the sort of drama that draws people to sports. No one flocked to "Hoosiers" to see Big Giant Consolidated High School beat Other Big Giant Consolidated High School for the state title. An embarrassment of riches is just, well, boring, frankly.

And so what's likely to happen is the defectors may vanish from the radar, at least to an extent. 

Hey, did you see what DJ did this weekend?

Who?

DJ. Dustin Johnson.

Oh, yeah. You mean that guy who's traveling around the world playing exhibitions now?

That sort of thing.

And so ...

Enjoy your blood money, boys. It was nice knowin' ya.

Today's questions

 Which all involve Deshaun Watson, whose story continues to get seedier and more twisted, what with the New York Times reporting that (with the aid of the Houston Texans) he visited 66 massage therapists in 17 months ...

Question the First: What normal person visits 66 massage therapists in 17 months? 

(Answer: No normal person visits 66 massage therapists in 17 months. Man's clearly got a problem.)

Question the Second: And what normal person allegedly waves his tallywhacker at a whole pile of those therapists?

(Answer: See answer to Question the First)

Question the Third: Are the Browns the dumbest franchise in history for, despite all of the above, agreeing to pay the guy $230 million over five years>

(Answer: Yes.)

(Also answer: But we already knew that.)

Question the Fourth: Are the Browns also creepy and reptilian because they never bothered to talk to any of Watson's accusers before signing him (this is commonly known as "vetting"), and also because they structured his deal to protect him from a possible suspension?

(Answer: The hell do you think?)

Question the Fifth: What should Baker Mayfield do if Watson gets suspended, seeing how the Browns have left him to twist in the wind?

(Answer: Wait until the very next day, and then announce he's taking "a mental health break" from the game -- thereby leaving the Browns without a viable quarterback, and jerking them around the way they've jerked him around.)

And last but not least ...

Question the Sixth: Speaking of suspensions, what in the name of Sexual Misconduct Is Something We Take Very Seriously is the NFL waiting for?

(Answers: Christmas. A 25th accuser to come forward, because that would be the magic number or something. A Million Woman March to descend on Roger Goodell's office, pound on his door and say "What the hell, man?")

A rare double

 The Blob is famous for always being wrong about stuff. I mean, I covered the Indianapolis 500 for 40 years, so I kinda know something about it, but you know how many times I've correctly predicted the winner in those 40 years?

Four. Four times.

But strange things happen in the cosmos. Like, I actually think I'm getting the hang of being right once in awhile.

The other day, for instance, I pointed out that, because of the nature of these NBA playoffs, the Warriors would probably win Game 2 easily on account of they blew Game 1 so spectacularly.

And then the Warriors won Game 2 by 19.

Which I noted, and then wrote this:

And so, on to Game 3. On to Boston.

Where the Celtics will adjust the way the Warriors adjusted in Game 2, and Boston will slow down Curry just enough to keep the Warriors from putting together one of their fabled nuclear runs. And the home team will pull out the win by, oh, let's say eight or 10 points.

Actually, it was only by six, 116-110.

And Steph Curry got hurt.

And now I'm thinking if he's really hurt, the Warriors are in big-time trouble. Unless, that is, Draymond Green, who was pretty much a ghost last night, goes all beast mode in Game 4, and Klay Thompson hits some more threes, and the Warriors even the series again.

I think this is exactly what's going to happen.

On the other hand, I've already pulled off the rare Double Right this week. A Triple Right may be too much an affront for the sports gods to stomach.

Guess we'll see.

The price was right

 I don't know what is the precise definition of "Eff you money," except that it's shorthand for "Eff you, I've got money." I don't even know if "Eff you money" has a precise dollar figure.

What I do know is, for Dustin Johnson, it seems to be around $125 million.

And for Phil Mickelson, $200 million.

And for various other PGA Tour regulars, various other chunky denominations.

What all of them have in common is they've taken money stained with the blood of innocents and said "Eff you." They're all off to Greg Norman's LIV tour, which is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, which enjoys doing cool stuff like murdering journalists and dismembering their bodies, and butchering civilians in neighboring Yemen.

Yes, they're lovely people, the Saudis, but they're also the latest proof that if you have enough money to throw around, it doesn't matter if you have no manners. The people at whom you throw money will make excuses for you even if you chain your kids to the basement wall and torture them on the regular.

"Hey, everyone disciplines their children differently," they'll say.

Or, "Meh, lots of people have done worse. What about China, for God's sake?"

This is the rationale Norman and his cadre of PGA defectors are using in defending what is clearly a classic "Eff you, I've got money" scenario. Or, to be more precise, "Eff you, the Saudis have money."

Or to be even MORE precise: "Eff you, the Saudis have money and they're giving it to me."

And, OK, I get it, these are professional golfers we're talking about.  They are as enthusiastically capitalist as John D. Rockefeller, from the tip of their logo visors to the tip of their other logo shoes. Money means a great deal to them.

I just wish they'd admit that without exercising a lot of phony moral relevance.

It's not a great defense, after all, to justify reprehensible money-grubbing by pointing out the reprehensible money-grubbing of others. Yes, F1 does business with repressive Middle Eastern regimes, too. Yes, so does professional soccer. And, yes, so does the NBA, cozying up to the Chinese because their market potential is through the roof.

All of that is true. And all of that has been criticized in various corners of the media, despite the amnesia of those who say it hasn't been. (Examples just from the Blob, re China and the NBA: Here, and here.)

So what's your point, exactly, gentlemen?

Do you even have one, except the obvious?

Didn't think so. 

Translu(nacy)

 Time now to check in with Hysteria Watch, the Blob's just-invented mechanism for keeping tabs on the latest trends among the pitchfork-and-torch set, who never met an imaginary monster they couldn't rally the gullible around.

It seems trans athletes are their latest hobby horse, joining Critical Race Theory, mentioning gay people in classrooms (it's called "grooming," apparently) and the dadgum gummint coming to take our guns.

Now trans athletes are zooming up the hysteria charts. Especially in Ohio.

Where the Ohio House just approved a bill requiring genital inspections to keep transgender athletes from competing in girls sports -- because obviously this is a HUGE PROBLEM in Ohio, and those sneaky transgenders will infiltrate girls sports in that state unless legislators ACT NOW.

This, of course, is completely insane, especially since there are no fully formed guidelines as yet for this un-amended edict. Will the parents of one girl athlete be able to force a more skilled teammate to prove she's a girl, angling for more playing time for their little Susie? Because don't think that couldn't, or wouldn't, happen.

On the other hand, because the bill is as yet un-amended, there's the possibility Ohio's Senate will get a sudden attack of brainwave activity and/or compassion and radically water it down. One would hope, anyway.

But you never want to count out hysteria these days, especially among those of a certain political lean. So it's not unreasonable to think Ohio, in order to protect girls, could pass a law forcing them to prove they're girls in the most intimate and demeaning way possible.

Think about that for a moment. If you can, that is, without losing your mind entirely.

The whole idea is not only draconian but medieval, and perhaps (blessedly) unenforceable as well. I can't imagine any doctor worth his medical degree willingly consenting to such a charade. I can more easily see him defying the law by, instead of conducting the required Larry Nassar-esque examination, simply closing his office door and saying "Yeah, you're a girl. Where's the form I have to sign?"

The problem here, as usual, is that legislators are offering an outlandish solution to a non-existent problem. Transgenders make up less than 1 percent of the American population. There's absolutely zero evidence they're beating down doors to invade girls sports and keep little Susie on the sidelines. And there are already rules in place among some athletic entities, including the NCAA, that prohibit transgender athletes from competing if their testosterone levels are too high.

This includes Lia Thomas from Penn, the transgender swimmer who has become Public Enemy No. 1 in certain precincts because she won the NCAA championship in the 500 freestyle in March -- even though her testosterone levels were well within NCAA guidelines.  . 

And in her other two events?

Well. She finished, um, fifth and eighth. 

Fifth and eighth!

Total domination, by God. And totally a "threat."