Pop. Guns.

 This week began with an aggrieved about-to-fired bank employee exercising his Second Amendment right to bear arms by bearing arms into his place of imminent unemployment. His score: Five dead, eight wounded.

On the same day, a stone's throw away, someone else exercised their Second Amendment right to bear arms by bearing arms at a community college. His score: One dead, one wounded.

Anywhere else in the world they'd call this uncivilized lunacy. Here in America we just call it "Monday."

The saner among us might also call it lunacy, but we passed lunacy some ways back. We've now arrived at a place where This Week In Mass Shooting is met not just with indifference by certain legislators, but with them actively passing laws to make it even easier for Bank Guy and School Shooter to do his or her thing.

"If we make it as easy as possible for every Tom, Dick, and Mary to arm him or herself like an Army Ranger, no one will ever get shot again!" they cry. 

Seriously. That's the logic at work here.

All of this, mind you, is a long and winding road to the individual I really want to talk about, who is San Antonio Spurs coach and president Gregg Popovich.

He's a Region guy from Indiana who like most Region guys brooks no nonsense, and he's had his fill of the nonsense of dead schoolkids and the lint brains who aid and abet the people who make schoolkids dead.   

And so the other day, in a remarkable 10-minute rant, Pop popped off. At a media availability before the Spurs last game of the season, he mopped the floor with state officials in Texas and Tennessee who continue to help the aggrieved and batshite crazy  stack up bodies.

In particular, he referenced Republican state officials in Tennessee, whose response to three dead kids at Covenant Christian School in Nashville was to label subsequent protests for stiffer gun laws "insurrectionist", and to expel two black Democratic legislators for joining in.

Oh, and about their usual thoughts and prayers ...

"I'm sorry to go on and on, but (Tennessee Governor) Bill Lee: 'I'm closely monitoring the tragic situation. Please join us in prayer'," Pop sneered. "What are you monitoring? They're dead! Children -- they're dead. When I pick up my 6- and 11-year-old grandkids at school, when I'm here at home, on the way it goes through my mind that I hope they're going to be OK."

Meanwhile, in Pop's state of Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has announced he'll pardon the white guy who drove his car into a crowd of people at a Black Lives Matter protest and then shot to death the armed protester who tried to stop him. Daniel Perry was subsequently convicted of murder.

No worries, though, Daniel. The Guv's got your back.

Which I guess means it's OK in Texas to commit murder as long as you murder the right people -- i.e., those with whom you differ ideologically.

Good. Lord. In heaven.

"You know, these people, they think we're stupid -- Republican and Democratic alike," Gregg Popovich said the other day. "But they might be right because they get away with that crap. They tell us things about prayers and you know, their offices are monitoring this stuff, like I said. 

"Get away from me. Stop all the bull****. Stop talking down to us. We're not stupid, but they will do it to keep their jobs."

Amen.

Hey, look! Play-in games!

 The book-length NBA playoffs kick off tonight with two play-in games, and I can't tell you how excited I am not. Wait, did I say "not"? Slip of the tongue! Really!

Actually it is hard to get fired up about the play-in games, because they involve teams that would have missed the playoffs had the NBA not essentially said, "OK, you've had 82 games and six months to prove yourselves, but we'll give you ONE LAST CHANCE."

And, yeah, I know, everyone's making all kinds of noise about how the Lakers are playing really well and LeBron and AD are both momentarily healthy, and how that makes them a legitimate threat to win the up-for-grabs West. This presumes AD and/or LeBron don't get hurt again tonight in their play-in game -- which one or both probably will, because it's AD and LeBron.

In reality the NBA added the play-in games to alleviate blatant tanking by the bottom feeders for draft position. Give 'em hope, no matter how slim, and they'll play hard to the end. That was the rationale.

Of course, then the Mavericks came along and ruined it all.

The Mavs, see, were one of the bottom feeders that had a real shot at a play-in game. I mean, they were right there. And what did they do?

They decided to lose instead.

Seven of their last nine games, they lost. Kyrie Irving played  in seven games after March 20. Luka Doncic played just 13 minutes in a Friday loss to the Bulls, and neither he nor Kyrie played at all in the last game of the season, a 138-117 blowout loss to the hideous San Antonio Spurs.

But they preserved their lottery pick in the draft, so call it a W.

Truth is, when a Victor Wembenyama is there for the taking -- the golden goose in the coming draft -- a play-in game isn't much incentive to not tank. Your chance at an NBA title, after all, is yea more slim than your chance at Wembenyama. So fire up the First Armored Division, George Patton.

In the meantime, tonight we've got the Hawks at the Heat and the Timberwolves at the Lakers. And the Wolves will be without Rudy Gobert, who threw a punch at teammate Kyle Anderson during a timeout Sunday. He's been banished from tonight's game and probably any subsequent games.

Which I suppose means Gobert made history of sorts by executing the NBA's first one-man tank job. Though Victor Wembenyama will not be his reward.

Inspect this

 Some days you just gotta wish on a star, child-like as that is. And so here is what I wish for the state of Kansas, which has lost its damn mind about gays and transgenders and OH MY GOD WHAT ABOUT GIRLS SPORTS??:

I wish every school system in the state would say "hell, no," to the Republican-controlled legislature that just voted to allow forced genital inspections of children if they want to play (girls) sports. 

I wish every female athlete in every school in the state that avails itself of this legislative permission would say "hell, no" and refuse to comply. And then see what sort of girls teams their school manages to scrape together.

I wish, I wish ...

Oh, but I'm not so naive.

I realize, this being Kansas, there will be the odd school system that will take the lege up on its offer. 

I also realize not every girl, or even most, will tell those school systems to sit on it and spin. They're high school kids. They've got futures, athletic and otherwise. It's a big ask for them to defy authority, no matter how abusive.

It's also a big ask for their parents, especially if their kid's got a full-boat scholarship riding on it. And besides, you know there'd be enough lunatics on the local school board who'd be more than willing to sacrifice a girls team or two as a matter of "principle."

Even though protecting girls sports from those sneaky evil transgenders is what this law is supposed to be about. Oh, irony.

Also ironic: A lot of the dirtbags who voted for this abomination likely don't give a tinker's damn about girls sports; this is all about hurting the Sneaky Evil Transgenders, even though the latter have never hurt them. In fact, I suspect several of the dirtbags believed back in the day it was perfectly OK for the boys to get the best of everything, and the girls to get what was left over in terms of equipment, facilities, practice times, scheduling. 

But now they care about girls sports?

Riiiight.

As always, of course, the hysteria that fuels this sort of extremism is grossly misplaced, because there are so few transgenders in women's sports as to be statistically insignificant. So it's a solution in search of a problem -- and the more vile the solution the better, apparently.

 Know something else?

If I close my eyes now, I can see a parent in some burg in Kansas pushing for the local school system to mandate genital inspection. And it won't be because they're a-feared transgenders will take over girls sports, but because they want the talented player who's stealing little Susie's playing time to prove she's a girl.

I wish that scenario were not so plausible. But of course it is.

One more wish: I wish every male legislator who voted for this trash because they were afraid of their base should also be forced to undergo a genital inspection.

Just to see if, you know, they’ve actually got a pair.

Masterful

 Recency bias is a viral pestilence in Sportsball World these days, one to which cranky fist-shaking antiques like the Blob seem most resistant, thank God. So I won't start off this morning by saying what Jon Rahm did at Augusta National last week proves he's the greatest golfer of his generation.

Some people did say that. Like, right out loud and everything.

What the Blob says to that is wait until the next major, when, I don't know, Taylor Gooch becomes the greatest golfer of his generation.

(With the most un-golfy name ever, which is way cool)

What the Blob will say is this: Rahm's four-stroke blowout might be the greatest display of sheer golf toughness in ... well, quite awhile anyway.

Begin with the fact he had to play 30 holes yesterday to win the thing, because the meteorologists punched Augusta around all weekend. Plus he started the day four strokes adrift of leader Brooks Koepka. Plus he had the garbage draw all weekend, finishing his second round and starting his third Saturday in the kind of weather that drowned Mark Wahlberg and George Clooney in "The Perfect Storm."

She's not gonna let us out ...

And she didn't. Have some wind, rain and a little more wind and rain, Jon.

Somehow, though, Rahm survived it all. Got Koepka's lead down to two as the final round began at midday Sunday. Kept his cool as Phil Mickelson legend-ed it up with a throwback 65 and Jordan Spieth birdied exactly half the golf course in the final round. Played it all kinds of smart on the back nine, scene of so many Sunday disasters from golfers who couldn't keep the prospect of a green jacket out of their heads long enough to win one.

Rahm could. He played it safe when he needed to play it safe and went for it when he needed to go for it. And on 18, after spraying it off the tee, he chipped to within spitting distance of the stick and dunked the short putt.

"A Seve par," said Rahm, acknowledging the patron saint of Spanish golf, Seve Ballesteros, the way every Spaniard with game does.

Lots of reasons to like Rahm -- he's an immensely likable guy -- and his reverence for Seve and all those who came before him is one of them. Another reason to like him, in the Blob's opinion, is his perspective on the LIV Exhibition Tour. 

Remember what he said when he was asked about the gargantuan paychecks he could cash for doing very little on the LIV circuit?

He said he didn't need to make more money because he was already making an Everest of money on the PGA Tour. Would his lifestyle change if he made another, say, $400 million? Not a bit, he said. So what would be the point?

Gotta love a guy who sees the world like that.

Gotta love the way he played golf last weekend, too.

Listing badly

 The Blob doesn't generally get exercised about stuff like lists, because most of them are silly and One Man's (Or Woman’s) Opinion, besides, and we all know the old saw about opinions. Something about how they're like a certain part of the anatomy, everyone's got one.

But occasionally there comes a list that's so ridiculous, so upside-down and just clearly  wrong, it bears mentioning.

Let me begin today's discussion of one such list with a tangent: I once spent a week one night in Champaign-Urbana, Ill.

Actually, it was a Pizza Hut where a bunch of Indiana media wound up that night after covering a Hoosiers-Illinois basketball game. This is because it was the only place open  in Fun City. And that's because it was after midnight, and all the bars closed at midnight.

On a Saturday night. 

In a college town.

Which didn't stop some outfit called Clever.com from slotting Champaign-Urbana No. 2 on its last of best Big Ten college towns.

I'm sorry, what?

Clever.com's No. 1, Ann Arbor, probably is right where it should be. But after that, the list gets all sorts of wacky.

Bloomington, In., for instance, the home of Indiana University, is nearly always mentioned as one of the top college towns in America on most lists. It's 10th in the Big Ten according to this one.

And Purdue?

Look, it's nice a campus. And I'm sure West Lafayette has all the amenities. But it's not the first place you think of when people talk about great college towns.

Clever.com lists it as No. 3 in the Big Ten.

On the other hand, Madison, Wis., is way down there at No. 8. Right behind Iowa City, but ahead of Columbus, O. -- the home of Ohio State, which is next-to-last on the list, right behind New Brunswick, N.J. (Rutgers).

Now, I don't know what the criteria was for this list. Maybe they factored in Harry's Chocolate Shop and the burgers at Triple XXX when they considered West Lafayette. Which would be two pretty awesome points in its favor.

But as lists go, this one's listing worse than the Titanic post-iceberg. 

Another One Man's Opinion.

Much ado ...

 So Angel Reese will apparently join her LSU teammates on the traditional White House visit, and I guess we can exhale now. This presumably includes the family of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, whom Reese dragged into the middle of the silliest kerfuffle to come down the pike in a good while.

This kerfuffle happened because the First Lady, Jill Biden, attended the women's national title game between LSU and Iowa. And then, said, gosh, both teams put on such a terrific show maybe they both should be invited to the White House.

This wasn't an official invitation, mind you. It was just the First Lady trying to be nice, Which was perfectly obvious to anyone with half a working brain cell.

But you can't say anything these days, no matter how innocuous, without someone taking it the wrong way. Hell, it's practically become an art form.

And so Caitlin Clark of Iowa spoke up and said, nah, only winners get to go to the White House. And Reese  -- and, to a lesser degree, some of her teammates -- got all insulted by Jill Biden trying to be nice, saying the First Lady had disrespected them and what-not.

Reese even said she wouldn't be going to the White House now, and that maybe she'd go visit the Obamas instead.

(To which Barack likely replied in private: "Hey, leave me out of this.")

But she changed her mind eventually, maybe because her head coach, Kim Mulkey, whispered a few choice words in her ear. Such as, I don't know, Stop being a dopey college kid, Angel. Or maybe For God's sake, the woman was just trying to be nice, quit acting like she hit you in the face with a pie. Get over yourself.

And, look, maybe part of Reese's over-the-top reaction was because she is a dopey college kid. College kids generally are not fully-formed humans yet. It's why some of them walk to class in shorts and flipflops when it's snowing sideways and the windchill is Ice Station Zebra. 

Maybe, too, this was the residue of Reese being slammed for taunting Clark in exactly the same way Clark had taunted Louisville a week earlier. Everyone thought it was cute when the white girl did it. Everyone loves those stories about Larry Bird and Michael Jordan and heaven knows how many other male basketball stars taunting opponents, too.

But the black girl?

She got savaged for it. Mostly by old white guys, of course, which means there was both a racial and a gender element to the whole hypocritical business.

Anyway, here was Reese mere days after that, getting all butt-hurt about the First Lady trying to be nice (and a bit clueless, since it's doubtful Jill Biden knows the protocol for inviting teams to the White House). Would Reese have reacted that way had the aforementioned crapstorm not happened?

Maybe. Maybe not. But if the Blob had to choose, he'd choose Door No. 2.

Especially after the Assembled Media turned the White House thing into A Major News Story. Another Big Mac crafted from a nothingburger, in other words.

Nobody does it better.

Tiger, in repose

 Tiger Woods very likely could miss the cut at Augusta today, which is maybe what he was trying to tell us this week. If his presser with the assembled media was not his valedictory speech to competitive golf, it was a spot-on imitation.

His shattered leg, Tiger said, is never going to be right again. Which is why he can't play a lot of tournaments anymore. And which is also why he's not sure how many more Masters he has left in him, because Augusta National is a lot more up-and-down than it appears on TV.

Then he went out yesterday and validated everything he said.

Shot a 2-over 74, Tiger did, and it hurt to watch him. He gimped around and gimped around and looked like nothing so much as a 47-year-old going on 68. At 2-over as the begins, he's a stroke adrift of the projected cut, tied for 53rd with the likes of Tom Hoge and Thomas Pieters and Sergio Garcia, himself a senior citizen at 43.

To make the cut, he'll need a better round than Thursday's, in what's expected to be much lousier weather. And even if he does, it's not like he's going to actually be a factor come Sunday. 

The irony here is he seems a lot more at peace with this than those of us watching him.

Listen. It's hard to feel sorry for this wounded version of Tiger, seeing how it was his own damn fault he nearly lost his leg. Driving 80 mph on a twisty stretch of road more suited to 45 was a spectacularly stupid thing to do. Especially when you consider who was doing it.

And yet ...

And yet, watching him struggle will never not be painful, because memory keeps taking us back to what he was. And he'll never be that again.

Time will always be undefeated, especially when its wounds are self-inflicted. Doesn't mean we can't howl and shake our fists at it.