So the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees played a game of American baseball in London yesterday, although it was more like slow-pitch softball than the real thing. This will happen when the teams combine for 37 hits and put up a football score (17-13), which happens in baseball only when the wind's blowing a gale toward Lake Michigan in Wrigley, and a couple of minor-league callups are on the bump.
In any case, the Brits must have been curious, not to say confused. After all, they've seen American football, even if sometimes it was the Browns or Jaguars before they got halfway good. Yankees 17, Red Sox 13 must have seemed weirdly familiar, and prompted more than one furrowed brow.
"Where are the space helmets and shoulder pads that make them all look like Quasimodo?" they no doubt said. "And where is the wee lad who comes on periodically to kick the ball toward the post thingies?"
Not helping matters, of course, is the fact that MLB's timing for this exhibition was passing strange. It happened right in the middle of the cricket world championships, which are also happening in England right now. Baseball, of course, is the bastard cousin of cricket, which is incomprehensible to anyone not born in England or its former colonies.
Its scoring would have stumped Pythagoras. Its terminology is Martian, or perhaps Klingonese. There's a position called the "silly mid-off." There's a pitcher's delivery called a "wicked googly." And if the googly is particularly wicked, batters occasionally find themselves "out for a Golden Duck."
How's American baseball compete with that? Particularly when its first showing overseas ends in such a profoundly un-baseball score?
"Which one is Tom Brady?" someone is saying now, as Aaron Judge comes to the plate.
"I believe he's that big chap," someone replies, pointing at Judge.
Yeesh.
Sunday, June 30, 2019
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Women's work
Megan Rapinoe is as right as a cold beer on a hot day. Why would she go to the White House if the U.S. women win the World Cup again, given that the guy who lives there now is aggressively hostile to everything she not only believes, but is?
So, no, she ain't goin'. And likely a lot of her teammates won't, either. And good for them. Because no matter what the clueless say, everything about these White House visits is political to this whining man-child for whom everything is political, and who can't let any perceived slight go without weighing in like a butt-hurt 8-year-old.
Our Only Available President did just that, predictably, after Rapinoe said what she said, and it was as juvenile and incoherent as always. Some blab about how she was disrespecting the country and the flag (The flag!) by refusing to give political cover to an unapologetic misogynist.
I know. I couldn't follow it, either. Who can if you have an ounce of adult perspective?
In any case, Our Only Available President taking on Rapinoe is an unfair fight because the former is so clearly out of his depth. Rapinoe is smarter, tougher, and doesn't give a rip what OOAP thinks. One wishes more of OOAP's political adversaries were the same.
Besides, she's way better at finding the back of the net.
She did it twice more yesterday as the USWNT knocked out France, 2-1, which means the aggregate score for the USWNT's last two matches is Rapinoe 4, Spain and France 2. That she and the Americans did it with a big assist from the referees should not diminish that.
And, yes, they did get a big assist from the referees, in both matches. Against Spain, an extremely sketchy foul in the box on Rose Lavelle, who sold it like Meryl Streep, enabled Rapinoe to score the game-winner on a penalty kick. And, yesterday, an obvious hand ball that would have given France a shot at the tying goal went uncalled.
But, hey. Nobody ever won these deals without being lucky as well as good.
And now it's on to the semis against England, just in time for Fourth of July week. It's the Ungrateful Colonials vs. the Haughty Empire -- just the scenario that cries out for an unapologetically independent soul like Rapinoe to play the hero again.
Big Macs at the White House await, no doubt. Not that she cares, or should.
So, no, she ain't goin'. And likely a lot of her teammates won't, either. And good for them. Because no matter what the clueless say, everything about these White House visits is political to this whining man-child for whom everything is political, and who can't let any perceived slight go without weighing in like a butt-hurt 8-year-old.
Our Only Available President did just that, predictably, after Rapinoe said what she said, and it was as juvenile and incoherent as always. Some blab about how she was disrespecting the country and the flag (The flag!) by refusing to give political cover to an unapologetic misogynist.
I know. I couldn't follow it, either. Who can if you have an ounce of adult perspective?
In any case, Our Only Available President taking on Rapinoe is an unfair fight because the former is so clearly out of his depth. Rapinoe is smarter, tougher, and doesn't give a rip what OOAP thinks. One wishes more of OOAP's political adversaries were the same.
Besides, she's way better at finding the back of the net.
She did it twice more yesterday as the USWNT knocked out France, 2-1, which means the aggregate score for the USWNT's last two matches is Rapinoe 4, Spain and France 2. That she and the Americans did it with a big assist from the referees should not diminish that.
And, yes, they did get a big assist from the referees, in both matches. Against Spain, an extremely sketchy foul in the box on Rose Lavelle, who sold it like Meryl Streep, enabled Rapinoe to score the game-winner on a penalty kick. And, yesterday, an obvious hand ball that would have given France a shot at the tying goal went uncalled.
But, hey. Nobody ever won these deals without being lucky as well as good.
And now it's on to the semis against England, just in time for Fourth of July week. It's the Ungrateful Colonials vs. the Haughty Empire -- just the scenario that cries out for an unapologetically independent soul like Rapinoe to play the hero again.
Big Macs at the White House await, no doubt. Not that she cares, or should.
Friday, June 28, 2019
Goin' shoppin'
Spent the last hour or so reading the takeaways from the Democratic presidential cattle call, and the Blob has pretty much determined who the frontrunners are mere year or so from the convention.
You got your Elizabeth Biden, you got your Kamala Warren, and you got your Pete Castro Harris. I think I got those names right.
In any case, shopping season is open for Democratic voters, whose online reactions to the doings the last two nights, near as the Blob can tell, pretty much boil down to these:
1. Good lord there are a lot of people on that stage.
2. Who is Marianne Williamson, and why is she here?
3. Are Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders actually still living, technically?
4. Hey, look! Beto O'Rourke can speak Spanish!
And of course:
5. Good lord there are a lot of people on that stage.
Almost as many people, to make a not-at-all clumsy segue, as there are narratives in the looming NBA Silly Season. Speaking of shopping.
Our opening tale takes place in L.A., where, after initially botching the Anthony Davis deal and then botching his team's cap space situation, Lakers GM Rob Pelinka finally landed Davis, and yesterday rectified his cap space botching by selling three dudes to the Washington Wizards. This frees up $32 mill for the Lake Show to go shopping for more luxury items, like Kawhi Leonard or perhaps Kyrie Irving.
Of the two, Irving seems more likely, even though most people think he's bound for Brooklyn. Having discovered in Boston that being The Man wasn't nearly as much fun as he thought it would be, and that he kinda sucked at it, it's easy to envision him coming to the Lakers to be Robin to LeBron's Batman again. And to be whoever to whatever superhero AD is.
As for Kawhi ... well, I suppose he could be persuaded to join up with LeBron, too, but given what a hot mess the Lakers are right now, why not go with the more stable SoCal option? That of course would be the Clippers, who have the excellent selling point that Rob Pelinka doesn't work for them.
On the other hand, it's probably even money right now that Kawhi stays in Toronto. So we'll see.
As for the Lakers, they could always make a play for Jimmy Butler, who's also available and would come cheaper. Kevin Durant, of course, is along with Kawhi THE free agent gem, and it will be fascinating to see where he lands.
If he's smart, he goes back to Golden State and plays for more titles. If he's not, he signs with, um, the Knicks, and does what most superstars have done with the Knicks across the last two decades: Lose a lot, get super frustrated and light out for the territories.
But, hey. He'd be in New York, and he'd be making a lot of money. At least for awhile, that might make it worth playing for a tire fire of a franchise -- and its owner, Jimmy Dolan, doofus extraordinaire.
In the meantime, keep your eye on Pete Castro Harris. Rob Pelinka says he's got serious hops.
You got your Elizabeth Biden, you got your Kamala Warren, and you got your Pete Castro Harris. I think I got those names right.
In any case, shopping season is open for Democratic voters, whose online reactions to the doings the last two nights, near as the Blob can tell, pretty much boil down to these:
1. Good lord there are a lot of people on that stage.
2. Who is Marianne Williamson, and why is she here?
3. Are Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders actually still living, technically?
4. Hey, look! Beto O'Rourke can speak Spanish!
And of course:
5. Good lord there are a lot of people on that stage.
Almost as many people, to make a not-at-all clumsy segue, as there are narratives in the looming NBA Silly Season. Speaking of shopping.
Our opening tale takes place in L.A., where, after initially botching the Anthony Davis deal and then botching his team's cap space situation, Lakers GM Rob Pelinka finally landed Davis, and yesterday rectified his cap space botching by selling three dudes to the Washington Wizards. This frees up $32 mill for the Lake Show to go shopping for more luxury items, like Kawhi Leonard or perhaps Kyrie Irving.
Of the two, Irving seems more likely, even though most people think he's bound for Brooklyn. Having discovered in Boston that being The Man wasn't nearly as much fun as he thought it would be, and that he kinda sucked at it, it's easy to envision him coming to the Lakers to be Robin to LeBron's Batman again. And to be whoever to whatever superhero AD is.
As for Kawhi ... well, I suppose he could be persuaded to join up with LeBron, too, but given what a hot mess the Lakers are right now, why not go with the more stable SoCal option? That of course would be the Clippers, who have the excellent selling point that Rob Pelinka doesn't work for them.
On the other hand, it's probably even money right now that Kawhi stays in Toronto. So we'll see.
As for the Lakers, they could always make a play for Jimmy Butler, who's also available and would come cheaper. Kevin Durant, of course, is along with Kawhi THE free agent gem, and it will be fascinating to see where he lands.
If he's smart, he goes back to Golden State and plays for more titles. If he's not, he signs with, um, the Knicks, and does what most superstars have done with the Knicks across the last two decades: Lose a lot, get super frustrated and light out for the territories.
But, hey. He'd be in New York, and he'd be making a lot of money. At least for awhile, that might make it worth playing for a tire fire of a franchise -- and its owner, Jimmy Dolan, doofus extraordinaire.
In the meantime, keep your eye on Pete Castro Harris. Rob Pelinka says he's got serious hops.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Dance fever
The list of Olympic sports for the 2024 Paris Games came out yesterday, and everyone was talking about how break dancing was being added as an Olympic sport.
The Blob has no beef with this, even if break dancing is not, strictly speaking, a sport. But then, there's a whole raft of Olympic sports that aren't really sports, either, if you squint your eyes and look at 'em just right.
As the late, great Dan Jenkins once famously wrote: Cross-country skiing is just how a Swede goes to the 7-Eleven.
Yes, and another name for luge is "sledding." And another name for skeleton is "getting drunk and then sledding." And another name for rhythmic gymnastics is "recess."
And don't get me started on synchronized swimming, which is basically treading water with style.
So, yeah, bring on the break dancing.
I want to see which country will emerge as the Olympic power in break dancing. I want to see who will be the Michael Phelps of break dancing (perhaps Michael Phelps!). I want to see the entire Russian break dancing team get banned for doping, and Torvill and Dean come out of retirement to win the pairs competition, and a huge judging scandal erupt because six of the judges were from Brazil and somehow IndyCar driver Helio Castroneves won the men's gold, even though he wasn't entered.
"Yes, but he's Helio! And he won Dancing With The Stars!" the Brazilian judges will all say.
I want to see this. Then I want to get to work thinking of other cool stuff that ought to be Olympic sports:
1. Lawn Maintenance.
In which the American entry, Lance Thurston Howell III of Gated Swale, California, is disqualified after testing positive for Miracle-Gro.
2. Greco-Roman Eating.
In which the American team, comprised entirely of guys from Indiana, sweep the medals in the Giant Breaded Tenderloin division.
3. The Decatlon.
In which cats from all over the world compete to see who can most haughtily ignore a grueling schedule of ten owners' commands. The Siamese team wins gold, silver and bronze because, let's face it, they're just nasty-ass creatures.
4. Jart Dodging.
In which there are both Helmeted and Helmetless divisions -- the latter of which is dominated by skeleton racers looking for something hella crazy to do in the summertime.
And last but not least ...
5. Chess Boxing.
Which, believe it or not, is actually a thing that has been around since 1992. Competitors alternate rounds of chess with rounds of boxing.
In the Olympic gold medal round, 8-year-old Bulgarian prodigy Dimitri "Little Goober" Manilova puts his Russian opponent in check with a classic "Hey, Look Over There" gambit -- i.e., shouting "Hey, look over there," and moving his queen into a check position when his opponent looks away. Then he scores a TKO in the boxing segment by tying the Russian's shoelaces together and goading him into chasing him around the ring by shouting "Hey, Ivan! Did your mom have any kids that lived?"
Or something like that.
The Blob has no beef with this, even if break dancing is not, strictly speaking, a sport. But then, there's a whole raft of Olympic sports that aren't really sports, either, if you squint your eyes and look at 'em just right.
As the late, great Dan Jenkins once famously wrote: Cross-country skiing is just how a Swede goes to the 7-Eleven.
Yes, and another name for luge is "sledding." And another name for skeleton is "getting drunk and then sledding." And another name for rhythmic gymnastics is "recess."
And don't get me started on synchronized swimming, which is basically treading water with style.
So, yeah, bring on the break dancing.
I want to see which country will emerge as the Olympic power in break dancing. I want to see who will be the Michael Phelps of break dancing (perhaps Michael Phelps!). I want to see the entire Russian break dancing team get banned for doping, and Torvill and Dean come out of retirement to win the pairs competition, and a huge judging scandal erupt because six of the judges were from Brazil and somehow IndyCar driver Helio Castroneves won the men's gold, even though he wasn't entered.
"Yes, but he's Helio! And he won Dancing With The Stars!" the Brazilian judges will all say.
I want to see this. Then I want to get to work thinking of other cool stuff that ought to be Olympic sports:
1. Lawn Maintenance.
In which the American entry, Lance Thurston Howell III of Gated Swale, California, is disqualified after testing positive for Miracle-Gro.
2. Greco-Roman Eating.
In which the American team, comprised entirely of guys from Indiana, sweep the medals in the Giant Breaded Tenderloin division.
3. The Decatlon.
In which cats from all over the world compete to see who can most haughtily ignore a grueling schedule of ten owners' commands. The Siamese team wins gold, silver and bronze because, let's face it, they're just nasty-ass creatures.
4. Jart Dodging.
In which there are both Helmeted and Helmetless divisions -- the latter of which is dominated by skeleton racers looking for something hella crazy to do in the summertime.
And last but not least ...
5. Chess Boxing.
Which, believe it or not, is actually a thing that has been around since 1992. Competitors alternate rounds of chess with rounds of boxing.
In the Olympic gold medal round, 8-year-old Bulgarian prodigy Dimitri "Little Goober" Manilova puts his Russian opponent in check with a classic "Hey, Look Over There" gambit -- i.e., shouting "Hey, look over there," and moving his queen into a check position when his opponent looks away. Then he scores a TKO in the boxing segment by tying the Russian's shoelaces together and goading him into chasing him around the ring by shouting "Hey, Ivan! Did your mom have any kids that lived?"
Or something like that.
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
States rights
Time now to check in on the beleaguered overseers of the NCAA, who once again find their magnificent illusion under siege, this time from the most feared adversaries of all.
Bring on the politicos!
Who, in California, seem poised to pass SB 206, aka the Fair Pay To Play Act, which would allow college students to make money off their own names, images and likenesses. As reported here by Deadspin, this has the overseers' knickers in a bunch, since it would threaten their carefully constructed system of indentured servitude.
Head overseer Mark Emmert released a statement that essentially says California shouldn't oughta do that, because then other states might follow Cali's lead, and then the whole tottery house of cards would come tumbling down. Emmert also said, quite disingenuously, that it would be a shame if the NCAA had to bar California student-athletes from competing for championships, because the proposed law would constitute the dreaded Unfair Advantage over student-athletes from other states not suitably enlightened.
The real fear, of course, is that other student-athletes in other states, and their legislative advocates, would see the Unfair Advantage as something that looked damned fine to them, and how can we get in on it? And suddenly jurisdiction would be taken right out of the NCAA's hands in this matter.
And Emmert and Co. thought losing to Ed O'Bannon (at least in part) was a nightmare.
Bring on the politicos!
Who, in California, seem poised to pass SB 206, aka the Fair Pay To Play Act, which would allow college students to make money off their own names, images and likenesses. As reported here by Deadspin, this has the overseers' knickers in a bunch, since it would threaten their carefully constructed system of indentured servitude.
Head overseer Mark Emmert released a statement that essentially says California shouldn't oughta do that, because then other states might follow Cali's lead, and then the whole tottery house of cards would come tumbling down. Emmert also said, quite disingenuously, that it would be a shame if the NCAA had to bar California student-athletes from competing for championships, because the proposed law would constitute the dreaded Unfair Advantage over student-athletes from other states not suitably enlightened.
The real fear, of course, is that other student-athletes in other states, and their legislative advocates, would see the Unfair Advantage as something that looked damned fine to them, and how can we get in on it? And suddenly jurisdiction would be taken right out of the NCAA's hands in this matter.
And Emmert and Co. thought losing to Ed O'Bannon (at least in part) was a nightmare.
Formulaic
Back in the before time -- when the names were Jim Clark and Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart, Ayrton Senna and Niki Lauda and Alain Prost -- Formula One used to be an actual racing series. The lads used to flit around from Monaco to Zandvoort to Watkins Glen, and sometimes Lotus won and sometimes it was BRM -- or, later, Ferrari or Williams or McLaren.
There was dicing. There was competition. There were rivalries worth noting, because they were actual rivalries and not hammer-vs.-nail rivalries.
Which brings us to yesterday, and the Hammer-vs.-Nail Grand Prix in France.
Lewis Hamilton won easily in his Mercedes, his sixth win in eight races so far this season. Valtteri Bottas finished second in his Mercedes. No one except those two have won a race so far this year. No one not driving for Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull has posted a top-five finish. Only five drivers have finished on the podium in eight races, and the two Mercedes pilots have finished 1-2 in six of them. The only other driver with a second-place finish is Sebastian Vettel for Ferrari.
Who actually broke Mercedes' stranglehold by winning in Canada, only to have the victory stripped on an absurd stewards' ruling. Which handed the victory to -- shocker! -- Lewis Hamilton.
Look. I get it. Mercedes is dominating F1 to a ridiculous extent because it's head-and-shoulders the best operation in the sport, and excellence should be celebrated. But it's also damn boring.
Problem is, I don't know what you do about that. Just be boring I guess.
Because F1 is and always has been a money game, and that's never going to change. The operations with the most money to spread around have always ruled. Back in the day, when Michael Schumacher was winning every race, Ferrari was every bit as dominant as Mercedes is now. A lack of competitive balance has always been the sport's Achilles heel to one degree or another.
And so you've got Mercedes and you've got Ferrari and, to a somewhat lesser extent, you've got Red Bull. And then there's everyone else. And thus has it ever been, with only the names changing through the years.
The difference today is that, if there were dominant teams, the gap between No. 1 and No. 2 was rarely as yawning as it is now. If it's Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull and everyone else, it's more precisely Mercedes and everyone else. Little wonder that Vettel came a trifle unglued after his win was taken away in Canada, switching the "1" and "2" placards placed in front of his and Hamilton's cars, and initially refusing to appear on the podium.
After all, it's not like the scenery was going to change whether he stood up there or not. It was still going to be the same old crowd spraying the champagne around.
In any case, it's on to Austria this week. Your winner will be either Lewis Hamilton or Valtteri Bottas. Enjoy.
There was dicing. There was competition. There were rivalries worth noting, because they were actual rivalries and not hammer-vs.-nail rivalries.
Which brings us to yesterday, and the Hammer-vs.-Nail Grand Prix in France.
Lewis Hamilton won easily in his Mercedes, his sixth win in eight races so far this season. Valtteri Bottas finished second in his Mercedes. No one except those two have won a race so far this year. No one not driving for Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull has posted a top-five finish. Only five drivers have finished on the podium in eight races, and the two Mercedes pilots have finished 1-2 in six of them. The only other driver with a second-place finish is Sebastian Vettel for Ferrari.
Who actually broke Mercedes' stranglehold by winning in Canada, only to have the victory stripped on an absurd stewards' ruling. Which handed the victory to -- shocker! -- Lewis Hamilton.
Look. I get it. Mercedes is dominating F1 to a ridiculous extent because it's head-and-shoulders the best operation in the sport, and excellence should be celebrated. But it's also damn boring.
Problem is, I don't know what you do about that. Just be boring I guess.
Because F1 is and always has been a money game, and that's never going to change. The operations with the most money to spread around have always ruled. Back in the day, when Michael Schumacher was winning every race, Ferrari was every bit as dominant as Mercedes is now. A lack of competitive balance has always been the sport's Achilles heel to one degree or another.
And so you've got Mercedes and you've got Ferrari and, to a somewhat lesser extent, you've got Red Bull. And then there's everyone else. And thus has it ever been, with only the names changing through the years.
The difference today is that, if there were dominant teams, the gap between No. 1 and No. 2 was rarely as yawning as it is now. If it's Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull and everyone else, it's more precisely Mercedes and everyone else. Little wonder that Vettel came a trifle unglued after his win was taken away in Canada, switching the "1" and "2" placards placed in front of his and Hamilton's cars, and initially refusing to appear on the podium.
After all, it's not like the scenery was going to change whether he stood up there or not. It was still going to be the same old crowd spraying the champagne around.
In any case, it's on to Austria this week. Your winner will be either Lewis Hamilton or Valtteri Bottas. Enjoy.
Child's play
They're playing baseball this fine June morning, on the rough diamond just south of Arlington Elementary school. A kid no bigger than a minute stands at the plate. The bat on his shoulder looks like a redwood. Cries of "Hey, battah, hey, battah" rise into the clear air from other tiny figures scattered around the infield like baseball miniatures.
Out on the pitcher's mound, or actually in front of it, Coach leans over and lobs the ball. No Bigger Than Minute swipes at it with the redwood. Ball hits bat, rises lazily and briefly, dribbles out toward second base, where one of the baseball miniatures surrounds it carefully, scoops it up and heaves it wildly.
The ball goes sailing off to parts unknown. The batter pelts madly toward first. "Safe!" another coach hollers.
Scattered applause from the camp chairs on the sidewalk beyond the first baseline, where the parents watching their children take part in this local ritual known as Wildcat baseball.
Where everyone gets to play, and the teams are named after car models and candy brands and major league players and animals, and no one labors under the delusion this is the major leagues or anything like them. Which is why there are remarkably few parents hitting each other in the face at Wildcat games.
Unlike, you know, these brainiacs.
By now everyone in America has seen this, because it's gone viral several times over since it was recorded this week. The spectacle of alleged grownups behaving like 7-year-olds at a baseball game played by actual 7-year-olds is just one more not-so-subtle reminder that the worst part of kid sports are parents, because parents are frequently morons. Acknowledging this is probably why so few of them ever get punished by the law.
Which is a shame, because the Blob tends to think if the brawlers got serious jail time every time they felt compelled to slug one another over child's play, the world would be a better place. And the next bunch of morons might think twice about it.
Or not, of course. They are, after all, morons.
You can label that name-calling if you like, but the Blob believes it's simply accurate reporting. How else are you going to describe people who get so upset over the call of a 13-year-old umpire in a kid baseball game they feel compelled to start brawling like soccer hooligans?
You want to know why the umpire was 13 years old? Because the players were 7. In other words, that wasn't the next Mike Trout out there getting robbed by a bad call. It was a kid who, when his team's not at bat, is probably standing in the outfield looking for interesting bugs. Or thinking up clever 7-year-old chatter like, "Hey, battah, hey, battah, you couldn't be fattah."
Quick story: Back in my young sportswriting days, I followed around a Little League team in Lapel, In., for a summer feature. A college buddy was the coach. Every inning, when his team came up to bat, one little guy invariably marched up to him and asked "Hey, Coach, when do I bat?"
My buddy would just roll his eyes.
"Fifth," he said. "Same as last inning."
Then he turned to me and grinned.
"Every inning he asks me when he bats," he said. "And every inning I tell him."
So, no, this is not the seventh game of the World Series we're talking about. Although it seems there are always morons who think it is.
It's why the Blob has always half-seriously thought organized sports should be outlawed until a kid is, say, 11 or 12. Until then, let 'em make their own fun.
Let 'em find a vacant lot, lay out a diamond using discarded jackets for bases, and declare everything hit to right an automatic out because there's only five guys on one team and four on the other.
Let 'em use the same vacant lot for a football field; Gilbert from the next block over is all-time center, everyone is eligible, and the defensive guys have to count to 3-Mississippi before they're allowed to rush the quarterback.
Oh, yeah: And no grownups allowed. Because not even Gilbert from the next block over has enough allowance money to bail 'em out.
Out on the pitcher's mound, or actually in front of it, Coach leans over and lobs the ball. No Bigger Than Minute swipes at it with the redwood. Ball hits bat, rises lazily and briefly, dribbles out toward second base, where one of the baseball miniatures surrounds it carefully, scoops it up and heaves it wildly.
The ball goes sailing off to parts unknown. The batter pelts madly toward first. "Safe!" another coach hollers.
Scattered applause from the camp chairs on the sidewalk beyond the first baseline, where the parents watching their children take part in this local ritual known as Wildcat baseball.
Where everyone gets to play, and the teams are named after car models and candy brands and major league players and animals, and no one labors under the delusion this is the major leagues or anything like them. Which is why there are remarkably few parents hitting each other in the face at Wildcat games.
Unlike, you know, these brainiacs.
By now everyone in America has seen this, because it's gone viral several times over since it was recorded this week. The spectacle of alleged grownups behaving like 7-year-olds at a baseball game played by actual 7-year-olds is just one more not-so-subtle reminder that the worst part of kid sports are parents, because parents are frequently morons. Acknowledging this is probably why so few of them ever get punished by the law.
Which is a shame, because the Blob tends to think if the brawlers got serious jail time every time they felt compelled to slug one another over child's play, the world would be a better place. And the next bunch of morons might think twice about it.
Or not, of course. They are, after all, morons.
You can label that name-calling if you like, but the Blob believes it's simply accurate reporting. How else are you going to describe people who get so upset over the call of a 13-year-old umpire in a kid baseball game they feel compelled to start brawling like soccer hooligans?
You want to know why the umpire was 13 years old? Because the players were 7. In other words, that wasn't the next Mike Trout out there getting robbed by a bad call. It was a kid who, when his team's not at bat, is probably standing in the outfield looking for interesting bugs. Or thinking up clever 7-year-old chatter like, "Hey, battah, hey, battah, you couldn't be fattah."
Quick story: Back in my young sportswriting days, I followed around a Little League team in Lapel, In., for a summer feature. A college buddy was the coach. Every inning, when his team came up to bat, one little guy invariably marched up to him and asked "Hey, Coach, when do I bat?"
My buddy would just roll his eyes.
"Fifth," he said. "Same as last inning."
Then he turned to me and grinned.
"Every inning he asks me when he bats," he said. "And every inning I tell him."
So, no, this is not the seventh game of the World Series we're talking about. Although it seems there are always morons who think it is.
It's why the Blob has always half-seriously thought organized sports should be outlawed until a kid is, say, 11 or 12. Until then, let 'em make their own fun.
Let 'em find a vacant lot, lay out a diamond using discarded jackets for bases, and declare everything hit to right an automatic out because there's only five guys on one team and four on the other.
Let 'em use the same vacant lot for a football field; Gilbert from the next block over is all-time center, everyone is eligible, and the defensive guys have to count to 3-Mississippi before they're allowed to rush the quarterback.
Oh, yeah: And no grownups allowed. Because not even Gilbert from the next block over has enough allowance money to bail 'em out.
Halfsies
Your dad never met Stuart Sternberg. Of that we can be reasonably certain.
That's because your dad was the one who always told you "If you're gonna do a job, don't do it halfway," and "Half measures are no measures at all." You took that to heart. I took it to heart. But Stuart Sternberg?
He just said, "Ah, screw your dad."
Sternberg, see, is the owner of the Tampa Bay Rays, one of baseball's more stable franchises on the field and a complete money pit off it. And so Sternberg, who's been lobbying Pinellas County officials for some time for a new ballpark to replace the inconveniently located, never-that-good-to-begin-with Tropicana Field, hit on a radical solution to his problem.
He went to Major League Baseball and proposed that the Rays split time between Tampa and Montreal. And MLB -- which would love to get back into the Montreal market -- gave him the OK to explore it.
How this would work, apparently, is the Rays would spend the early spring and summer in Tampa. Then they would play the rest of the season in Montreal once summer finally kicked in up north. Wags and pressbox wits have already begun weighing in on what the team would be called:
1. The Montrampa XRays.
2. The Tampreal Rexpos.
3. Canada Stole Our Baseball Team (Tampa version.)
4. Eff You, Eh, Washington Stole Ours (Montreal version.)
Seriously, no one except Sternberg sees how this possibly could work. In Tampa, officials who were already reluctant to kick in the requisite corporate welfare to help Sternberg build a new ballpark are already saying "Oh, HELL, no" to building one for half a season. So if this is a ploy to strong-arm the county into replacing Tropicana, it doesn't seem especially well thought-out.
The fans, meanwhile, or what there are of them, absolutely love this idea. OK, so they don't. As you might imagine, they're ticked off -- which suggests they might protest by staying away in droves.
OK. So bigger droves, then, considering its Tampa.
In any case, this raises the intriguing possibility that the Rays might actually achieve the ultimate in public disinterest and play a game in front of no one someday. They already play in front of almost no one -- one Rays home date this year drew only a tick over 5,000 fans -- and that's a shame, because the Rays are consistently one of the better teams in the AL East.
Right now, for instance, they're 44-32 and sit comfortably in second in the East behind the Yankees. If the playoffs began today, they'd be in as a wild card.
The suspicion here is that Sternberg would dearly love to get the hell out of Tampa, but doesn't have the stones to go full monty on it. So instead of petitioning MLB to relocate, he petitioned it to kinda-sorta relocate.
Yeah, I wanna move the team. But, you know, I don't want everyone to be all mad at me. So what if I kinda moved the team? Montreal's nice in the summer. Plus, they still pine for the Expos up there. So what if I gave Tampa a little baseball, and Montreal a little baseball? That way no one can say I'm a heartless greedhead who dumped his first market for a Trophy Market, like the Davises, the Spanos and that awful Stan Kroenke over in the NFL.
To which the Davises, Spanos and Kroenke would no doubt have a one-word rejoinder:
"Candy-ass."
That's because your dad was the one who always told you "If you're gonna do a job, don't do it halfway," and "Half measures are no measures at all." You took that to heart. I took it to heart. But Stuart Sternberg?
He just said, "Ah, screw your dad."
Sternberg, see, is the owner of the Tampa Bay Rays, one of baseball's more stable franchises on the field and a complete money pit off it. And so Sternberg, who's been lobbying Pinellas County officials for some time for a new ballpark to replace the inconveniently located, never-that-good-to-begin-with Tropicana Field, hit on a radical solution to his problem.
He went to Major League Baseball and proposed that the Rays split time between Tampa and Montreal. And MLB -- which would love to get back into the Montreal market -- gave him the OK to explore it.
How this would work, apparently, is the Rays would spend the early spring and summer in Tampa. Then they would play the rest of the season in Montreal once summer finally kicked in up north. Wags and pressbox wits have already begun weighing in on what the team would be called:
1. The Montrampa XRays.
2. The Tampreal Rexpos.
3. Canada Stole Our Baseball Team (Tampa version.)
4. Eff You, Eh, Washington Stole Ours (Montreal version.)
Seriously, no one except Sternberg sees how this possibly could work. In Tampa, officials who were already reluctant to kick in the requisite corporate welfare to help Sternberg build a new ballpark are already saying "Oh, HELL, no" to building one for half a season. So if this is a ploy to strong-arm the county into replacing Tropicana, it doesn't seem especially well thought-out.
The fans, meanwhile, or what there are of them, absolutely love this idea. OK, so they don't. As you might imagine, they're ticked off -- which suggests they might protest by staying away in droves.
OK. So bigger droves, then, considering its Tampa.
In any case, this raises the intriguing possibility that the Rays might actually achieve the ultimate in public disinterest and play a game in front of no one someday. They already play in front of almost no one -- one Rays home date this year drew only a tick over 5,000 fans -- and that's a shame, because the Rays are consistently one of the better teams in the AL East.
Right now, for instance, they're 44-32 and sit comfortably in second in the East behind the Yankees. If the playoffs began today, they'd be in as a wild card.
The suspicion here is that Sternberg would dearly love to get the hell out of Tampa, but doesn't have the stones to go full monty on it. So instead of petitioning MLB to relocate, he petitioned it to kinda-sorta relocate.
Yeah, I wanna move the team. But, you know, I don't want everyone to be all mad at me. So what if I kinda moved the team? Montreal's nice in the summer. Plus, they still pine for the Expos up there. So what if I gave Tampa a little baseball, and Montreal a little baseball? That way no one can say I'm a heartless greedhead who dumped his first market for a Trophy Market, like the Davises, the Spanos and that awful Stan Kroenke over in the NFL.
To which the Davises, Spanos and Kroenke would no doubt have a one-word rejoinder:
"Candy-ass."
Some random draft-y thoughts
Some of them stupid. Some of them ... less stupid.
First, the stupid.
Saw that Bol Bol wound up with the Nuggets, and that inspired this idiocy. If Bol Bol were 20 years older ... and Fort Wayne TinCaps pitcher Henry Henry were 20 years older, a few inches taller and a basketball player instead of a baseball player ... they could have formed the most repetitive frontcourt of all time: Bol Bol, Henry Henry, and Duany Duany.
Told you it was stupid.
And the less stupid?
Put aside for a moment why the Pacers would use the 18th pick on another post player (Goga Bitadze) when they already have two pretty good ones on their roster. Especially when it turns out the Pacers knew so little about him that head coach Nate McMillan admitted he'd never seen the guy except briefly on tape.
In which case, the suspicion is that "Goga Bitadze" is pronounced "bargaining chip."
In any case, let's leave Bankers Life Fieldhouse for now and -- through the magic of Blobbian physics -- teleport ourselves to Boston, where among the newest Celtics this morning are Romeo Langford and Carsen Edwards. An Indiana guy and a Purdue guy, joining a team coached by a Zionsville guy (Brad Stevens). All the Celtics need now is for Larry Bird to return in triumph bearing a platter of giant breaded tenderloins, and the Hoosier-fication of Beantown will be complete.
The Celts took Langford with the 13th pick, on the high end of all the draftnik projections. This suggests the Celtics are taking a bit of a flyer on Romeo; it also suggests they were influenced by the fact he comes in a package deal with Extenuating Circumstances. Extenuating Circumstances always skew the dynamic -- and usually toward favorable side.
In this case, the Extenuating Circumstance is the torn thumb ligament on his shooting hand Langford managed to keep quiet through his only season at Indiana. It explained a lot, most notably the uneven shooting that was never evident in his high school days at New Albany. Despite that, Langford still led Indiana and all Big Ten freshmen in scoring -- and with the thumb now surgically repaired, all the qualities that once made him a projected top-five pick should be in full flower again.
Still, he's much more a roll of the dice than Edwards, if only because Edwards was the third pick of the second round. If his lack of size does make him too much a liability to succeed in the NBA, the Celtics therefore won't be out a whole lot. If, however, his size is outweighed by the fact he's exactly the sort of perimeter threat that's become invaluable in a perimeter-driven league, he'll be the bargain of all bargains.
All 6 feet of him.
First, the stupid.
Saw that Bol Bol wound up with the Nuggets, and that inspired this idiocy. If Bol Bol were 20 years older ... and Fort Wayne TinCaps pitcher Henry Henry were 20 years older, a few inches taller and a basketball player instead of a baseball player ... they could have formed the most repetitive frontcourt of all time: Bol Bol, Henry Henry, and Duany Duany.
Told you it was stupid.
And the less stupid?
Put aside for a moment why the Pacers would use the 18th pick on another post player (Goga Bitadze) when they already have two pretty good ones on their roster. Especially when it turns out the Pacers knew so little about him that head coach Nate McMillan admitted he'd never seen the guy except briefly on tape.
In which case, the suspicion is that "Goga Bitadze" is pronounced "bargaining chip."
In any case, let's leave Bankers Life Fieldhouse for now and -- through the magic of Blobbian physics -- teleport ourselves to Boston, where among the newest Celtics this morning are Romeo Langford and Carsen Edwards. An Indiana guy and a Purdue guy, joining a team coached by a Zionsville guy (Brad Stevens). All the Celtics need now is for Larry Bird to return in triumph bearing a platter of giant breaded tenderloins, and the Hoosier-fication of Beantown will be complete.
The Celts took Langford with the 13th pick, on the high end of all the draftnik projections. This suggests the Celtics are taking a bit of a flyer on Romeo; it also suggests they were influenced by the fact he comes in a package deal with Extenuating Circumstances. Extenuating Circumstances always skew the dynamic -- and usually toward favorable side.
In this case, the Extenuating Circumstance is the torn thumb ligament on his shooting hand Langford managed to keep quiet through his only season at Indiana. It explained a lot, most notably the uneven shooting that was never evident in his high school days at New Albany. Despite that, Langford still led Indiana and all Big Ten freshmen in scoring -- and with the thumb now surgically repaired, all the qualities that once made him a projected top-five pick should be in full flower again.
Still, he's much more a roll of the dice than Edwards, if only because Edwards was the third pick of the second round. If his lack of size does make him too much a liability to succeed in the NBA, the Celtics therefore won't be out a whole lot. If, however, his size is outweighed by the fact he's exactly the sort of perimeter threat that's become invaluable in a perimeter-driven league, he'll be the bargain of all bargains.
All 6 feet of him.
Chilled by a draft
And now, the NBA Draft, in which Zion Williamson will go to the New Orleans Pelicans because that's where the NBA will tell him to go, and where unless traded he will have to stay for seven years because that's how the League works, and from which he will as likely as not flee as soon as he becomes an unrestricted free agent, because he never chose the place to begin with.
This is how it works in professional sports. This is how it's always worked. And because of that, no one blinks an eye.
I take that back. This guy does.
It's always a little unsettling when someone punches a hole in the box and beckons us to step outside it, because it's human nature to cling to the creature comforts of the familiar. The NBA draft, the NFL Draft, every other kind of professional sports draft: They're the Way It's Always Been Done, and never mind that they're exactly the sort of socialist enterprise certain politicians are constantly warning us against. It seems we're all for free markets and the great god capitalism here in America, until we're not.
Well. What this guy's proposing is, at bottom, capitalism in its purest form. Its principles beat a direct path back to Adam Smith himself. And if that's unsettling because it's demonstrably not the Way It's Always Been Done, it's downright unnerving how much sense it makes.
Look, I get it. I do. The argument for a socialist construct in professional sports has always been that it preserves at least the illusion of competitive balance. And yet it doesn't. Awful organizations remain awful organizations, because there's no incentive to be otherwise. They may briefly rise because the system assists them in doing so, but it's always artificial. Sooner or later, like water, they seek their own level.
You want to remedy that?
This guy makes an excellent case that an unrestricted free market will do that.
Don't like players jumping from team to team?
Allow them to choose their employer the way people do in every other industry, and they'll be more invested in staying.
Want to improve chronically underperforming franchises and put an end to tanking?
Make them have to sell themselves to prospective players instead of rewarding their ineptitude by simply handing them the best incoming talent each year.
Think this means no one will choose the Timberwolves over the Warriors, or the Grizzlies over the Rockets?
Perhaps. But aren't they doing that now, albeit on a delayed basis? Plus, in 2019, with the advent of social media and a fully web-integrated world, no one has to go to New York or L.A. to make a splash anymore. Would Giannis Antetokounmpo be any more saleable in New York than he is in Milwaukee?
And theoretically, the salary cap would tend to act as a brake on that sort of thing; the glamour destinations might not always be able to land the top incoming talent because they don't have the cap space to pay the price tag. But of course, this is all theoretical, because the draft isn't going anywhere, at least in the foreseeable future.
It's the Way It's Always Been Done, after all. No stepping outside the box allowed.
This is how it works in professional sports. This is how it's always worked. And because of that, no one blinks an eye.
I take that back. This guy does.
It's always a little unsettling when someone punches a hole in the box and beckons us to step outside it, because it's human nature to cling to the creature comforts of the familiar. The NBA draft, the NFL Draft, every other kind of professional sports draft: They're the Way It's Always Been Done, and never mind that they're exactly the sort of socialist enterprise certain politicians are constantly warning us against. It seems we're all for free markets and the great god capitalism here in America, until we're not.
Well. What this guy's proposing is, at bottom, capitalism in its purest form. Its principles beat a direct path back to Adam Smith himself. And if that's unsettling because it's demonstrably not the Way It's Always Been Done, it's downright unnerving how much sense it makes.
Look, I get it. I do. The argument for a socialist construct in professional sports has always been that it preserves at least the illusion of competitive balance. And yet it doesn't. Awful organizations remain awful organizations, because there's no incentive to be otherwise. They may briefly rise because the system assists them in doing so, but it's always artificial. Sooner or later, like water, they seek their own level.
You want to remedy that?
This guy makes an excellent case that an unrestricted free market will do that.
Don't like players jumping from team to team?
Allow them to choose their employer the way people do in every other industry, and they'll be more invested in staying.
Want to improve chronically underperforming franchises and put an end to tanking?
Make them have to sell themselves to prospective players instead of rewarding their ineptitude by simply handing them the best incoming talent each year.
Think this means no one will choose the Timberwolves over the Warriors, or the Grizzlies over the Rockets?
Perhaps. But aren't they doing that now, albeit on a delayed basis? Plus, in 2019, with the advent of social media and a fully web-integrated world, no one has to go to New York or L.A. to make a splash anymore. Would Giannis Antetokounmpo be any more saleable in New York than he is in Milwaukee?
And theoretically, the salary cap would tend to act as a brake on that sort of thing; the glamour destinations might not always be able to land the top incoming talent because they don't have the cap space to pay the price tag. But of course, this is all theoretical, because the draft isn't going anywhere, at least in the foreseeable future.
It's the Way It's Always Been Done, after all. No stepping outside the box allowed.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Timeout for puzzlement
The Blob has always freely acknowledged it is an occasional "Do Whut?" zone. Which is to say, it doesn't get stuff everyone around it seems to get, on account of several variables.
One, it doesn't understand the question.
Two, it understands the question but the answer doesn't make any sense to it.
Three, it occasionally looks at the world from an extremely bizarre angle (i.e., upside-down, with its head tilted at a 45-degree angle, through squinty eyes).
Anyway ... this brings us to the topic du jour.
Why is everyone but the Blob suddenly anointing the Lakers as the Great Next in the NBA Western Conference, simply because they gave up the farm and several surrounding acres for Anthony Davis?
Now, Anthony Davis is an acknowledged force in the League. He is a transformational player. And his game should fit tongue-in-groove with that of LeBron James, who should be healed up, rested and ready to go again come fall.
But. But.
Does that mean the Lakers are suddenly the favorites in the West, which some people seem to be taking as an article of faith? Is AD going to make that much difference for a team that, remember, gave up Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart (plus three first-round picks) to get him?
Look. Ingram, Ball and Hart are not AD nor will ever be confused with him, but they weren't empty uniforms, either. Ingram was the third-leading scorer for the Lakers last season, averaging 18.3 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.0 assists. Ball, despite playing only 47 games, was the fourth-leading scorer and averaged 10 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.4 assists at the point -- numbers which would doubtless have been higher had he not been injured so much of the year. And Hart was an effective minutes filler, playing in 67 games and averaging 25.6 minutes per.
To be sure, Davis could make up for all that. But has everyone forgotten just what a train wreck involving a dumpster fire the Lakers were last season? How the botched negotiations for Davis the first time around created major trust issues between the team's young core and LeBron, who was perceived to be pulling the strings behind the scenes? How, apparently unable to repair the damage, he eventually distanced himself from everyone? And how stupendously mediocre the Lakers were even before LeBron got hurt and shut it down?
Landing Davis might magically resolve all of that, but the Blob isn't much for magic (and Magic wasn't much for the Lakers, as it turned out. Rimshot.) It still sees an utterly dysfunctional organization that can't get out of its own way. Same clowns, different day.
Or not. I suppose it's possible the Lakers could also pluck Kawhi Leonard from the free agent pool this summer, given that Kawhi is from L.A. and may or may not feel like coming home. In which case, yeah, they'd become the odds-on favorite to dethrone the Warriors in the West.
But absent that?
They make the playoffs for sure, providing LeBron doesn't get hurt again and can mend a few fences. They finish, let's say, third in the West. Maybe they even win a playoff series or two.
But the Great Next?
Can't see it yet.
Maybe if I squint harder ...
One, it doesn't understand the question.
Two, it understands the question but the answer doesn't make any sense to it.
Three, it occasionally looks at the world from an extremely bizarre angle (i.e., upside-down, with its head tilted at a 45-degree angle, through squinty eyes).
Anyway ... this brings us to the topic du jour.
Why is everyone but the Blob suddenly anointing the Lakers as the Great Next in the NBA Western Conference, simply because they gave up the farm and several surrounding acres for Anthony Davis?
Now, Anthony Davis is an acknowledged force in the League. He is a transformational player. And his game should fit tongue-in-groove with that of LeBron James, who should be healed up, rested and ready to go again come fall.
But. But.
Does that mean the Lakers are suddenly the favorites in the West, which some people seem to be taking as an article of faith? Is AD going to make that much difference for a team that, remember, gave up Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart (plus three first-round picks) to get him?
Look. Ingram, Ball and Hart are not AD nor will ever be confused with him, but they weren't empty uniforms, either. Ingram was the third-leading scorer for the Lakers last season, averaging 18.3 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.0 assists. Ball, despite playing only 47 games, was the fourth-leading scorer and averaged 10 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.4 assists at the point -- numbers which would doubtless have been higher had he not been injured so much of the year. And Hart was an effective minutes filler, playing in 67 games and averaging 25.6 minutes per.
To be sure, Davis could make up for all that. But has everyone forgotten just what a train wreck involving a dumpster fire the Lakers were last season? How the botched negotiations for Davis the first time around created major trust issues between the team's young core and LeBron, who was perceived to be pulling the strings behind the scenes? How, apparently unable to repair the damage, he eventually distanced himself from everyone? And how stupendously mediocre the Lakers were even before LeBron got hurt and shut it down?
Landing Davis might magically resolve all of that, but the Blob isn't much for magic (and Magic wasn't much for the Lakers, as it turned out. Rimshot.) It still sees an utterly dysfunctional organization that can't get out of its own way. Same clowns, different day.
Or not. I suppose it's possible the Lakers could also pluck Kawhi Leonard from the free agent pool this summer, given that Kawhi is from L.A. and may or may not feel like coming home. In which case, yeah, they'd become the odds-on favorite to dethrone the Warriors in the West.
But absent that?
They make the playoffs for sure, providing LeBron doesn't get hurt again and can mend a few fences. They finish, let's say, third in the West. Maybe they even win a playoff series or two.
But the Great Next?
Can't see it yet.
Maybe if I squint harder ...
Monday, June 17, 2019
The art of hanging in
There are a few things I want Gary Woodland to teach me this morning, as the new patron saint of hackers like me. I want him to teach me how to hang in.
I want him to teach me how to keep saving par from ridiculous places while the world waits for him to unravel the way he always has before.
I want him to teach me how to out-focus the Focus Monster himself, Brooks Koepka, who'd won the last two U.S. Opens and four of the last eight majors, and was filling Woodland's mirrors all afternoon Sunday at Pebble Beach.
I want him to teach me how to nearly hole out that fringe wedge on 17, the one that seemed to begin in Oregon and that almost no one gave him a shot at even getting it close. And I want him to teach me how to close out this U.S. Open with the flourish he did on 18, jarring a Rand McNally for birdie even though he didn't need it.
That was hardly the most picturesque 69 Woodland strapped on Pebble Sunday, but it might have been the bravest. The man came to the last round lugging a considerable weight of history -- he was 0-for-7 lifetime in tournaments he led after 54 holes -- and then spent the afternoon being stalked by the best golfer on the planet. And neither one could crack him.
At 35, his ship finally came in. His 13-under total was one stroke better than Tiger Woods' epic 12-under at Pebble in the 2000 Open, and he never saw a 70 in four rounds. And that indeed makes him the patron saint of hackers like me, even though Woodland is no hacker and never has been.
He's the patron saint of everyone who's tried and failed and tried and failed and tried and failed, and then finally hit something that at least somewhat resembled a golf shot. He's the patron saint of the bladed wedge, the missed 15-footer and the banana slice. He's the patron saint of endless excursions into sand, water and Sherwood Forest, until finally one magical day the ball goes where it's supposed to and that bleeping 15-footer finally finds a home.
And suddenly you're saying, "So that's what golf feels like."
And all it took was a little hanging in.
God bless Gary Woodland for reminding us all of that.
I want him to teach me how to keep saving par from ridiculous places while the world waits for him to unravel the way he always has before.
I want him to teach me how to out-focus the Focus Monster himself, Brooks Koepka, who'd won the last two U.S. Opens and four of the last eight majors, and was filling Woodland's mirrors all afternoon Sunday at Pebble Beach.
I want him to teach me how to nearly hole out that fringe wedge on 17, the one that seemed to begin in Oregon and that almost no one gave him a shot at even getting it close. And I want him to teach me how to close out this U.S. Open with the flourish he did on 18, jarring a Rand McNally for birdie even though he didn't need it.
That was hardly the most picturesque 69 Woodland strapped on Pebble Sunday, but it might have been the bravest. The man came to the last round lugging a considerable weight of history -- he was 0-for-7 lifetime in tournaments he led after 54 holes -- and then spent the afternoon being stalked by the best golfer on the planet. And neither one could crack him.
At 35, his ship finally came in. His 13-under total was one stroke better than Tiger Woods' epic 12-under at Pebble in the 2000 Open, and he never saw a 70 in four rounds. And that indeed makes him the patron saint of hackers like me, even though Woodland is no hacker and never has been.
He's the patron saint of everyone who's tried and failed and tried and failed and tried and failed, and then finally hit something that at least somewhat resembled a golf shot. He's the patron saint of the bladed wedge, the missed 15-footer and the banana slice. He's the patron saint of endless excursions into sand, water and Sherwood Forest, until finally one magical day the ball goes where it's supposed to and that bleeping 15-footer finally finds a home.
And suddenly you're saying, "So that's what golf feels like."
And all it took was a little hanging in.
God bless Gary Woodland for reminding us all of that.
Sunday, June 16, 2019
To a father gone, and not so
We went through our parents storage units a few days ago, and again I could hear my dad. This happens often these days, now that he has passed. He is gone but never gone, not there but always there, somehow, even though we can longer go see him or hear his booming laugh or watch the way he brightened whenever we walked in his room at Kingston Memory Care.
The day we went through the storage units, for instance, my sister and I could both hear him howling "What are you doin' that for?" every time we pitched something. Because my dad never threw anything out, nor my mother, either.
The consequence of this is I now have a house strewn with reminders of him, from his old baseball glove and the lead soldiers with which he played as a boy, to photos and mementos from his International Harvester days, to his old Civil War re-enactor's uniform, which now hangs in my front hall closet. And I have his voice, which never seems to leave me.
When the mercury plunged to Zero Dark Icebox last winter, I almost expected the phone to ring -- as it did on a similar night when I was 21 and working my first newspaper job -- and to hear my father reminding me to bundle up because "it's terribly cold out there."
When I see or hear or read something outrageous, which is frequently these days in a world that seems to have lost its collective mind, I can hear Dad's disgusted benediction: "Oh, good grief."
And when I discovered a TV channel called Grit, entirely comprised of Dad's beloved westerns?
I could hear him telling me about Tom Mix again, and how he was Dad's favorite radio cowboy, and how he fixed the bad guys' wagon every single time.
Then he would tell me how much he loved this new channel, because what man of his place and time wouldn't love a channel that delivered 24-hour helpings of Audie Murphy and Randolph Scott and the Duke?
"Dad would have loved Grit TV," I told my sister. "He'd have never changed the channel."
I, too, can't change the channel, and that is blessed thing. This will be the oddest of Father's Days, because it is our first without him. But of course we're not really without him. And he is with Mom again, which is a blessing all its own. They are whole, and young again, and if I close my eyes I can hear the two of them, sitting in their chairs as Dad falls asleep in front of a TV no doubt tuned for all eternity to either the Grit channel, or "Walker: Texas Ranger."
"Bill! Go to bed!" Mom is saying.
"Good grief, Jackie," Dad is answering.
Makes me smile every time.
Happy Father's Day, Dad. You were the best. And you'll never be gone.
The day we went through the storage units, for instance, my sister and I could both hear him howling "What are you doin' that for?" every time we pitched something. Because my dad never threw anything out, nor my mother, either.
The consequence of this is I now have a house strewn with reminders of him, from his old baseball glove and the lead soldiers with which he played as a boy, to photos and mementos from his International Harvester days, to his old Civil War re-enactor's uniform, which now hangs in my front hall closet. And I have his voice, which never seems to leave me.
When the mercury plunged to Zero Dark Icebox last winter, I almost expected the phone to ring -- as it did on a similar night when I was 21 and working my first newspaper job -- and to hear my father reminding me to bundle up because "it's terribly cold out there."
When I see or hear or read something outrageous, which is frequently these days in a world that seems to have lost its collective mind, I can hear Dad's disgusted benediction: "Oh, good grief."
And when I discovered a TV channel called Grit, entirely comprised of Dad's beloved westerns?
I could hear him telling me about Tom Mix again, and how he was Dad's favorite radio cowboy, and how he fixed the bad guys' wagon every single time.
Then he would tell me how much he loved this new channel, because what man of his place and time wouldn't love a channel that delivered 24-hour helpings of Audie Murphy and Randolph Scott and the Duke?
"Dad would have loved Grit TV," I told my sister. "He'd have never changed the channel."
I, too, can't change the channel, and that is blessed thing. This will be the oddest of Father's Days, because it is our first without him. But of course we're not really without him. And he is with Mom again, which is a blessing all its own. They are whole, and young again, and if I close my eyes I can hear the two of them, sitting in their chairs as Dad falls asleep in front of a TV no doubt tuned for all eternity to either the Grit channel, or "Walker: Texas Ranger."
"Bill! Go to bed!" Mom is saying.
"Good grief, Jackie," Dad is answering.
Makes me smile every time.
Happy Father's Day, Dad. You were the best. And you'll never be gone.
Real golf played here
Guys in khakis and fleece pullovers are storming lovely Pebble Beach this weekend, and the golf grannies are clutching their pearls.This is not how a U.S. Open is supposed to behave, they complain. There is not nearly enough suffering. There are not nearly enough triple bogeys, not nearly enough of the best golfers in the world flailing about like weekend hackers.
I don't know about you. But I think the golf grannies need to drink some warm milk and retire to somewhere more appropriate, like perhaps the days of Old and Young Tom Morris.
The Blob has long made sport of the USGA's habit of tricking up U.S. Open courses to the point of absurdity, because the Blob clings to the odd notion that no one wants to see Rory McIlroy play like Rory the air conditioning repair technician from West Hog Wallow Golf Club and Arcade. The best golfers in the world should be allowed to play like the best golfers in the world, to the Blob's way of thinking. Otherwise it's just a weekend at West Hog Wallow, and who wants to see that?
Not me. I'd rather see what we're seeing this weekend, which is Gary Woodland shooting 68-65-69 to sit a stroke up on Justin Rose heading into the final round today.
Woodland's at 11-under and Rose at 10-under for the tournament, through no fault of Pebble Beach's. The rough is still the usual expanse of trackless wilderness it always is at a U.S. Open, and, if there are no windmills or clown mouths like there were at Shinnecock last year, the pin placements have not been designed for easy access.
No, what's happened is the weather, which has been cool and overcast and, most importantly, wind-less. The Scots have a saying -- "If it's nae wind, it's nae golf" -- and that's especially true at an oceanside track like Pebble. Without the wind, it's a different golf course. A score-able golf course.
You'll get no complaints about that from the Blob. Seriously, what would be more memorable today? Seeing Woodland or Rose -- or the imperturbable Brooks Koepka, who sits just adrift of them -- laying down a 65 to win the Open? Or watching someone win it with a 72 after opening rounds of 71-70-71?
The Blob has a word for the latter. It's "borrrr-ing."
Listen. Perhaps the greatest major in history was the 1977 British Open at Turnberry, when Tom Watson shot 65-65 on the weekend to win by a stroke over Jack Nicklaus, who shot 65-66. I don't recall anyone bemoaning the fact that Turnberry gave up those kind of scores. I only remember people saying it might have been the greatest thing they ever saw on a golf course.
So ... enough with the pearl-clutching, grannies. What we're getting this week is the kind of golf we should see in every U.S. Open. Enjoy it, or go commune with the Morrises, Young and Old.
The rest of us ain't got time for y'all. We'll be too busy watching.
I don't know about you. But I think the golf grannies need to drink some warm milk and retire to somewhere more appropriate, like perhaps the days of Old and Young Tom Morris.
The Blob has long made sport of the USGA's habit of tricking up U.S. Open courses to the point of absurdity, because the Blob clings to the odd notion that no one wants to see Rory McIlroy play like Rory the air conditioning repair technician from West Hog Wallow Golf Club and Arcade. The best golfers in the world should be allowed to play like the best golfers in the world, to the Blob's way of thinking. Otherwise it's just a weekend at West Hog Wallow, and who wants to see that?
Not me. I'd rather see what we're seeing this weekend, which is Gary Woodland shooting 68-65-69 to sit a stroke up on Justin Rose heading into the final round today.
Woodland's at 11-under and Rose at 10-under for the tournament, through no fault of Pebble Beach's. The rough is still the usual expanse of trackless wilderness it always is at a U.S. Open, and, if there are no windmills or clown mouths like there were at Shinnecock last year, the pin placements have not been designed for easy access.
No, what's happened is the weather, which has been cool and overcast and, most importantly, wind-less. The Scots have a saying -- "If it's nae wind, it's nae golf" -- and that's especially true at an oceanside track like Pebble. Without the wind, it's a different golf course. A score-able golf course.
You'll get no complaints about that from the Blob. Seriously, what would be more memorable today? Seeing Woodland or Rose -- or the imperturbable Brooks Koepka, who sits just adrift of them -- laying down a 65 to win the Open? Or watching someone win it with a 72 after opening rounds of 71-70-71?
The Blob has a word for the latter. It's "borrrr-ing."
Listen. Perhaps the greatest major in history was the 1977 British Open at Turnberry, when Tom Watson shot 65-65 on the weekend to win by a stroke over Jack Nicklaus, who shot 65-66. I don't recall anyone bemoaning the fact that Turnberry gave up those kind of scores. I only remember people saying it might have been the greatest thing they ever saw on a golf course.
So ... enough with the pearl-clutching, grannies. What we're getting this week is the kind of golf we should see in every U.S. Open. Enjoy it, or go commune with the Morrises, Young and Old.
The rest of us ain't got time for y'all. We'll be too busy watching.
Friday, June 14, 2019
Turn the page. Maybe.
So this is how it ends, maybe, with a man sitting on a gleaming hardwood floor clutching his knee and grimacing. That was Klay Thompson sitting down there in the third quarter last night, but in a different time it was Magic Johnson and Byron Scott limping around on pulled hammys, or Larry Bird lying on his belly on the sideline, trying to coax some stretch into his failing back.
Even the gods are prone to the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, as the Bard once sort of wrote. Dynasties do not end with a bang but with a whimper, or sometimes with a grimace. And maybe that's what we saw on the night the Toronto Raptors turned We The North into We The Everywhere.
Hard not to see the Golden State Warriors lose Kevin Durant to an Achilles tear and then lose Klay to an ACL tear and not see 1989. when the Bad Boys in Detroit and injuries to Magic and Scott brought down the curtain on the Showtime Lakers. Guys get old or they get hurt or a Kawhi Leonard comes along who's impervious to their will, and that is that.
Or, not.
The Warriors, after all, still have Steph and still have Draymond and will still have Klay, eventually, though perhaps never the Klay that was. They will still be someone you have to beat to get where you want to go. But KD is probably gone, and if the Warriors' core is still young, it's never going to be as young as it is not. And everyone around them is going to load up this summer in a fat free agent market that includes, yes, Kawhi Leonard.
So maybe next year is the year they don't get to the NBA Finals for the first time in six years. Maybe.
Nothing lasts forever, after all. Not in sports or lawn equipment or modes of transportation or, thankfully, political regimes. And so (as the Blob noted the other day) if this isn't the end of the Warriors run, we can at least see it from here.
Maybe it's not yet the turning of a page. But we're down to the last paragraph on it, and you can begin to hear the rustle.
Even the gods are prone to the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, as the Bard once sort of wrote. Dynasties do not end with a bang but with a whimper, or sometimes with a grimace. And maybe that's what we saw on the night the Toronto Raptors turned We The North into We The Everywhere.
Hard not to see the Golden State Warriors lose Kevin Durant to an Achilles tear and then lose Klay to an ACL tear and not see 1989. when the Bad Boys in Detroit and injuries to Magic and Scott brought down the curtain on the Showtime Lakers. Guys get old or they get hurt or a Kawhi Leonard comes along who's impervious to their will, and that is that.
Or, not.
The Warriors, after all, still have Steph and still have Draymond and will still have Klay, eventually, though perhaps never the Klay that was. They will still be someone you have to beat to get where you want to go. But KD is probably gone, and if the Warriors' core is still young, it's never going to be as young as it is not. And everyone around them is going to load up this summer in a fat free agent market that includes, yes, Kawhi Leonard.
So maybe next year is the year they don't get to the NBA Finals for the first time in six years. Maybe.
Nothing lasts forever, after all. Not in sports or lawn equipment or modes of transportation or, thankfully, political regimes. And so (as the Blob noted the other day) if this isn't the end of the Warriors run, we can at least see it from here.
Maybe it's not yet the turning of a page. But we're down to the last paragraph on it, and you can begin to hear the rustle.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Blues riff
Up in Banff, Alberta -- God's backyard or something like it -- Garry Unger is smiling today. Red Berenson, too, on the campus of the University of Michigan. Bob Plager has no doubt already laid hands on Lord Stanley, and, out there in the Great Beyond, his brothers Bill and Barclay, and Noel Picard, are no doubt saying, "Drink one from the Cup for me."
They were all in on the ground floor for the St. Louis Blues, back when the world was young. They were foils for Bobby Orr and that Superman goal that became the most iconic photo in hockey history. And now?
Now the Bruins are their foils, watching tearfully as this generation of Blues parade around Boston's ice shouting "(Effin') rights!" and hoisting the -- what's this? -- Stanley Cup.
Half a century and more they all waited for this. (Effin') rights, indeed.
That it of course finally happened in the least likely manner possible hews not only to the physics of the sporting universe, but to the physics of hockey. Part of the reason the chase for Stanley is the best of all chases is that, in hockey, nobody knows nuttin'. Its playoffs are the least predictable in sports. Its narratives defy Hollywood; only in hockey could the Mighty Ducks film franchise not only be completely plausible, but might actually be more real than reality itself.
Lore and legend has already enshrined the fact that the Blues were dead last in the entire National Hockey League on January 3. That is oh-come-on enough. But then you throw in this: In this oh-come-on run to the Stanley Cup, the Blues were 10-3 on the road in the playoffs.
Nobody goes 10-3 on the road in the playoffs. Nobody. Oh, come on.
Yet the Blues did it. And if it came out of nowhere, consider the guy wearing jersey No. 50 and standing on his head down there in the St. Louis goal.
Jordan Binnington saved the Blues in the first period last night, saved them again as they grimly clung to a 2-0 lead, saved them with a pad save from beyond space and time as the Bruins desperately tried to catch the Blues in the third period. One of the basic tenets of hockey is that the reason its playoffs wander so often from the marked path is the outsized effect of goaltending in a short series. So it was this time, as Binnington went 16-8-2 in the playoffs with a 2.16 goals-against.
But you know where he was for almost half the season?
In San Antonio, Texas. Playing for the Rampage of the American Hockey League.
This was pretty much the normal for the 25-year-old Binnington, who'd been knocking about in various outposts in the minors for eight seasons. Alert hockey fans in Fort Wayne will remember him playing in Memorial Coliseum in the 2013-14 season, when Binnington was between the pipes 40 times for the hated Kalamazoo Wings. He went 24-13-3 with a 2.35 GA for the Wings that winter.
Five years later he was in San Antonio. Three months after that he was in goal for the Blues. Five months after that he was playing the game of his life, on the road, in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Oh, come on.
As in, "Come on. Raise that Cup one more time."
They were all in on the ground floor for the St. Louis Blues, back when the world was young. They were foils for Bobby Orr and that Superman goal that became the most iconic photo in hockey history. And now?
Now the Bruins are their foils, watching tearfully as this generation of Blues parade around Boston's ice shouting "(Effin') rights!" and hoisting the -- what's this? -- Stanley Cup.
Half a century and more they all waited for this. (Effin') rights, indeed.
That it of course finally happened in the least likely manner possible hews not only to the physics of the sporting universe, but to the physics of hockey. Part of the reason the chase for Stanley is the best of all chases is that, in hockey, nobody knows nuttin'. Its playoffs are the least predictable in sports. Its narratives defy Hollywood; only in hockey could the Mighty Ducks film franchise not only be completely plausible, but might actually be more real than reality itself.
Lore and legend has already enshrined the fact that the Blues were dead last in the entire National Hockey League on January 3. That is oh-come-on enough. But then you throw in this: In this oh-come-on run to the Stanley Cup, the Blues were 10-3 on the road in the playoffs.
Nobody goes 10-3 on the road in the playoffs. Nobody. Oh, come on.
Yet the Blues did it. And if it came out of nowhere, consider the guy wearing jersey No. 50 and standing on his head down there in the St. Louis goal.
Jordan Binnington saved the Blues in the first period last night, saved them again as they grimly clung to a 2-0 lead, saved them with a pad save from beyond space and time as the Bruins desperately tried to catch the Blues in the third period. One of the basic tenets of hockey is that the reason its playoffs wander so often from the marked path is the outsized effect of goaltending in a short series. So it was this time, as Binnington went 16-8-2 in the playoffs with a 2.16 goals-against.
But you know where he was for almost half the season?
In San Antonio, Texas. Playing for the Rampage of the American Hockey League.
This was pretty much the normal for the 25-year-old Binnington, who'd been knocking about in various outposts in the minors for eight seasons. Alert hockey fans in Fort Wayne will remember him playing in Memorial Coliseum in the 2013-14 season, when Binnington was between the pipes 40 times for the hated Kalamazoo Wings. He went 24-13-3 with a 2.35 GA for the Wings that winter.
Five years later he was in San Antonio. Three months after that he was in goal for the Blues. Five months after that he was playing the game of his life, on the road, in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Oh, come on.
As in, "Come on. Raise that Cup one more time."
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Competitive imbalance
A few things Thailand's women's soccer team might have said after losing to the United States eleventy-hundred to zero yesterday in the women's World Cup:
"Hey! What the heck did we ever do to you?"
"OK! We get it! You're way better than us!"
"We're Thailand, dammit, not Alabama!"
"Good luck getting Marriott points the next time you visit one of our lovely resorts!"
And of course:
"ENOUGH WITH THE DAMN CELEBRATING! IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'RE BEATING RONALDO, YOU KNOW!"
No, indeed. This was Golden State vs. the 40-and-over noon rec league. It was Ali vs. Don Knotts. It was ... well, the U.S. women's soccer team, one of the mightiest sides in the world, vs. the Ladybugs from the Orange Slice Youth League.
And so the Blob got a hearty chuckle when it read in a few places that the USWNT made a "statement" yesterday in their 13-0 annihilation of the poor Thais. Why, yes, it did. It made the statement that the U.S. team can score at will against a side that, frankly, has no business being in the World Cup. In fact, it might struggle in the aforementioned Orange Slice League.
There is always something distasteful in watching a massive overdog gleefully pile onto a pitifully overmatched "opponent"; it's like a grown man crowing about taking a 6-year-old to the tin in driveway hoops. But the Blob assigns no particular blame here to the USWNT.
They played the opponent they were scheduled to play. And it is the World Cup. No letting 'em up easy need apply.
No, the blame here is the qualifying system, which allowed Thailand to qualify for a level of soccer for which it doesn't seem remotely prepared. I don't know how you fix this; the sad fact is, the level of disparity among national teams on the women's side is glaring to the point of farce sometimes, which is what we saw yesterday. Until the rest of the world catches up to the U.S. and the other women's powers, more of the same will follow, to one degree or another.
So, please, everyone. Slow the roll. What happened yesterday was no "statement" by the USWT. It was merely a stark window into the state of the women's game -- and how far some national sides have to go to be regarded as legitimate World Cup contenders.
"Hey! What the heck did we ever do to you?"
"OK! We get it! You're way better than us!"
"We're Thailand, dammit, not Alabama!"
"Good luck getting Marriott points the next time you visit one of our lovely resorts!"
And of course:
"ENOUGH WITH THE DAMN CELEBRATING! IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'RE BEATING RONALDO, YOU KNOW!"
No, indeed. This was Golden State vs. the 40-and-over noon rec league. It was Ali vs. Don Knotts. It was ... well, the U.S. women's soccer team, one of the mightiest sides in the world, vs. the Ladybugs from the Orange Slice Youth League.
And so the Blob got a hearty chuckle when it read in a few places that the USWNT made a "statement" yesterday in their 13-0 annihilation of the poor Thais. Why, yes, it did. It made the statement that the U.S. team can score at will against a side that, frankly, has no business being in the World Cup. In fact, it might struggle in the aforementioned Orange Slice League.
There is always something distasteful in watching a massive overdog gleefully pile onto a pitifully overmatched "opponent"; it's like a grown man crowing about taking a 6-year-old to the tin in driveway hoops. But the Blob assigns no particular blame here to the USWNT.
They played the opponent they were scheduled to play. And it is the World Cup. No letting 'em up easy need apply.
No, the blame here is the qualifying system, which allowed Thailand to qualify for a level of soccer for which it doesn't seem remotely prepared. I don't know how you fix this; the sad fact is, the level of disparity among national teams on the women's side is glaring to the point of farce sometimes, which is what we saw yesterday. Until the rest of the world catches up to the U.S. and the other women's powers, more of the same will follow, to one degree or another.
So, please, everyone. Slow the roll. What happened yesterday was no "statement" by the USWT. It was merely a stark window into the state of the women's game -- and how far some national sides have to go to be regarded as legitimate World Cup contenders.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Continuity alert
So remember the other day, when the Blob threw dirt on the grave of the Warriors dynasty, then shoveled some of it off again upon further reflection?
("No," you're saying).
Well ... I did. In fact, after writing that this wasn't the end but sure felt like it, I added this:
This being the NBA, all of the above may of course be a mere fantasy. There is no such thing as momentum in the NBA playoffs, no such thing as continuing. And so you could almost make book on the Warriors going into that delirious snakepit in Toronto and winning Game 5 ...
This just in from deflated Toronto last night: Warriors 106, Raptors 105.
Ahem.
And so it goes on, but the prospect of the Warriors winning three straight and throwing the Warriors-are-finished storyline onto the ash heap took a major hit when Kevin Durant went down again, this time with a suspected torn Achilles. So there's that element to add to the mix as everyone heads back west to the Oracle, where the Warriors will surely win to force a decisive Gam--
Ahem.
There is no such thing as momentum in the NBA playoffs, no such thing as continuing ...
And so, again, you can almost make book on the Raptors going into the Oracle and ending the Warriors dynasty in front of their spoiled, hostile fans. It would be so like the NBA playoffs for tht to happen.
Stay tuned.
("No," you're saying).
Well ... I did. In fact, after writing that this wasn't the end but sure felt like it, I added this:
This being the NBA, all of the above may of course be a mere fantasy. There is no such thing as momentum in the NBA playoffs, no such thing as continuing. And so you could almost make book on the Warriors going into that delirious snakepit in Toronto and winning Game 5 ...
This just in from deflated Toronto last night: Warriors 106, Raptors 105.
Ahem.
And so it goes on, but the prospect of the Warriors winning three straight and throwing the Warriors-are-finished storyline onto the ash heap took a major hit when Kevin Durant went down again, this time with a suspected torn Achilles. So there's that element to add to the mix as everyone heads back west to the Oracle, where the Warriors will surely win to force a decisive Gam--
Ahem.
There is no such thing as momentum in the NBA playoffs, no such thing as continuing ...
And so, again, you can almost make book on the Raptors going into the Oracle and ending the Warriors dynasty in front of their spoiled, hostile fans. It would be so like the NBA playoffs for tht to happen.
Stay tuned.
Monday, June 10, 2019
Their Cup runneth away, Part Deux
This just in from the precincts of The Kelly Cup Held Hostage, Day Whatever: Now the suits are getting involved.
As my former colleague Justin Cohn, who's been all over this hostage situation, reports here, the ECHL has decided to call in the lawyers and haul the Colorado Eagles into court over their refusal t relinquish the Cup. And Eagles owner Martin Lind -- the current frontrunner in the race for Sears Craftsman Tool of the Year -- is saying by all means, sue him, because then he can countersue.
In other words: "Wanna sue me? Go on. I dare ya."
Know what I think?
I think the ECHL should take him up on it. But I also think the league needs to hire these guys.
Yes, that's right, by God. If ever there was a job for the gang from "Leverage," this is surely it.
Bring 'em in. Let 'em locate the Cup by getting close to Lind and the Eagles front office. Then steal the damn thing back.
Does that not sound like an ideal "Leverage" plotline?
Sure does to me.
Get on it, ECHL. Timothy Hutton is waiting by the phone for you.
As my former colleague Justin Cohn, who's been all over this hostage situation, reports here, the ECHL has decided to call in the lawyers and haul the Colorado Eagles into court over their refusal t relinquish the Cup. And Eagles owner Martin Lind -- the current frontrunner in the race for Sears Craftsman Tool of the Year -- is saying by all means, sue him, because then he can countersue.
In other words: "Wanna sue me? Go on. I dare ya."
Know what I think?
I think the ECHL should take him up on it. But I also think the league needs to hire these guys.
Yes, that's right, by God. If ever there was a job for the gang from "Leverage," this is surely it.
Bring 'em in. Let 'em locate the Cup by getting close to Lind and the Eagles front office. Then steal the damn thing back.
Does that not sound like an ideal "Leverage" plotline?
Sure does to me.
Get on it, ECHL. Timothy Hutton is waiting by the phone for you.
Today's crybaby report
And now to San Francisco, where Max Muncy of the Dodgers became the Blob's momentary favorite baseball player not because of what he did, but because of what he said.
What he did was, he took a Madison Bumgarner meatball for a long ride, crushing it 426 feet to a splashdown in McCovey Cove.
After which he gave the bat an insolent little flip and then walked a couple of steps, following its suborbital flight from the park.
After which Bumgarner went full crybaby, shouting at Muncy to observe baseball's stupid unwritten rules and not show him up, on account of Bumgarner's feelings are apparently easily bruised.
"Don't watch the ball, run," Bumgarner complained.
And Muncy's reply?
"I just told him if he doesn't want me to watch the ball, go get it out of the ocean," he tweeted later.
Give that man a gold star.
What he did was, he took a Madison Bumgarner meatball for a long ride, crushing it 426 feet to a splashdown in McCovey Cove.
After which he gave the bat an insolent little flip and then walked a couple of steps, following its suborbital flight from the park.
After which Bumgarner went full crybaby, shouting at Muncy to observe baseball's stupid unwritten rules and not show him up, on account of Bumgarner's feelings are apparently easily bruised.
"Don't watch the ball, run," Bumgarner complained.
And Muncy's reply?
"I just told him if he doesn't want me to watch the ball, go get it out of the ocean," he tweeted later.
Give that man a gold star.
F1 is very strange
And now, a brief pause for a Blob about Formula One, which most of America thinks is an energy drink, or an infant superfood, or perhaps "You mean that racing series where Mercedes wins all the time, Ferrari finishes second all the time and Red Bull finishes third all the time?"
Well ... yes. Door No. 3, actually.
Likely most of you didn't catch the kerfuffle up in Canada yesterday, when Lewis Hamilton delivered Mercedes' seventh straight victory of 2019 because Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel couldn't outrun the course stewards. It seems Vettel got out of shape entering a corner while leading, ran through the grass, almost lost the car, then recovered it in time to stay just ahead of Hamilton, who had to check up to avoid a crash.
For that, F1 docked Vettel a five-second penalty. Which allowed Hamilton to win even though he finished second, if you can process that.
Here's the video. You watch it. I've watched it half-a-dozen times, and I'm still trying to figure out why Vettel got penalized for, essentially, pulling off a great save.
Because that's what I'm seeing here: Vettel overshooting the corner, running through the grass, nearly losing the car getting back onto the pavement, then saving it. And gaining no advantage in doing so because he entered the corner P1 and came back onto the track P1.
Yes, it was a near thing with Hamilton, who, (at least in my opinion) foolishly ran up on Vettel as he struggled to maintain control and had to check up before Vettel nearly put them both in the wall. He had complete control of his car. Vettel did not. So, frankly, the near collision seemed more on him than on Vettel, who was simply trying to get his car back under him.
Bottom line, though, is they didn't collide. They didn't even touch. And Hamilton having to check up because he rashly tried to shoot a rapidly closing gap had zero effect on what happened later in the race. Hamilton still wound up closing on Vettel in the final laps, and would undoubtedly have taken a run at him if he hadn't had the five-second cushion afforded by the penalty.
Even the TV announcers admitted Vettel had done nothing wrong. And yet ...
And yet, he was assessed a penalty that cost him a win. And wasn't happy about it. And shouldn't have been.
F1, man. It is a strange planet sometimes.
Well ... yes. Door No. 3, actually.
Likely most of you didn't catch the kerfuffle up in Canada yesterday, when Lewis Hamilton delivered Mercedes' seventh straight victory of 2019 because Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel couldn't outrun the course stewards. It seems Vettel got out of shape entering a corner while leading, ran through the grass, almost lost the car, then recovered it in time to stay just ahead of Hamilton, who had to check up to avoid a crash.
For that, F1 docked Vettel a five-second penalty. Which allowed Hamilton to win even though he finished second, if you can process that.
Here's the video. You watch it. I've watched it half-a-dozen times, and I'm still trying to figure out why Vettel got penalized for, essentially, pulling off a great save.
Because that's what I'm seeing here: Vettel overshooting the corner, running through the grass, nearly losing the car getting back onto the pavement, then saving it. And gaining no advantage in doing so because he entered the corner P1 and came back onto the track P1.
Yes, it was a near thing with Hamilton, who, (at least in my opinion) foolishly ran up on Vettel as he struggled to maintain control and had to check up before Vettel nearly put them both in the wall. He had complete control of his car. Vettel did not. So, frankly, the near collision seemed more on him than on Vettel, who was simply trying to get his car back under him.
Bottom line, though, is they didn't collide. They didn't even touch. And Hamilton having to check up because he rashly tried to shoot a rapidly closing gap had zero effect on what happened later in the race. Hamilton still wound up closing on Vettel in the final laps, and would undoubtedly have taken a run at him if he hadn't had the five-second cushion afforded by the penalty.
Even the TV announcers admitted Vettel had done nothing wrong. And yet ...
And yet, he was assessed a penalty that cost him a win. And wasn't happy about it. And shouldn't have been.
F1, man. It is a strange planet sometimes.
Sunday, June 9, 2019
True North
This is not the end, not yet. But you can see it from here.
You can see it when the Splash Brothers go for 55 between them -- a little nostalgia riff for these Golden State Warriors -- and it still isn't nearly enough.
You can see it when one of the teams in the NBA Finals so clearly dominates, and it isn't the Warriors.
You can see it when the Toronto Raptors barely shrug at the prospect of playing in the Oracle, where the Warriors have so often been invincible, and win by 14 and then by 13.
The Warriors' dynasty is not dead yet. But it ain't exactly breathin' on its own anymore, either.
Every run in the history of runs eventually meets its end, and if there's a hint of prisoner-of-the-moment in saying so, this looks an awful lot like the last stop on the line for the Warriors. True, they are without Kevin Durant, but until now they had played their best basketball in these playoffs without him. True, they're missing a few other pieces, and Klay and Steph are banged up, but so is Kawhi Leonard. At this point in the season, everyone's banged up.
Doesn't change the fact the Raptors have so obviously been much the better team in this deal, as the Warriors once were. Doesn't change the fact that, were it not for that flashback sequence in Game 2 when the Warriors reeled off 18 straight points at the start of the third quarter, this series would likely already be over.
That 18-0 burst is pretty much the only thing that separates the Raptors from a Finals sweep.
A sweep. Of the Warriors, who are playing in their fifth straight Finals and have won three of the last four NBA titles. And who came into the Finals as the heavy favorite this time, too.
I don't know how you can contemplate that and not hear the dropping of a curtain in it, not see a particular era taking its final bows.
This being the NBA, all of the above may of course be a mere fantasy. There is no such thing as momentum in the NBA playoffs, no such thing as continuing. And so you could almost make book on the Warriors going into that delirious snakepit in Toronto and winning Game 5. And then winning Game 6. And then going back to Toronto to pull off the impossible.
It could happen. The Warriors have come off the deck to make it happen numerous times. It just doesn't feel like it's going to happen this time, though.
No, sir. It feels like the end, is what it feels like. It feels like the compass has swung around, and now points in another direction.
True north.
You can see it when the Splash Brothers go for 55 between them -- a little nostalgia riff for these Golden State Warriors -- and it still isn't nearly enough.
You can see it when one of the teams in the NBA Finals so clearly dominates, and it isn't the Warriors.
You can see it when the Toronto Raptors barely shrug at the prospect of playing in the Oracle, where the Warriors have so often been invincible, and win by 14 and then by 13.
The Warriors' dynasty is not dead yet. But it ain't exactly breathin' on its own anymore, either.
Every run in the history of runs eventually meets its end, and if there's a hint of prisoner-of-the-moment in saying so, this looks an awful lot like the last stop on the line for the Warriors. True, they are without Kevin Durant, but until now they had played their best basketball in these playoffs without him. True, they're missing a few other pieces, and Klay and Steph are banged up, but so is Kawhi Leonard. At this point in the season, everyone's banged up.
Doesn't change the fact the Raptors have so obviously been much the better team in this deal, as the Warriors once were. Doesn't change the fact that, were it not for that flashback sequence in Game 2 when the Warriors reeled off 18 straight points at the start of the third quarter, this series would likely already be over.
That 18-0 burst is pretty much the only thing that separates the Raptors from a Finals sweep.
A sweep. Of the Warriors, who are playing in their fifth straight Finals and have won three of the last four NBA titles. And who came into the Finals as the heavy favorite this time, too.
I don't know how you can contemplate that and not hear the dropping of a curtain in it, not see a particular era taking its final bows.
This being the NBA, all of the above may of course be a mere fantasy. There is no such thing as momentum in the NBA playoffs, no such thing as continuing. And so you could almost make book on the Warriors going into that delirious snakepit in Toronto and winning Game 5. And then winning Game 6. And then going back to Toronto to pull off the impossible.
It could happen. The Warriors have come off the deck to make it happen numerous times. It just doesn't feel like it's going to happen this time, though.
No, sir. It feels like the end, is what it feels like. It feels like the compass has swung around, and now points in another direction.
True north.
Friday, June 7, 2019
Sidelining the sidelines
By now all of America has seen the video of the Raptors' Kyle Lowry chasing a loose ball into the sideline seats the other night and getting a shove on the shoulder from one of the patrons sitting in them. And by now, probably, all of America knows it wasn't just some privileged tool who did the shoving, but a privileged tool who's also a minority owner the Golden State Warriors.
The NBA has promptly banned said tool for all time pending a review, and the Warriors have banned him for the rest of the playoffs -- which seems a trifle weak in the knees, response-wise.
What we don't know is why the seats in which Said Tool was sitting are still there.
Look. I get it. NBA teams can extract a lot of cabbage from the so-called Nicholson seats, and do, and have since Nicholson and Dyan Cannon and the rest of the Hollywood crowd were sitting in those seats in the Forum watching the Showtime Lakers back in the day. So it's a chunky revenue stream for the teams, and a prestige deal for those who sit in them.
But Jack Nicholson never put his hands on Larry Bird, sitting in those seats. Spike Lee exchanged barbs with Reggie Miller, but never shoved him. And none of the folks in the prestige seats back in the day ever roamed the sideline behind the head coach of their team, as Drake does up there in Canada.
Which is to say: Even the privileged knew where the line was, once upon a time. Now ...
Well. Not so much, apparently, here in this age of rampant entitlement.
The national zeitgeist here in 2019 seems to be if you've got money, rules don't apply to you. Rules are for all those wage slaves chained to their oars on the old 9-to-5 slog, not for the beautiful people.
Admittedly, this is a grotesque stereotype. It's an extrapolation based on an extremely small sample size, and the Blob fully owns up to that. But it does seem as if the entitled forget their place a lot more these days, apparently figuring their place is anywhere they decide it is.
If that is indeed the case, it doesn't take a nuclear physicist to see the meltdown coming, What happens the first time Said Tool shoves a player, and the player shoves back? Do we really want to see another Malice in the Palace, which was instigated by a fan throwing beer on the Man Formerly Known As Ron Artest?
He and Stephen Jackson were rightfully pilloried for going up into the stands that night to throw down with the hooligans. It was an ugly scene with some explicit racial overtones; those simply can't be avoided when the majority of the players in the NBA are African-American, and the majority of fans within shoving or throwing distance of the floor are white.
So far, the players have shown some admirable restraint in dealing with the Said Tools who think it's their right to put their hands on players. But the Lowry incident, and incidents involving Russell Westbrook earlier in the season, make you wonder how much longer that restraint can last.
And so it's time the Nicholson seats went the way of the dodo bird, revenue stream or no revenue stream.
Get rid of 'em. Remove the implication they present that the fans are somehow entitled to be part of the action. Fans are fans; players are players. It's time the NBA re-drew the line between the two it erased in the name of making a buck.
Otherwise, more Malice awaits. You can make book on it.
The NBA has promptly banned said tool for all time pending a review, and the Warriors have banned him for the rest of the playoffs -- which seems a trifle weak in the knees, response-wise.
What we don't know is why the seats in which Said Tool was sitting are still there.
Look. I get it. NBA teams can extract a lot of cabbage from the so-called Nicholson seats, and do, and have since Nicholson and Dyan Cannon and the rest of the Hollywood crowd were sitting in those seats in the Forum watching the Showtime Lakers back in the day. So it's a chunky revenue stream for the teams, and a prestige deal for those who sit in them.
But Jack Nicholson never put his hands on Larry Bird, sitting in those seats. Spike Lee exchanged barbs with Reggie Miller, but never shoved him. And none of the folks in the prestige seats back in the day ever roamed the sideline behind the head coach of their team, as Drake does up there in Canada.
Which is to say: Even the privileged knew where the line was, once upon a time. Now ...
Well. Not so much, apparently, here in this age of rampant entitlement.
The national zeitgeist here in 2019 seems to be if you've got money, rules don't apply to you. Rules are for all those wage slaves chained to their oars on the old 9-to-5 slog, not for the beautiful people.
Admittedly, this is a grotesque stereotype. It's an extrapolation based on an extremely small sample size, and the Blob fully owns up to that. But it does seem as if the entitled forget their place a lot more these days, apparently figuring their place is anywhere they decide it is.
If that is indeed the case, it doesn't take a nuclear physicist to see the meltdown coming, What happens the first time Said Tool shoves a player, and the player shoves back? Do we really want to see another Malice in the Palace, which was instigated by a fan throwing beer on the Man Formerly Known As Ron Artest?
He and Stephen Jackson were rightfully pilloried for going up into the stands that night to throw down with the hooligans. It was an ugly scene with some explicit racial overtones; those simply can't be avoided when the majority of the players in the NBA are African-American, and the majority of fans within shoving or throwing distance of the floor are white.
So far, the players have shown some admirable restraint in dealing with the Said Tools who think it's their right to put their hands on players. But the Lowry incident, and incidents involving Russell Westbrook earlier in the season, make you wonder how much longer that restraint can last.
And so it's time the Nicholson seats went the way of the dodo bird, revenue stream or no revenue stream.
Get rid of 'em. Remove the implication they present that the fans are somehow entitled to be part of the action. Fans are fans; players are players. It's time the NBA re-drew the line between the two it erased in the name of making a buck.
Otherwise, more Malice awaits. You can make book on it.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
What the "D" is not
Seventy-five years ago today, the operative words were Omaha, and Utah, and Juno, and Sword, and Gold.
Seventy-five years ago today, men waded ashore with their heads bent as if against wind-driven hail, only the hail was hot pieces of metal, and the hot pieces of metal ripped and tore and dismembered and stole life.
Seventy-five years ago today, men tumbled out of landing craft on Omaha and Utah and Juno and Sword and Gold beaches on the coast of Normandy, and waded ashore, and sometimes they made it and sometimes they didn't. They turned the coming tide red with their blood. Their bodies became mortal flotsam. They left parts of their bodies scattered from hell to breakfast on that pitiless strand.
And then, somehow, they got off it.
They broke the hard shell of Hitler's Atlantic Wall. They hollowed out the legions of his murderous Reich. And eventually they brought his mad butcher's vision to an end.
Seventy-five years ago today.
Which is why we honor them this day. Which is why we pause to remember those who didn't get off the beach, remember the ones who lie now beneath pristine white crosses atop the bluff they never lived to scale.
That's what this day is about, 75 years after D-Day. It is not about what Ronna McDaniel, the Republican Party chairwoman, said it was the other day while whining about what a big bunch of meanies the media are.
“We are celebrating the anniversary, 75 years of D-Day,” McDaniel said. “This is the time where we should be celebrating our president, the great achievements of America, and I don’t think the American people like the constant negativity.”
Um ... no, ma'am. This is not about Our Only Available President and whether or not the media have been sufficiently glowing about his European trip. And this isn't about American exceptionalism, either.
This is about those men lying beneath those crosses, and what they gave to rid the world of a great evil. The men who did that were not just Americans. They were Americans and Brits and Canadians -- and, in the interior of Normandy, Frenchmen, too. They were part of the greatest international coalition ever assembled, and they were all exceptional.
Our Only Available President had nothing to do with any of that. He has nothing in common with those men lying beneath those crosses, given that they stormed the beaches of Normandy and, when it was his turn, he stormed the beaches of Avoidance.
His operative words were not Omaha, and Utah, and Juno, and Sword, and Gold. They were Deferrment and Bone Spur.
In so many words the other day, he said he would have gladly fought for his country in the right war. But he said never liked Vietnam as a war.
Well, Mr. President, not many people did like Vietnam as a war. But they went anyway. Some went because they thought it was their duty; some went because they didn't have the choices the circumstances of your birth afforded you.
And so, no, Ms. McDaniel, the "D" in "D-Day" does not stand for "Donald," simply because he happens to be in the vicinity.
In this particular case, it stands for "Demerit."
Which is what Ms. McDaniel gets this day, from any American with a conscience and sense of history.
Seventy-five years ago today, men waded ashore with their heads bent as if against wind-driven hail, only the hail was hot pieces of metal, and the hot pieces of metal ripped and tore and dismembered and stole life.
Seventy-five years ago today, men tumbled out of landing craft on Omaha and Utah and Juno and Sword and Gold beaches on the coast of Normandy, and waded ashore, and sometimes they made it and sometimes they didn't. They turned the coming tide red with their blood. Their bodies became mortal flotsam. They left parts of their bodies scattered from hell to breakfast on that pitiless strand.
And then, somehow, they got off it.
They broke the hard shell of Hitler's Atlantic Wall. They hollowed out the legions of his murderous Reich. And eventually they brought his mad butcher's vision to an end.
Seventy-five years ago today.
Which is why we honor them this day. Which is why we pause to remember those who didn't get off the beach, remember the ones who lie now beneath pristine white crosses atop the bluff they never lived to scale.
That's what this day is about, 75 years after D-Day. It is not about what Ronna McDaniel, the Republican Party chairwoman, said it was the other day while whining about what a big bunch of meanies the media are.
“We are celebrating the anniversary, 75 years of D-Day,” McDaniel said. “This is the time where we should be celebrating our president, the great achievements of America, and I don’t think the American people like the constant negativity.”
Um ... no, ma'am. This is not about Our Only Available President and whether or not the media have been sufficiently glowing about his European trip. And this isn't about American exceptionalism, either.
This is about those men lying beneath those crosses, and what they gave to rid the world of a great evil. The men who did that were not just Americans. They were Americans and Brits and Canadians -- and, in the interior of Normandy, Frenchmen, too. They were part of the greatest international coalition ever assembled, and they were all exceptional.
Our Only Available President had nothing to do with any of that. He has nothing in common with those men lying beneath those crosses, given that they stormed the beaches of Normandy and, when it was his turn, he stormed the beaches of Avoidance.
His operative words were not Omaha, and Utah, and Juno, and Sword, and Gold. They were Deferrment and Bone Spur.
In so many words the other day, he said he would have gladly fought for his country in the right war. But he said never liked Vietnam as a war.
Well, Mr. President, not many people did like Vietnam as a war. But they went anyway. Some went because they thought it was their duty; some went because they didn't have the choices the circumstances of your birth afforded you.
And so, no, Ms. McDaniel, the "D" in "D-Day" does not stand for "Donald," simply because he happens to be in the vicinity.
In this particular case, it stands for "Demerit."
Which is what Ms. McDaniel gets this day, from any American with a conscience and sense of history.
Their Cup runneth away
The Newfoundland Growlers won the ECHL Kelly Cup the other night, and not because they have an awesome nickname. The Growlers won because they beat the Toledo Walleye fair and square in the finals, four games to two. So they had every right to hoist the Kelly Cup and parade around the ice with it, as winne--
Hey, wait a minute.
That's not the Kelly Cup!
That's an imposter Kelly Cup!
So just what is the ECHL trying to pull here, trotting out a Cup as phony as Monopoly money? What kind of cheesy practical joke is this, replacing the crown jewel of ECHL supremacy with this Happy Meal prize of a Cup?
Well ...
You'd have to ask the Colorado Eagles that. This is their doing, not the ECHL's.
The Eagles, see, won the Kelly Cup last year. Then they jumped up to the American Hockey League. They were supposed to return the Cup, as teams do every year, but in all the packing up and moving, they forgot to do so. Now they're essentially holding it hostage, even though they say that's not what they're doing.
“The management of the ECHL has full knowledge of the situation with the Kelly Cup. We have made numerous attempts to return it. They have chosen to ignore our requests, therefore the Kelly Cup remains in Colorado. This is all that will be released regarding this matter,” Eagles team owner Martin Lind said in a prepared statement.
As prepared statements go, this one has more cowflop crammed into four sentences than even the prepared statements coming out of the White House these days. "Made numerous attempts to return it"? What, they're still using the Pony Express out there in Colorado, and the riders just didn't get through?
And what does "They have chosen to ignore our requests" imply, if not that they're holding onto the Cup as leverage for some reason? The implication is clear that the Eagles think there's some sort of quid pro quo involved in returning the Kelly Cup, which after all would merely entail boxing it up and shipping it to the league office via that newfangled FedEx thing. So obviously there's some sort of dispute going on here -- some speculate it's a spat over league exit fees -- and the Eagles are, in fact, holding the Kelly Cup hostage.
In the meantime, the league can take comfort in the Eagles' assurances that the Cup is "safe" and in "pristine" condition at some undisclosed location in Colorado.
No, really. That's what the Eagles said.
And that doesn't sound like a hostage situation at all. Why, no sir.
Hey, wait a minute.
That's not the Kelly Cup!
That's an imposter Kelly Cup!
So just what is the ECHL trying to pull here, trotting out a Cup as phony as Monopoly money? What kind of cheesy practical joke is this, replacing the crown jewel of ECHL supremacy with this Happy Meal prize of a Cup?
Well ...
You'd have to ask the Colorado Eagles that. This is their doing, not the ECHL's.
The Eagles, see, won the Kelly Cup last year. Then they jumped up to the American Hockey League. They were supposed to return the Cup, as teams do every year, but in all the packing up and moving, they forgot to do so. Now they're essentially holding it hostage, even though they say that's not what they're doing.
“The management of the ECHL has full knowledge of the situation with the Kelly Cup. We have made numerous attempts to return it. They have chosen to ignore our requests, therefore the Kelly Cup remains in Colorado. This is all that will be released regarding this matter,” Eagles team owner Martin Lind said in a prepared statement.
As prepared statements go, this one has more cowflop crammed into four sentences than even the prepared statements coming out of the White House these days. "Made numerous attempts to return it"? What, they're still using the Pony Express out there in Colorado, and the riders just didn't get through?
And what does "They have chosen to ignore our requests" imply, if not that they're holding onto the Cup as leverage for some reason? The implication is clear that the Eagles think there's some sort of quid pro quo involved in returning the Kelly Cup, which after all would merely entail boxing it up and shipping it to the league office via that newfangled FedEx thing. So obviously there's some sort of dispute going on here -- some speculate it's a spat over league exit fees -- and the Eagles are, in fact, holding the Kelly Cup hostage.
In the meantime, the league can take comfort in the Eagles' assurances that the Cup is "safe" and in "pristine" condition at some undisclosed location in Colorado.
No, really. That's what the Eagles said.
And that doesn't sound like a hostage situation at all. Why, no sir.
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Futility alert
And now, since it's June and the baseball season is making the turn into the meat of the season, it's time for that wildly popular Blob feature, The Cruddy Baseball Report, which I just made up on account of I can do that.
("Oh, wonderful," you're saying, rolling your eyes).
In this installment, we take a peek at what the gold standard for Cruddy Baseball is doing, and you'll be surprised to know the Baltimore Orioles are not playing the cruddiest baseball out there. OK, so they're 19-41 and already are 19 1/2 games out of first in the AL East, but they do have a one-game winning streak going. Also, they're 4-6 in their last 10 games, which is pretty good for he O's, and they're only three games out of next-to-last so far.
Here's the kicker, though: At least they're not the Royals.
Who are also 19-41 here on June 5, and not playing nearly as "meh" baseball as the O's. The Royals have lost four in a row, and they're 2-8 in their last 10. They're also 21.5 games out of first in the AL Central already, and five-and-a-half games out of next-to-last.
So they got that not goin' for 'em.
Tune in later this summer to see if they can steal the Cruddy Baseball crown from the O's.
("Oh, wonderful," you're saying, rolling your eyes).
In this installment, we take a peek at what the gold standard for Cruddy Baseball is doing, and you'll be surprised to know the Baltimore Orioles are not playing the cruddiest baseball out there. OK, so they're 19-41 and already are 19 1/2 games out of first in the AL East, but they do have a one-game winning streak going. Also, they're 4-6 in their last 10 games, which is pretty good for he O's, and they're only three games out of next-to-last so far.
Here's the kicker, though: At least they're not the Royals.
Who are also 19-41 here on June 5, and not playing nearly as "meh" baseball as the O's. The Royals have lost four in a row, and they're 2-8 in their last 10. They're also 21.5 games out of first in the AL Central already, and five-and-a-half games out of next-to-last.
So they got that not goin' for 'em.
Tune in later this summer to see if they can steal the Cruddy Baseball crown from the O's.
Endgame
In which the Blob calls a brief timeout in the Sportsball festivities to talk about Final Jeopardy.
Final, that is, for one James Holzhauer, aka Jeopardy James, who captivated an easily captivated nation by reeling off 32 straight wins and piling up almost $2.5 million in a run second only to the peerless Ken Jennings, but infinitely more impactful.
This is because Jeopardy James did one of two things:
1. He didn't play fair.
2. He shifted the paradigm, thought outside the box and a bunch of other corporatespeak that all amounts to the same thing: He played the game in a way no one had thought of before.
The Blob votes for No. 2.
This is because it was fascinating to watch Jeopardy James strategize his way to victory after victory, using an approach so obvious you wondered why no one had come up with it before. What he did was, he went for all the big-money answers on the board first. He bet huge on the Daily Doubles. And he averaged nearly $77,000 in winnings per game, an astounding figure. By the time he finally lost the other night, he owned all ten of the top ten single-game money games in Jeopardy history.
Of course, it also helped that he knew a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, and was way quicker on the buzzer than the poor schlubs he was up against. It's why he had 11 games in his run in which he never missed a question, and was correct 97 percent of the time.
He also made "Jeopardy!" appointment viewing, which is saying something in a world in which everyone has live streaming of 500 channels now. People rushed through dinner at restaurants so they could get home in time to watch Jeopardy James beat another couple of dimwits bloody with his mighty brain. It was like watching the Yankees tool up on Fenstermacher Dairy from the Dirt Clod, Nebraska, Little League.
Many of us have often imagined we could do what Holzauer did, on account of we've watched "Jeopardy!" a million times and beaten the TV contestants to the punch time and again. Of course, we couldn't.
For one thing, it's highly unlikely we'd get exactly the right categories; sure, we'd clean up in Lines From Monty Python's Holy Grail, Indianapolis 500 Winners and Generals Of The Civil War. But then we'd get Name That Impressionist Painter or Albanian Documentaries About The Existential Agonies Of Man, and we'd be toast.
OK. So I'd be toast.
Also, sitting on your living room couch firing off answers is not the same as sitting in front of TV cameras doing it. Most of us (again: me) would choke big-time when that little red light went on. Even if the category were Name Your Name.
So here's to ya, Jeopardy James. You cracked the code with innovation and creativty. And never mind those people who didn't think you played fair.
It's their Daily Double loss.
Final, that is, for one James Holzhauer, aka Jeopardy James, who captivated an easily captivated nation by reeling off 32 straight wins and piling up almost $2.5 million in a run second only to the peerless Ken Jennings, but infinitely more impactful.
This is because Jeopardy James did one of two things:
1. He didn't play fair.
2. He shifted the paradigm, thought outside the box and a bunch of other corporatespeak that all amounts to the same thing: He played the game in a way no one had thought of before.
The Blob votes for No. 2.
This is because it was fascinating to watch Jeopardy James strategize his way to victory after victory, using an approach so obvious you wondered why no one had come up with it before. What he did was, he went for all the big-money answers on the board first. He bet huge on the Daily Doubles. And he averaged nearly $77,000 in winnings per game, an astounding figure. By the time he finally lost the other night, he owned all ten of the top ten single-game money games in Jeopardy history.
Of course, it also helped that he knew a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, and was way quicker on the buzzer than the poor schlubs he was up against. It's why he had 11 games in his run in which he never missed a question, and was correct 97 percent of the time.
He also made "Jeopardy!" appointment viewing, which is saying something in a world in which everyone has live streaming of 500 channels now. People rushed through dinner at restaurants so they could get home in time to watch Jeopardy James beat another couple of dimwits bloody with his mighty brain. It was like watching the Yankees tool up on Fenstermacher Dairy from the Dirt Clod, Nebraska, Little League.
Many of us have often imagined we could do what Holzauer did, on account of we've watched "Jeopardy!" a million times and beaten the TV contestants to the punch time and again. Of course, we couldn't.
For one thing, it's highly unlikely we'd get exactly the right categories; sure, we'd clean up in Lines From Monty Python's Holy Grail, Indianapolis 500 Winners and Generals Of The Civil War. But then we'd get Name That Impressionist Painter or Albanian Documentaries About The Existential Agonies Of Man, and we'd be toast.
OK. So I'd be toast.
Also, sitting on your living room couch firing off answers is not the same as sitting in front of TV cameras doing it. Most of us (again: me) would choke big-time when that little red light went on. Even if the category were Name Your Name.
So here's to ya, Jeopardy James. You cracked the code with innovation and creativty. And never mind those people who didn't think you played fair.
It's their Daily Double loss.
Monday, June 3, 2019
A sharper image
Take a good look at this guy, and tell me body shaming didn't just get its lights turned out by a right hook to the dome. That is Andy Ruiz Jr., and that dude he's punching in the head is former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.
Anthony Joshua looks like he was chiseled out of granite. Andy Ruiz Jr. looks like he was chiseled out of Wendy's triples. Yet Andy Ruiz Jr. is about to introduce Joshua to the seat of his pants, and not for the first time. Practically every time anyone blinked the other night, Ruiz was taking Joshua to Fist City. Finally, Joshua essentially said, "Screw this."
TKO, Andy. He was an 11-1 dog, but he now owns all three of Joshua's title belts. And no one's ever going to make fat jokes about him ever again, unless they want to wind up lying on their backs studying the constellations.
This is a huge win for People Who Do Not Resemble Yoga Instructors, which is to say most of us. Andy's upset, one of the biggest in recent boxing history, is a victory for all of us. It's a victory for everyone who ever declined to go swimming in public, because that would entail taking off their shirt. It's a victory for everyone who fretted over their muffin tops.
Well, just look at Andy. He's not afraid to take off his shirt, and he has more muffin tops than that guy on Drury Lane. And, yet ...
And yet, he's a total badass. Total. Badass.
I don't know about you. But that makes me feel like taking off my shirt.
OK. So I promise not to do that.
But yes, Drive-Thru Person. I would like fries with that.
Anthony Joshua looks like he was chiseled out of granite. Andy Ruiz Jr. looks like he was chiseled out of Wendy's triples. Yet Andy Ruiz Jr. is about to introduce Joshua to the seat of his pants, and not for the first time. Practically every time anyone blinked the other night, Ruiz was taking Joshua to Fist City. Finally, Joshua essentially said, "Screw this."
TKO, Andy. He was an 11-1 dog, but he now owns all three of Joshua's title belts. And no one's ever going to make fat jokes about him ever again, unless they want to wind up lying on their backs studying the constellations.
This is a huge win for People Who Do Not Resemble Yoga Instructors, which is to say most of us. Andy's upset, one of the biggest in recent boxing history, is a victory for all of us. It's a victory for everyone who ever declined to go swimming in public, because that would entail taking off their shirt. It's a victory for everyone who fretted over their muffin tops.
Well, just look at Andy. He's not afraid to take off his shirt, and he has more muffin tops than that guy on Drury Lane. And, yet ...
And yet, he's a total badass. Total. Badass.
I don't know about you. But that makes me feel like taking off my shirt.
OK. So I promise not to do that.
But yes, Drive-Thru Person. I would like fries with that.
Sunday, June 2, 2019
The NBA Finals are over
Just kidding.
I mean, come on, it's only June 2, which means we've got at least another month before the Raptors or Warriors seize control of the series. And we're only on Game 2, which happens tonight in an increasingly delirious Toronto. So there's still time.
Still time, that is, to remember that momentum is a unicorn in the NBA playoffs, and that what happened in one game has no bearing whatsoever -- zero, zip, nada -- on what happens in the next.
In other words: Calm down, Toronto. You're not gonna sweep this deal even though your guys handled the Warriors with unbecoming ease in Game 1.
Some things we know, heading into Game 2:
1. The Raptors can run with the Warriors. And did. And will.
2. They can bother the Warriors defensively with their length and their getting-after-it-ness -- in fact did bother them significantly in Game 1.
3. You can slow down Kawhi Leonard if you rotate, like, eight guys on him, the way the Warriors did in Game 1.
4. But if you do that, you'll get burned for 32 by some guy named Pascal Siakam.
5. Who is not a striker for West Ham United or a Formula One driver for Renault but an athletic forward from Cameroon who runs the floor like nobody's business and will hurt you badly if you rotate eight guys on Kawhi.
So there's what we know.
What don't we know?
What kind of numbers Steph or Klay or Draymond put up when they go off tonight and even the series at one apiece heading west.
Because you know it's going to happen. You just know it.
It's the NBA, after all. Which stands for "Never Believe Anything."
I mean, come on, it's only June 2, which means we've got at least another month before the Raptors or Warriors seize control of the series. And we're only on Game 2, which happens tonight in an increasingly delirious Toronto. So there's still time.
Still time, that is, to remember that momentum is a unicorn in the NBA playoffs, and that what happened in one game has no bearing whatsoever -- zero, zip, nada -- on what happens in the next.
In other words: Calm down, Toronto. You're not gonna sweep this deal even though your guys handled the Warriors with unbecoming ease in Game 1.
Some things we know, heading into Game 2:
1. The Raptors can run with the Warriors. And did. And will.
2. They can bother the Warriors defensively with their length and their getting-after-it-ness -- in fact did bother them significantly in Game 1.
3. You can slow down Kawhi Leonard if you rotate, like, eight guys on him, the way the Warriors did in Game 1.
4. But if you do that, you'll get burned for 32 by some guy named Pascal Siakam.
5. Who is not a striker for West Ham United or a Formula One driver for Renault but an athletic forward from Cameroon who runs the floor like nobody's business and will hurt you badly if you rotate eight guys on Kawhi.
So there's what we know.
What don't we know?
What kind of numbers Steph or Klay or Draymond put up when they go off tonight and even the series at one apiece heading west.
Because you know it's going to happen. You just know it.
It's the NBA, after all. Which stands for "Never Believe Anything."
Saturday, June 1, 2019
Outta their way
I tried to watch the Coca-Cola 600 the other night. I really did.
Got comfy on the couch, clicked to Fox, watched the boys haul ass around Charlotte Motor Speedway. And haul ass. And haul ass. And haul ... ass.
It was about 8:30 or so that I gave up. That's when I noticed we were more than two hours into the festivities and were still 40 or so laps shy of the halfway pount. I calculated that at this rate, the thing wouldn't end until Fourth of July weekend, and would result in a gruesome soft drink war because Fourth of July weekend is when they run the Pepsi 400 down in Daytona.
So, I bailed. Found out later Martin Truex won. Brad Keselowski, who was running in front when I signed out, was nowhere to be found at the end.
Stacked up against the tingling duel between Simon Pagenaud and Alexander Rossi in the Indianapolis 500 earlier in the day, it was an off, off, off-Broadway show. And so I can understand, sort of, why a guy suggested in a column that the 500 move off of Sunday to Saturday, or maybe to Memorial Day itself.
The reason given was that it would make it easier for drivers who wanted to double up and run both the 500 and the 600. Although then it wouldn't exactly be doubling up, if you catch my drift.
So I suspect the real reason is that NASCAR (or at least its media advocates) are tired of playing the red-headed stepchild to the single biggest event in motorsports. The 500, after all, is the 500. The 600 is just ... well another NASCAR race.
Albeit a really, really long NASCAR race.
Not that there wouldn't be historical precedent for moving the 500 off Sunday. Traditionally, the race always ran on the actual Memorial Day, regardless of when Memorial Day fell during the week. The move to a permanent Sunday date didn't happen until 1974.
Then again ...
It's the 500. The 600 is not. So if anyone should pack up and move, it's the stock car jockeys.
To begin with, NASCAR already runs on Saturday nights a slew of times, so it's not like it would be something new for it. What's another Saturday night Cup race in a pile of 'em?
So. Want to have one race or the other run other than Sunday?
Sorry, NASCAR. But that's your move.
Got comfy on the couch, clicked to Fox, watched the boys haul ass around Charlotte Motor Speedway. And haul ass. And haul ass. And haul ... ass.
It was about 8:30 or so that I gave up. That's when I noticed we were more than two hours into the festivities and were still 40 or so laps shy of the halfway pount. I calculated that at this rate, the thing wouldn't end until Fourth of July weekend, and would result in a gruesome soft drink war because Fourth of July weekend is when they run the Pepsi 400 down in Daytona.
So, I bailed. Found out later Martin Truex won. Brad Keselowski, who was running in front when I signed out, was nowhere to be found at the end.
Stacked up against the tingling duel between Simon Pagenaud and Alexander Rossi in the Indianapolis 500 earlier in the day, it was an off, off, off-Broadway show. And so I can understand, sort of, why a guy suggested in a column that the 500 move off of Sunday to Saturday, or maybe to Memorial Day itself.
The reason given was that it would make it easier for drivers who wanted to double up and run both the 500 and the 600. Although then it wouldn't exactly be doubling up, if you catch my drift.
So I suspect the real reason is that NASCAR (or at least its media advocates) are tired of playing the red-headed stepchild to the single biggest event in motorsports. The 500, after all, is the 500. The 600 is just ... well another NASCAR race.
Albeit a really, really long NASCAR race.
Not that there wouldn't be historical precedent for moving the 500 off Sunday. Traditionally, the race always ran on the actual Memorial Day, regardless of when Memorial Day fell during the week. The move to a permanent Sunday date didn't happen until 1974.
Then again ...
It's the 500. The 600 is not. So if anyone should pack up and move, it's the stock car jockeys.
To begin with, NASCAR already runs on Saturday nights a slew of times, so it's not like it would be something new for it. What's another Saturday night Cup race in a pile of 'em?
So. Want to have one race or the other run other than Sunday?
Sorry, NASCAR. But that's your move.
Dictionary fail
I love the Scripps National Spelling Bee, if only because every year is another opportunity to see if the Scripps people will try to slip a few Klingon or Ferengi words into the mix, or maybe some conversational Vulcan. Just to trip up all those young brainiacs, you know.
I mean, look at some of the words the eight brainiac finalists had to spell in the last round: "Auslaut" and "auguillette" and "pendelogue' and "cernuous." Also "palama."
You can't tell this Blob some of those aren't straight-out made up. Kind of like "simuldextratrumpastretcherus," which the Blob just invented and which means "the ability to lie out of both sides of one's mouth at the same time. See; Our Only Available President."
Anyway, hard as Scripps tries ("Dammit! Anyone know any good Andorean words?"), the brainiacs just kept steppin' up and knockin' 'em down. To the point where the spelling bee folks finally threw up their hands the other night and crowned all eight finalists as co-champions.
The little goobers simply weren't going to misspell anything, even if it went on until they were all eligible for Social Security. So all eight got the scholarship dough and a trophy.
"But that's ridiculous, Mr. Blob!" you're saying now. "It's the ultimate 'Everybody Gets An Orange Slice' abomination!"
Well, no. It's not. Actually only eight of them got orange slices. And those eight spelled their way through a whole pile of bougainvilleas and pendelogues to get to that point. They basically defeated the dictionary.
Admittedly, this goes against the grain of every red-blooded American instinct, which dictates there must be one winner and a bunch of losers crying their eyes out and feeling like the failures they are. And isn't that what made America great?
I mean, sure, there was that one time at the U.S. Grand Prix at Indy when Michael Schumacher slowed way down and let his teammate, Rubens Barrichello, cross the finish line side-by-side with him. But that's Formula One, which has always had some strange ideas about competition. And they still named Barrichello the winner, so the analogy isn't exact.
Outside of that, you'd never see baseball get to the division series and then say "Screw it! All these guys are worthy champions. Why make seven of 'em feel bad?" Or let eight teams skate around the ice holding up the Stanley Cup. Or hear Adam Silver say "No one wants to see the Warriors win again, so we'll just stop the playoffs right here and let the poor Rockets finally declare victory. Also the Nuggets, the Trail Blazers, the Bucks, the Raptors, the Celtics and the 76ers."
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, if you can successfully spell "auguillette," you're a champion in anyone's book.
Also, you, you, you, you, you, you and you.
I mean, look at some of the words the eight brainiac finalists had to spell in the last round: "Auslaut" and "auguillette" and "pendelogue' and "cernuous." Also "palama."
You can't tell this Blob some of those aren't straight-out made up. Kind of like "simuldextratrumpastretcherus," which the Blob just invented and which means "the ability to lie out of both sides of one's mouth at the same time. See; Our Only Available President."
Anyway, hard as Scripps tries ("Dammit! Anyone know any good Andorean words?"), the brainiacs just kept steppin' up and knockin' 'em down. To the point where the spelling bee folks finally threw up their hands the other night and crowned all eight finalists as co-champions.
The little goobers simply weren't going to misspell anything, even if it went on until they were all eligible for Social Security. So all eight got the scholarship dough and a trophy.
"But that's ridiculous, Mr. Blob!" you're saying now. "It's the ultimate 'Everybody Gets An Orange Slice' abomination!"
Well, no. It's not. Actually only eight of them got orange slices. And those eight spelled their way through a whole pile of bougainvilleas and pendelogues to get to that point. They basically defeated the dictionary.
Admittedly, this goes against the grain of every red-blooded American instinct, which dictates there must be one winner and a bunch of losers crying their eyes out and feeling like the failures they are. And isn't that what made America great?
I mean, sure, there was that one time at the U.S. Grand Prix at Indy when Michael Schumacher slowed way down and let his teammate, Rubens Barrichello, cross the finish line side-by-side with him. But that's Formula One, which has always had some strange ideas about competition. And they still named Barrichello the winner, so the analogy isn't exact.
Outside of that, you'd never see baseball get to the division series and then say "Screw it! All these guys are worthy champions. Why make seven of 'em feel bad?" Or let eight teams skate around the ice holding up the Stanley Cup. Or hear Adam Silver say "No one wants to see the Warriors win again, so we'll just stop the playoffs right here and let the poor Rockets finally declare victory. Also the Nuggets, the Trail Blazers, the Bucks, the Raptors, the Celtics and the 76ers."
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, if you can successfully spell "auguillette," you're a champion in anyone's book.
Also, you, you, you, you, you, you and you.
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