leave me there before latest realignment round it’s just weird – greed wins
Drop me at the beginning of the College Football Playoff era and leave me there. In my mind, college football had reached the best version of itself. The conferences were aligned perfectly. Geography mattered, and regional pride was supreme. There was a functional way to create an intriguing postseason and properly crown a national champion without subjectivity. And upsets, the crown jewel of this sport, still mattered. It was college football nirvana.
We get that for one more glorious year before greed wins.
That’s the hardest part about this latest and irreversible round of realignment. It wasn’t done to improve the product or serve the consumer. It’s just weird. It removes the essence of regionality, and nobody likes it. Really, this whole thing just stinks — even if we can admit that we will see some new and exciting matchups in the near future.
I am reminded of the movie ‘The Wind and the Lion’ with Brian Keith having a wonderful time as President Theodore Roosevelt and Sean Connery as Desert Sheik with a scots accent.
At one point, the Connery character talks to one of his lieutenants and says:
What has become of honor, respect? Everything is changing, drifting away on the wind. It’s been a bad year. The next one will probably be worse.
it is not funny but it’s hard not to chuckle fortnight for fight night
As Guardians broadcaster Tom Hamilton intoned, “Down goes Anderson!”
Tom Hamilton’s call of the Jose Ramirez-Tim Anderson fight on Cleveland radio is the stuff of legend.
“DOWN GOES ANDERSON! DOWN GOES ANDERSON!”
“It’s not funny,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said after the game, “but coming in (to the clubhouse) and listening to Hammy, it’s hard not to chuckle.”
Call me soft but I think Anderson should be benched by the league for two weeks. A fortnight for a fight night. He should get seven games for starting it and another seven for losing. That’ll teach him to square up like he’s Sonny Liston.
I don’t follow baseball like I used to but I do follow baseball writing.
Anyone who can get the word fortnight into a story about baseball deserves recognition.
I found it fascinating that shoving fortnight into the google, I found myself on webpages where the discussion about that the word FORTNITE, which was the name of a game that took over the world wide web for its 15 minutes of fame a bit ago, was based on a centuries old REAL WORLD, fortnight.
This discussion pointed out that it meant 2 weeks or 14 days and writers like Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain all used the word FORTNIGHT in their writing and it HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH the game!
How ’bout that!
But I digress.
Aside from that, Mr. Greenberg’s chronicling of the downs and downs of this season by Chicago White Sox infielder Tim Anderson is, well, funny.
Fighting in any sport is not to be condoned.
But …
But sometimes you get to look past the fight to what was going on before the fight and, well, it’s that quote from Guardians manager Terry Francona said after the game, “it’s not funny, … [but] it’s hard not to chuckle.”
was an actual need bigger, bigger, bigger, best? wasn’t that at all
When I was a kid growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the 1970’s, fall afternoons meant football.
Michigan football.
University of Michigan football.
It was hard to miss.
My Dad was into what was called Hi-Fi or High Fidelity sound systems and he had wired our whole house and with a click of a button, his sound system would play in any room, or as he liked it, all of the rooms of the house.
Just before noon on Saturday’s he would tune into WUOM Ann Arbor in time to hear the words, “The Wolverines are on the air” and then the deep bass of the voice of Michigan Football (for UOM listeners) Tom Hemingway would welcome us either to Ann Arbor or West Lafayette, Indiana or Champaign, Illinois or wherever Michigan was playing that day and the broadcast of the game would be the backdrop to another fall weekend afternoon.
Every week.
The format of the broadcast more or less got embedded into your subconscious and when game breaks were made, the same breaks used year after year, you could recite them along with the broadcast.
One game break always came at the end of the 3rd quarter.
“Highlight films of todays game” it would start, “will be available this …” and a list of the locations and times across the state where fans could go and watch FILMS … 16mm movies of the latest game.
My memory says that Grand Rapids fans could go the University Club at Noon on Thursdays.
I never knew anyone who went to see these films but that was what fans had to do to WATCH the Wolverines.
Unless, by chance, the game was TV.
Back then there was only one or two college football games on any Saturday.
Televised games were seen as so powerful a recruiting tool that every team was limited to just two appearances a year with an extra game every other year so no team could be on more than 5 times in two years.
If you wanted to see the Wolverines on a weekly basis, it was game films.
It was game films, OR, you went to see the game.
There was time when going to see a Michigan Football game, or any professional athletic team or concert was all about the event.
Over 100,000 people would pack themselves into Michigan Stadium to do one thing.
Watch a football game.
100,000 and everyone, for the most part, focused on what was going down on the field.
Talk about unity.
Talk about one out of many.
Talk about a shared community experience.
One of my college roommate’s was from Ann Arbor and his folks had a set of 4 seasons tickets and in the years after college, I would often get a call and be invited to a game.
One year, due to wedding, my buddy’s folks couldn’t go to a game and the tickets were offered to me and my wife.
It was the 1991 Michigan – Notre Dame game.
As an aside, we got to our seats and I greeted most of the fans sitting around us.
My wife asked, ‘How do you know all these people?’
I told her that these were seats that Scott’s (my roommate) Parents had for 20 years and everyone who sat there knew everyone.
I then added, ” … and they know if you are NOT supposed to sit here.”
A guy in front of us turned around and caught my wife’s eye and with a big smile, nodded a very firm agreement.
This was the game that is known for a 4th quarter touchdown catch that won Desmond Howard the Heisman Trophy.
One play that won the most valuable player of the YEAR award?
One play in the first game of the year that won the most valuable player of the YEAR award?
YUP!
And I can see it like it was yesterday.
Up 17-14 late in the 4th QTR with 4th down and ONE FOOT at the ND 25, Michigan went for it.
This alone brought 110,000 people to their feet.
Quarterback Elvis Grbac dropped back to pass and looked right, cocked his arm, the crowd held its breath … and pulled his arm down.
The crowd exhaled, thinking the pass play was gone, but maybe maybe maybe, Elvis might fall over and get one foot for the 1st down.
Then Grbac half turned and leaned over so far backwards he almost fell and threw the ball hard and high.
And the crowd again sucked in all the air in Michigan Stadium.
The disappoint of Michigan fans rippled through the crowd like a wave that broke against the jubilation of any ND fan in the crowd.
With the ball in the air going towards no one and no where but the empty corner of the end zone, there was blur along the right sideline.
Like a genie out of a bottle or the sudden appearance of a ghost, teeny tiny #21, Desmond Howard flew and I mean flew, and I mean from the 15 yard line to the corner of the end zone, little Desmond FLEW, parallel to the astro turf surface, flew, never more then 3 feet off the ground.
Now there was no oxygen in that stadium.
Time stopped.
It was like those flashback scenes in a movie where what I saw was like still pictures played in fast succession instead of real life in real time.
The stadium, 110,000 people, for a split second went silent.
The blur that was little Desmond met up the football and he caught the ball with both hands, hugged to his body and fell into the end zone.
And that place exploded!
Everyone as one, focused on that one single second, that moment in time, all part of one collective thought.
Pandemonium, as the papers would report, ensued.
There was no waiting for a review.
There was no need for any other decision by a ref other than TOUCHDOWN.
There was no replay in the stadium.
My memory tells me that is how it happened and that is good enough for me.
The game day experience.
What, really, WHAT could be better than that?
30 Years later, Michigan has the answer.
Bigger, better TV scoreboards in the Stadium.
According to a story in the Detroit Free Press, Michigan is putting the final touches on what will be the 3rd largest scoreboards in the country.
Oh Boy!
According to the story, “This wasn’t ‘how do we spend more money, how do we go bigger, bigger, bigger,’ it wasn’t that at all.”
It was this paragraph that gave me pause.
As for the function of the boards, the plan is to use the additional space to have more in-depth stats available to fans during games, as well as show other games’ scores more consistently, to compete with the at-home experience.
This was done, the giant scoreboards, to compete with the at-home experience.
Big College Sports on the Big Stage in the Biggest Stadium needs the BIGGEST scoreboards to compete with the at-home experience.
The story goes on, “We’re really trying to prioritize what’s done for the fans,” said Jake Stocker, U-M’s director of game presentation and fan experience. “Using this new technology to make it a better fan experience, knowing that people can’t always connect to their cell phones at Michigan Stadium, so we’re giving them that experience.”
Michigan has a Director of Game Presentation and Fan Experience?
I guess they do and he said “Using this new technology to make it a better fan experience, knowing that people can’t always connect to their cell phones at Michigan Stadium.”
Isn’t there anyplace, ANYPLACE on EARTH, where the ability to connect to a cell phone takes the 2nd seat?
Certainly not at a college football game.
To me, for the Leaders and Best, bigger bigger bigger, doesn’t add up to best.
The game I went to in 1991 had over 100,000 focused on one thing.
Today, the Director of Game Presentation and Fan Experience wants you to be at Michigan Stadium and fell like you never left home.
Really.
Then why leave home?
To paraphrase George C Scott in the movie Patton, “God, how I hate the 21st Century.“
but he disappeared absorbed, one of multitude who were not chosen
Re-reading Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, I came across this bit where Mr. Kinsella writes:
“Pour it on ’em, Tony,” we roared, and he tipped his cap to us as he walked off the field after pitching out of a jam. He won the game, and for years I looked for his name on some big-league roster, but he disappeared, absorbed into the heart of America. One of the multitude who was not chosen.
And it put me in mind of a ball player I saw pitch.
Growing up in the State of Michigan, my buddies and me had a tradition of going to the 2nd game of the season to see the Detroit Tigers.
Opening day in Detroit was like any opening day for any performance medium and tickets were hard to get.
But the 2nd day was sparsely attended and tickets easy to get.
In 1987, the Tigers played the New York Yankees.
For myself, this game stands out as we would get seats in the front row of the famous short porch right field upper deck of Tiger Stadium where we were right over the head of the right fielder.
Dave Winfield was playing right for the Yankees and he knelt down to tie his shoes.
I looked down and yelled, ‘Dave, they’re PITCHING.’
Winfield jumps up and looks and realizes he’d been played and he swiveled his head to look up at me, glare, and shake his head.
The Tigers took 5 runs off of Tommy John and a pitcher named Charles Hudson came in as a reliver for the Yankee’s.
I had never heard of Charles Hudson before.
But I was struck by the fact that he LOOKED LIKE A BALL PLAYER.
He pitched a nice game and the Yankees came back and won the game 6-5.
Hudson would go on to appear in 35 games that year with Yankees with an 11-7 record.
And I never heard about him again.
For me, when I heard the lines, One of the multitude who was not chosen, I thought of Charles Hudson.
Which led to the google and thebaseballcube.com where every moment of every game and career is recorded.
Hudson had a 12 year career with 5 years in the minors and 7 in the majors including appearances in a league championship series and a World Series with the 1983 Phillies.
Hudson would win 50 games in the majors.
His last year, 1989, was with the Tigers.
Sad to report that according to wikipedia: In August 1989, Hudson, while driving drunk, crashed his Mercury Cougar into a telephone pole in a Detroit suburb. Hudson broke his left leg and his right knee needed reconstructive surgery. Hudson would later discuss how he began to drink as he struggled in his baseball career.
In the book Shoeless Joe as in the movie, Field of Dreams, the career of one Archibald Wright ‘Moonlight’ Graham is part of the plot.
Graham was truly one of the multitude who was not chosen.
In 1905, at age 28, he played in one inning of one game for the New York Giants.
Never got to bat.
So close.
One of the multitude who was not chosen.
Hudson played for 7 years in the majors.
Still, One of the multitude who was not chosen.
I walk through bookstores and think of the libraries filled with books by authors unremembered and unread.
Other members of the multitude who was not chosen.
just give it all back go home, then you don’t have to do that anymore
Right from the beginning, Palmer got celebrity — he understood it and embraced it.
When Curtis Strange — who always bridled at being a public figure — became the No. 1 player in the world in the 1980s, he complained to Palmer, who had been close to Strange’s father, about the responsibilities that came with stardom: signing autographs, dealing with the media, spending time with sponsors.
Palmer shrugged and said, “You don’t have to do any of that if you don’t want to.”
Strange was stunned. “I don’t?” he said.
“How do I not do any of that?”
“Go home,” Palmer answered.
“Don’t get paid to play golf for a living.
Don’t take money from sponsors.
Don’t get paid to wear a shirt or a hat or play with a certain kind of golf club or golf ball.
Just give all that back and go home.
Then you don’t have to do any of that anymore.”
Adapted from The Classic Palmer by John Feinstein (Stewart, Tabori and Chang (April 1, 2012).
I am not a golfer.
I am more of public danger on a golf course than a participant.
My Dad took me along to a driving range when I was in High School and showed me the basics of the grip and swing and such and then had me take a swing at a ball.
I put my head done, having read once, in an article by Alistair Cooke, how Jack Nicolaus’ Coach would stand behind Nicolaus and hold his head for hours so he would keep looking down when he swung, and I swung as hard as I could at the ball.
I followed through with my swing, hit the ball, and kept my head down.
Then I brought my arms down and noticed something.
The club was missing.
Using the golf club grip with my left thumb inside my right fist, I managed, without noticing, to let the club slip through my hands and fly up and away somewhere.
I turned to my Dad and held out my hands.
Look Dad, No Club!
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
We both tried to hunker down and look up at the same time.
The club came down to earth about 10 yards away on the concrete sidewalk with a whanga whanga whanga that attracted a lot of attention.
I haven’t picked up a club since.
But I have always been aware of golf.
Even before cable TV, golf was on TV a lot.
Growing up when I did, I would have watched algebra on TV if it was the only thing on so in the spring before baseball season started, if you were going to watch Sunday afternoon TV, you watched golf.
It was the only thing on.
It is an interesting historical aspect of televised Golf that it got terrible ratings.
Except among one group.
And that one group being those people in sales who bought TV advertising time.
Those people loved golf.
Playing golf made them happy and expansive.
Watching golf made them happy and expansive.
TV Stations were happy to make them happy.
So TV Sales people played a lot of golf.
And TV networks broadcast a lot of golf.
And we watched a lot of golf.
And the names of the golfers became familiar to us as household items.
And no name more familiar than Arnold Palmer.
The other night I was thinking about a passage of writing by the author, John Feinstein.
I enjoy Mr. Feinstein’s writing.
He found a formula that works and does a good job making it work.
His first book, A Season on the Brink, is an inside look at the Indiana University basketball team and Coach Bobby Knight during the 1985-86 season.
I love this book.
In 1985, my team, Michigan, had a pretty good team that won the Big Ten and Mr. Feinstein goes into detail on the two games between Michigan and Indiana.
Michigan won both games.
Michigan winning at Indiana is fairly rare in my lifetime.
Michigan blew Indiana out of Crisler Arena 80-52 to win the Big Ten in the final game of the season.
Both games are wonderfully described in Mr. Feinstein’s book.
But I digress.
As I said, I was looking for another Feinstein book when I came across his book, The Classic Palmer.
I really enjoyed Mr. Feinstein’s book on golf.
“A Long Walk Ruined.”
So I took a chance on the Classic Palmer.
It isn’t a long book.
Took me about 30 minutes to read.
And I came away with the feeling that Arnold Palmer was a good guy who happened to be good at golf, really good, and he let his ability take him where it would and enjoyed the ride.
I remembered a conversation about football I had once, that it was a game that used to be played by guys who were athletic enough to play football.
Now it is like we have football players, who through specialized training, medical prowess and determination, also happen to be guys.
I mean when I read the book Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile by Nate Jackson and Mr. Jackson described how he had to give some blood so a specialized super glue could be created just for him that would be kept frozen until he needed a muscle glued back together in way that that his body wouldn’t reject, well sir …
AGAIN I digress.
Back to Mr. Palmer, I came across the passage quoted above.
I read it a couple of times.
I thought of soooooooooooo many notables in today’s news cycle.
The whining.
The moaning.
The whiny moaning.
About being a celebrity.
Don’t whine.
Don’t moan.
Just give it all back.
Then you won’t have anything to whine and moan about.
On the other hand, this clearly is the case between fame and celebrity.
Most golfers are just that.
Celebraties.
People who are celebrated.
And celebrations come to end.
Mr. Palmer was famous.
Fame has a way of sticking around.
You can’t go out to eat and order a Tiger Woods, a Kardashian or even a Trump now can you?
No Haiku For You 