Every one associated with this blog played two-hand touch football in the street, probably a little stiickball when you couldn't get onto a real field.
It's funny, I know Dan for his great 3rd and 8 routes on a grass field because I didn't play my street ball in the Sherman Ave Street League. I was a card-carrying member of the Alicia Ave Street League.
Let's see. Jimmy Finch and Brian John lived across from one another and were comperable athletes in all sports, but Robbie Parham was our 3rd and 8 receiver...
With that in mind, you can understand why this headline caught my eye...
Say goodbye to two-hand touch games
The sad thing is, watching high school football out here and all the time coaches expect from these kids in the summer, I know that this is a reality nationwide.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Talking Loud Ain't Saying Nothing
Since we are a sports blog, you'd think we'd comment on the Tim Donaghy scandal.
But we're not big-time journalists, so what are we really supposed to be saying that isn't being said everywhere else over and over and over again?
And since now ESPN only covers sports from a "story lines and scandals" perspective instead of a "what's actually happening on the field" perspective, you'll get plenty of this sort of thing from them.
The only thing I'm going to make sure to dispel is the part of the story that says "NBA refs don't make enough money so that there wouldn't be temptations."
Certainly, NBA refs don't make as much as the athletes. But to say they don't make enough money is ridiculous.
According to Marc Stein's ESPN.com article, entry-level officials make $85k a year. Most with experience earn six figures. They say Donaghy, with 13 years of experience, was making about $200k a year. They also earned more if they worked the playoffs.
Now, keep in mind that basketball season is from November to June. So they get about 4 months off a year. And that they probably don't even work 5 days a week. And they maybe are at their job for four or five hours total.
Let's just get it out there: most of the rest of us don't even earn $85k a year. And we work five days a week with maybe two or three weeks off a year. And we're at our jobs at least 8 hours a day, most likely more.
And most of the rest of us aren't tempted to be criminals.
So this guy makes significantly more money than most, and works significantly less. But his salary is the reason he had to work with the mob to gamble on games?
No sale.
This guy did what he did because he had a gambling problem. And a personal ethics problem. Not because of how much he earned for doing his job.
This guy would have done the same thing even if he earned the same salary as Kobe and KG. So let's stop it with that reason already.
But we're not big-time journalists, so what are we really supposed to be saying that isn't being said everywhere else over and over and over again?
And since now ESPN only covers sports from a "story lines and scandals" perspective instead of a "what's actually happening on the field" perspective, you'll get plenty of this sort of thing from them.
The only thing I'm going to make sure to dispel is the part of the story that says "NBA refs don't make enough money so that there wouldn't be temptations."
Certainly, NBA refs don't make as much as the athletes. But to say they don't make enough money is ridiculous.
According to Marc Stein's ESPN.com article, entry-level officials make $85k a year. Most with experience earn six figures. They say Donaghy, with 13 years of experience, was making about $200k a year. They also earned more if they worked the playoffs.
Now, keep in mind that basketball season is from November to June. So they get about 4 months off a year. And that they probably don't even work 5 days a week. And they maybe are at their job for four or five hours total.
Let's just get it out there: most of the rest of us don't even earn $85k a year. And we work five days a week with maybe two or three weeks off a year. And we're at our jobs at least 8 hours a day, most likely more.
And most of the rest of us aren't tempted to be criminals.
So this guy makes significantly more money than most, and works significantly less. But his salary is the reason he had to work with the mob to gamble on games?
No sale.
This guy did what he did because he had a gambling problem. And a personal ethics problem. Not because of how much he earned for doing his job.
This guy would have done the same thing even if he earned the same salary as Kobe and KG. So let's stop it with that reason already.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Happy Birthday, Big Fella!
Yesterday, our friend and fellow contributor Kris joined the ranks of people in their 30s.
To honor him, I've created the script for a Kris montage. While imagining all of these scenes, be listening to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fWvub_WBho Or just picture Kris as Daniel LaRusso.
Play song now.
Scene 1: Kris as a young child, horseplay with older brothers. Keith and Kyle beat him terribly. Kris cries. Keith and Kyle high-five.
Scene 2: Kris as a ten-year old, in a suit, attending church. He makes a joke. His father smacks him on the back of the head.
Scene 3: Kris as thirteen year old, asleep in Mr. Rosales' English class. Dan wakes him up.
Scene 4: Kris drinking iced tea.
Scene 5: Kris and the old crew playing basketball in the back yard of his parent's house.
Scene 6: Kris and the old crew playing hockey on Sherman Ave. See them pause game to let car go by. Then see game resume. Then see Josh and Dan drop gloves and fight.
Scene 7: Kris drinking iced tea, eating a large sandwich.
Scene 8: Kris, Dan, Josh, Mr. D, Nick, Mrs. D, all watching football in the living room.
Scene 9: A picture of Kris from that time when he shaved only the front part of his head so he looked like he was bald.
Pause song.
Scene 10: Kris with Dan, Greg, Jay, etc. at bird sanctuary. Kris says, "You guys, you guys. Good news. I didn't shit my pants!"
Resume song.
Scene 11: Kris in Pennsylvania at York College. Montage-within-a-montage of college shenanigans scenes.
Scene 12: Kris eating a slice of pizza.
Scene 13: Kris in Kentucky, looking lovingly at Tubby Smith.
Scene 14: Kris in South Carolina, looking lovingly at Renaldo Balkman.
Scene 15: Kris, Dan, and Martin all in South Carolina. All look slightly confused.
Scene 16: A photo-timeline of Kris' face, from a baby through the present day.
Scene 17: Title screen reads: Happy 30th, Kris!
Song fades out.
To honor him, I've created the script for a Kris montage. While imagining all of these scenes, be listening to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fWvub_WBho Or just picture Kris as Daniel LaRusso.
Play song now.
Scene 1: Kris as a young child, horseplay with older brothers. Keith and Kyle beat him terribly. Kris cries. Keith and Kyle high-five.
Scene 2: Kris as a ten-year old, in a suit, attending church. He makes a joke. His father smacks him on the back of the head.
Scene 3: Kris as thirteen year old, asleep in Mr. Rosales' English class. Dan wakes him up.
Scene 4: Kris drinking iced tea.
Scene 5: Kris and the old crew playing basketball in the back yard of his parent's house.
Scene 6: Kris and the old crew playing hockey on Sherman Ave. See them pause game to let car go by. Then see game resume. Then see Josh and Dan drop gloves and fight.
Scene 7: Kris drinking iced tea, eating a large sandwich.
Scene 8: Kris, Dan, Josh, Mr. D, Nick, Mrs. D, all watching football in the living room.
Scene 9: A picture of Kris from that time when he shaved only the front part of his head so he looked like he was bald.
Pause song.
Scene 10: Kris with Dan, Greg, Jay, etc. at bird sanctuary. Kris says, "You guys, you guys. Good news. I didn't shit my pants!"
Resume song.
Scene 11: Kris in Pennsylvania at York College. Montage-within-a-montage of college shenanigans scenes.
Scene 12: Kris eating a slice of pizza.
Scene 13: Kris in Kentucky, looking lovingly at Tubby Smith.
Scene 14: Kris in South Carolina, looking lovingly at Renaldo Balkman.
Scene 15: Kris, Dan, and Martin all in South Carolina. All look slightly confused.
Scene 16: A photo-timeline of Kris' face, from a baby through the present day.
Scene 17: Title screen reads: Happy 30th, Kris!
Song fades out.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
A Musical Interlude
As I’m sure we’re all aware, this one of the least interesting times for sports. All that’s around is midseason baseball, the occasional NBA offseason move (Rashard Lewis! Mo Williams! It’s Faaan-tastic!) and maybe an NFL player or two getting in trouble with John Q Law.
This is not exactly fodder for passionate daily blogging, that’s for sure.
Soon I will be writing about my current relationship with baseball fandom in a new weekly series that I’m working on (ooooh, a Sherman Avenue Block Party tease!) In the meantime, I will again report from the world of music festivals.
This past weekend, I attended the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. It is a three-day festival put on by the big daddy of independent music web sites, Pitchfork Media, held in Union Park, a nice small city park in the West Loop.
Some of the great things about this festival:
- Cost. It was $50 for a three-day pass.
- Location. I can get there by public transportation (the train) from my apartment.
- Setup. The park is pretty small, so it’s easy to get around, meaning we didn’t have to walk 40 miles a day to see all the bands.
- Weather. Lucky this year, as it was gorgeous all weekend, in the mid 70s to low 80s, not at all humid. I went to this festival last year, and it was the hottest weekend of summer, 90s and humid and all around unpleasant.
- Lineup. This is the whole point, right?
Now, I’ll go ahead and state for the record that I am a music snob. A music nerd. An “art house goon” in the words of my colleague Mr. Kris. My tastes are not at all mainstream, and I am proud of it.
So not all of these bands I’m going to talk about will be familiar to some of you. Deal with it (and do yourself a favor and look them up. Act like you know.)
Here are the day-by-day highlights of the festival:
Friday
This night was co-sponsored by All Tomorrow’s Parties, and it featured three bands playing their classic albums from beginning to end: Slint would play Spiderland, GZA would perform Liquid Swords, and then finally Sonic Youth would play Daydream Nation.
It is a really cool concept, and I was really looking forward to this, as these are three of my favorite albums of all time.
In practice, it was a bit of a letdown. Part of the fun of live shows is the excitement of not knowing the set list, that anticipation of “what will they play next” along with the elation when you say “yes! They’re playing that one!” In this case, they were playing the albums in order, so you knew exactly what was coming.
There were also some sound problems. Sonic Youth wasn’t loud enough (people in the crowd were actually yelling “turn it up!”) And GZA fell into the classic trap of live hip-hop, namely that they didn’t do a good enough sound check so the beats sounded terrible, and that there were too many guys yelling on the mic instead of just saying their rhymes.
All in all, though, it was really cool to see all these bands, and to hear all these songs live, a lot of which these bands don’t normally play. There were definitely moments that delivered on the promise, especially Slint doing “Good Morning Captain”, the GZA doing “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” during the encore, and Sonic Youth ripping through “Candle.”
So while it wasn’t as uplifting-ly awesome as I had hoped, it was a solid way to open a weekend festival.
Saturday
Now we are into the heart of the festival, with bands playing all day. Here is what I saw:
Battles. Intricate, experimental, noisy rock. Not only did they sound great, powerful, heavy, but they were interesting to watch as they played around with electronics and processed sounds and switching guitars. Fans of drummers (yes, you, Matt) would have dug this – this was the former drummer from Helmet, and he keeps the whole weirdness grounded.
Mastodon. Metal. Our faces: rocked off. Completely.
Clipse. It was odd to switch from metal to coke-rap, but it fits both the festival’s aesthetic and my own personal taste (this switch could happen if my iPod was on shuffle.) Clipse proved that hip-hop can sound great live, even without a band. “Mr. Me Too”, my favorite song of theirs, had the heads nodding appropriately.
Cat Power. She’s got a great voice, and this was a pleasant set. Though after Battles and Mastodon, it wasn’t moving.
Yoko Ono. All I can say is now I’ve seen Yoko Ono. I suppose if you’ve ever wanted to hear a Japanese woman in her 70s make orgasm noises…well, if you want to hear that, you’ve got a whole other set of problems. Needless to say, we didn’t stick around until she finished.
Sunday
Did I mention that the weather was beautiful? It wasn’t even really hot in the sun, and there was zero humidity. If Chicago had weather like this all the time, no one would even know about San Diego.
The Sea and Cake. These guys, all talented musicians, do the jazzy-rock thing, and their music can always be described as “pleasant.” It’s music that makes you want to sit on a blanket and enjoy the breeze on a sunny day. Perfect for 4pm on a lovely Sunday.
Jamie Lidell. He came out in this odd gold coat and hat, looking like he went shopping at a Sun Ra garage sale. He did this weird white-boy soul mixed with odd one-man band soundscapes, with Theremin. I like the weirdness, and this was strangely compelling.
Stephen Malkmus. He was solo, without the Jicks, just him on guitar. He did more Pavement songs than I would have expected. He played with Bob Nastanovich for a couple of songs off Slanted and Enchanted. If you know Malkmus and Pavement, you’ll think this was very cool.
The New Pornographers. Great pop band. They sound crisp, sharp live. However, they are not playing with Neko Case tonight. The girl in her stead was perfectly fine, but can’t match what Neko typically brings to the table. So this set is merely good.
And then to close out the festival:
De La Soul.
De La Soul is one of my all-time favorites period. My musical tastes are very much shaped by the tape of De La Soul Is Dead, recorded for me by one Martin Kester during freshman year of high school, that I listened to incessantly for about two years (I can still recite just about every lyric on that entire record.)
I’ve seen De La twice before. Both of those times they were pretty good.
This time, though, they were outstanding. They came out with tons of energy, very into what they were doing. They made the crowd move. They knew how to sound right in an outdoor setting. They knew how to not yell into their mics and say their rhymes. They knew how to play around with their songs, mixing things up. They knew to mix in the older songs with the newer songs. They were making each other laugh, in a way that was infectious.
They even brought out Prince Paul as a special guest.
They were on for an hour and a half. All 17,000 people or so that were in this park were dancing, moving, waving their hands, getting their damn hands up, singing along to the choruses. De La has been doing this almost 20 years, and their experience showed in their stage presence and showmanship. Though with the enthusiasm they had, you could be forgiven for mistaking them for younger men.
They could have gone on for another hour, and no one would have left.
I was pretty close to the front of the stage for this show, that now ranks as one of the best I’ve ever seen in my life. Lucky way to end an overall spectacular music weekend.
End musical interlude.
This is not exactly fodder for passionate daily blogging, that’s for sure.
Soon I will be writing about my current relationship with baseball fandom in a new weekly series that I’m working on (ooooh, a Sherman Avenue Block Party tease!) In the meantime, I will again report from the world of music festivals.
This past weekend, I attended the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. It is a three-day festival put on by the big daddy of independent music web sites, Pitchfork Media, held in Union Park, a nice small city park in the West Loop.
Some of the great things about this festival:
- Cost. It was $50 for a three-day pass.
- Location. I can get there by public transportation (the train) from my apartment.
- Setup. The park is pretty small, so it’s easy to get around, meaning we didn’t have to walk 40 miles a day to see all the bands.
- Weather. Lucky this year, as it was gorgeous all weekend, in the mid 70s to low 80s, not at all humid. I went to this festival last year, and it was the hottest weekend of summer, 90s and humid and all around unpleasant.
- Lineup. This is the whole point, right?
Now, I’ll go ahead and state for the record that I am a music snob. A music nerd. An “art house goon” in the words of my colleague Mr. Kris. My tastes are not at all mainstream, and I am proud of it.
So not all of these bands I’m going to talk about will be familiar to some of you. Deal with it (and do yourself a favor and look them up. Act like you know.)
Here are the day-by-day highlights of the festival:
Friday
This night was co-sponsored by All Tomorrow’s Parties, and it featured three bands playing their classic albums from beginning to end: Slint would play Spiderland, GZA would perform Liquid Swords, and then finally Sonic Youth would play Daydream Nation.
It is a really cool concept, and I was really looking forward to this, as these are three of my favorite albums of all time.
In practice, it was a bit of a letdown. Part of the fun of live shows is the excitement of not knowing the set list, that anticipation of “what will they play next” along with the elation when you say “yes! They’re playing that one!” In this case, they were playing the albums in order, so you knew exactly what was coming.
There were also some sound problems. Sonic Youth wasn’t loud enough (people in the crowd were actually yelling “turn it up!”) And GZA fell into the classic trap of live hip-hop, namely that they didn’t do a good enough sound check so the beats sounded terrible, and that there were too many guys yelling on the mic instead of just saying their rhymes.
All in all, though, it was really cool to see all these bands, and to hear all these songs live, a lot of which these bands don’t normally play. There were definitely moments that delivered on the promise, especially Slint doing “Good Morning Captain”, the GZA doing “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” during the encore, and Sonic Youth ripping through “Candle.”
So while it wasn’t as uplifting-ly awesome as I had hoped, it was a solid way to open a weekend festival.
Saturday
Now we are into the heart of the festival, with bands playing all day. Here is what I saw:
Battles. Intricate, experimental, noisy rock. Not only did they sound great, powerful, heavy, but they were interesting to watch as they played around with electronics and processed sounds and switching guitars. Fans of drummers (yes, you, Matt) would have dug this – this was the former drummer from Helmet, and he keeps the whole weirdness grounded.
Mastodon. Metal. Our faces: rocked off. Completely.
Clipse. It was odd to switch from metal to coke-rap, but it fits both the festival’s aesthetic and my own personal taste (this switch could happen if my iPod was on shuffle.) Clipse proved that hip-hop can sound great live, even without a band. “Mr. Me Too”, my favorite song of theirs, had the heads nodding appropriately.
Cat Power. She’s got a great voice, and this was a pleasant set. Though after Battles and Mastodon, it wasn’t moving.
Yoko Ono. All I can say is now I’ve seen Yoko Ono. I suppose if you’ve ever wanted to hear a Japanese woman in her 70s make orgasm noises…well, if you want to hear that, you’ve got a whole other set of problems. Needless to say, we didn’t stick around until she finished.
Sunday
Did I mention that the weather was beautiful? It wasn’t even really hot in the sun, and there was zero humidity. If Chicago had weather like this all the time, no one would even know about San Diego.
The Sea and Cake. These guys, all talented musicians, do the jazzy-rock thing, and their music can always be described as “pleasant.” It’s music that makes you want to sit on a blanket and enjoy the breeze on a sunny day. Perfect for 4pm on a lovely Sunday.
Jamie Lidell. He came out in this odd gold coat and hat, looking like he went shopping at a Sun Ra garage sale. He did this weird white-boy soul mixed with odd one-man band soundscapes, with Theremin. I like the weirdness, and this was strangely compelling.
Stephen Malkmus. He was solo, without the Jicks, just him on guitar. He did more Pavement songs than I would have expected. He played with Bob Nastanovich for a couple of songs off Slanted and Enchanted. If you know Malkmus and Pavement, you’ll think this was very cool.
The New Pornographers. Great pop band. They sound crisp, sharp live. However, they are not playing with Neko Case tonight. The girl in her stead was perfectly fine, but can’t match what Neko typically brings to the table. So this set is merely good.
And then to close out the festival:
De La Soul.
De La Soul is one of my all-time favorites period. My musical tastes are very much shaped by the tape of De La Soul Is Dead, recorded for me by one Martin Kester during freshman year of high school, that I listened to incessantly for about two years (I can still recite just about every lyric on that entire record.)
I’ve seen De La twice before. Both of those times they were pretty good.
This time, though, they were outstanding. They came out with tons of energy, very into what they were doing. They made the crowd move. They knew how to sound right in an outdoor setting. They knew how to not yell into their mics and say their rhymes. They knew how to play around with their songs, mixing things up. They knew to mix in the older songs with the newer songs. They were making each other laugh, in a way that was infectious.
They even brought out Prince Paul as a special guest.
They were on for an hour and a half. All 17,000 people or so that were in this park were dancing, moving, waving their hands, getting their damn hands up, singing along to the choruses. De La has been doing this almost 20 years, and their experience showed in their stage presence and showmanship. Though with the enthusiasm they had, you could be forgiven for mistaking them for younger men.
They could have gone on for another hour, and no one would have left.
I was pretty close to the front of the stage for this show, that now ranks as one of the best I’ve ever seen in my life. Lucky way to end an overall spectacular music weekend.
End musical interlude.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
I hate all of yous
I have been out of town recently and obviously have not kept up with this tremendously popular and insighful website that I helped create. And now that I am back I wanted to go check out what I missed.
Dan I agree with everything you said about Jerome James. I love the Eddie Lee Wilkins reference too.
Then I searched farther down and read the old school lyrics segment and I must say somebody owes me 3 minutes of my fucking life back. That was the worst discussion ever, in the history of the spokenor written word, EVER!!!!!
Now on to more important things, I am here to stay and will be writing much more as the weeks pass. One thing I want our fans to be on the lookout for is our in depth preview and analysis of both the NFL and college football, including me naming the 2017 Heisman Trophy winner (oh that's going to be a doozy).
Dan I agree with everything you said about Jerome James. I love the Eddie Lee Wilkins reference too.
Then I searched farther down and read the old school lyrics segment and I must say somebody owes me 3 minutes of my fucking life back. That was the worst discussion ever, in the history of the spokenor written word, EVER!!!!!
Now on to more important things, I am here to stay and will be writing much more as the weeks pass. One thing I want our fans to be on the lookout for is our in depth preview and analysis of both the NFL and college football, including me naming the 2017 Heisman Trophy winner (oh that's going to be a doozy).
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
How's That Now?
Howard Beck of the New York Times is a great basketball writer. I enjoy his coverage of the New York Knicks more than I enjoy the coverage in any of the other New York papers.
That said, this line, towards the bottom of his article about the Knicks summer league team made my eyes pop out of my head:
[Randolph] Morris is stuck behind [Eddy] Curry at center and [Zach] Randolph and [David] Lee at power forward. But if he progresses quickly, he could make Jerome James expendable. (emphasis mine)
He could make Jerome James expendable?
Could?
Jerome James was expendable the minute he signed (a five year, $30 million deal, after he played a total of four good playoff games against a team with no center. We pause to raise a toast to the incomparable genius of Isiah.)
The chairs that rookie prospects play against in those pre-draft workouts make Jerome James expendable.
A corned beef sandwich from Katz's Deli makes Jerome James expendable.
Jerome James is not only expendable, he is execrable. He is excrement in basketball shorts.
I would rather see Eddie Lee Wilkins on the court, as he is TODAY, than to see Jerome James play one more New York Knick minute.
I would rather see a baby get punched in the face than see Jerome James play basketball.
I would rather see Oprah and Al Roker make love on a beanbag chair than see Jerome James on the Knicks bench.
I would rather...well, you get the idea.
Could make Jerome James expendable? Come on, Howard Beck. Come on.
That said, this line, towards the bottom of his article about the Knicks summer league team made my eyes pop out of my head:
[Randolph] Morris is stuck behind [Eddy] Curry at center and [Zach] Randolph and [David] Lee at power forward. But if he progresses quickly, he could make Jerome James expendable. (emphasis mine)
He could make Jerome James expendable?
Could?
Jerome James was expendable the minute he signed (a five year, $30 million deal, after he played a total of four good playoff games against a team with no center. We pause to raise a toast to the incomparable genius of Isiah.)
The chairs that rookie prospects play against in those pre-draft workouts make Jerome James expendable.
A corned beef sandwich from Katz's Deli makes Jerome James expendable.
Jerome James is not only expendable, he is execrable. He is excrement in basketball shorts.
I would rather see Eddie Lee Wilkins on the court, as he is TODAY, than to see Jerome James play one more New York Knick minute.
I would rather see a baby get punched in the face than see Jerome James play basketball.
I would rather see Oprah and Al Roker make love on a beanbag chair than see Jerome James on the Knicks bench.
I would rather...well, you get the idea.
Could make Jerome James expendable? Come on, Howard Beck. Come on.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Old School Wednesday
A wise man once said, a day late is a dollar short, or something like that, but to more accurately paraphrase Prof. Gerald Lambeau, The gauntlet has been thrown down and the faculty has answered with vigor.
Wasn't expected J-Live to get by, but really I just like his lyrics and all of these are coming off the top of my head. Very little to no research is going into this endeavor.
Needless to say, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve. Nothing like El Duque, but hopefully enough to keep the entertainment factor at a high...
And now, on with the show:
Wasn't expected J-Live to get by, but really I just like his lyrics and all of these are coming off the top of my head. Very little to no research is going into this endeavor.
Needless to say, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve. Nothing like El Duque, but hopefully enough to keep the entertainment factor at a high...
And now, on with the show:
Do you have any idea who you facing?
Just something about my shit, you'll never figure out
Too hot, burn in my mouth, that's why I spit it out
It must be real hard for y'all to listen
and it's sad niggas is too broke to pay attention.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Batting second, number 6...
It's funny that this topic was started by a Canadian, but the point has been made.
I was thinking how a site of four dedicated sports fans had posted so little about the sport I know we all love. I take this to mean the demise of the Yankees has kept mouths closed as we all wait for the eventual late-season run.
But to look to the future would be to ignore the past and since I'm all about that, Old School Wednesday and all, I will share thoughts I published six years ago that still hold true to this day.
THIS JUST IN: Independence, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. When I think of the Fourth of July, these aren’t the things that enter my mind. Maybe it’s because I think about these things everyday, therefore I don’t use the yearly reminder to reminisce.
I’m not a big fan of holidays. My sister was born on Halloween and I was born on Christmas Eve, so holidays have always had a different significance for me. I see them more as an opportunity for people to relax and take the day off. Some people use holidays as an excuse to drink, like St. Patrick’s Day, but I’m sure Patrick didn’t want people to throw up green in his name. Well, I don’t need an excuse to drink and I relax every day. So exactly what is the Fourth of July to me?
The last couple of years, it’s been a television treat, with baseball games from Philadelphia to Phoenix. They play in the afternoon, just like they used to before I was born; when baseball was like shooting fireworks on the Fourth. In my neighborhood, kids would fight with bottle rockets and M-80’s, then play on the same team the next day.
Maybe baseball was beaten into our heads. Maybe there were too many fathers/coaches in my town. Guys that made sure their son would win by teaching the other kids in the neighborhood, kids like me who’s father wasn’t there. But we would have played anyway, regardless of outside influences. Similar to the Dominican Republic, we didn’t need organized leagues to play in; the street was good enough.
When I think of the Fourth of July, I first think of baseball. Other thoughts might squeak in, but it’s only temporary…
Now my thoughts are how I can sneak away and listen to Mets games on my XM radio, or can I find enough of an excuse to sit at my computer and wait for updates on GameDay online. Yes, I think of my wife, my daughter and the other on the way, but it always comes back to baseball and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I was thinking how a site of four dedicated sports fans had posted so little about the sport I know we all love. I take this to mean the demise of the Yankees has kept mouths closed as we all wait for the eventual late-season run.
But to look to the future would be to ignore the past and since I'm all about that, Old School Wednesday and all, I will share thoughts I published six years ago that still hold true to this day.
THIS JUST IN: Independence, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. When I think of the Fourth of July, these aren’t the things that enter my mind. Maybe it’s because I think about these things everyday, therefore I don’t use the yearly reminder to reminisce.
I’m not a big fan of holidays. My sister was born on Halloween and I was born on Christmas Eve, so holidays have always had a different significance for me. I see them more as an opportunity for people to relax and take the day off. Some people use holidays as an excuse to drink, like St. Patrick’s Day, but I’m sure Patrick didn’t want people to throw up green in his name. Well, I don’t need an excuse to drink and I relax every day. So exactly what is the Fourth of July to me?
The last couple of years, it’s been a television treat, with baseball games from Philadelphia to Phoenix. They play in the afternoon, just like they used to before I was born; when baseball was like shooting fireworks on the Fourth. In my neighborhood, kids would fight with bottle rockets and M-80’s, then play on the same team the next day.
Maybe baseball was beaten into our heads. Maybe there were too many fathers/coaches in my town. Guys that made sure their son would win by teaching the other kids in the neighborhood, kids like me who’s father wasn’t there. But we would have played anyway, regardless of outside influences. Similar to the Dominican Republic, we didn’t need organized leagues to play in; the street was good enough.
When I think of the Fourth of July, I first think of baseball. Other thoughts might squeak in, but it’s only temporary…
Now my thoughts are how I can sneak away and listen to Mets games on my XM radio, or can I find enough of an excuse to sit at my computer and wait for updates on GameDay online. Yes, I think of my wife, my daughter and the other on the way, but it always comes back to baseball and I wouldn't have it any other way.
On Baseball and America
As we celebrate the birth of our nation, America, our Independence, we pause to think about baseball.
Baseball, that sport so deep soaked in tradition, so part of our cultural fabric, so important a part of the coming of age of the vast majority of American males (and ever more so females as well.)
Baseball, which can stir in us passions and nostalgia that maybe we didn’t even know we had in us. Which can inspire and transfix and cast a spell that only works best when the days are long and hot and well suited for a game that moves in its own rhythm, out of our usual conceptions of time.
I recently went to a game at Wrigley Field, a game between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins that was of no particular importance. It had been a while, maybe a year, maybe two, since I had gone to see a game in person.
The thought that struck me instantly was that I had simply forgotten how much I love watching baseball. Love, a word I use not lightly. Memories of playing as a youth flooded back, the successes, the failures, the triumphs, the humiliations. Memories of other professional games I attended, too. Of learning to keep score, of taking in the atmosphere, of feeling oddly compelled to eat peanuts.
I’m reminded that in the book I’m currently reading, “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville” by Bernard Henri-Levy, he talks about visiting Cooperstown, to examine, as he describes it, “this sport that establishes people's identities, becomes part of their imaginative world — almost the American civic and patriotic religion, this baseball.”
As for the baseball Hall of Fame, and excuse the long excerpt, but I find it too perfect to paraphrase:
This is not a museum, it's a church. These are not rooms, they're chapels. The visitors themselves aren't really visitors but devotees, meditative and fervent. I hear one of them asking, in a low voice, if it's true that the greatest champions are buried here—beneath our feet, as if we were at Westminster Abbey, or in the Imperial Crypt beneath the Kapuziner Church in Vienna. And every effort is made to sanctify Cooperstown itself, this cradle of the national religion, this new Nazareth, this simple little town that nothing prepared for its election and yet which was present at the birth of the thing. An edifying history, told in the exhibition rooms and the brochures, of the scientific commission created at the beginning of the twentieth century by a former baseball player who became a millionaire and launched a nationwide contest on the theme "Send us your oldest baseball memory." He collected the testimony of an old engineer from Denver who in 1839, in Cooperstown, in front of the tailor's shop, saw Abner Doubleday, later a Northern general and a Civil War hero, the man who would fire the first shot against the Southerners, explain the game to passersby, set down the rules, and, in fact, baptize it.
The only problem, Tim Wiles, the museum's director of research, tells me, is that Abner Doubleday, in that famous year of 1839, wasn't in Cooperstown but at West Point; that the old engineer, who was supposed to have played that first game with him, had been just five years old; that the word "baseball" had already appeared in 1815, in a novel by Jane Austen, and in 1748, in a private letter found in England; that a baseball scholar, an eminent member of the Society for American Baseball Research, had just discovered, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an even older trace; that the Egyptians had, it seems, their own form of the game. The only problem, he says, is that we have always known — since 1939, in fact, since the museum's opening — that baseball is a sport of the people, and even if, like all sports of the people, it suffers from a lack of written archives, its origin is age-old. The only problem is that this history is a myth, and every year millions of men and women come, like me, to visit a town devoted entirely to its celebration.
So as we celebrate this week, as we eat and drink and make much merriment and ogle the fireworks, we can think a little about baseball and our country. How they are intertwined, both sharing a devotion to myths and to legends, and how each are perpetually fueled by cherished memories and a sometimes naïve optimism about what brought us where we are.
Happy Fourth!
Baseball, that sport so deep soaked in tradition, so part of our cultural fabric, so important a part of the coming of age of the vast majority of American males (and ever more so females as well.)
Baseball, which can stir in us passions and nostalgia that maybe we didn’t even know we had in us. Which can inspire and transfix and cast a spell that only works best when the days are long and hot and well suited for a game that moves in its own rhythm, out of our usual conceptions of time.
I recently went to a game at Wrigley Field, a game between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins that was of no particular importance. It had been a while, maybe a year, maybe two, since I had gone to see a game in person.
The thought that struck me instantly was that I had simply forgotten how much I love watching baseball. Love, a word I use not lightly. Memories of playing as a youth flooded back, the successes, the failures, the triumphs, the humiliations. Memories of other professional games I attended, too. Of learning to keep score, of taking in the atmosphere, of feeling oddly compelled to eat peanuts.
I’m reminded that in the book I’m currently reading, “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville” by Bernard Henri-Levy, he talks about visiting Cooperstown, to examine, as he describes it, “this sport that establishes people's identities, becomes part of their imaginative world — almost the American civic and patriotic religion, this baseball.”
As for the baseball Hall of Fame, and excuse the long excerpt, but I find it too perfect to paraphrase:
This is not a museum, it's a church. These are not rooms, they're chapels. The visitors themselves aren't really visitors but devotees, meditative and fervent. I hear one of them asking, in a low voice, if it's true that the greatest champions are buried here—beneath our feet, as if we were at Westminster Abbey, or in the Imperial Crypt beneath the Kapuziner Church in Vienna. And every effort is made to sanctify Cooperstown itself, this cradle of the national religion, this new Nazareth, this simple little town that nothing prepared for its election and yet which was present at the birth of the thing. An edifying history, told in the exhibition rooms and the brochures, of the scientific commission created at the beginning of the twentieth century by a former baseball player who became a millionaire and launched a nationwide contest on the theme "Send us your oldest baseball memory." He collected the testimony of an old engineer from Denver who in 1839, in Cooperstown, in front of the tailor's shop, saw Abner Doubleday, later a Northern general and a Civil War hero, the man who would fire the first shot against the Southerners, explain the game to passersby, set down the rules, and, in fact, baptize it.
The only problem, Tim Wiles, the museum's director of research, tells me, is that Abner Doubleday, in that famous year of 1839, wasn't in Cooperstown but at West Point; that the old engineer, who was supposed to have played that first game with him, had been just five years old; that the word "baseball" had already appeared in 1815, in a novel by Jane Austen, and in 1748, in a private letter found in England; that a baseball scholar, an eminent member of the Society for American Baseball Research, had just discovered, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an even older trace; that the Egyptians had, it seems, their own form of the game. The only problem, he says, is that we have always known — since 1939, in fact, since the museum's opening — that baseball is a sport of the people, and even if, like all sports of the people, it suffers from a lack of written archives, its origin is age-old. The only problem is that this history is a myth, and every year millions of men and women come, like me, to visit a town devoted entirely to its celebration.
So as we celebrate this week, as we eat and drink and make much merriment and ogle the fireworks, we can think a little about baseball and our country. How they are intertwined, both sharing a devotion to myths and to legends, and how each are perpetually fueled by cherished memories and a sometimes naïve optimism about what brought us where we are.
Happy Fourth!
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Live Draft Chat
Here are some highlights and even lowlights of our first ever
ANDREW (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
We like the Durant pick, just not the analysis
KRIS (
KRIS (
JOSH (
Horford is the pick, but could they have Amare instead?
ANDREW (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
JOSH (
JOSH (
KRIS (
KRIS (
JOSH (
JOSH (
The Great Yi Jianlian
KRIS (
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
JOSH (
KRIS (
Dick Vitale is on the screen
ANDREW (
JOSH (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
The Bulls are on the clock, and we disagree about their pick
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
JOSH (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
KRIS (8:15:56 PM): you get Noah and you have the greatest shot blocking trio in the history of basketball, Thomas, Wallace and Noah but you cant make anything but a dunk
ANDREW (
JOSH (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
Someone likes Rachel Nichols
KRIS (
ANDREW (
JOSH (
JOSH (
KRIS (
Stuart Scott,
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
JOSH (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
Philly has to take
ANDREW (
JOSH (
KRIS (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
JOSH (
KRIS (
JOSH (
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
I hate the small school guy
JOSH (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
Crittendon is off the board
ANDREW (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
JOSH (
KRIS (
road and be like who the hell is Rodney Stuckey
JOSH (
JOSH (
brochures
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
JOSH (
KRIS (
JOSH (
KRIS (
JOSH (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
JOSH (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
KRIS (
KRIS (
KRIS (
KRIS (
the draft
KRIS (9:42:57 PM): i watch this crap every year and I understand it less and less....and now my migraine is beginning to kick in as we get closer to the Knick’s pick
ANDREW (
KRIS (9:44:08 PM): Okay, I will make a Bilas like definitive statement; If the Bobcats don’t take a 2 guard with this pick they need to dissolve the franchise, and by 2 guard I mean Byars, Almond, Tucker or Fernandez
KRIS (
JOSH (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
KRIS (
KRIS (
KRIS (
KRIS (
JOSH (
KRIS (
KRIS (
KRIS (
JOSH (
KRIS (
KRIS (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
KRIS (
JOSH (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
KRIS (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
JOSH (
ANDREW (
KRIS (
KRIS (
ANDREW (
JOSH (
KRIS (
JOSH (
ANDREW (
JOSH (
KRIS (
Well that is about all we had for the chat. Hopefully it provided some insight and even a laugh or two. I would like to try and do this again for some big events, maybe the first Monday night NFL game or something. By the way, I still hate what the Knicks did………..WILSON FUCKING CHANDLER!!!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
