The rain cure

 The mission was a total scrub down in Indianapolis yesterday, as rain washed away what was to have been the setup day of qualifying for the Indianapolis 500. So what happens now?

Well ... a bit of simplification.

Instead of the new Rube Goldberg deal it was scheduled to unveil, IMS is going back to the old ways, or least the less-new ways. Qualifying will begin at noon, with the top 12 qualifiers making four-lap runs for the Fast Six at 4 p.m. and then the Fast Six run for the pole a bit later.

"Gee, Mr. Blob," you're saying now (or should be). "How come they just didn't do it that way in first place? Seems a lot easier to follow."

Weelll ...

That is a very good question. With a variety of answers.

See, the original, brand-spanking-new plan, if you read the Blob a couple of days ago ("Why would we do that?" you're saying) was to fill the field on Saturday, lock in places 16-33, and roll out the top 15 qualifiers for further qualifying on Sunday. 

The deal was, all 15 would make another four-lap trip to winnow it down to 12. The quickest nine from that session would be locked into spots in that 12. The slowest six would all run again to determine positions 9-12. 

Then those 12 would run again to determine the Fast Six. After which the Fast Six would run YET AGAIN in the race for the pole.

No, I don't know why. Oh, wait, yes, I do.

One reason for the revised skeddy is because there's no last-row qualifying as in the past, on account of this year there are only 33 entries. Which means no bumping, and thus no last-row drama to milk.

Consequently, the Speedway needed something to keep the fans from nodding off mid-afternoon. So, presto, let's add another couple layers to the process!

All of this, of course, springs from the fact qualifying in May ain't what it used to be. Perhaps spooked by the death of polesitter Scott Brayton in practice in 1996, the Speedway has engaged in a three-decade campaign to keep all its rocket ships reasonably sub-orbital. It started with the the fledgling Indy Racing League's move to a normally aspirated engine formula in the late 1990s (a move that didn't last) and has continued right up to today.

The consequence is the track record Arie Luyendyk set 30 years ago still stands. And with no track record in play, a good bit of the drama of 500 qualifying went winging off with the angels.

And with no bumping now either ...

Well. There went the rest of the drama.

(A radical notion: If you want to revive bumping and spice up everything else in May, open up IndyCar's closed Honda/Chevy/Dallara shop. Invite Toyota and Ford and, I don't know, Audi or Ferrari inside the gates. Porsche and Mercedes? Sure. Aston Martin? Why not? Hell, let Pratt & Whitney bring back the turbine. Couldn't hurt.)

Anyway ...

Anyway, we're back to a simpler time today, aka, back to last year. Some might call that the rain curing a few ills. IMS, of course, would characterize it as the rain being a pain again, as it so often does in May.

I know which side of that fence I'm on. You?

The Mav!

 So remember, I don't know, a month or  so ago, when the Blob wrote it was going to root for a guy named Maverick McNealy in the Masters? Mainly because "Maverick McNealy" sounded like the kind of name you'd give the hero in a golf movie?

(Or the villain. Works either way.)

"No," you're saying now.

Well, I DID. What, you don't remember this:

 And speaking of random ...

I'm putting my dimes on Maverick McNealy.

He's a 30-year-old pro out of Stanford who's 41st on the PGA money list right now, and I'm not picking him just because his name is Maverick McNealy. OK, so, that's mostly why I'm picking him.

 I mean, come on: Has there ever been a better golfer name than Maverick McNealy? ...

See?

Well ... today, I have some further Maverick McNealy news. And it's very exciting.

Guess who's got a piece of the 36-hole lead at the second major of the year, the PGA Championship?

Yes! The Mav!

(Which is what I'm calling him now)

Shot a 67 yesterday that could have been a 65 if he hadn't  messed up a couple of closing holes, and is tied for the lead with Alex Smalley, who's playing in only his fifth major. They're at 4-under 136 on the tricked-up Aronimink layout outside of Philadelphia, the highest 36-hole total for co-leaders in the PGA in 14 years.

But big whoop! The lead is the lead, right? And not only that, but The Mav's younger brother is caddying for him, and you know what HIS name is?

Scout.

Scout! Scout McNealy! What, you think I could make up something that way cool?

So it's Scout and The Mav in the lead in the freaking PGA, and, listen, if you think it'll be cake taking it away from  them, you're in for a rude awakening. 'Cause you losers ain't never BEEN in a rodeo like this before. 

(Or so The Mav would say in the movie, I figure.) 

The Narcissism Bowl

 We're now in week whatever of America's new favorite game show, "The Pittsburgh Steelers Held Hostage," and what have the Steelers won, Johnny Olsen?

"A NEW CAR for driving around looking for Aaron Rodgers!" Johnny cries.

Uh, no.

"A TWIN-ENGINE BEECHCRAFT AIRPLANE for flying around looking for Aaron Rodgers!" Johnny warbles.

Try again.

"A DELUXE STEEL-TOED BOOT to kick Aaron Rodgers' ass when he finally shows up!" Johnny serenades.

Now you're gettin' warmer.

Now you're gettin' what the Steelers must be feeling but not saying these days, with minicamps underway and the NFL beginning its long post-Draft run-up to more minicamps, and then training camp, and then, at last, the Hall of Fame Game between a bunch of future NFL cuts against a bunch of other future NFL cuts.

So where's A-Aron, that rascally old drama king?

Well, still unsigned. Still MIA. Still a 42-year-old whisper in the wind after not showing up in Pittsburgh last weekend despite all the chatter that he was going to. More smoke without fire, while the Steelers insist everything is fine, no worries, Aaron's going to be here and WHAT THE (REALLY BAD WORD) IS ITWITH THIS (DIFFERENT REALLY BAD WORD) GUY?

Well ... the Packers could have told you. Ditto the Jets.

This is Aaron making it about him, as usual. He's the MVP of the Narcissism Bowl, and the Narcissism Bowl is a semi-yearly event.

He'll play. He won't play. He'll sign. He won't sign. He'll show up ... eventually.

Word on the street this time (according to Mike Florio Pro Football Talk) is that Rodgers wants an out clause that would free him to go to a quarterback-needy team of his choosing should the Steelers decide he's had it. In other words, he wants a guarantee that the team would simply release him if it ever decides to bench him.

This would apparently safeguard him from being picked up by any old team on the waiver wire, if the benching happened before the trade deadline. 

In any event, the Steelers' quarterback room is now Will Howard, Mason Rudolph and rookie Drew Allar of Penn State, whom the Steelers drafted all of three weeks ago. Mike McCarthy's new coaching staff is working hard with all three, just in case A-Aron decides to hell with it and retires. He is, to reiterate, 42 years old.

In the meantime, Aaron continues to be, well, Aaron. Only difference from all the other times he was Being Aaron is he's not really Aaron anymore, but just an old guy trying to play the same games without the status he used to have.

Oh, he had a decent season last year, throwing for 3,322 yards and 24 touchdowns against just seven interceptions. But he threw 16 of those sixes in the first seven weeks; in the last 10, he threw just eight. His season QBR of 44.4 ranked 23rd in the league.

So, yeah. Not the Aaron of old; just the old Aaron.

Playing the same young man's games with management he used to be able to play with some justification. Now, it's just annoying.

Or, you know, just Aaron. Same diff.

Two deaths

 A couple of men passed from this earth too soon this week, and they had two things in common. 

One was basketball. The other were their demons.

This bears some explaining.

Brandon Clarke, one of the men, was just 29 years old when police found him dead from an apparent drug overdose in California. Clarke was a reserve forward for the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA, an apparently joyous young man whose bright life, and career, had been darkened by one injury after another.

At some point, again apparently, the drugs got their hooks in him. The story is an old and bloody one: A young man succumbing to a demon whose appetite is never sated, and whose legacy of death and ruin stretches to infinity.

And the other man?

His name was Jason Collins, and he, too, was once an NBA player, and still young in the way we measure such things. He was just 47 when the brain cancer he'd been battling for a year killed him, well short of his full complement of years.

And his demon?

Its name is bigotry, and it belongs not to Collins but to those who pass along its sting. Yet it is as old and bloody as Brandon Clarke's, and every bit as potent, given that it hangs out these days in the corridors of power where laws are passed and our meanest impulses no longer skulk in the shadows.

Jason Collins, see, was the first openly gay player in the NBA. Came out 13 years ago in Sports Illustrated, before Pride Months and rainbow flags and the pushback that has made anti-gay prejudice almost chic in America's more reactionary precincts.

You see it most nakedly in the hard-right states, where "Don't Say Gay" laws prohibit educators from so much as breathing the word "LGBTQ+" in a classroom -- even high school classrooms where students struggling with their sexuality already feel isolated and shunned. You see it anywhere a rainbow crosswalk gets painted over, or a rainbow flag is declared verboten, or anti-gay pronouncements are heralded as Christian virtue.

This is not, I believe, the prevailing zeitgeist in this country, founded as it was on the principle of individual freedom. But it's no outlier, either. That's because the bigots hold the levers of power at the highest levels, and thus own the loudest megaphone.

It's OK now, they all but say, to talk about gays and transgenders the way the German Reich talked about Jews in the 1930s -- i.e., as threats to a wholesome and vibrant nation. It's regarded as noble, or at least admirable, to push for laws aimed at effectively shoving the LGBTQ+ community back into the closet where (the narrative goes) it belongs.

In 2013, Jason Collins said "Aw, HELL, no" to that sort of poison. One wonders if, at the end of his life, he felt any dismay that the gay/trans community still had to keep saying it in 2026.

And if perhaps, just perhaps, it is even harder to do so now.

Qual folderol

 No one escapes the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May without tradition holding a pillow over your face. It grows like crabgrass and creeper vines around the old joint, ancient artifacts from a dig site that's 117 years old, and from the most venerable motor race in the world, which turns 110 this month.

You know all the traditions, if you've ever visited. The yard of brick? Sure. The bottle of milk? You bet. "Back Home Again In Indiana" ... "Gentlemen, start your engines" ... Thirty-three cars coming to the green in 11 rows of three?

Check, check and check.

Well. Apparently we can now add another to the pile: Qual Folderol, or Jacking Around With Indy 500 Qualifications For Fun And Profit. 

The other day, see, an item popped up on one of the TV news channels about 500 qualifying. It said the qualification procedures were being changed for this weekend.

"Again?" I yelped.

Yes, again. Apparently, because there aren't enough entries for bumping to occur, there won't be any bumping. So all of us who were just getting used to the previously revised schedule now have to wrap our heads around another revised schedule.

Previously, Saturday would determine the fastest 12 qualifiers, and on Sunday those 12 would qualify again to determine the Fast Six. Then the Fast Six would each get one crack at the pole late in the day. Also, the slowest four qualifiers would run again for spots in the last row, with the slowest winding up "bumped."

Now?

Well, take a deep breath. This could get a little exhausting.

On Saturday, qualifying will commence at the traditional 11 a.m., and run until 5:50 p.m. At that time positions 16 through 33 will be set.

The remaining 15 qualifiers will advance to Sunday, with the fastest nine locked into the Top 12 qualifying session. The remaining six will have one shot at the last three Top 12 spots in something called the Final 15 qualifying session.

Then it's on to the Top 12 session, from which will emerge  the Fast Six, who'll make the official run for the pole at around 6:30.

Confused yet?

"Gee," you're saying now. "Sounds kinda like NASCAR's playoff system." 

And just look how popular that is with the NASCAR hardcores.

Anyway, all this tinkering and reworking and re-reworking is a desperate attempt to make 500 qualifying a hit again, and it's a relatively new phenomenon. For years and years, after all, qualifications for the Indianapolis 500 were as immutable as sunrise: The first day was Pole Day, the last day was Bump Day, and in between were two days to fill the field. Four days across two weekends.

But times change. Circumstances change. The old ways became the Jacking Around ways.

Two weekends of qualifications became one when not enough entries showed up to make two weekends viable anymore. Bump Day become bump-less for the same reason. And all those six-figure crowds for qualifications went away after the race cars were powered down and the track record -- 30 years old this May -- was no longer in play.

Thus the Month of May became the Fortnight of May, especially after IndyCar and the Speedway decided to squeeze another race into the month. And the Jacking Around commenced.

Excuse me. Continues to commence.

God bless tradition.

Superstition 1, Slump 0

 We all have our superstitions. It's how the rational mind takes a breather every so often.

For instance: Way back in the Before Time, when people frequently died trying to drive faster than the other guy in machines often ill-suited to the purpose, green race cars were considered a herald of doom. Ditto peanuts. Ditto women in the pits. And you never, ever,  wanted to drop your racing helmet.

Well, time and circumstance knocked a lot of that into a cocked hat. Jim Clark came to Indianapolis in a hunter-green Lotus and left everyone choking on his exhaust. Stock cars swaddled in Reese's logos showed up at Daytona, and the gates of Hell do not open beneath them. Janet Guthrie came along and Sarah Fisher and Danica Patrick, and the racing gods did not hurl any lightning bolts to strike down the blasphemers.

So, yes. Superstitions are silly. Even baseball, where it's not just in the movies that stealing Jobu's rum is very, very bad.*

(*Obligatory "Major League" reference)

Case in point: Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners.

Who hit, like, a million home runs last season, but who came to Tuesday mired in an 0-for-36 slump. Couldn't hit a lick. Swung and missed, mostly. If baseballs had vocal chords, they'd have been chanting "Nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah, nyah" as they scooted past his suddenly impotent bat.

Well, Raleigh had had quite enough of that. So you know what he did?

On Monday night, he took a postgame shower fully clothed.

 Marched into the spray wearing all his catcher's gear. Said the idea came from Seattle pitcher Logan Gilbert, and Raleigh decided it wasn't all that crazy considering ... well, considering oh-for-36.

"Logan gave me some good advice to wash off the bad mojo or juju from the baseball gods," Raleigh said.

I know, I know. Silly.

But you know what?

On Tuesday, Raleigh had two base knocks to end the slump. Pair of singles. First hits since April.

Something to think about the next time you're tempted to steal Jobu's rum. 

Not that you would, of course.

Cruds alert*

 (*Pittsburgh Pirates sold separately).

Checked out the latest MLB standings yesterday, and I'll be bumfuzzled. We're 12 days into May, and the Chicago What Sox are in the thick of a pennant race.

OK, so it's only a divisional race, and it's only the AL Central, the used car lot of divisions. And the What Sox are still two games under .500 at 19-21.

But that puts them second in the division, just 1.5 games behind Cleveland. And 19-21 is way better than their record on this date a year ago, which was 12-29.

So, yeah. This Cruds Alert is not about cruds, but who aren't right now.

That would include the Homeless A's, who are playing in Sacramento these days but aren't allowed to tell anyone. That's why they're only identified as "Athletics" in the standings.

But big deal, because "Athletics" are leading the AL West by two whole games.

Yeah, they're only 21-19, and everyone else in the division is underwater. Which makes the AL West the slightly newer used car lot just down from the other used car lot.

But, still. It's May 12, and they're No. 1! Huzzah!

"So who are the actual Cruds these days, Mr. Blob?" you're saying now.

(OK, so you're not. Just employing what we writers like to call a "literary device". Also known as "cheating.")

Anyway, the actual Cruds might still be the Colorado Rockheads, who astonished all of baseball with their epic Cruddiness a year ago. They're dead last in the NL West, 8.5 games behind front-running San Diego. At 16-25, they're the worst team in baseball not named the New York Mutts, er, Mets.

And yet ...

And yet, the Mutts-er-Mets ARE a game worse. And the Rockheads are waaay better than they were a year ago on this date, when they were 7-34 after losing to the Texas Rangers. And right now they're just a game out of next-to-last in the division, nipping at the heels of the San Francisco Giants.

So, you see? Even in Crudsville, hope springs eternal.

Well ... maybe not eternal. But you get the gist.