10.2.2024 – can’t change that, I mean …

can’t change that, I mean …
even if I wanted to
it is what it is

The Detroit Lions played the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday Night.

The Detroit Lions had a 15 point lead with just over 2 minutes to go in the game.

The Detroit Lions had a 15 point lead with just over 2 minutes to go in the game but the other team had the ball and if there was a Lions fan who hadn’t worked how the Lions were going to give up a quick score, a 2 point conversion, an onside kick, another quick score and another 2 point conversion and lose the game, that person is not a real Lions fan.

Lets be clear.

I am not in any way trying to disparage the Lions.

I am telling you how, after 60 years of following the Lions, Lions fans could feel what was going to happen.

And …

And it didn’t.

Throughout the game, an area of concern was the amount of penalties, 12 by the whole team, 7 on cornerbacks Carlton Davis III and Terrion Arnold.

With that in mind, I really enjoyed Mr. Davis III’s explanation of what was going on during the game.

According to the article in the Detroit Free Press, Detroit Lions CB Carlton Davis III: ‘I felt as if (refs) were just on the Seahawks side’ by Dave Birkett, Mr. Davis III said:

“I lost my cool, I did. But it was rightfully so cause not about to — I just can’t control it. It’s an emotional game, and the stakes are high. They’re driving down the field and these PI’s are keeping them in the game. It’s extending these drives. So that’s where the passion is coming from. Like, come on man, let us play ball and if they can’t get open then it is what it is, you know what I mean?”

“I don’t want to get fined because they are sensitive about this, but honestly bro, I can’t say what I want to say, but honestly it’s just like I felt as if they were just on the Seahawks’ side today. I don’t know what I did. Maybe I should take them to dinner or something, I don’t know. Follow them on Instagram, I don’t know. But today was not my day. They were just calling PIs that’s like not even, I’m not even grabbing. It’s not even like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It was just like touch-touch, bang-bang stuff, which is football, which is battling. And D.K. is a physical receiver, so that’s going to happen when you get a physical (corner) and a physical receiver, you got to let us play ball.”

“I mean that’s just who I am, bro, I can’t change that (expletive). I mean, even if I wanted to, but what the (expletive)? I’m not about to do that. I’m about to play my game, about to keep playing and it is what it is.”

Is this not fabulous?

I remember back in high school, my sister Lisa had to read the book, “The Caine Mutiny”.

I asked her if she liked it and she said she had some concerns.

She said there was this part where the sailors described what they did aboard a minesweeper and Lisa said she didn’t understand a word of what they said.

She said she read the passage over and over trying understand it all and finally gave up and moved on.

The next sentence in the book was about how one officer looked and another and said, “I didn’t understand a word of what they said.”

Lisa said she felt much better after that.

I can read the words of this interview.

And I understand that the reporter had a voice recorder running and that Mr. Davis III was answering questions just minutes after performing in a very high pressure environment.

But I am not sure I understand what he is saying … but there is that one word there.

Passion.

Again, is this not fabulous?

So that’s where the passion is coming from.

I’m about to play my game.

I’m about to keep playing.

It is what it is.

Go Lions!

Just for fun, click here for another video of a Carlton Davis III interview.

9.9.2024 – the Lions simply

the Lions simply
refuse to fold – the Lions …
they simply refuse

From the article, What we learned in NFL Week 1: in the New York Times.

Under the heading, Detroit still as gritty as ever.

The Lions backed up their wild-card victory over the Rams back in January with a 26-20 overtime win Sunday night. This was a terrific opener between two teams that figure to be players in the NFC playoff race later this season and another reminder of what makes Dan Campbell’s team so tough to play: The Lions simply refuse to fold.

I have been following the Detroit Lions as long as I can remember.

And as long as I can remember no one – NO ONE – has ever used the words The Lions simply refuse to fold in a story about their game day performance.

This is the team that snatched defeat from the the jaws of victory more times than I can count.

This is the team that produced a high light film of GREAT FIRST DOWNS in LIONS HISTORY … and there weren’t many of them.

Forgive me, but I got to repeat it one more time.

The Lions simply refuse to fold.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE …

No one I know would have enjoyed that win more and few people have waited longer to hear the words The Lions simply refuse to fold than my friend since kindergarten, Richard Derby.

Richard left us earlier this year and there aren’t a lot of people who have known me in this life longer than he did.

He was in my kindergarten class at Crestview Elementary in Grand Rapids, Michigan and he sat next to me in the very last class I took at Grand Rapids Junior College before I left town.

It’s a bit silly, I know, to worry about sports teams but I feel pretty good that I know Richard’s view on the things that really count so I am comfortable to say that Richard would have enjoyed the game last night.

He would have enjoyed it a lot and felt bad for Matt Stafford at the same time.

I just want to say that when David Montgomery went into the end zone to win the game, I thought of my friend Richard.

Haven’t talked to you in years but miss knowing you were around buddy.

As the feller said of George Gershwin when he died, “I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.”

9.8.2024 – I kinda feel bad

I kinda feel bad
I kinda feel good there are
other fans who feel worse

The last time the University of Michigan football team lost a game was back in 2022.

Until yesterday.

They lost and lost badly to the University of Texas at Austin.

The lost so badly that I felt bad – not bad bad, but downish in a goofy for what it’s all about way, bad.

Back when I was in college one of my roommates was from Ann Arbor and his folks would invite us over to their house for lunch and watch the game on Saturdays when Michigan had an away game.

After a game that saw Michigan lose to Illinois, my roommate’s Mom looked out the window and said that now she wouldn’t be able to read the Sunday Morning papers because they would all, somehow, work the score of the game into any story.

She also said she wasn’t looking forward to church as she knew their Pastor would work the score into his sermon.

She hated losing.

She wasn’t particularly fond of people who ‘lost games’ for Michigan.

I remember watching a game at their house once and Michigan was lining up for a field goal attempt and I said, “I wonder what Bryan Virgil is doing now?”

Mr. Virgil had had a fairly good multi year career for Michigan as a placekicker, except for having a game winning attempt against Notre Dame blocked back in 1979.

There were those who point out that a Notre Dame player jumped up on someone’s back to block the kick (a move that resulted in a new rule the next year) and there were those who claimed Mr. Virgil took too long to get the kick off.

When I wondered out loud what Mr. Virgil was now doing, my roommate’s Mom fired back, “I don’t know, but what ever it is, he is taking 5 steps to do it.”

When Michigan lost yesterday I thought of my roommates Mom.

I thought I don’t want to watch any more football today.

I don’t want to read the papers tomorrow.

And I know that in Church, even here in the low country of South Carolina, where the Pastor is actually a Michigan Fan (a west Michigan native), I will most likely hear about the game from the pulpit.

I puttered around most of the rest of Saturday afternoon.

My wife and I went out to investigate a new used bookstore we had heard about and picked up 4 novels from the Four-for-a-Dollar bin.

We call these beach books as I am reluctant to bring my devices to the beach.

Also I find it refreshing for my eyes to read a printed novel from time to time.

Back home, being Saturday and my day in the kitchen, still feeling a bit blue, I got the out tools and ingredients for the evening hamburgers and fries.

I then turned on the TV.

And I heard, “It’s a stunning loss for Notre Dame and a stunning victory for NIU!”

And I smiled.

I laughed out loud.

I felt good.

Sure Michigan lost to a top 5 team.

But ND was a top 5 team and lost.

Lost to a team from the Mid American Conference.

Not a slam on NIU , just saying.

I felt good that there were football fans who felt worse than I did.

I felt good that Michigan’s loss was not THE college football story for this weekend.

Then for a second, I felt bad.

I felt bad that I felt good that other fans felt worse than I did.

Than I remembered I was thinking about Notre Dame.

And I didn’t feel that bad at all.

Gotta got get ready for church.

8.15.2024 – what a brutal stretch …

what a brutal stretch …
they responded, just hope it’s
not one of those years

The team arrived for training camp, and during an otherwise nondescript seven-on-seven rep, promising young cornerback Mekhi Blackmon crumbled to the turf with a torn ACL. The next day, Shaq Griffin, whom the Vikings signed as a veteran corner and locker room voice, tripped while deflecting a pass. Griffin’s injury was less severe, but the cornerback has yet to return to practice.

Shortly thereafter, I was chatting with a longtime Vikings staffer one day before practice and said, “What a brutal stretch.”

“I know,” they responded. “You just hope it’s not one of those years.”

All seasons are different. But in 2010, the Vikings dealt with an onslaught of mayhem: Sidney Rice’s hip injury required surgery, Brett Favre was investigated for allegations that he sent inappropriate messages to a former Jets employee, Randy Moss was acquired and subsequently released amid an outburst and the freaking Metrodome roof collapsed.

You just hope it’s not one of those years.

From the article, J.J. McCarthy is done for the season, and the Vikings are left to pick up the pieces by Alec Lewis in the New York Times.

Mr. Lewis writes, “J.J. McCarthy, the symbol of a brand new organizational future, would miss the entire 2024 season. A surgical procedure, performed early Wednesday morning, indicated McCarthy’s meniscus needed a full repair. “

“Yeah, there’s been some things that, as I’ve said before, test your culture and foundation and locker room and building,” O’Connell said. “It really didn’t just begin this summer.”

6.22.2024 – his uniform fit

his uniform fit
better than everybody
else’s uniform

“You would stay on the bench during batting practice simply to watch him — and just watching him walk, even that was special,” said Cleon Jones, who grew up in Alabama idolizing Mays and ended up sharing the outfield with him when the Giants traded Mays to the Mets in 1972.

“I’m telling you, even his uniform seemed to fit better than everybody else’s uniform,” Jones said. “The players held him with a reverence that felt almost spiritual.”

From the article, Remembering Willie Mays as Both Untouchable and Human by Kurt Streeter.

Not much to say but I think of Jim Harrison in his book The Road Home when his lead character meets Sioux Lakota warriors, veterans of the wars with Custer.

Mr. Harrison writes, ” … warriors with a lineage that owed nothing to the white man. We did not live upon the same earth that they did and we flatter ourselves when we think we understand them. To pity these men is to pity the gods.”

I also want to point out that Mr. Mays did not play in the Major Leagues until he was 20 years old.

Al Kaline and Robin Yount both started when there were 18.

I think of the record book with two more seasons added to it.

Mr. Streeter writes, “How great was he?

Six hundred sixty. That is how many home runs bolted off Mays’s bat during his career. When the Say Hey Kid retired at the end of the 1973 season, only Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron had more.

Mays ended 23 major league seasons with a total of 3,293 hits and held a .301 lifetime batting average, eye-popping for a player with such power. Twenty-four times, he was named to the All-Star team. Twelve times, he won the Gold Glove Award. Ten times, he drove in more than 100 runs.

He was named the National League’s most valuable player twice. If it were not for a need to spread the award among players, some experts say, he could have been the M.V.P. seven more times.

Numbers and accolades tell only part of his story. For it was how Mays played — the way he bent the confines of baseball to his will with his smarts, his speed, his style and his power — that set him apart as the most deeply beloved of stars.”

Mr. Mays also missed a season due to having to fulfill his military service.

And it should be pointed out I guess that Jackie Robinson was rookie of the year, his first year, …when he was 28.

The New York Times closes its Obituary with:

When he was selected for the Hall of Fame, Mays was asked to name the best ballplayer he had ever seen.

“I think I was the best ballplayer I’ve ever seen,” he replied. “I feel nobody in the world could do what I could do on a baseball field.”

Not too many could argue.

I mean, to quote Cleon Jones once more, “I’m telling you, even his uniform seemed to fit better than everybody else’s uniform.”