The Olympics begin in Beijing in about a week and I’d like you all to make me a promise. It’s that you won’t say you wish that the political and business sides of the enterprise wouldn’t overshadow the sports.
At the least, that will show you are an actual adult who isn’t diverted by an event’s sizzle. Within the memory of living man, the O Games always have been more about politics and business than sports, and the trend in that direction only accelerates. First and foremost, it’s a bragging-rights show for the host country, a chance to push whatever agenda that land happens to be pushing. Be assured that China did not put up an estimated $40 billion for facilities and other Olympic costs to stage a track meet.
Also know that most of what immediate financial return the Chinese will get while strutting its stuff on the world stage will come from the U.S. of A. NBC paid $1.5 billion for the rights to televise the 2006 Winter and 2008 Summer Games, with the bulk of that aimed at the summer festivities. That’s more than the rights fees of the rest of the world’s TV networks combined, and doesn’t include the tens of millions of dollars that NBC will spend in China to equip and supply the army it dispatches to cover such things.
Further, six of the 12 “Worldwide Olympic Sponsors,” which are paying nine-figure tolls to use the five-ring Olympic symbol in their ads, are U.S.-based companies (Coca Cola, Kodak, GE, McDonald’s, Visa and Johnson & Johnson), as are many lower-tier sponsors. A lot of those bucks go to the host nation, which will reap other benefits from such deals. For instance, a recent New York Times story had it that McDonald’s and Coke will use its Chinese domestic ads before and during the Games to rally the masses behind the Big Red Machine. Remember that the next time you drive by Mickey D’s.
The fact that the Chinese government stifles political dissent at home and spends its international capital propping up the murderous rulers of Zimbabwe, Myanmar and Sudan, among others, didn’t deter the International Olympic Committee from giving it the largest gift it can bestow. Indeed, Beijing’s selection was in keeping with the IOC’s longtime predilection for rewarding regimes that make the trains run on time, no matter how nasty they are.
Exhibit A in that regard was Hitler’s Germany, which got to host the 1936 Summer Games. Der Fuhrer’s helper in that regard was Avery Brundage, the Nazi sympathizer who was president of the U.S. Olympic Committee from 1929 to 1953 and of the IOC from 1953 through 1972. Japan and Italy, two other members of the original Axis of Evil, were similarly blessed, Japan with both the 1940 Winter and Summer Games and Italy with the 1944 winter event (none of which were held due to WWII). The Soviet Union got the 1980 Summer Games and Mr. Putin’s efforts to return Mother Russia to the good old days of dictatorship received an IOC attaboy in the form of the 2014 Winter Games for Sochi, on the Black Sea.
It will be interesting to see how China presents itself during its extended fortnight in the spotlight. It’s said to be taking drastic measures to clean up at least some of the air pollution that makes Beijing notorious. It also has announced that about 100,000 “security” people will be deployed around the city during the Games. While safety is far from a given anywhere during this terror-vulnerable era, no one would be surprised if that force also were put to work squelching grieving Chinese parents who might like to protest the state’s shoddy school construction that caused their children’s deaths in the recent Sichuan earthquakes.
It’s uncertain what the news media will be allowed to report while they are in the People’s Republic. As a condition for getting the Olympics the Chinese promised to allow unfettered press access in and around Beijing during the Games, but the pledge must have been asked and given with mutual winks. Already the government is playing games with journalists’ visas and declaring areas around town off-limits to the press at various times. Moreover, with 100,000 cops and troops ahover, Wang Q. Public might not feel comfortable baring his soul to foreigners carrying cameras or notepads.
I don’t mean to spoil the Games for you, though. I covered eight of those things and know full well that everyone at home sees thembetter than anyone who’s there, so enjoy.
You might even check out the sports once in a while.
BUSINESS NOTE: Two new books in my “For the Love of the…” series are out, one on the Buckeyes (Ohio State U. football) and the other on the Packers (Green Bay, of course). You can view them on the Triumph Books or Amazon.com websites, or, probably, at Barnes & Noble. Mark Anderson’s illustrations are brilliant, as usual. I’m sure you’ll agree they’re handsome items. Previous books were about the Cubs, Yankees, Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Baseball Hall of Famers, and golf. These also are available.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
SPIRO GYRO
My son Michael is a clever guy, given to making apt observations and coining funny lines. Many times I’ve stolen his stuff for my published writings-- without attribution, of course. What’s he gonna to do, sue me?
But this time I’ll give him credit. A few years back, on a visit to my home in Scottsdale, Arizona, he observed that “ethnic” restaurants in this city of American transplants are defined differently from those in Chicago, our common city of origin.
“In Chicago, you have Italian, Chinese or Greek places,” he said. “In Scottsdale they’re Chicago, New York or Los Angeles.”
Michael may have been righter than he knew. My travels in recent years have taught me that many of the “ethnic” foods I’ve come to love really were fashioned in my own backyard, figuratively speaking. I refer specifically to such treats as pizza, Italian beef and gyros, all staples of my lunch-time diet.
Now, I’m sure some of you disdain such dishes on grounds they are greasy, unhealthful, “fast” food. Greasy they may be (that’s why they’re so tasty), and, maybe, unhealthful, although except for such obvious horrors as French fries and onion rings I regard food as food. But I beg to differ about that last epithet.
To my mind a distinction should be made between “fast” food and “mass” food. “Fast” food consists of items that can be served quickly, period. No generalizations about quality should attach to the word. Plates are put together individually so diners can tailor them to their wishes. Most of the establishments that serve them are locally owned, meaning that their fare can vary widely, even day to day. But while you take your chances with such places, rewards can be great.
“Mass” food, on the other hand, is prepared by robotic teenagers to the specifications of faraway corporate kitchens. Chain-ownership of its purveyors is the rule; uniformity is the goal. The upside is that you know what you’re getting. The downside is that it ain’t much. I avoid such places religiously. Any decent-sized city is sure to have several local joints that serve a better pizza than Pizza Hut.
But from whence does pizza come? Italy, I once thought, but a couple of visits to that land have shown me that what the Italians call pizza isn’t what I do. In Chicago, pizza contains so much cheese, tomato sauce and meat that the crust bends under their weight. It’s main-course all the way. The pizza I ate in Italy was lighter—a smear of cheese and various other ingredients on a thin, cracker-like crust. It usually was served as an appetizer.
And Italian beef? Better put quotes around “Italian” because I never saw it in Italy. The marinated, simmered, thin-sliced meat, whose savory juices soak through the sternest bun, must be a Taylor Street invention.
My culinary education continued last month on a visit to Greece. Although the ruins I saw were pretty well ruined (among the ancients, the Romans built best), it was a great trip. I loved paddling in the gorgeously blue Aegean Sea. I also loved the food, especially the cheese, olives and tomatoes. Especially the tomatoes, which tasted—ohmygosh!—like tomatoes.
In one respect I was disappointed, though: the gyros I ate in Greece wasn’t much like its U.S. counterparts. American gyros comes off a cylinder of compacted lamb and beef that’s cooked on a vertical rotisserie, cut in long strips and served wrapped in pita bread with tomatoes, onions and tzaziki sauce, a mixture of yogurt, garlic and grated cucumbers. In Greece the other ingredients were the same but the meats were pork or chicken and the slices were small—chunks really. They tasted okay but I had a tough time keeping them in the bread. It was a quite-different experience, all around.
On my return home I went to my favorite Scottsdale gyros place, Gyros Express, hidden away in a shopping-center labyrinth near Scottsdale Rd. and Shea Blvd. After a proper, tasty sandwich I sought out the proprietor, a taciturn, middle-aged man with a thick mustache who sticks mostly to the kitchen (his more-cheerful daughters wait the tables). I’d eaten there maybe 100 times but never exchanged more than nods with him.
This time I introduced myself, said I’d just returned from Greece, and opined that his gyros was quite different from what I’d eaten there.
“Better here,” he said, ending that subject.
I’d noticed on his menu that his food was billed as “Chicago style.” Seeking common ground, I asked him where in Chicago he’d lived.
“I’m from Michigan,” he said.
“Then why does your menu say ‘Chicago?’ ” I asked.
“Chicago is capital of Greek food!” he declared.
‘Nuf said.
NOTE: To enjoy Michael’s writing first hand, click on his blog at http://flightkl18.blogspot.com. It’s worth it for the beer reviews alone.
But this time I’ll give him credit. A few years back, on a visit to my home in Scottsdale, Arizona, he observed that “ethnic” restaurants in this city of American transplants are defined differently from those in Chicago, our common city of origin.
“In Chicago, you have Italian, Chinese or Greek places,” he said. “In Scottsdale they’re Chicago, New York or Los Angeles.”
Michael may have been righter than he knew. My travels in recent years have taught me that many of the “ethnic” foods I’ve come to love really were fashioned in my own backyard, figuratively speaking. I refer specifically to such treats as pizza, Italian beef and gyros, all staples of my lunch-time diet.
Now, I’m sure some of you disdain such dishes on grounds they are greasy, unhealthful, “fast” food. Greasy they may be (that’s why they’re so tasty), and, maybe, unhealthful, although except for such obvious horrors as French fries and onion rings I regard food as food. But I beg to differ about that last epithet.
To my mind a distinction should be made between “fast” food and “mass” food. “Fast” food consists of items that can be served quickly, period. No generalizations about quality should attach to the word. Plates are put together individually so diners can tailor them to their wishes. Most of the establishments that serve them are locally owned, meaning that their fare can vary widely, even day to day. But while you take your chances with such places, rewards can be great.
“Mass” food, on the other hand, is prepared by robotic teenagers to the specifications of faraway corporate kitchens. Chain-ownership of its purveyors is the rule; uniformity is the goal. The upside is that you know what you’re getting. The downside is that it ain’t much. I avoid such places religiously. Any decent-sized city is sure to have several local joints that serve a better pizza than Pizza Hut.
But from whence does pizza come? Italy, I once thought, but a couple of visits to that land have shown me that what the Italians call pizza isn’t what I do. In Chicago, pizza contains so much cheese, tomato sauce and meat that the crust bends under their weight. It’s main-course all the way. The pizza I ate in Italy was lighter—a smear of cheese and various other ingredients on a thin, cracker-like crust. It usually was served as an appetizer.
And Italian beef? Better put quotes around “Italian” because I never saw it in Italy. The marinated, simmered, thin-sliced meat, whose savory juices soak through the sternest bun, must be a Taylor Street invention.
My culinary education continued last month on a visit to Greece. Although the ruins I saw were pretty well ruined (among the ancients, the Romans built best), it was a great trip. I loved paddling in the gorgeously blue Aegean Sea. I also loved the food, especially the cheese, olives and tomatoes. Especially the tomatoes, which tasted—ohmygosh!—like tomatoes.
In one respect I was disappointed, though: the gyros I ate in Greece wasn’t much like its U.S. counterparts. American gyros comes off a cylinder of compacted lamb and beef that’s cooked on a vertical rotisserie, cut in long strips and served wrapped in pita bread with tomatoes, onions and tzaziki sauce, a mixture of yogurt, garlic and grated cucumbers. In Greece the other ingredients were the same but the meats were pork or chicken and the slices were small—chunks really. They tasted okay but I had a tough time keeping them in the bread. It was a quite-different experience, all around.
On my return home I went to my favorite Scottsdale gyros place, Gyros Express, hidden away in a shopping-center labyrinth near Scottsdale Rd. and Shea Blvd. After a proper, tasty sandwich I sought out the proprietor, a taciturn, middle-aged man with a thick mustache who sticks mostly to the kitchen (his more-cheerful daughters wait the tables). I’d eaten there maybe 100 times but never exchanged more than nods with him.
This time I introduced myself, said I’d just returned from Greece, and opined that his gyros was quite different from what I’d eaten there.
“Better here,” he said, ending that subject.
I’d noticed on his menu that his food was billed as “Chicago style.” Seeking common ground, I asked him where in Chicago he’d lived.
“I’m from Michigan,” he said.
“Then why does your menu say ‘Chicago?’ ” I asked.
“Chicago is capital of Greek food!” he declared.
‘Nuf said.
NOTE: To enjoy Michael’s writing first hand, click on his blog at http://flightkl18.blogspot.com. It’s worth it for the beer reviews alone.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
SLO-PITCH
The notion is afoot (again) that Major League baseball games are too slow. Even the commish for life, Bud Selig, has picked up on it, and has ordered that it be studied. This ensures that any answers will be a long time coming, but that’s appropriate, don’t you think?
My view is that yessssss, baseball is too slowwwww, but this is not to say that it’s too dull. That’s mostly a matter of perception. Nonfans of horse racing tell me they can’t abide the gaps between races (20-to-25 minutes at most tracks on weekdays), but if you’re poring over the numbers in the Daily Racing Form, hoping to make them speak to you, it’s not long enough.
Ditto for baseball if between pitches you are running through your mind the relative abilities of the immediate actors and the many ways any particular play might play out. That’s the main reason that the older I get the more I like the game without a clock. As Yogi said, “Ninety per cent of baseball is 50 per cent mental.” At least.
Still, here are things that could be done to bring a welcome speed-up to the game without affecting its essential nature or lessening its money-making capacity. The latter consideration is why the sport’s biggest too-long issue—the length of the season—is off limits for rational discussion. Nobody argues that it takes 162 games to determine which eight of the 30 teams deserve to make the playoffs, but it’s not a competitive question, it’s a financial one, and the main law of business is that you can’t make money if the store ain’t open. The dictum’s sports corollary is that schedules never shrink, they only expand.
The same goes for the length of time between innings. That’s when the radio and TV commercials run, and without them baseball wouldn’t get the broadcasting revenues that keep the owners and players happy. So live with it.
But there’s a lot of on-field fooling around that could be eliminated, with the only injuries being to a few of baseball’s many silly traditions. I refer mostly to all the games of catch that go on while the players are, supposedly, poised for real action.
In what other sport, for instance, do the players whip around the ball during stoppages of play, as baseball’s infielders do after an out with the bases empty? Those guys have been playing catch since age 5 so they’re not likely to forget how if they don’t do it every couple of minutes.
And what’s with the six warm-up throws pitchers get to start each half-inning and relievers get when they enter a game? Does the forget-how-to-do-it argument apply here, too? C’mon.
Everybody makes a big deal about starters’ pitch counts these days-- it’s as if they risk turning into pumpkins if the number exceeds 100. But if pitch-count is so important why aren’t the between-inning throws counted? They wear down arms, too. A pitcher’s official six-inning tally may be 100 but it would be 136 if the warm-up throws were included. Maybe without them there would be more complete games.
Nothing slows a game more than changing pitchers during an inning and scratching the reliever’s warm-up throws would make that process more efficient. Other sports don’t stop dead so a substitute can practice on the field and there’s no reason for baseball be the exception. If the on-field warm-up’s purpose is to get the pitcher used to the mound, the groundskeepers should take a load of dirt to the bullpen and make the mounds there identical to the real one.
Other small changes could help. Zip relievers to the mound in golf carts, as some teams already do. Stop hitters from stepping out of the batter’s box between pitches and constantly fiddling with their hitting gloves. Heck, ban the gloves—The Babe and Stan the Man never needed them. Stop managers and coaches from visiting pitchers on the mound; other sports don’t permit such on-field confabs.
I’m guessing that taken together those changes would clip 10 minutes or so off the length of a typical game, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. Ten minutes times the 2,430 games in the regular season equals 24,300 minutes, or 405 hours, or almost 17 days.
You could do a lot with those days: paint a picture, visit Yellowstone Park, work for world peace. Or you could watch more “Law and Order” reruns.
It’s a free country.
My view is that yessssss, baseball is too slowwwww, but this is not to say that it’s too dull. That’s mostly a matter of perception. Nonfans of horse racing tell me they can’t abide the gaps between races (20-to-25 minutes at most tracks on weekdays), but if you’re poring over the numbers in the Daily Racing Form, hoping to make them speak to you, it’s not long enough.
Ditto for baseball if between pitches you are running through your mind the relative abilities of the immediate actors and the many ways any particular play might play out. That’s the main reason that the older I get the more I like the game without a clock. As Yogi said, “Ninety per cent of baseball is 50 per cent mental.” At least.
Still, here are things that could be done to bring a welcome speed-up to the game without affecting its essential nature or lessening its money-making capacity. The latter consideration is why the sport’s biggest too-long issue—the length of the season—is off limits for rational discussion. Nobody argues that it takes 162 games to determine which eight of the 30 teams deserve to make the playoffs, but it’s not a competitive question, it’s a financial one, and the main law of business is that you can’t make money if the store ain’t open. The dictum’s sports corollary is that schedules never shrink, they only expand.
The same goes for the length of time between innings. That’s when the radio and TV commercials run, and without them baseball wouldn’t get the broadcasting revenues that keep the owners and players happy. So live with it.
But there’s a lot of on-field fooling around that could be eliminated, with the only injuries being to a few of baseball’s many silly traditions. I refer mostly to all the games of catch that go on while the players are, supposedly, poised for real action.
In what other sport, for instance, do the players whip around the ball during stoppages of play, as baseball’s infielders do after an out with the bases empty? Those guys have been playing catch since age 5 so they’re not likely to forget how if they don’t do it every couple of minutes.
And what’s with the six warm-up throws pitchers get to start each half-inning and relievers get when they enter a game? Does the forget-how-to-do-it argument apply here, too? C’mon.
Everybody makes a big deal about starters’ pitch counts these days-- it’s as if they risk turning into pumpkins if the number exceeds 100. But if pitch-count is so important why aren’t the between-inning throws counted? They wear down arms, too. A pitcher’s official six-inning tally may be 100 but it would be 136 if the warm-up throws were included. Maybe without them there would be more complete games.
Nothing slows a game more than changing pitchers during an inning and scratching the reliever’s warm-up throws would make that process more efficient. Other sports don’t stop dead so a substitute can practice on the field and there’s no reason for baseball be the exception. If the on-field warm-up’s purpose is to get the pitcher used to the mound, the groundskeepers should take a load of dirt to the bullpen and make the mounds there identical to the real one.
Other small changes could help. Zip relievers to the mound in golf carts, as some teams already do. Stop hitters from stepping out of the batter’s box between pitches and constantly fiddling with their hitting gloves. Heck, ban the gloves—The Babe and Stan the Man never needed them. Stop managers and coaches from visiting pitchers on the mound; other sports don’t permit such on-field confabs.
I’m guessing that taken together those changes would clip 10 minutes or so off the length of a typical game, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. Ten minutes times the 2,430 games in the regular season equals 24,300 minutes, or 405 hours, or almost 17 days.
You could do a lot with those days: paint a picture, visit Yellowstone Park, work for world peace. Or you could watch more “Law and Order” reruns.
It’s a free country.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
A MIXED MARRIAGE
My dear wife Susie and I have our differences. She likes it warm and I like it cool. She wants to save things and I want to throw them away. I like “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and she can’t stand to be in the room while it’s on.
So, you say, what else is new? How is this marriage different from any other? Well, there’s one more thing: I’m a Chicago Cubs fan and she roots for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
This is serious business, the stuff of which splits are made. Only my generous and forgiving nature has kept us together for, lo, these many years.
The situation is even worse than it may seem, because our different baseball allegiances stem from fundamental differences in our natures. I’m Chicago born and raised, and while I’ve lived in other cities-- Scottsdale, AZ, being the latest— I’m true to any team that wears the Chicago name on its jerseys. Period. End of story.
Susie, on the other hand, is as changeable as the winds. As a girl in Toledo, Ohio, she favored the Tigers, which makes sense because Detroit was the nearest Major League city. But she also rooted for the Dodgers because they frequently played the New York Yankees in the World Series during her formative years, and she hated the Yankees.
Her list of favorite teams expanded to three when she began visiting her uncle Sam in Chicago. He rooted for the White Sox and she followed suit. Like many another primitive Sox fan, that also meant she hated the Cubs. Susie and I lived together in Chicago for 17 years, and you can imagine what things were like around that household.
Since arriving in Arizona she’s become a lifelong D’backs fan, with the White Sox playing a faint second fiddle. The loyalty transfer took about a week. Actually, since the Sox wear “Chicago” on their jerseys, I like them, too (although not as much as the Cubs), and these days I’m a bigger Sox fan than she is. How’s that for a switch?
But like I said, I’m a generous fella, and a fan of baseball generally, so Susie and I go to D’Backs’ games together fairly frequently. A big reason I like to go is that it’s easy. Phoenix’s downtown empties after 5 p.m., so it’s usually a breeze to drive to the stadium and park for a night game. Once there, our favorite cheap seats ($16 per) in the upper deck behind home plate always await us. That’s because the Diamondbacks draw poorly, with crowds averaging less than half the 49,000-seat capacity of their retractable-roofed and industrial-looking home, currently named Chase Field.
Phoenix’s sports teams have a tough time securing a fan base because just about everyone here comes from somewhere else, but there has to be more to it than that. While the Diamondbacks’ history is brief (10 years) they won the World Series in 2001, seven years ago but a mere wink in the geological scale by which Cub fans measure such things. They’ve had other good teams including last year’s, which had the best regular-season record in the National League despite having the lowest team batting average and scoring fewer runs than they allowed. That’s miraculous, and would have stirred fan interest in other cities, but Phoenicians merely yawned, and the team’s 2007 attendance ranked 20th among the 30 Big League clubs.
The yawning continues at the park. D’Back fans come late, leave early and are the sweetest and quietest in baseball. Noise must be coaxed from them by messages on the giant electronic scoreboard that dominates the premises. About their only spontaneous outbursts are for the between-innings t-shirt giveaways and video hot-dog race. By contrast, in Wrigley Field where my Cubs play, and where the scoreboard merely displays the scores, full-house crowds fairly throb with excitement these days, and cheers, chants and boos are strictly extempore.
This season is shaping up as a particularly tense one in Chez Klein. The Cubs and Diamondbacks had the best records in the National League for the first two months of the campaign, and while the D’Backs have slacked off lately the two teams still are good bets for the playoffs. The Cubs’ lineup has the more thump but the D’Backs have baseball’s best 1-2 starting-pitcher combo in Brandon Webb and Dan Haren, a good closer in Brandon Lyon, and the sort of young, lively and motivated (i.e., not terribly overpaid) players that can take them far.
They beat the Cubs in last year’s playoffs and I give them the edge in any showdown this year.
But don’t tell Susie I said that.
So, you say, what else is new? How is this marriage different from any other? Well, there’s one more thing: I’m a Chicago Cubs fan and she roots for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
This is serious business, the stuff of which splits are made. Only my generous and forgiving nature has kept us together for, lo, these many years.
The situation is even worse than it may seem, because our different baseball allegiances stem from fundamental differences in our natures. I’m Chicago born and raised, and while I’ve lived in other cities-- Scottsdale, AZ, being the latest— I’m true to any team that wears the Chicago name on its jerseys. Period. End of story.
Susie, on the other hand, is as changeable as the winds. As a girl in Toledo, Ohio, she favored the Tigers, which makes sense because Detroit was the nearest Major League city. But she also rooted for the Dodgers because they frequently played the New York Yankees in the World Series during her formative years, and she hated the Yankees.
Her list of favorite teams expanded to three when she began visiting her uncle Sam in Chicago. He rooted for the White Sox and she followed suit. Like many another primitive Sox fan, that also meant she hated the Cubs. Susie and I lived together in Chicago for 17 years, and you can imagine what things were like around that household.
Since arriving in Arizona she’s become a lifelong D’backs fan, with the White Sox playing a faint second fiddle. The loyalty transfer took about a week. Actually, since the Sox wear “Chicago” on their jerseys, I like them, too (although not as much as the Cubs), and these days I’m a bigger Sox fan than she is. How’s that for a switch?
But like I said, I’m a generous fella, and a fan of baseball generally, so Susie and I go to D’Backs’ games together fairly frequently. A big reason I like to go is that it’s easy. Phoenix’s downtown empties after 5 p.m., so it’s usually a breeze to drive to the stadium and park for a night game. Once there, our favorite cheap seats ($16 per) in the upper deck behind home plate always await us. That’s because the Diamondbacks draw poorly, with crowds averaging less than half the 49,000-seat capacity of their retractable-roofed and industrial-looking home, currently named Chase Field.
Phoenix’s sports teams have a tough time securing a fan base because just about everyone here comes from somewhere else, but there has to be more to it than that. While the Diamondbacks’ history is brief (10 years) they won the World Series in 2001, seven years ago but a mere wink in the geological scale by which Cub fans measure such things. They’ve had other good teams including last year’s, which had the best regular-season record in the National League despite having the lowest team batting average and scoring fewer runs than they allowed. That’s miraculous, and would have stirred fan interest in other cities, but Phoenicians merely yawned, and the team’s 2007 attendance ranked 20th among the 30 Big League clubs.
The yawning continues at the park. D’Back fans come late, leave early and are the sweetest and quietest in baseball. Noise must be coaxed from them by messages on the giant electronic scoreboard that dominates the premises. About their only spontaneous outbursts are for the between-innings t-shirt giveaways and video hot-dog race. By contrast, in Wrigley Field where my Cubs play, and where the scoreboard merely displays the scores, full-house crowds fairly throb with excitement these days, and cheers, chants and boos are strictly extempore.
This season is shaping up as a particularly tense one in Chez Klein. The Cubs and Diamondbacks had the best records in the National League for the first two months of the campaign, and while the D’Backs have slacked off lately the two teams still are good bets for the playoffs. The Cubs’ lineup has the more thump but the D’Backs have baseball’s best 1-2 starting-pitcher combo in Brandon Webb and Dan Haren, a good closer in Brandon Lyon, and the sort of young, lively and motivated (i.e., not terribly overpaid) players that can take them far.
They beat the Cubs in last year’s playoffs and I give them the edge in any showdown this year.
But don’t tell Susie I said that.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
HOLD THE MAYO
A couple of news stories caught my eye in recent weeks. Maybe you saw them, too.
One was about O.J. Mayo, the young basketball player. He played for the University of Southern California as a freshman last season, and very well. Then, having reached the magic age of 19 that enables him to turn pro under NBA rules, he declared for the June draft.
But it turns out he’s been a pro for some time. One Louis Johnson, a former member of a sleazy adult clique that surrounds Mayo, stepped forward to reveal that the young man had received some $30,000 in cash and gifts from a sports-agent’s “runner,” with the payments dating to Mayo’s high school days. In return the kid promised to employ the agent once his pro status became official, which he did before the agent backed out after the arrangement was aired.
The other concerned Arizona State University, my friendly, local mega-U. It announced it was dropping three men’s varsity sports—wrestling, swimming and tennis—for financial reasons, although private givers later gave wrestling at least a temporary reprieve. The move would clip $1.1 million from its $42 million athletics budget, the school said. That sum, incidentally, is a good deal less than the annual compensation of a single ASU athletics-department employee—football coach Dennis Erickson.
If you were surprised by either item, you haven’t been paying attention the last several decades. Under-the-table payments to college athletes are as American as the Mafia, and as enduring. Jocks got handouts in the 1950s when I went to college, if only in the form of “$20 handshakes” from alums outside the locker rooms after games. The stakes have risen since: investigations have been plodding along for a couple years over an agent’s alleged payments of some $300,000 to Reggie Bush, the Heisman Award-winning football player, during his days at—yes!—USC. One can only conclude that Mayo should have hooked up with Bush’s guy.
Cuts in college “minor-sport” programs also are old news, owing both to budgetary concerns and the male-female athletic-scholarship equality mandated by the Federal statute known as Title IX. That’s a problem for big-time football schools because the women have no numerical equivalent to their 85-player teams in that sport.
Whatever you think of that last matter, the conclusion is inescapable that things are out of whack on campus. First, while there’s money aplenty (both licit and il-) for the sports that bring in the money, there’s little for the ones that exist mainly to provide students with healthful recreational opportunities, which is what college sports were supposed to be about. Moreover, it’s universally acknowledged that minor-sports athletes—the ones who are getting the axe—are far more apt to be actual students than the football and basketball players who get the juice. In a better world that might count for something.
What’s really out of whack, though, is the gross imbalance between the attention paid to what various sugar daddies do for college “revenue-sport” athletes and what their colleges do to them. Properly cast, the roles of villains and heroes in the drama would be reversed.
To understand that let’s change the usual scenario a bit. Say that my neighbor has a son who’s a budding piano virtuoso but needs further schooling to develop his art. Then say his parents have fallen on hard times and can’t afford to give him that training. Mr. Nice Guy (me) comes to the rescue, offering to put the kid through State U’s excellent music school and buying him a car besides if the family agrees to make me the young man’s partner for a few years once he hits the concert trail.
Anything wrong with that? Not that I can see. The real-world difference is that big-time college sports are a nasty business in which the competitors (my school and yours) have zero trust in one another, so they make rules banning anyone from taking anything above the scholarship basics, then cross their fingers and hope no one notices all the late-model SUVs in the jocks’ parking lot. Every big-school president goes to bed praying that the next sports scandal won’t land in his lap.
Worse yet is how the colleges treat the youths entrusted to their care. It’s by saddling them with practices, film study, year-round conditioning programs, games and trips that all but negate any chance they’ll have to receive an education worth the name, which would be worth more than whatever graft that might come their way. If the kid is an O.J. Mayo he’ll get a seven-figure pro contact that will (or should) put him in Phat City for life, but if his first step is a bit slow, tough luck. Once his eligibility is gone a player is old news, just like the stories I mention here.
So is his school’s likely reaction to him. It’s “Go away, kid. You bother me.”
_____________________________________________________________________
CORRECTION: NBA exec Brian McIntyre informs me that the singer who fouled up the National Anthem before the 1978 Chicago Bulls game I described in my last blog was Ferlin Husky, not Conway Twitty. He says he knows this because he was employed by the Bulls at the time and had to shepherd Mr. Husky through a trying day before pushing him out on the floor to do his singing bit. Next time you see Brian you should ask him to tell you the whole story because it’s a good one. Meantime, I apologize to the late Mr. Twitty, his heirs and assigns.
One was about O.J. Mayo, the young basketball player. He played for the University of Southern California as a freshman last season, and very well. Then, having reached the magic age of 19 that enables him to turn pro under NBA rules, he declared for the June draft.
But it turns out he’s been a pro for some time. One Louis Johnson, a former member of a sleazy adult clique that surrounds Mayo, stepped forward to reveal that the young man had received some $30,000 in cash and gifts from a sports-agent’s “runner,” with the payments dating to Mayo’s high school days. In return the kid promised to employ the agent once his pro status became official, which he did before the agent backed out after the arrangement was aired.
The other concerned Arizona State University, my friendly, local mega-U. It announced it was dropping three men’s varsity sports—wrestling, swimming and tennis—for financial reasons, although private givers later gave wrestling at least a temporary reprieve. The move would clip $1.1 million from its $42 million athletics budget, the school said. That sum, incidentally, is a good deal less than the annual compensation of a single ASU athletics-department employee—football coach Dennis Erickson.
If you were surprised by either item, you haven’t been paying attention the last several decades. Under-the-table payments to college athletes are as American as the Mafia, and as enduring. Jocks got handouts in the 1950s when I went to college, if only in the form of “$20 handshakes” from alums outside the locker rooms after games. The stakes have risen since: investigations have been plodding along for a couple years over an agent’s alleged payments of some $300,000 to Reggie Bush, the Heisman Award-winning football player, during his days at—yes!—USC. One can only conclude that Mayo should have hooked up with Bush’s guy.
Cuts in college “minor-sport” programs also are old news, owing both to budgetary concerns and the male-female athletic-scholarship equality mandated by the Federal statute known as Title IX. That’s a problem for big-time football schools because the women have no numerical equivalent to their 85-player teams in that sport.
Whatever you think of that last matter, the conclusion is inescapable that things are out of whack on campus. First, while there’s money aplenty (both licit and il-) for the sports that bring in the money, there’s little for the ones that exist mainly to provide students with healthful recreational opportunities, which is what college sports were supposed to be about. Moreover, it’s universally acknowledged that minor-sports athletes—the ones who are getting the axe—are far more apt to be actual students than the football and basketball players who get the juice. In a better world that might count for something.
What’s really out of whack, though, is the gross imbalance between the attention paid to what various sugar daddies do for college “revenue-sport” athletes and what their colleges do to them. Properly cast, the roles of villains and heroes in the drama would be reversed.
To understand that let’s change the usual scenario a bit. Say that my neighbor has a son who’s a budding piano virtuoso but needs further schooling to develop his art. Then say his parents have fallen on hard times and can’t afford to give him that training. Mr. Nice Guy (me) comes to the rescue, offering to put the kid through State U’s excellent music school and buying him a car besides if the family agrees to make me the young man’s partner for a few years once he hits the concert trail.
Anything wrong with that? Not that I can see. The real-world difference is that big-time college sports are a nasty business in which the competitors (my school and yours) have zero trust in one another, so they make rules banning anyone from taking anything above the scholarship basics, then cross their fingers and hope no one notices all the late-model SUVs in the jocks’ parking lot. Every big-school president goes to bed praying that the next sports scandal won’t land in his lap.
Worse yet is how the colleges treat the youths entrusted to their care. It’s by saddling them with practices, film study, year-round conditioning programs, games and trips that all but negate any chance they’ll have to receive an education worth the name, which would be worth more than whatever graft that might come their way. If the kid is an O.J. Mayo he’ll get a seven-figure pro contact that will (or should) put him in Phat City for life, but if his first step is a bit slow, tough luck. Once his eligibility is gone a player is old news, just like the stories I mention here.
So is his school’s likely reaction to him. It’s “Go away, kid. You bother me.”
_____________________________________________________________________
CORRECTION: NBA exec Brian McIntyre informs me that the singer who fouled up the National Anthem before the 1978 Chicago Bulls game I described in my last blog was Ferlin Husky, not Conway Twitty. He says he knows this because he was employed by the Bulls at the time and had to shepherd Mr. Husky through a trying day before pushing him out on the floor to do his singing bit. Next time you see Brian you should ask him to tell you the whole story because it’s a good one. Meantime, I apologize to the late Mr. Twitty, his heirs and assigns.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
JOSE CAN YOU SEE?
National anthem quiz:
1) How many syllables are in the words “oh,” “that,” “yet” and “wave”?
2) How about “banner”?
3) What are the song’s last two words?
Answers are at the end of this piece.
_________________________________
Back in the day, when I was introduced to someone as a sportswriter, the person often remarked that I must know a lot about sports. “Not that much,” I’d reply, modestly. “I’m more interested in the writing part.”
My 20 years on the beat, however, did qualify me as a gen-u-ine expert on a couple of things. One was travel. I knew how to finagle airline upgrades or bulkhead or exit-row seats, which airports were easy or difficult to navigate, where to rent a car and where to take cabs, where to get a quick but tasty meal after any night game. If Fodor hadn’t already been invented, I coulda been him.
Another was “The Star Spangled Banner,” our national anthem. I’ve heard it thousands of times-- sung fast and slow, well and poorly, in this country and abroad. The SSB and sports go together like hot dogs and mustard. You could spend a lifetime attending movies, concerts, plays and such and never hear it, but in the ballparks’ oft-gamy precincts, it’s ubiquitous.
One can’t experience a thing repeatedly without coming to some conclusions about it. My main observation is that the anthem’s position as the theme song of the world’s foremost nation is questionable, at best. Its meter is lumpy and its words are difficult to get your tongue around. They’re also tough to memorize—so tough that a couple of years ago the Government felt moved to launch an effort to teach them to adults. It didn’t succeed totally; I hear people make mistakes even when the words are printed on a stadium’s electronic scoreboard while the piece is being played.
The music of the one-time English drinking song also leaves something to be desired. On a world-anthems scale I’d rank the tune no higher than a many-way tie for third place behind France’s glorious “La Marseillaise” and Russia’s national hymn, which was junked in 1991 after the Commies were ousted but restored by Putin nine years later. If Americans were polled on their favorite patriotic song I’d wager that “America the Beautiful,” “God Bless America” and “The Stars and Stripes Forever” (my favorite) would do well, and that even the red-neck anthem, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” would get votes. That last was played before one event I attended-- an Olympics trial, for heaven’s sake. Everyone stood, just like for the SSB.
You’d think that with all the repetition sports fans would have the anthem’s protocols down cold, but they don’t. People are supposed to stand and remove their hats while it’s played, but while just about all the men bear their heads, women often don’t. Further, while it’s clear what to do when you’re in your seat at the park, how about when you’re in a concourse, a concessions-stand line or a wash room? I’ve witnessed amusing confusion over the issue in those places.
I’m told that in other countries the national anthem always is sung straight, but in this one it’s become a performer’s plaything where anything goes. A good, respectful SSB can be belted out in 75 seconds or less, but through vocal gymnastics it can be stretched considerably. Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated used to put a stop watch to the thing in football press boxes, and announce the results. I recall him once getting a reading of two minutes five seconds.
The gold standard for SSB performances was set by the late opera singer Robert Merrill at Yankee Stadium, which always handles ceremonies well. The hearty baritone Wayne Mesmer currently does a nice job of it at Wrigley Field. My personal nadir came at a long-ago Chicago Bulls game when the country singer Conway Twitty first sang the song badly off key and then had to stop because he’d forgotten the words. The worst end-to-end anthem I’ve heard sung (on tape) was by Carl Lewis, the Olympic sprinter, before a Houston Rockets’ game. Mere words can’t convey its awfulness. Suffice it to say that Lewis’s singing career died aborning.
The awfulness doesn’t always stop with the music. At a San Diego Padres’ game in 1990, Roseanne Barr capped a screechy rendition of the anthem by clutching her crotch and spitting-- in homage to baseball, she said. The Law of Unintended Consequences dictates that something like that was bound to happen. You have to watch who you hang out with, and where.
Quiz answers: 1) Two: “Oh oh,” “tha-at,” “ye-et” and “way-ave.” 2) Four: “ba-a-ner-er.” 3) “Play ball.”
_____________________________________________________________________
Business note: Updated versions of three of my “For the Love of…” books—on the Cubs, Yankees and Red Sox—are on the shelves, with new covers and pages. Mark Anderson’s artwork is wonderful, as usual. They make great Father’s Day gifts. Click on the Triumph Books or Amazon links for details.
1) How many syllables are in the words “oh,” “that,” “yet” and “wave”?
2) How about “banner”?
3) What are the song’s last two words?
Answers are at the end of this piece.
_________________________________
Back in the day, when I was introduced to someone as a sportswriter, the person often remarked that I must know a lot about sports. “Not that much,” I’d reply, modestly. “I’m more interested in the writing part.”
My 20 years on the beat, however, did qualify me as a gen-u-ine expert on a couple of things. One was travel. I knew how to finagle airline upgrades or bulkhead or exit-row seats, which airports were easy or difficult to navigate, where to rent a car and where to take cabs, where to get a quick but tasty meal after any night game. If Fodor hadn’t already been invented, I coulda been him.
Another was “The Star Spangled Banner,” our national anthem. I’ve heard it thousands of times-- sung fast and slow, well and poorly, in this country and abroad. The SSB and sports go together like hot dogs and mustard. You could spend a lifetime attending movies, concerts, plays and such and never hear it, but in the ballparks’ oft-gamy precincts, it’s ubiquitous.
One can’t experience a thing repeatedly without coming to some conclusions about it. My main observation is that the anthem’s position as the theme song of the world’s foremost nation is questionable, at best. Its meter is lumpy and its words are difficult to get your tongue around. They’re also tough to memorize—so tough that a couple of years ago the Government felt moved to launch an effort to teach them to adults. It didn’t succeed totally; I hear people make mistakes even when the words are printed on a stadium’s electronic scoreboard while the piece is being played.
The music of the one-time English drinking song also leaves something to be desired. On a world-anthems scale I’d rank the tune no higher than a many-way tie for third place behind France’s glorious “La Marseillaise” and Russia’s national hymn, which was junked in 1991 after the Commies were ousted but restored by Putin nine years later. If Americans were polled on their favorite patriotic song I’d wager that “America the Beautiful,” “God Bless America” and “The Stars and Stripes Forever” (my favorite) would do well, and that even the red-neck anthem, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” would get votes. That last was played before one event I attended-- an Olympics trial, for heaven’s sake. Everyone stood, just like for the SSB.
You’d think that with all the repetition sports fans would have the anthem’s protocols down cold, but they don’t. People are supposed to stand and remove their hats while it’s played, but while just about all the men bear their heads, women often don’t. Further, while it’s clear what to do when you’re in your seat at the park, how about when you’re in a concourse, a concessions-stand line or a wash room? I’ve witnessed amusing confusion over the issue in those places.
I’m told that in other countries the national anthem always is sung straight, but in this one it’s become a performer’s plaything where anything goes. A good, respectful SSB can be belted out in 75 seconds or less, but through vocal gymnastics it can be stretched considerably. Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated used to put a stop watch to the thing in football press boxes, and announce the results. I recall him once getting a reading of two minutes five seconds.
The gold standard for SSB performances was set by the late opera singer Robert Merrill at Yankee Stadium, which always handles ceremonies well. The hearty baritone Wayne Mesmer currently does a nice job of it at Wrigley Field. My personal nadir came at a long-ago Chicago Bulls game when the country singer Conway Twitty first sang the song badly off key and then had to stop because he’d forgotten the words. The worst end-to-end anthem I’ve heard sung (on tape) was by Carl Lewis, the Olympic sprinter, before a Houston Rockets’ game. Mere words can’t convey its awfulness. Suffice it to say that Lewis’s singing career died aborning.
The awfulness doesn’t always stop with the music. At a San Diego Padres’ game in 1990, Roseanne Barr capped a screechy rendition of the anthem by clutching her crotch and spitting-- in homage to baseball, she said. The Law of Unintended Consequences dictates that something like that was bound to happen. You have to watch who you hang out with, and where.
Quiz answers: 1) Two: “Oh oh,” “tha-at,” “ye-et” and “way-ave.” 2) Four: “ba-a-ner-er.” 3) “Play ball.”
_____________________________________________________________________
Business note: Updated versions of three of my “For the Love of…” books—on the Cubs, Yankees and Red Sox—are on the shelves, with new covers and pages. Mark Anderson’s artwork is wonderful, as usual. They make great Father’s Day gifts. Click on the Triumph Books or Amazon links for details.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
CHILLED BY THE DRAFT
My first year as a baseball fan—at the sweet and tender age of seven—was 1945. The Cubs won the National League pennant. Baseball’s an easy game, I thought.
My first year as a football fan was the next one, 1946. The Bears, with the marvelous (and Jewish!) Sid Luckman at quarterback, won the National Football League championship. Football, too, seemed easy.
The first year I was aware of the NFL draft was 1947. Despite having won the title the year before (and for reasons I still can’t explain) the Bears had the No.1 pick in the entire affair. With it they chose Bob Fenimore, a several-time All-American tailback from Oklahoma A & M, now Oklahoma State U.
Nicknamed the “Blond Bomber,” Fenimore came suitably hyped. Just give him the ball and get out of his way, the newspapers said. The Bears did that in ’47, but not often and with little effect. Apparently still hampered by a knee injury he’d suffered the year before, the Bomber carried just 53 times for 189 yards in his first season as a pro. (I looked that up.). It also was his last season, because afterward he went home to Stillwater and began what was to be a lifelong career as an insurance agent.
I thought the NFL draft was weird and anything but easy.
All these years later, I still think so. That’s why I annually scratch my head in wonder over all the fuss made over the player drafts of our major sporting entities. Crap shoots is what they are, but that doesn’t keep them from gaining in importance and attention among us fans. That’s testimony to our love of hype, because in that category the drafts stand alone at the top. No events are involved. They’re all hype.
Yes, the newspapers overplay the things, but I trace this development mostly to ESPN, the all-sports cable TV channel whose 1979 launch transformed not only sports but all of American culture. Before ESPN, sports were mainly a weekend diversion in this land, something to occupy a few hours on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Men chatted with their wives, helped their kids with their homework, watched “Bonanza,” maybe even read a book.
ESPN’s 24/7 sports format changed all that. Total immersion, theretofore a dream, became reality. Soon imitators popped up and created other all-sports fonts, both national and local. Guys today needn’t spend an idle hour watching or thinking about anything except the world of fun and games.
Still, they don’t play the National Anthem much between midnight and noon, so ESPN has to hustle to fill its airtime. What better way to do this but with draft blather? Production costs are low—a couple of guys in a studio will suffice. Any two will do as long as they’re loud enough. No scripts are needed; a question like whether the Raiders need a running back more than a defensive lineman easily can fill a half hour.
The NFL is nothing if not adaptable, so it leaped to the opportunity by allowing ESPN to air its entire, two-day draft, round by tedious round, which the channel promotes with months of on-air speculation. The league’s passion for pseudo science gives the network’s commentators plenty to yak about all those hours. In Bob Fenimore’s day pro football teams did much of their scouting by reading newspaper clippings. Today they weigh, measure, calibrate, clock, prod and poke prospects, subject them to intelligence and psychological tests (“Would you rather climb a mountain or eat a banana?”), and interview their parents, teachers, coaches, parole officers and present- and ex-girlfriends to plumb their “character.”
Some of the results are nonsense; for instance, my track-and-field friends assure me that no human being can run 40 yards in 4.5 seconds from a stationary start in football gear. Nonetheless, that doesn’t stop such figures from being parroted. And “character”? I guess Michael Vick’s dogs ate his test.
So hey, friends, how did you enjoy last weekend’s festivities? Did your team score big or get guys who look like Tarzan but play like Jane? What grade did they get from the pundits? Truth to tell, the world won’t know how well they fared for two or three years, soonest. But keep that under your hat or you’ll spoil the fun.
My first year as a football fan was the next one, 1946. The Bears, with the marvelous (and Jewish!) Sid Luckman at quarterback, won the National Football League championship. Football, too, seemed easy.
The first year I was aware of the NFL draft was 1947. Despite having won the title the year before (and for reasons I still can’t explain) the Bears had the No.1 pick in the entire affair. With it they chose Bob Fenimore, a several-time All-American tailback from Oklahoma A & M, now Oklahoma State U.
Nicknamed the “Blond Bomber,” Fenimore came suitably hyped. Just give him the ball and get out of his way, the newspapers said. The Bears did that in ’47, but not often and with little effect. Apparently still hampered by a knee injury he’d suffered the year before, the Bomber carried just 53 times for 189 yards in his first season as a pro. (I looked that up.). It also was his last season, because afterward he went home to Stillwater and began what was to be a lifelong career as an insurance agent.
I thought the NFL draft was weird and anything but easy.
All these years later, I still think so. That’s why I annually scratch my head in wonder over all the fuss made over the player drafts of our major sporting entities. Crap shoots is what they are, but that doesn’t keep them from gaining in importance and attention among us fans. That’s testimony to our love of hype, because in that category the drafts stand alone at the top. No events are involved. They’re all hype.
Yes, the newspapers overplay the things, but I trace this development mostly to ESPN, the all-sports cable TV channel whose 1979 launch transformed not only sports but all of American culture. Before ESPN, sports were mainly a weekend diversion in this land, something to occupy a few hours on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Men chatted with their wives, helped their kids with their homework, watched “Bonanza,” maybe even read a book.
ESPN’s 24/7 sports format changed all that. Total immersion, theretofore a dream, became reality. Soon imitators popped up and created other all-sports fonts, both national and local. Guys today needn’t spend an idle hour watching or thinking about anything except the world of fun and games.
Still, they don’t play the National Anthem much between midnight and noon, so ESPN has to hustle to fill its airtime. What better way to do this but with draft blather? Production costs are low—a couple of guys in a studio will suffice. Any two will do as long as they’re loud enough. No scripts are needed; a question like whether the Raiders need a running back more than a defensive lineman easily can fill a half hour.
The NFL is nothing if not adaptable, so it leaped to the opportunity by allowing ESPN to air its entire, two-day draft, round by tedious round, which the channel promotes with months of on-air speculation. The league’s passion for pseudo science gives the network’s commentators plenty to yak about all those hours. In Bob Fenimore’s day pro football teams did much of their scouting by reading newspaper clippings. Today they weigh, measure, calibrate, clock, prod and poke prospects, subject them to intelligence and psychological tests (“Would you rather climb a mountain or eat a banana?”), and interview their parents, teachers, coaches, parole officers and present- and ex-girlfriends to plumb their “character.”
Some of the results are nonsense; for instance, my track-and-field friends assure me that no human being can run 40 yards in 4.5 seconds from a stationary start in football gear. Nonetheless, that doesn’t stop such figures from being parroted. And “character”? I guess Michael Vick’s dogs ate his test.
So hey, friends, how did you enjoy last weekend’s festivities? Did your team score big or get guys who look like Tarzan but play like Jane? What grade did they get from the pundits? Truth to tell, the world won’t know how well they fared for two or three years, soonest. But keep that under your hat or you’ll spoil the fun.
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