Old men shouting at clouds

Amnesia is a plague for the ages, when it comes to athletes in the doddering stage. They forget so much as the years flutter past, and embellish so much else.

And so a few years back Charles Barkley blasted the Kevin Durants of today's NBA for chasing rings, forgetting that he himself kinda-sorta did the same thing back in the day. The fact his chase was unsuccessful didn't make it less a chase.

Now here comes Terry Bradshaw, whom some folks think has been doddering for awhile. Recently he went on WFAN's Moose & Maggie Show to blast Aaron Rodgers as "weak" for not being happy in Green Bay anymore, focusing on Rodgers' alleged disgruntlement with the Packers drafting a quarterback (Jordan Love) a couple years ago.

Bradshaw pointed out that when the Steelers drafted Mark Malone and Cliff Stoudt as his career wound down, you didn't catch him bitching and moaning. He "embraced" it because he wasn't concerned with either draftee QB.

"Let him cry," Bradshaw said of Rodgers, shouting at clouds and shaking his bony fist.

To which those aware of Bradshaw's revisionist history would reply: Well, son, you'd know all about cryin'.

As Jesse Spector of Deadspin pointed out the other day, Bradshaw no more embraced the challenge of Malone and Stoudt than France embraced the challenge of stopping the Germans in 1940. In fact, as injuries slowly drew the curtain on his career, he bitched and moaned with the best of them as he tried desperately to stave off the end.

On a couple of occasions, he even went after Steelers head coach (and NFL coaching Rushmore occupant) Chuck Noll after Noll expressed doubts about Bradshaw's continued viability.

"He ought to just keep his mouth shut," Bradshaw said, according to Spector's piece.

Now, my memory may not be what it once was, either. But I don't recall Rodgers going so far as to publicly trash his head coach, Matt LaFleur. Let alone a Hall of Fame head coach.

To be honest, it seems Rodgers is less miffed about the presence of Jordan Love than he is the absence of a few more weapons. His loyalty to Green Bay is unquestioned -- the man has been a Packer for the entirety of his 16-year career -- while the Packers' loyalty has been, shall we say, somewhat less so.

Over the years, they've offloaded receivers he's liked, and replaced them with linebackers and defensive ends and the like. Last week was no different; in the midst of the widening rift with their Hall of Fame quarterback, the Packers' alleged brain trust took a cornerback in the first round of the NFL Draft.

It was almost as if they were saying, "That'll learn him, the big crybaby."

I'm sure Terry Bradshaw would have approved of that sentiment, if so.

Big crybaby that he himself is notwithstanding.

Play ball

This morning it was cool and damp and the sky had that quilted look that promises more rain later. But that is just weather.

Of more import is what day it is.

It is Game Day.

It is the day when the gates open at the corner of Ewing and Brackenridge, and the ballpark dabs on its most alluring perfume: equal parts grilled meat and pungent hints of hops and malt, and of course popcorn and roasted peanuts in the shell. The ticket takers are at their stations. The game programs are laid out. The diamond is all perfectly groomed beige and impossibly vivid green, spring and the rains that come with it having done their work.

Parkview Field is open for business again, after too long a time gone dark.

There was no baseball there last summer, and the summer felt counterfeit because of it. All those dreaming young prospects in TinCaps green and gray and red were no longer giving us names to remember in the lingering twilight of a May or June or July evening.  Fernando Tatis Jr. wasn't out there, nor Ryan Weathers, nor the local kid from Ossian, Josh Van Meter.

There was no crack of the bat, no rising murmur to accompany a baseball rising toward the battlements of Harrison Place. There were no Bad Apple Dancers or Johnny TinCap or taco sauce races, or Jake the Diamond Dog, heartthrob of ballpark regulars everywhere.

Tonight all of that is back,  if the rains stay away. Tonight we'll be reminded again of what's unique and charming about minor league baseball, preserved here in the Fort despite Major  League Baseball's best efforts to eradicate its charm and uniqueness elsewhere.

MLB's misbegotten goal is to make the minors more uniform, and also more profitable. So it got rid of 42 minor-league teams in the offseason, many of which had brought that aforementioned charm and uniqueness to their communities for decades. Those teams that were left were reorganized into antiseptic Class A-AA-AAA groupings, and rules were imposed that would give MLB more direct sway over the product.

Control freaks gotta control, as they say. The rest of us can only hope that doesn't mean the minors will become as boringly homogenous as the majors have become.

We can only hope there will remain the regional quirks and oddities that have been the minors' calling card since there have been minor leagues. And that places like Clinton and Burlington in Iowa, stripped of their minor-league affiliations by the MLB vandals, find something to fill the hole in their summers that baseball filled for, respectively, 87 and 97 years.

And here in the Fort?

Tonight we get again what we've gotten for 28 years, first in Memorial Stadium and then downtown. The Bastard Plague took it away from us last summer, leaving us with our own strange emptiness to fill. As with any absence, it made the heart grow fonder.

So grab a dog and a beer and settle in again, ladies and gents. Baseball is back.

And, it goes without saying, a proper summer, too.

Last lap for Robert U.

Of them all, he was the one the talking gene caught. It might have been the only thing that  ever caught him.

Bobby Unser was fast and he was fearless and, lord, could he talk. He was as free with words as his younger brother Al was stingy with them, as heavyfooted as his brother was cool and calculating.

They sprang from the mountains and desert around Albuquerque, N.M., heirs to an iconic racing family that made its bones broadsliding up Pike's Peak and then found other challenges. Jerry Unser Jr., Bobby and Al's older brother, died at Indy before his brothers ever showed up. Bobby and Al went on to avenge him, of a fashion, winning the 500 seven times between them. Al Jr., Al's son and Bobby's nephew, won it a couple more times.

Now Bobby is gone, passing Sunday at 87. No doubt he's bending a few celestial ears somewhere at this very moment.

I'm guessing this, see, because one day at Indianapolis I collared Bobby in the media center to ask for a few words about A.J. Foyt, his contemporary from what those who've been around awhile regard as the golden age of IndyCar. There were the Unsers and there was Foyt and there was Mario Andretti, and don't forget Johnny Rutherford and Gordie Johncock and luckless Lloyd Ruby, whose misfortune on Memorial Day weekend in Indiana became legendary.

Anyway, here I was and here Bobby was, and he talked and talked and talked. He talked about A.J. the racer and A.J. the curmudgeon and the A.J. not everyone knew about, the guy who loaned Bobby a ride one night at some forgotten short track and got halfway mad when Bobby ran faster than A.J. did.

It might have been the only time as a sportswriter when I actually thought "Is he ever gonna shut up?" 

Of course, this was at roughly the same time I was thinking "Thank God for Bobby Unser."

In any case, when he was finally done talking, my notebook was out of unscribbled pages. And my A.J. Foyt feature had some real meat on its bones.

I could have written something with similar heft about Bobby himself, because heavens knows he saw so much. He came in at Indy in '63 driving a Novi for Andy Granatelli, and he went out in '81 driving rocket ships for Roger Penske. The hotshoes were qualifying at 150 when Bobby first answered the green at Indy; when he departed 18 years later, it took 200 mph to win the pole.

So, yes, some stuff happened in his time. In his first start, he finished dead last after turning the Novi into scrap against the first-turn concrete; five years later, he wound up in Victory Lane when Granatelli's sleek white-sidewall turbines died nine laps from the finish.

After that there was the Olsonite Eagle with which he cleared 195 a handful of years later, and a rain-shortened win in 1975. And then the third win in '81 for Penske -- which will forever be disputed because Bobby was first disqualified for passing cars under the yellow, then reinstated a couple of months later.

In between, Mario Andretti was briefly a two-time winner. He still wears the '81 winner's ring they gave him at the banquet that year, and delighted in flashing it at Bobby.

Knowing Bobby, he probably didn't care. The Borg-Warner Trophy still had his face on it, after all. As I'm sure he likely said.

Along with much, much else, naturally.

Those bloody Yanks

 There's always been an uneasy peace between English soccer fans and the Treasonous Colonials who own some of their beloved sides. No Manchester United supporter has ever really trusted the Glazers, and no Arsenal supporter has ever really trusted the reprehensible Stan Kroenke.

In addition to Man U and Gunners, the Glazers and Kroenke also own the Buccaneers and Rams of the National Football League, respectively. Which no doubt makes them immediately suspect among the lads on the other side of the pond -- who know there's only one true footie, and they play it in the Premier League.

But the Yanks are especially unpopular now, with the Glazers and Kroenke having been up to their necks in the money-grubbing European Super League scheme that fell apart because the fans basically staged a revolt against it.

Apparently that revolt isn't over yet.

On Sunday, Man U supporters stormed the pitch at Old Trafford ahead of the match against bitter rival Liverpool, setting off flares and running around and engaging in various other shenanigans. It was the most display yet of their  disdain for the Glazers and their grasping American ways.

To be blunt, they want the Glazers gone. And Arsenal fans want Kroenke gone. The level of  resentment has gone beyond simmer to a full boil.

It's gotten so bad, in fact, that NFL analyst Jay Glazer, who isn't remotely to the other Glazers, has been bombarded on social media with demands that he sell Man U. He tried to explain on Twitter that he's not Those Glazers, but finally gave up and just started rolling with it.

After which he tweeted this.

 At least he's got a sense of humor about it.

The Other Glazers, probably not so much these days.

Olympian stubbornness

 The Summer Olympics begin in less than three months, and apparently you can add the words "no matter what" to that. This is because the organizers in Japan are afflicted with one of the more epic cases of bullheadedness you're likely ever to find.

For instance: According to this post by Deadspin writer Dustin Foote, virtually everyone in the country thinks it's a stupid idea to carry on with the Games in light of the Bastard Plague, which is currently experiencing a resurgence in Japan. In a Asahi Shimbun poll, 70 percent of  those responding think the Games should be either postponed another year or canceled.

Another for-instance: Re the Bastard Plague, only 1.4 percent of the Japanese population have been vaccinated for COVID-19.

Yet another for -instance: Six members of the Olympic torch relay have already tested positive for the Plague. And the relay itself has been closed to the public, which sort of defeats the purpose of the relay to begin with.

But, hell, yeah. Let's invite the world to play in this pesthouse anyway. It'll be fine.

No, really. It'll be just fine.

Tebow time!

 The haters, they've got this all wrong. This isn't about Tim Tebow trying to re-inflict Tebowmania on America, long past its expiration date. This is about Tim Tebow figuring out what he should have figured out about a decade ago.

Which is, he's not an NFL quarterback. But that doesn't mean he's not an NFL player.

And so now comes the news that the Jacksonville Jaguars worked him out as a tight end last week, and this suggests that finally there's a glimmer of self-awareness about the guy. A decade ago he was convinced he was a quarterback, because that's all he'd ever been. And he was a pretty damn good one -- some might even drop the word "legendary" -- in high school and college.

But high school and college are not the NFL. And Tebow simply didn't have the skill set (i.e.: an accurate enough throwing arm) to be a successful NFL quarterback.

What he did have, and this seemed obvious to a lot of us, were the size and athleticism to be an effective tight end or hybrid receiver in the NFL. He was never going to be Rob Gronkowski, but he could definitely be Gronk Lite. 

That's why this makes all sorts of sense. Not only is Tebow reunited with his old college coach, Urban Meyer, he's still only 33. And tight end has become the new glamour position in the NFL, thanks to Gronk and Travis Kelce and George Kittle and a dozen others.

So, maybe the man's finally found his place in the pro game, even if it's taken awhile. Meyer said the other day they'd revisit the possibility of Tebow the Tight End, which suggests we may not have heard the last of this narrative.

The haters will groan and say, please, not Tebow Time again.

The rest of us will just shrug, and get ready to reset our clocks.

Derby time!

 It's Kentucky Derby day down in Louisville, and also here at the Blob, which is not where you come to hear horsey terms like "breezing," "walking the shedrow" and "fetlock." And don't even come at me with "withers."

The only withers the Blob knows about is the late Bill Withers. Ain't no sunshine now that he's gone, God rest his soul.

That said, the Blob loves the Derby, as it also says every year. It loves the Frank Lloyd Wright hats on the women and the top hats on the men and the Kentucky Colonels, who always make the Blob hungry for one of  Harlan Sanders' Myocardial Infarction Value Meals. It loves that Dan Fogelberg song about roses. It loves the twin spires ('cause there's two of  'em), and the moment, every year, when My Friend Flicka balks at entering the starting gate.

My Friend Flicka: "Wait, I gotta go in THERE? Whoa. This was not part of the deal, dude."

That sort of thing.

In any case, the Blob loves everything about the Derby except the mint julep part, as I also say every year. This is because mint juleps look like antifreeze and taste like cough syrup. There might be a more wretched mixed drink on the planet, but it probably involves actual antifreeze.

Other than that ... well, again, this is not where you come to get expert analysis on how to bet your exacta. I will say, however, that most of the touts who do know about exactas and the like think Medina Spirit, a 15-1 shot trained by that guy with the white hair -- Buffet, Bracket, something like that -- is the astute pick to win. 

This is because it starts out of the No. 8 hole, which apparently is quite the primo hole. The post-time favorite, undefeated Essential Quality, drew the dreaded No. 1 post position. There's also a horse named Hot Rod Charlie and another horse named Known Agenda and another horse named Rock Your World, and two horses named for booze, Midnight Bourbon and Bourbonic.

I can't imagine how you'd go wrong betting on horses with "Bourbon" in their names in Kentucky -- even if Midnight Bourbon's a 20-1 shot and Bourbonic is 30-1 and starting from the 20th and last post position.

But what hell. I say drop a bundle on both. 

Or perhaps you could go the way the Blob tends to go, which is to drop a bundle on a horse that probably has a great shot to finish 15th or so. This year, that would  be Soup and Sandwich, which some horse guys think is a terrible horse name but which the Blob sort of likes for that very reason. 

Now, Soup and Sandwich is a 30-1 shot, and it's coming out of the 19 hole, right next to Bourbonic in the outer reaches of the galaxy. On top of that, he's a gray horse, and faithful Blob reader(s) know the Blob's position on gray horses.

Which is, they are frequently Alpo. So Soup and Sandwich -- who has a stablemate named, yes, Chips and Salsa -- likely has zero chance to win.

The Blob doesn't care. It's only money, right? So I'm putting the whole enchilada on Soup and Sandwich.

All two bucks of it.