Ugh! sports

 I'm not the greatest sports fan except for baseball which no one cares about any more.  But it was cold and what else to do?  I noticed that Big 12, which interestingly is just 10, got only 2 teams in the sweet 16.  Texas and K-State made it, but KU, Iowa State, and Baylor didn't.  And then TCU got beat by some outfil called Gonzaga. Not much of a movie watcher either, but isn't that the radioactive lizard that terrorizes Japan? However Creighton of Omaha got in.  But I never could understand what kinds of crates they made. Still, was interesting to see so many from mid-continent while all the big names from the coasts are where? 

 On the other hand, USA baseball is great, though the really good pitchers are nowhere to be found.  Despite which old man Wainwright went 4 innings and Mikolas the reclaimed pitcher from Japanese league went another 4 innings and  between the two had only 2 runs.  It was interesting to see so many fat Cuban players.  Evidently the Cuban communists give out seconds if you play baseball well, so you aren't skin and bones..One-sided game USA 14, Cuba 2.  

And entrepreneur looks at sports

Never ask an entrepreneur to truly love sports.  They always see ways to greatly improve the game or change the game.  And why in heck do the people in charge not do this? 

            Baseball has constant battles between umpires who call balls and strikes and the batters and pitchers.  We could easily eliminate this by using electronics to call balls and strikes the way the broadcasters show the strike zone and the ball when it came across the plate.  Wouldn’t this make calls much more indisputable?

            But the sports I really don’t understand are hockey and pro basketball concerning fouls.  Why, in hockey can you come up behind someone and grab both arms and hold him back.  This is called a “check” even though the guy might be say a Pole or a Swede. And it’s legal.  Yes, but totally debilitating for the guy being held. If he were an agile skater, he could  develop a really accurate jackass kick  to the checker’s groin region. “Whoops, sorry.  My foot slipped.” Doing this with a steel skate would really teach the defender never to try this hold-down stuff again.  And maybe he couldn’t have kids ever, just in remembrance.

            Worse yet is the National Butcherball Association’s rules on fouls.  It differs so radically from college, high school, AAU or any other cager venue that it’s almost unrecognizable.  I was watching Rondo get clobbered by the Celtics.  He was just dribbling. A guy jumped on his back, never touched the ball, No foul called but Rondo missed his shot by 4 feet.  The similar strange foul ruling occurred when Westbrook went up for a layup.  The Rocket’s defender tried to block the shot from behind, mostly missed the ball and nearly took Westbrook’s head off.  They showed it again and again on replay, the blithely unconcerned announcers saying it was just a common foul, not a flagrant.  Well, if that’s not a flagrant, what would keep some team from having a couple martial arts experts on the bench for purposes of ruining someone’s career and making it look accidental.  I predict that the dumb-jock NBA will persist in their butcherball, this street ball, until someone really famous gets a career ended.

 This happened in 1920 in major league baseball when Chapman got killed.  Pitchers used to juice balls and rub them with dirt to make the ball hard to see.  In a game at dusk, Chapman couldn’t see the ball in the sun coming at him, got beaned and died the next day of a skull fracture.  Thereafter, baseball suddenly recanted from their love of the rubbed ball used for an entire game.  After that, any slightly dirty ball was discarded, and that is why they use 60 balls per game.  The old balls with fraying seams, called dead balls, suddenly gave way to new, fresh, tightly-wound balls called lively balls. I don’t know what kind of ball you call the skate-kicked hockey guy.

Dumb Spit

Broadcasting sports is big entertainment.  They even have programs full of bloopers and most embarrassing incidents by athletes and referees.  But, have you ever noticed, nowhere do they have broadcast bloopers. They never make fun of themselves and the stupidity that comes out of their mouths.  Someday I would like to compile such a sports show.  Call it Dumb Spit Calls. Here are just 3 I heard in the last month—and I don’t watch a lot of sports on TV.

First was the night the KC Royals game was rain delayed an hour during the playoffs.  The broadcasters had to fill in the time somehow, so the panel of 6 got into a discussion lamenting how was it almost impossible for Wade Davis, KC closer, to finish the game after having been idled for 60 minutes.  Indeed, some suggested that Yost, the manager shouldn’t even play Wade.  Put somebody else in lest he blow the save! There was one out in the ninth. Then the game resumed and indeed Davis began pitching.  I figured, you know that guy has been down this road before.  This isn’t his first rodeo.  He probably tried to stay warmed up and passionate all during that rain delay.  In the broadcast booth were another 3 announcers and the first batter was walked after about an eleven pitch at-bat.  Oh! They groaned about how Davis was done for.  “The control is the first thing to go,” one guy momentously said.  Not so.  Wade Davis struck out the last two like a blistering ace and the game ended.  But no one among the nine broadcasters admitted to being wrong. 

So often sports announcing and analysis tends to be candy-coated.  All the better to promote heroes, I guess.  Dumb Spit Calls number 2 and 3 concern Stidham, the freshman Baylor quarterback.  He’s done a tremendous job filling in for the starter who is now injured and out for the season.  During a tight game with OU, the game turned when a big OU defenseman managed to upend Stidham in midair, about 4 feet off the ground, then body slammed him onto his back.  That’s the kind of blow that can ruin your life with paralysis.  I have no idea if it is ethical, but certainly concerning.  “Well, now Stidham is getting a taste of big time college football!” the broadcaster laughed.  “That sure was quite a sack!”  As it turned out, Stidham lay there for quite a while, then got up on his own. He was gimpy and escorted to the sidelines by another Baylor player.  “Well, he’ll shake it off,” the broadcaster noted.  Really?  The next set of downs was the last for Stidham and he wasn’t mobile at all.  The following week, he took a fall at OSU and the coach (Briles) was miked up on the sideline.  “Is it your back?!” he asked Stidham.

Dumb Spit #3 came when Stidham made a great pass while being pressured by OSU the following week.  “He’s a great intellectual, that’s all I have to say,” the sportscaster said emphatically.  “For a freshman to come in and be able to run the entire offense—that’s really something!”  Well now wait a minute.  Many Frosh have played quarterback on major college level and, by the end of the season, had memorized the team plays.  That’s a requirement, especially for a quarterback.  Intellectual?  You have to be kidding me! Just counting some intellectuals I have met in college—Richard Feynman, Schiller, Tim Tooman, Milton Friedman--I would say an average college prof is quite a bit more intellectual than a freshman memorizing the team playbook. 

So add these to some other times I have heard announcers proclaim that WWE is realistic and how NBA players are such role models and you got a show. (I forget his name, center for Spurs and Fellowship of Christian Athletes guy once told how he couldn't get 5 NBA players to join him to promote abstinence with teens.  So many of 'em were playing stud to groupie women.)  

Redskins to Liberty

The name, Oklahoma, means “Red People” in a Native American language.  But no one around here is offended because we don’t have the offensive term “Washington” in our label like the Redskins do.  Let me make a suggestion for a new name, mascot and logo for the beleaguered Redskins. 

            Someone jokingly suggested that the team rename themselves the Washington Tea Party with the logo of the Don’t-Tread-On-Me rattlesnake.  Tempting, but "Tea Party" would offend liberals—maybe give them a heart attack.  Besides Boston would gripe about the Tea Party being their own, since it took place there.  For Washington, we need something more local and a name that is not provocative.  I therefore suggest the Washington Liberty, inspired by homeboy Patrick Henry.  Keep the idea of the Don’t-Tread-On-Me rattler logo since that is historic to the cause of the uniting of the States.  Makes a great logo and possesses the same team colors--gold and red-brown—gold helmet and a red-brown rattler.  Mascot could be a Patrick Henry Patriot.

            Henry would be particularly appropriate.  After all, the Revolution hung in the balance not knowing if the southern states would join New England.  Old men of the house of the commonwealth of Virginia sat debating whether to get involved.  Suddenly a young guy up in gallery shouted, “Is Security so sweet or Peace so dear that it must be bought at the price of Chains or even Slavery?  I know not what others may do, but give me Liberty or give me Death.”  One by one the House members began to say that something had to be done and that Virginia would join the fight.  With Virginia, the cause got Washington, Jefferson, the Virginia sharpshooters, and the rest of the South. Patrick Henry’s outburst was the tipping point of our country.

            Washington Liberty. Now I could root for a team like that.  Go RG3!! 

Go, Thinskins!

The controversy continues. What I can’t figure out is why no one points out that in 2004 they did a poll on full-blood Native Americans and asked if they were insulted over the Redskins name.  90% weren’t.  You’d think that would be the end of the matter, but it keeps going.  The Redskins owner has no intention of changing the name, so you’d think that would end the matter.  But it keeps going. You don’t demand Red Lobster change their name, do you?  Moreover, I remember reading—but I can’t recall source—how some tribe on the east coast called themselves Redskins prior to the coming of Europeans.  Astounding! How could you tell the subtle skin tone when that’s all you were used to?  Plus, a cosmetics field rep once told me that Indians do not have a red tone, but more of a reduced yellow, which makes them somewhat olive, like Italians and Greeks. 

            So who doesn’t like this?  Has to be progressives who think they have discovered a racist moral lapse, and typically, are out to prove their superiority to the world.  But then those same people go around labeling everyone as white or black in an attempt to use group politics (group in Italian is fasci which labels the type of socialism that tried to be popular by using group politics to control people).  I rather liked Rush Limbaugh’s quip that they should rename the team the “Thinskins” in honor of those who don’t like “Redskins”.

            Not the first time controversy has surrounded a Washington team.  The old Washington Bullets were an also-ran until that year they became the only team with a losing record to win the NBA.  Their coach had grown up around opera as a child and he famously said, “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings.” Indeed it wasn’t over for the Bullets who hit a hot streak at the end of the season, made the playoffs and managed to win it all.  Thereafter, the team became the center of attention and the Thinskins made management change the name.  Argus Hamilton said it well.  “Because of controversy surrounding the suggestion of criminal activity in the name of the Washington Bullets, hereafter the team will be known simply as The Bullets.”
           Okay, so it's the Washington Chippewattomies.  Next is to change the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.  Why are we so prejudiced to think that Irish fight?  Why pick on the Irish? Maybe it should be the Formerly Pugnacious Potato-Eaters.  And  maybe the Bethany Mad Swedes should be the Sanity-Challenged Northerners.