Their Cup runneth even

 The thing about the World Cup is, a tie is not always like kissing your sister, as Bear Bryant liked to see. Sometimes a tie is a win -- or a loss, depending what side of the tie you're on.

"OK, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Zen break is over. Get on with it."

Alrighty, then. Let's talk about Cape Verde, then.

It's an island nation 350 miles of the west coast of Africa that used to belong to Portugal, but that's been independent for 51 years now. This year its soccer team, which includes expats from half the countries in the world, reached the World Cup for the first time. With a population just north of half-a-million, it's the third-smallest country ever to play in the world's biggest sporting event.

And yesterday it beat Spain, 0-0.

And, OK, so officially that made it a nil-nil draw, but that didn't mean it wasn't a huge upset. It was. It was, in fact, a monumental upset, given the fact Spain is almost everyone's favorite to win the World Cup and Cape Verde is ... well, lovely bunch of islands in the eastern Atlantic.

The Verde-ians (Verdettes?) did it with guts, determination, dumb luck and a 40-year-old goalkeeper named Vozinha, who made seven saves and immediately became the star of the tournament in its early stages. In 19 years he's played professionally in six countries -- including two stops in Portugal, where he's currently with Chaves in La Liga Portugal 2.

Before yesterday only hardcore soccerheads had heard of him. Now he has five million followers on Instagram.

This is what one shining moment will do for a guy in the World Cup, just as one shining moment In the NCAA Tournament will make people aware that a Maryland-Baltimore County, a Fairleigh Dickinson or a Mercer are actual schools with actual basketball teams. Upsets make the Madness, the Madness; upsets make the World Cup, the World Cup.

This is especially true in the latter case, because upsets like Cape Verde vs. Spain happen so rarely. Many more times than not, a Cape Verde-Spain result will look like Germany-Curacao (a 7-1 rout for the Germans), or Sweden-Tunisia (in which the Swedes paved the Tunisians 5-1).

Plus, the fans are nuttier in World Cup. They just are.

Oh, sure, college kids will paint their faces and sometimes their torsos in the colors of dear old Whatsamatta U., but what about the Australia fans who show up dressed in a head-to-toe kangaroo suit (in honor of their national side, the Sockeroos)? Or how about the Egypt fan who showed up for his side's 1-1 draw with Belgium wearing the head of Anubis, the Egyptian god of graves?

I don't know what the Cape Verde equivalent is to that, but I bet it would be cool. And I bet they partied long into the night in a distinctly Cape Verde-ian (Verdette?) way after their boys brought down mighty Spain, sort of.

Their World Cup runneth even, by golly. Raise a glass.

The Great Divide

 The President of these United States celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday, and to commemorate the occasion, Ivory Coast beat Ecuador 1-nil on the soccer pitch.

OK. So that's not right.

How about this: The President of these United States celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday, and to commemorate the occasion, the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-0 to win the Stanley Cup.

No?

Fine. Here's one more:

 The President of these United States celebrated Pride Month yesterday, and to commemorate the occasion, a bunch of buff, sweaty, half-naked men brawled on the White House lawn. 

Excuse me?

Whatta you mean I'm being snarky about this?

You mean it was actually a celebration of Freedom, and the President of Freedom, and good old All-American Freedom testosterone? Strength and will and aggravated assault (but with referees!)? Everything that made America the greatest country in the history of countries, and last night's mixed martial arts card the greatest sporting event in the history of sporting events?

(Which, no lie, is how it was marketed)

Okey-dokey. Whatever floats your boat.

This is an America, after all, where there are any number of boats these days, and they're all headed off different edges of the world. Whatever commonality we have as a nation -- and, truthfully, it's never been as common as we like to think -- vanishes a bit more with every deranged social media post by Fearless Leader, his acolytes, and the fringier of his appalled opponents.

Either he's Jesus Christ, or he's the Antichrist. Either he's George Washington, or he's Attila the Hun. Either Michelle Obama is a thoughtful, educated former First Lady eminently worthy of every American's respect ... or she's a man.

Which is what one of the buff, sweaty, half-naked brawlers shouted last night after winning his fight. Right after he praised God, of course.

This not being a crowd well-versed in cognitive dissonance, they cheered.

And elsewhere?

Elsewhere, Japanese fans were observed picking up their trash after Japan and the Netherlands tied 1-1 in their opening World Cup soccer match.

Elsewhere (reportedly, because who knows these days), some Knicks fans stuck around to help sanitation workers clean up the New York streets after a night of revelry and mayhem following the Knicks first NBA title in 53 years.

Elsewhere, Carolina's ancient warrior, Jordan Staal, hoisted the Stanley Cup on enemy ice, and no one threw trash him, no one (at least within earshot) questioned his parentage, no one called his wife a man.

On Flag Day, in the midst of America's 250th year, the Great American Divide perhaps was never more starkly illustrated. To our eternal shame.

Respect vs. disrespect. Manners vs., well, something else. America vs. 'Merica.

On one side of the divide stands the crowd who believes in their heart of hearts that Fearless Leader is a Dark Lord intent on destroying every decent thing about this country, instead of what he is -- a half-senile bumbler surrounded by bumbling enablers who, yes, are intent on destroying every decent thing about this country, but who thankfully appear too stupid to complete the mission.

And on the other side?

They're the enablers, the hell-yeah bunch, the poor dupes who believe big talk and bombs equate to strength, and that God anointed the half-senile bumbler to be the GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER and save us all from diversity, inclusion and the Somali/Muslim/transgender hordes.

Oh, and from Michelle Obama, of course.

Anyway, that ensemble was on full display last night, in what was billed as UFC Freedom 250 but looked more like redneck cosplay. On the grounds of the People's House, they erected an MMA cage emblazoned with Bud Light logos. Dirt bikes sailed over jumps.  Not far away lay the trash heap that used to be the East Wing.

All that was missing were a rusted-out Chevy up on blocks and a giant oil stain in the driveway. The Ellipse as Cletus Bob's front yard, in other words.

And, yes, I know, that sounds insufferably elitist. It isn't meant to. And it's not like I'm some kale-eating dilettante who doesn't enjoy a little lowbrow culture himself on occasion. I'm a retired sportswriter, for God's sake. And so gimme a cheeseburger and a beer and dial up some stock car racing or professional axe throwing on the tube. I'm there.

This does not mean, however, that I have no standards. I do. And one of them, as a board-certified history nerd, is an admittedly pearl-clutching reverence for America's landmarks.

Civil War battlefields. Our national parks. Arlington. And, yes, the White House.

Turning its grounds into some garish Roman circus sponsored by Bud Light strikes me as obscene. I can't help it.

I suppose that makes me just another triggered lib to those on the other side of the Divide. So be it. Guilty as charged. But what else can I say, in this riven America?

You do you, in other words. And I'll do me. And maybe one of these days -- not soon, unfortunately, and maybe not before I shuffle off this mortal coil -- we'll all come to our senses.

Hopefully before Cletus Bob does some more urban renewal at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Hopefully before then.

Knicks, and time

 The Knickerbockers of  New York won the NBA championship last night in San Antonio, led by an undersized guard who found his game in the big city (Jalen Brunson); a forward who's never been an NBA All-Star but became one in the Finals (OG Anunoby); three guys from Villanova (Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges); and a quietly efficient center (Karl-Anthony Towns).

It was their first NBA championship since 1973, and there was a weird resonance to it.  In '73, the Knicks clinched the title in five games, on the road; last night, the Knicks clinched the title in five games, on the road.

Fifty-three years have passed between those doppelganger moments, and that is a lot of water under the Brooklyn bridge. Stephen A. Smith, the shoutin'-est Knicks fan in America, was five years old. Spike Lee, the most famous Knicks fan, was sweet 16. Benson and Stabler -- aka, Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni, who were at the Garden for one of the games this week -- hadn't even thought about arresting creeps yet.

Fifty-three years.

You wanna know how long ago that was?

The guy driving this sentence was 18 years old and so skinny you could fit him inside a ballpoint pen. Now he's 71 and ... not skinny.

Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley and Dave DeBusschere were the Knick stars. Now Reed and DeBusschere are dead and Frazier and Bradley are 81 and 82, respectively.

"The Godfather" had yet to be sequel-ed by "The Godfather II," which means Fredo, Hyman Roth and Frank Pentangeli were all still alive. Watergate hadn't taken down Nixon yet. And because the Knicks wrapped it up on May 10, Secretariat was only a third of the way through the greatest Triple Crown run in history. 

Donald Trump was still a young punk and not a half-senile punk. Disco wasn't a thing yet, thank God. Neither were Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Joe Montana, Wayne Gretzky, LeBron James, Taylor Swift or Snoop Dog.

How long ago was 1973?

These things didn't exist: T-Mobile, Netflix, Atari, Betamax and DraftKings. Also the internet; Al Gore claiming/not claiming to have invented the internet; laptops with access to the internet; social media on the internet; Zoom meetings on the internet.

You know what was still around, in 1973?

The Big Shef.  Pizza Spins. Whistles and Daisies. The Plymouth Barracuda  ... the original Pontiac GTO ... Winston Cup ... Hai Karate aftershave ... Chess King.

Oh, yeah: And the New York Knicks winning an NBA championship.

USA! USA!

 OK, so first off on this glorious star-spangled morning, here is a name you are duty-bound to remember now: Folarin Balogun.

Folarin Balugon is a professional soccer player born to Nigerian parents who'd emigrated to London, but who just happened to be in Brooklyn when Folarin's mother went into labor. So he grew up in London, but, because he was born in the U.S., he was eligible to play internationally for either the United States or England.

He chose the U.S., God bless his red-white-and-blue soul. I don't know how the Brits feel about that, but, seeing how this is the 250th anniversary of us kicking them the hell out of our freshly-minted nation, perhaps it's karma. Sucks for you, limeys.

Anyway, Balogun plays for the United States Men's National Team, and last night he was spectacular in the USMNT's World Cup opener as a co-host of the tournament. Scored two goals in the first half as the U.S. beat Paraguay like a dusty rug, 4-1. This was sort of like the Dallas Cowboys beating someone 42-14 (as if), so, you know, USA! USA!

"Question, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Does this mean the USMNT is going to give us the Miracle on Fake Grass the way the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team gave us the Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid? Or to put it another way, is the USMNT that good, or does Paraguay just blow chunks?"

Well ...

Heck, I don't know. Maybe. Or not. Bit of both, perhaps.

In any case, the USMNT looked damn good last night, after looking sort of "meh" in some of the World Cup run-up matches. They controlled play in the midfield with panache and style. Established star Christian Pulisic dazzled on the wing and set up strikers in the box. And Balogun's goals were both quality -- especially the second, when he fought off a couple of defenders and sent a rocket into the top corner.

So, who knows. Maybe it's destiny, 250th national birthday and all. Or maybe it was just a win over Paraguay.

Next up for the U.S.?

That would be Australia, six days from now in Seattle. I hear the Socceroos are tough. OK, so I didn't, but they could be. 

Anyway ... onward.

A summerish interlude

 Fine June morning here in the Midwest 'burbs, and that mean old baseball ain't playin' fair.

It inscribes a high soft arc against a blue sky gauzed with cirrus-cloud lace, but the kid still can't find it. He bends low at the plate, trying to time his swing. The ball floats in; the kid swings too slow or late or high or low; and the ball passes untouched.

Stee-rike one.

And then: Stee-rike two. 

And then: Stee-rike three.

"Good swing!" some grandpa sings out from the cool morning shade.  But I'm watching the kid, and he's trudging back through the beige dust, hot summerish sunlight pouring down -- and, oh, lord here it comes: my own summerish interlude.

The kid, see, is wearing the same Wildcat Baseball T-shirt and cap I wore, what, 62 years ago now (Sixty-two years! Good lord). The shirt is white with blue trim and a blue Wildcat etched on the front, same as ever. The cap is red-and-blue with a Wildcat patch on the crown, same as ever. The swing-and-three-misses are achingly familiar, too.

And so I stand in the cool shade and look around and it all just washes over me abruptly and unbidden, everything summer was then and is now in the late fall of my years.

Solstice sun beating down. Hieroglyphic imprint of Keds in flour-like dust. The sting of sweat in the eyes; the baseball sailing in; heartbeat jumping as I lunge at it, the bat in my hands less a deadly weapon than a tchotchke in a knickknack shop.

Swing and a miss. Swing and a miss. Swing and a miss. And then it's back out to left field, where the highlight of my Wildcat days was finding a four-leaf clover once.

There may have been worse baseball players born to America's game than me, but you'd hunt for a good long time finding him. Nearsighted, mite-sized and so slow (as the saying goes) it took me two trips to haul ass, I was also blessed with the hand-eye coordination of a tree stump. I might have gotten a hit once in my couple of years playing Wildcat, but after six decades it might have just been a walk. Hard to say.

Know what, though?

Wildcat was summer to me, in a way nothing else was. It remains one of my most vivid memories of a time when you slung your Ted Williams baseball glove over the handlebars of your bike and set off for some ballfield vaguely carved from the grass, the long summer days stretching out before you to infinity.

Summer lasted a year back then. Don't even try convincing me otherwise.

In Wildcat, I played for the Beckerts, our team named for the Cubs' second-baseman. My best friend played for the Fords, as in Whitey Ford. Wildcat was divided into age groups -- Kitty, Kat and Tiger -- and the team names in each all had a different motif.

Real-life baseball players for us. Car names for others. So on a given day you had the Beckerts beating the Fords (or vice-versa) and the Pontiacs beating the Buicks.

 Now?

I don't what they call teams now. I don't know, on this nostalgia-thick morning, if I'm watching the Reds play the Royals or the Skittles vs. the KitKats. All I know is how achingly familiar it all looks.

Same caps and shirts. Same chatter rising from the infield (Hey, battah, hey, battah, hey, battah-battah-battah). Same moms and grandparents and brothers and sisters sitting in their camp chairs under the shade trees, one eye on the diamond while they chatter themselves.

Oh, sure, there are differences.  It's 2026, not 1962, and so Mom periodically pulls out her cellphone to take a call. The kids wear Day-Glo kicks and Day-Glo batting gloves and Day-Glo shades. Some of them are girls, because, heck, why not? 

And now I'm reading back over this, and I'm cringing a little, because it sounds unforgivably mawkish to me. One of those rambling, back-in-my-day essays that go on and on and on and on -- and over which I used to roll my eyes, until I became a back-in-my-day guy myself.

I can't help it, in other words. Can't help how watching a kid strike out hits me around the heart. Can't help looking around and seeing another kid over here in the shade, tossing a baseball into the sky and catching it.

He's wearing a boot on one leg, so he won't be playing today. But he's still geared out in his Wildcat cap and shirt, still communing with the game.

Up the ball goes. Down into the glove it falls. Up, down. Up, down.

 Summer, by heaven. Summer, at full, flood tide.

Comeback spring

 Maybe you walked away when the Knickerbockers of New York went down 27 points at halftime last night ... in Madison Square Garden ... where they'd already broken everyone's heart by losing two nights before.

Now the San Antonio Spurs were crushing them like bugs, and an NBA Finals that looked to be firmly in New York's control was about to be level at two wins apiece. Little wonder that a city that greeted them like Caesars two days before escorted them off the floor with a scattering of boos.

New Yorkers are like that. Win and you're the best EVER; go down 27 at the half and you're a bunch of bums who should never be allowed to darken whatever door it is you've had the privilege of darkening.

Anyway, if you said "I'm out," and switched over to Netflix when the Spurs went up by 29 early in the second half, you were only being rational. The Knicks were done on both sides. They were a Big Apple turnover poppin' fresh from the oven. Who climbs out of a 29-point hole in less than a half, against a team good enough to make the Finals.

"This guy!" cried Jalen Brunson, or OG Anunoby, or Karl-Anthony Towns.

OK, so they didn't.

But they did climb out of that hole, and come all the way back, and then won it when Anunoby -- who had the game of his life in the series of his life -- outleaped Dylan Harper and Devin Vassell to tip in Brunson's miss with 1.2 seconds showing.

Knicks 107, Spurs 106.

No, really. That was the final score, in case you just woke up, checked your sports app of choice and yelped "WHAT?"

Knicks 107, Spurs 106.  You read that right.

It happened because the Spurs, who shot a blistering 60 percent in the first half, couldn't throw it in the East River in the second. Shot 20 percent. Built a brick edifice, as they say. Let the Knicks back into it, and that got the Garden crowd back into it, and then Anunoby got, I don't know, maybe half a finger on the ball for the Tip-In Heard 'Round The World.

Scootch over, Bobby Thomson. You just got some company in the New York Greatest Sports Moments pantheon.

The tip was the 32nd and 33rd points of the night for Anunoby, the former Indiana Hoosier who just may wind up as the Finals MVP. Brunson dropped another 36. Towns had a double-double; Josh Hart had eight boards, six assists and two steals; and now the Knicks lead the series 3-1 and are one trembling step away from their first NBA title in 53 years.

Accounts vary, but some say there were still laces on the basketball then.

And the comeback?

Well, it's just this year's seasonal motif. Or so it seems.

Over in the Stanley Cup Final, for instance, the Vegas Golden Knights and Carolina Hurricanes keep blowing leads left and right, then un-blowing them. In four games so far, the Hurricanes have lost 5-4 after jumping out 2-0; the Golden Knights have jumped out to a 2-0 lead, fallen behind 3-2, tied it at 3-3, and then lost in overtime.

So it's gone. In Game 3, Vegas led 4-0 in the second period, Carolina rallied to tie it 4-4, then Vegas won it on Shea Theodore's goal in the second overtime. And in Game 4 the other night, the 'Canes jumped out to leads of 2-0 and 3-1, watched Vegas tie it at 3-3, then rallied for two more goals in the third period to win 5-3.

It's a comeback spring, everyone. Enjoy.

World Cup feverish

 Asked a guy the other day if he was jacked about the World Cup, and he kind of chuckled a bit and maybe smirked and said "nah," as if I'd asked him if he were jacked about putting the coffee on in the morning.

So there's that.

On the other hand, I talked to another guy who's going to be visiting friends reasonably near one of the game sites, and he's planning to score a ticket and go watch, I don't know, someone play someone. Because, hey, it's the World Cup, and it's in the U.S., so how could he not?

I concluded from this admittedly unscientific study that we're only mildly feverish about the world's most-watched sporting event coming to out shores, and not running a raging temp of 102 degrees or so. More like 99.7, which hardly counts as a fever at all.

Now, I know that's probably inaccurate as all get out. I know there are lots of folks here in America who are completely charged up about the World Cup, which begins in Mexico tomorrow when the home team takes on South Africa in Mexico City and the South Koreans battle the Czechs in Guadalajara. 

This is despite the fact that FIFA, which runs the World Cup, is brazenly trying to siphon every last dollar and peso it can from the lucrative American market.

Its most egregious cash grab was trying to bar spectators from bringing their own water into the Cup sites, on account of that would mean vendors couldn't gouge the paying customers for as many ten-buck bottles or whatever. Imagine that: Making water a strictly for-profit concern. 

That takes some big brass ones, as someone once said, but organizers quickly walked it back after getting massive pushback. Apparently robbing fans at thirst-point in summertime heat was too criminal even for FIFA.

Besides, have you seen those ticket prices?

Now, granted, it's the World Cup, and, granted, you needed to take out a second mortgage to afford tickets to Game 3 of the NBA Finals in Madison Square Garden the other night, too. Big events command big money -- even absurdly outrageous money. The world is a rich man's playground, and thus has it ever been.

And so it will likely not surprise you that (at least on the online ticket outlet I checked) a pair of primo midfield tickets for the U.S.-Paraguay match at Sofi Stadium in L.A. Friday will run you a cool $7,757. Then again, you can snag two in the remotest reaches of one corner for a mere 854 smackers.

Eight-hundred fifty-four!  And with that you get complimentary oxygen and your own sherpa to lug your gear up to Section Himalaya.

Of course, that's for the home team's opening match. Not every first-rounder this week is going to impoverish you that much.

For instance, let's check out that big Haiti-Scotland showdown Saturday in the New England Patriots home digs in Foxborough, Mass. Primo midfield seats were going for just $777 a pair for that one. Heck, even club seats only ran you $1,359 for two.

Bargain.

"Enough griping about ticket prices like some sad old coot," you're saying now. "Tell us who's going to win the gold Oscar-sized statuette."

Well ... probably not Haiti. Or Scotland. Or, sad to say, Team USA, for that matter.

According to folks who know immeasurably more about this than the Blob, Spain is your favorite, followed closely by France. Both teams are apparently loaded with stars from the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, all the major circuits. 

England will be in thick of it, too, it seems, although the Brits always pucker up in the World Cup, having not won it since the Beatles released "Revolver" (i.e., 1966). Somewhere in there will be Brazil, because it's Brazil and it still has a full complement of guys with one name (Casemiro, Vinicius Jr., Rapinha, even Estevao, who's out with an injury).

Also Portugal, because Cristiano Ronaldo still plays for the red-and-green. Also defending champion Argentina, which still has Lionel Messi.

Me?

I'm picking the Dutch. 

Not because they're one of the powerhouses, but because I still remember the Clockwork Orange group from 52 years ago, Johan Cruyff and that bunch. They lost to Gerd Muller, Franz Beckenbauer and West Germany in the World Cup final that year, but, what the hell, maybe their spiritual descendants get it done this time.

Anyway, enjoy, America. And don't forget your water.