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.

Petard, hoisted

Sleep with hornets

And they wonder why they wake up stung

-- Matt Nathanson

A friendly judge in Texas has ruled Brendan Sorsby can play football this fall at Texas Tech, and, man, you've never seen such hand-wringing. Nebraska says it will never play the Red Raiders now. Ditto TCU. Ditto the Big Ten as an entire conference.

These things will happen when a young man  not only carpetbags from school to school -- Tech will be Sorsby's third stop, after pre-Curt Cignetti Indiana and Cincinnati -- but brings a truckload of baggage with him. And by "baggage," we mean, "Would bet on how long it takes Mikey to eat a bowl of Life cereal if the odds were right."

Sorsby, you see, is a young man with a problem. He apparently has a raging gambling jones that puts old heads in mind of Art Schlichter at Ohio State; according to investigators, Sorsby's placed thousands of bets while playing college football, including at least 40 on his own team while at Indiana. The kid seems hooked but good.

Nonetheless, the friendly judge waived the injunction slapped on him by the NCAA, whose record in court these days ranks up there with Germany's record in world wars (to steal an old Dan Jenkins line). So now a known and fairly notorious gambler will be playing quarterback for Tech this season.

Cue the hand-wringing.

"We officially lost our soul," moaned one Big 12 athletic director.

"How is anyone going to trust the outcome of a game again?" fretted TCU coach Sonny Dykes.

"I'm stunned that there would be a question at the court level that this is acceptable," Florida AD Scott Stricklin chimed in.

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips was in full agreement, telling ESPN the ruling suggests a "horrendous pattern" that is "eroding the integrity of our process."

This is where the Blob is compelled to snark this: "The integrity of your WHAT?"

Because, listen, as right as all these folks are, they're also blind as bats. They can't see that Brendan Sorsby, with the help of Friendly Judge, his slipped in a door they themselves left wide open.

Jim Phillips, for instance?

He presides over a conference that just extended its deal with ESPN through 2036. ESPN, in turn, has a sponsorship deal with DraftKings, an online gambling platform. So every Saturday afternoon when Wake Forest is playing Clemson or North Carolina is tussling with Georgia Tech, play will occasionally be interrupted by a DraftKings ad.

So how can Phillips -- or anyone in any Power 4 conference, really -- honestly say Brendan Sorsby throwing deep outs for Texas Tech is an Armageddon blow to college football's integrity? Seems to me they themselves crossed that bridge when they climbed in bed with people who were in bed with the gamblers -- or at least the gamblers' facilitators.

Sleep with hornets, wake up stung. Yessir, Matt Nathanson stuck the landing with that lyric.

Or to put it another way: Behold college athletics' own petard, hoisted.

Hail to the Jinx

 They booed the President of the United States rather lustily last night in Madison Square Garden, which only proves New York basketball fans are an astute lot. They know a bad penny when they see one.

And so, in front of Fearless Leader and a bunch of other famous fans or fans-for-now -- Hey, look! There's Derek Jeter! Eli Manning! Timothee Chamelet! -- the hometown Knicks did something they hadn't done since April.

They lost a playoff game.

Fell behind by double digits early, rallied to lead by seven at halftime, couldn't make it stick in the second half against young Victor Wembanyama, young Stephon Castle and the rest of the San Antonio Spurs.

Final score: Spurs 115, Knickerbockers 111.

Snapped a mind-boggling 13-game playoff winning streak for the home team.

Trimmed the Knicks' lead in the NBA Finals to two-games-to-one.

And whooo was there to see it as a homegrown New Yorker and apparent longtime Knicks fan?

Donald John "Stop Asking Me Questions I Don't Like Or I'll Take My Ball And Go Home" Trump. 

Fearless Leader. Defender Of The Faith (But Only One Of Them). President of these United States.

Jinx-In-Chief.

And, yeah, a lot of the Garden crowd that booed him when he showed up on the videoboard probably weren't booing because of that. They were probably booing him because, in deciding to horn in on their party, he made the evening even more inconvenient than it already was going to be, as presidents will do when they decide to attend an event.

However.

However, you know -- you just know -- a goodly portion of the crowd were thinking this:

Oh, great. THIS MFer. We're screwed for sure.

Right?

Child's play

 Meanwhile, in Formula One ...

They ran again Sunday at history-thick Monaco, and guess who won F1's most famously glittering event?

No, not Max Verstappen. The four-time world champion's engine took a dump as soon as the staging lights winked out, leaving him sitting on the grid while everyone else roared away without him. Finally got it going enough to limp around for one lap before retiring the car, extending what has been an ugly season for him.

"OK, so Lando Norris, then? Oscar Piastri?" you're saying now.

Nope. The McLaren jockeys finished fourth (Piastri) and DNF (Norris), not at all what you'd expect from a team that dominated F1 a year ago.

"Lewis Hamilton? Charles Leclerc? One of those Esteban Ocons or Pierre Gaslys?"

No, no, and ... no.

It was Kimi Antonelli in his Mercedes.

Won from the pole. Won his fifth straight Grand Prix, out of six contested so far. Leads Hamilton and his Ferrari by 66 points in the title chase, and teammate George Russell by 67.

Oh, and did we mention he's just 19 years old?

"Oh, come on," you're saying now. "A 19-year-old going all Verstappen/Hamilton/Michael Schumacher on everyone? Really?"

Yes, really. He's 19. Looks even younger. Plucked from the litter at 18 by team principle Toto Wolff and placed in seven-time world champion Hamilton's old seat. Now he's making child's play out of the most technologically demanding racing series in the world instead of, I don't know, getting ready for the prom or something.

There he was again on the podium Sunday, giving everyone a champagne bath as the youngest Monaco winner in history. Even his predecessor -- the previous youngest winner -- saw fit to salute the young Italian.

"That's a lot of wins, buddy, you're catching me up, man!" joked Hamilton, who finished a distant second this time around.

Well ... not yet, Lewis. But give the kid time.

Which he has a lot of, obviously.

 

The right Tempo

 Maybe you missed it in all the other weekend sporting life, but they ran the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga two days ago, and Golden Tempo won again for trainer Cherie DeVaux. That made it two legs out of three in the Triple Crown for Golden Tempo, and two out of three for DeVaux, the first woman trainer ever to do that.

Know what was the best part of it all, though?

Golden Tempo came from nowhere to win it. Again.

In the Kentucky Derby, if you recall, he was dead last at the head of the stretch before getting on his, well, horse and galloping past the entire to field to nip Renegade at the wire. Saturday was an instant replay: Golden Tempo was at the back of the field before hauling ass down the stretch again to beat Commandment by a nose.

Two races; two immortal stretch runs. And now the Blob is wondering, in its usual cattywampus way, what the horsie set could have done to offer Golden Tempo a real challenge. 

OK, so we got the usual buttload of horses here for the Derby. We'll bring in an extra gate to load 'em into. 

Except for you, Golden Tempo. You start across the river in, I don't know, Seymour or someplace.

Or ...

OK, so we got nine horses for the Belmont here at Saratoga, including Golden Tempo and the odds-on favorite Renegade.

Renegade gets to start with all the others. Golden Tempo, we're sending you across the state line to Vermont. You start from Montpelier.

Now that would be a stretch run.