Tag Archives: sports

Sports Sunday

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What on earth has happened to the eclectic humble blog? I know what you’re thinking, you didn’t sign up for this. DM for subscription refunds. Oh wait, the humble blog is free, so complain accordingly.

Today you had a smorgasbord of sports viewing options. Always a thrill, you coulda stood anywhere on Delphi, Waddell Creek, or Chein Hill and watched the boys and me go uphill at superhuman speeds. At least that’s how I remember today’s ride. Or you coulda watched the M’s lose in the 9th to the Tigers. Or Zverev finally break through in a major. Or, if truly enlightened, you coulda watched the pro golf playoff at Jack’s course.

Or you coulda watched the correct thing. Women’s professional golf. Specifically, the U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera, won by 27 year old Nelly Korda after her 2’10” final putt circled the entire cup before disappearing.

Korda is kool and I was very happy to see her win, but there were at least two other noteworthy stories you may have easily missed. But I got you.

Since time immemorial, women professional golfers have been playing for approximately 15% of what their male counterparts do because it’s been hard for the women’s tour to attract nearly as many eyeballs, and therefore, television sponsors. Today’s purse was a record, a whopping $12.5 million. On Wednesday, Korda will continuously check her checking account until her $2.5 million dollar wire hits. By the time she pays her caddy, other team members, federal, and CA taxes, it might be half of that, but I digress. The good news is that today the women played for more than the men do during a regular tournament week and for 62.5% of the fewer in number PGA Signature Events. That constitutes serious progress.

Second, dig this very short Gaby Lopez clip. Lopez is Mexican and finished one stroke back, tied for second. These days, when it comes to both cultural diversity and immigration, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by depressing news and to lose hope that we’ll ever thoughtfully and peacefully figure either one out. We would all be a lot better off if we just pressed pause and channeled Gaby Lopez’s attitude.

Postscript. Forgot this . . .

Sorry, Not Sorry

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Another sports post. One newer subscriber, named Lara, just hit “delete”. Which is good, given her inbox.

Some history compliments of Wikipedia:

“On July 2, 2008, the Seattle SuperSonics, an American professional basketball team that competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA), moved from its original city of Seattle to Oklahoma City. The team began to play as the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2008–09 NBA season.”

That is a woefully incomplete summary because it doesn’t get at the buyer’s subterfuge and the associated anger of the SuperSonics faithful. So let’s give Wikipedia a second chance to flesh that out:

“In months before the settlement, Seattle officials released emails exchanged by members of Bennett’s ownership group, alleging that they indicated that some members intended to move the team to Oklahoma City all along, and had not negotiated in good faith. As a result, Schultz sued to rescind the sale and transfer the team to a court-appointed receiver. He dropped the suit after the NBA noted that he had signed a binding contract not to sue Bennett’s group and argued that his proposal would violate league ownership rules.

In 2019, Schultz said, ‘Selling the Sonics as I did is one of the biggest regrets of my professional life. I should have been willing to lose money until a local buyer emerged. I am forever sorry.'”

This thievery made it especially painful for woebegone Sonics fans to watch the Oklahoma City Thunder win the NBA title last June. So much for karma?! And then, insult to injury, to watch them have the best regular season record this year.

And possibly repeat as champions. But not so fast said a 7’4″ Frenchman for which OKC had no answer in the Western Conference Finals.

Now that you’re hip to Seattle basketball fan’s pain, this is the best paragraph you’ll read today. From Yahoo Sports.

“. . . there’s a harsh financial reality facing the Thunder. With Holmgren and Jalen Williams both becoming max contract players next season, the franchise currently projects to have $260 million on the books for 2026-27. That puts them about $40 million above the second apron, which would lead to $500 million in salary and luxury tax penalties on top of all the penalties that come with being a second apron team.” 

Half a billion dollars. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer franchise. Karma is back baby! And now we relish in the schadenfreude of Clay Bennett’s OKC Thunder slipping into mediocrity.

Postscript. Notice Schutlz said “one of the biggest regrets”. The biggest was just recently raising the price of DanDanTheTransportationMan’s morning coffee.

The Upside Down

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Somehow, I’ve stumbled into a Stranger Things episode. And thanks to Biden, Trump, and the Lakers, I can’t get out.

Democratic Party leaders and Biden officials say I shouldn’t trust what I’m seeing and hearing. They know what I, a certified bed-wetter, don’t. The President is not aging. The debate was a one-off. His voice, energy levels, and communication skills are all fine. And will continue to be throughout a second term. He continues to be the exact right person for the job at the exact right time.

Following the debate, the Serial Liar said, “As I walked off the stage on Thursday night, at the end of the highly anticipated ‘Debate,’ anchors, political reporters and all screamed that I had had the greatest debate performance in the long and storied history of North Korea Presidential Debates. They all said, effectively, ‘Trump was fantastic!'”

Cue JJ Redick, the Los Angeles Lakers’ new head coach who today said, with a remarkably straight face, “Rob (Pelinka) and I did not give Bronny anything. Bronny has earned this. … Bronny has earned this through hard work.”

Bronny, who is shorter than me, averaged 4.8 points on 36.6% shooting (26.7% from 3), 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 19.3 minutes per game at some loathsome college. But the Lakers are saying I shouldn’t trust that sample set and that they would’ve picked Bronny even if the team wasn’t desperate to make his dad happy and resign him.

Biden’s Reelection Team, The North Korean, and the Los Angeles Lakers all think we’re too stupid to think for ourselves. So they’ll do it for us.

Our eyes, ears, and brains be damned.

Thirty Two Years of Heartbreak

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“Alas, the end of Camelot came quickly. Since that moment, none of Minnesota’s four major pro sports teams — MLB’s Twins, NBA’s Timberwolves, NHL’s North Stars (later the Wild) and the NFL’s Vikings — have advanced to a championship series or Super Bowl, much less won. The span of 32 title-free years, extended at times via comically unlikely scenarios, is the longest active streak among the nation’s 13 markets with all four leagues present. It’s a decade longer than the next-most starved market in Arizona.”

The whole sordid story is here for your reading displeasure.

Not to mention having to endure Michelle Bachmann, mosquitos, and constant Canadian cold fronts.

I know what you’re thinking. . . how ’bout Ant and those Western Conference leading Timberwolves. Not so fast says Whenesota who says he can’t stop thinking about the league’s 1994 season — when the No. 1-seeded Seattle SuperSonics lost to the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs.

“I can totally see that happening,” he said. “You don’t want it to happen, but you can totally see it and you’d be like, ‘That’s Minnesota sports.'”

Thoughts and prayers for Dan Whenesota and the nice people of Minnesota.

Less Politics, More Sports

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Politics, in the (dis)United States is similar to sports in that one of two parties wins each election, but politics is significantly different from sports because the parties’ policy differences directly impact our quality of life. When your favorite athlete or sports team loses, life goes on, the same as before. There’s far, far less at stake.

Politics is a never-ending contest to create more hopeful, opportunistic conditions in which people might thrive; while sports is about unfulfilled fantasies mixed with the delusion that you can will your team to victory and the temporal bragging rights winning accords you. The bragging rights are fleeting because after every season records are wiped clean and there’s a complete reset.

In politics, we’re at a point where each side almost instinctively questions one another’s sanity and humanity. In contrast, we don’t wonder how can a sane person be a Chicago Bears fan, a Minnesota Timberwolves fan, a Chelsea fan, a Duke fan? Well, maybe Duke isn’t the best example since any Carolina fan will tell you that Duke has a distinctively Republican vibe. But I digress. We know sports fans choose their teams based upon some mix of nostalgia and geography, not a sense of superiority.

In contemporary U.S. politics, resentments continuously build. Records are never wiped clean and there are never any resets. As the last 5-10 years so clearly illustrates, antipathy just builds and builds and builds.

It’s to the point now, where I believe many Republican opinion leaders care more about Democrats doing poorly in elections than they care about the country doing well. Undoubtedly, many Republicans suspect the same of many Democratic opinion leaders.

That myopia of only seeing electoral trees at the expense of the forest is distinct to politics. Sports fans don’t cheer when opposing players are injured. In fact, despite a minority of “boo birds”, the majority don’t root against the other team, they simply root for their “home” team.

Of course, the problem with my “less politics, more sports” plea is that political apathy enables incompetent and/or corrupt politicians to harm the common good even more. In the end, I’m advocating for being more sports-like in our politics. How about organizing and rooting for your team without demonizing the other one nearly as much. And for a change of pace, root for your country even more than your team.

New Year’s Assorted Links

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1. Most memorable sports images of the decade.

2. Unconventional strategies for practicing Spanish.

3. The culture that is Sweden. Lunch lady slammed for food that is ‘too good’.

4. What will you do to stay weird?

5. How TV predicted politics in the 2010s.

“Shows like ‘Veep’ and ‘House of Cards’ offered a new, darker theory: The system can never work if everybody in politics is terrible and venal and self-serving—and the very nature of Washington makes people terrible and venal and self-serving.

‘Veep,’ a kind of inverse of ‘The West Wing’ that premiered in 2012, was a farce about ambitious politician Selina Meyer and her marginally competent, politically hungry staff. . . . And her disdain for the actual public is glaringly obvious. (“I’ve met some people, some real people, and I’ve got to tell you, a lot of them are f—ing idiots,” she says in the first season.) Where the staffers in ‘The West Wing’ were fast and loyal friends, Meyer’s staffers mock and undermine one another other without mercy. The closest thing Meyer has to a friend is the devoted body guy who brings her snacks on demand and whispers useful facts in her ear in public settings. In the series finale, she sets him up to take the fall for a political scandal—and watches FBI agents haul him away, out of the corner of her eye, as she delivers a nomination acceptance speech at the party convention.”

Youngest is still not over Selina’s sacking of “devoted body guy”.

6. California is booming. Why are so many Californians unhappy? There’s more to it than UCLA basketball bottoming out.

Thursday Assorted Links

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1. Toni Morrison’s global impact.

“History can be manipulated, whitewashed and rewritten, but people who have lived in history all have their stories, which no single dictator or censor can rob. Memories, kept in stories, keep history alive. And who, among American writers, is a fiercer and braver keeper of the memories that have made America the country it is today, in the most beautiful and powerful language?”

2. Scenes From the 2019 Pan American Games. Quants increasingly slice and dice sports in ever greater detail, but athletes’ passion and emotions will always resonate most.

3. The Dream of Open Borders is Real—in the High Arctic.

“In a place with open borders, crafting incentives is complex: If you make life on Svalbard appealing—with good schools, for instance, or better housing—there’s no way to guarantee that it will be Norwegians who come. At the same time, Svalbard cannot turn away anyone on account of nationality. The result, which can be easily justified with the treaty’s mandate of low taxes, is that the Norwegian government provides as little as possible: Unlike the mainland, the islands have minimal health care, child care, and housing benefits.”

4. What happens as opioid abusers hit middle age?  Where the most people die of drug overdoses—Scotland, USA, Estonia.

5. Inside the ten days, two hours it took Fiona Kolbinger to ride across Europe. Only 400k a day. Twenty four year-old cancer researcher who plays the piano and cycles a bit on the side.

6. Consumer Report Indicates Slushies Lose 35% of Their Value Within First Year of Purchase. Eldest daughters second appearance in The Onion, a satirical newspaper. Making me semi-famous.

We Need A Different Sports Narrative

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Saturday I rode from Portland to the Pacific Ocean with a friend who is a strong cyclist. The ride was a fund raiser for the American Lung Association. There were three or four different places to start along the route depending upon how many miles you wanted to ride.

Nearly all of the 3,000 other participants were recreational riders of all sizes and shapes. Some were on hybrids and mountain bikes meaning they were sitting up which made the headwinds worse. Some sported handlebar bags containing snacks, radios, tools, and the kitchen sink which made the hills worse. Lots wore backpacks which I didn’t quite understand since there were sporadic aid stations with food and water. Maybe they were stuffed with extra clothes.

The five hours and 39 minutes it took us to finish gave me lots of time to observe the other riders and reflect on their participation. Some had pictures of friends or family who were either fighting or had succumbed to lung cancer. Some were overweight. Some were on fund-raising teams and had matching jerseys or backpacks. Some sported colorful knee-high stockings.

From an athletic standpoint, they were unremarkable, but from a human one, I’m guessing many were impressive. As we powered past, I thought to myself they had double our perseverance because they were going to be spinning slowly into the onshore wind all day long. And I wondered about their stories. What motivated them to undertake such a challenging task? And what had they overcome in their lives? Or what were they overcoming?

As sports fans we fixate too narrowly on who wins and too little on the competitors’ or participants’ stories. Consequently, the Sport Story tends to be about winning at all costs. We long for stories of beauty and strength of spirit, of those who give a total effort for selfless reasons.

Postscript.

Sports Report with a Touch of Mad Men

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• Yes, I wrongly predicted a Wisconsin victory a few weeks back. Duke is the most Republican and Conservative of the ACC schools. Which may mean the political pendulum has swung which bodes poorly for HClinton.

• Last week my eldest daughter, in a temporary lapse of sanity, said she could “cream” me in the 500 freestyle. Both of us are traveling to Pensacola FL shortly, where competition pools are aplenty. Her personal record is 5:59, mine 6:18, but right now I’d be lucky to go 7 flat. However, since she puts the “dent” in sedentary these days, I like my chances. I’ve been out of the water for almost three weeks due to an overly ambitious surgeon, so I think I deserve a 50 yard head start. Only fair, right? Am I Wisconsin or Duke in this tilt?

• The two best teams in basketball are both in the Western Conference—the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs. Last night, instead of turning on the television, I sporadically checked the Clippers-Spurs boxscore. Am I the only one who does this, relies on internet updates because the t.v., at 15 feet away, is too far? It was Clips 30-Spurs 18 at the end of 1. (I’m going to go out on a limb and guess a few of the Clippers use marijuana on occasion, making Clips a most excellent nickname.) Then suddenly it was Spurs 37-Clips 35. Here’s the remarkable thing. The leading scorer for the Clippers had 11, but one Spur had 6, three had 5, and ELEVEN had scored. 12 assists to 8. For most teams, eleven guys don’t score all night. Pop and Kerr have the most diversified portfolios. The Spurs and Warriors move the ball better than any other team. And they keep their egos in check better than everyone else. Could be a great conference final. 12 on 12. I’m rooting for NoCal.

• Jordan Spieth won the Masters on Thursday, thereby challenging my entire competitive philosophy which is based on finishing stronger than your competitors. Turns out you don’t have to finish stronger than your competitors if you create enough separation in the early miles, rounds, innings, quarters.

• My US Open Golf tourney orientation is scheduled for a month from now when I’ll be kicking my daughters ass in a Pensacola FL pool. I’m on the Disability Access Volunteer Committee meaning I’ll be driving differently abled patrons out to designated places on the course in a golf cart. Turns out I can pick up my credentials after returning from the Peninsula. I still need to devise a plan to make it onto television. Thinking about a John 3:16 multicolored afro or an “accidental” cart accident where I somehow end up in the Sound. Or a combo. Let me know if you have a better idea. (Dear Disability Access Committee Chair, just kidding.)

• Saturday’s For the Heck of It impromptu half marathon, 1:42 which included a few walking breaks. There are two types of runners, Travis, DByrnes, and everyone besides me who religiously stop their watches whenever they stop, and me who programs it to pause after stopping for a few seconds, and doesn’t bother with it until finishing. Let’s call it 1:40 net. Kept a little in reserve meaning I’m in 1:36-37 shape.

• All eyes on Boston today and the 119th running of the marathon. Beautiful tradition. Props to the enlightened people of Mass for their resiliency and refusal to execute people.

• Mariners down 10-5, win 11-10. This isn’t your mother’s Mariners. If NCruz stays en fuego, there’s going to be a lot of little Nelsons running around the PNW.

• Mad Men. Megan’s sideways over the dissolution of the marriage. Don wants to make it right so he cooly writes her a check. For $1m. Remember it’s 1970. The vast majority of his net worth. Great scene that begs a question, has there ever been a less materialistic dude on television? He’s Ghandi if Ghandi was a Madison Avenue Ad man.