Look, I think Bruce Springstein is OK. I can appreciate his song-writing abilities. But honestly, I never really "got it" with respect to the sheer insanity of his rabid fanbase. For example, take a look at Ian O'Connor's column.
His sideburns and soul patch a dusty shade of gray, his voice as rough as a turnpike exit ramp, the man dressed in casual black sat on a stool with his right foot planted on the floor and his left foot planted on the crossbar. Springsteen wouldn’t have come across any better, any more regular-Joe genuine, if he had grabbed a guitar and starting singing about warm beer and a soft summer rain.
[For starters, I have a personal rule against getting *too* excited about anyone with a soul patch. Also, now that we know how the Boss likes to position his feet when sitting, why does "warm beer" conjure a positive connotation? Warm beer is gross. And a song about it would just be weird.]
So I’m one Bruce-loving son of New Jersey who is going to positively hate himself in the morning.
[Should have taken it easy with the warm beer. Maybe bring a cooler or something next time.]
The Boss is bad for the Super Bowl.
[Huh?]
He’s too big, too good, too damned popular to be plunked down in the middle of America’s leading sports event.
[Great point. With 100+ million people watching, we wouldn't want someone *too* popular. Think about it....]
Springsteen doesn’t play at the Super Bowl.
[Boy, those TV execs are going to be PISSED come halftime.]
If NFL officials wanted Bruce so badly, they should’ve turned this into a concert and had Pittsburgh and Arizona play a 12-minute game at intermission, like those mini Giants Stadium scrimmages the little boys play at the half.
[I can't tell if he's being serious or not.]
Springsteen said he hasn’t played football since his backyard games from 50 summers ago, and yet he was met at the Super Bowl by a larger audience than would greet a collection of every living member of pro football’s Hall of Fame.
[We get it. The Boss is popular.]
Friday, January 30, 2009
War Crimes & Homoeroticism in the Sports Section
I think that Bill Plashke may be losing it…and I don’t mean that in an insulting way. I mean it in a positive we-can-help-you-Bill way.
Because I want to help.
The fairy tale is that, if he wins Sunday, the Arizona Cardinals quarterback has promised to buy his family a puppy.
It’s a fairy tale? As in, it's not real? Warner’s kids are going to be PISSED.
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to whip the dog out of him.
I’m pretty sure that is not a real phrase.
The fairy tale is that, while dining with his family every Friday night before home games, the Arizona Cardinals quarterback picks up a stranger's bill.
How is this a fairy tale? This really happens. It happens every Friday night before home games. I know this because you just told me it was true…even though you also told me it was a fairy tale.
Your bad writing hurts me.
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to cash him out.
Plashke is currently waterboarding this fairy tale/reality show device despite waterboarding being specifically disallowed in the Army Field Manual...which means that this column is four sentences in and already officially guilty of a War Crime.
Good start.
The fairy tale is that, for the second time in a bungee-jump of a career, Kurt Warner will finish work Sunday as the sweetest of Super Bowl heroes.
Just when I started to think “hey, that actually is kind of a fairy tale” and “maybe that means that Plashke just needed to get warmed up and is now going to make sense,” I do something stupid like read his next sentence…
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers will make him melt in their mouthpieces.
Without a single shred of a doubt, this is the single most disturbing sentence ever written in a sports column.
There are, by my rough count, 325,648 jokes that it is possible to make from this sentence alone, but each of them only reinforces what I just read…and I need to be cleansed of that sentence. To pretend that it never happened. To scour my mind clear of the thought that any part (or emission) of Kurt Warner might be melting in the mouthpieces of a single Steelers player. To try manfully to knock away the image of the Steelers actively wanting Kurt Warner in their mouths. So I do not joke about it.
I just flail helplessly beating my head against the wall and weeping in sorrow for the state of sportswriting.
I would go on, but Plashke rides the fairy tale/reality show metaphor so indecently, unfeasibly long that it really belongs in a John Holmes movie. And I just can't do that to myself.
Or to you.
Because I want to help.
The fairy tale is that, if he wins Sunday, the Arizona Cardinals quarterback has promised to buy his family a puppy.
It’s a fairy tale? As in, it's not real? Warner’s kids are going to be PISSED.
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to whip the dog out of him.
I’m pretty sure that is not a real phrase.
The fairy tale is that, while dining with his family every Friday night before home games, the Arizona Cardinals quarterback picks up a stranger's bill.
How is this a fairy tale? This really happens. It happens every Friday night before home games. I know this because you just told me it was true…even though you also told me it was a fairy tale.
Your bad writing hurts me.
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to cash him out.
Plashke is currently waterboarding this fairy tale/reality show device despite waterboarding being specifically disallowed in the Army Field Manual...which means that this column is four sentences in and already officially guilty of a War Crime.
Good start.
The fairy tale is that, for the second time in a bungee-jump of a career, Kurt Warner will finish work Sunday as the sweetest of Super Bowl heroes.
Just when I started to think “hey, that actually is kind of a fairy tale” and “maybe that means that Plashke just needed to get warmed up and is now going to make sense,” I do something stupid like read his next sentence…
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers will make him melt in their mouthpieces.
Without a single shred of a doubt, this is the single most disturbing sentence ever written in a sports column.
There are, by my rough count, 325,648 jokes that it is possible to make from this sentence alone, but each of them only reinforces what I just read…and I need to be cleansed of that sentence. To pretend that it never happened. To scour my mind clear of the thought that any part (or emission) of Kurt Warner might be melting in the mouthpieces of a single Steelers player. To try manfully to knock away the image of the Steelers actively wanting Kurt Warner in their mouths. So I do not joke about it.
I just flail helplessly beating my head against the wall and weeping in sorrow for the state of sportswriting.
I would go on, but Plashke rides the fairy tale/reality show metaphor so indecently, unfeasibly long that it really belongs in a John Holmes movie. And I just can't do that to myself.
Or to you.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
LeBron James might be a fictional character sent from the future
Here's a pretty mind-boggling piece by Chris Ballard on SI.com about the mythological creature we know as LeBron James.
Apparently, LeBron weighs "between 265 and 270" and has "5% body fat." And not only that, but according to Ballard, "James has never really lifted."
I'm not even mad; that's amazing.
Apparently, LeBron weighs "between 265 and 270" and has "5% body fat." And not only that, but according to Ballard, "James has never really lifted."
I'm not even mad; that's amazing.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Peter King, Scoop Machine
I'm not entirely sure why, but Peter King devoted most of his Tuesday column to a conversation with Jake Plummer. I know he played for the Cardinals years ago, but.... Plummer? Really?
Plummer did not watch the NFC championship game. He didn't see the team that made him its poster child a decade ago make the first Super Bowl in its history. "I caught the highlights,'' he said, "but I had a handball tournament in Seattle."
[Here's how my "Things I Bet Jake Plummer Is Doing With His Retirement" list looked prior to today:
1. Spending time with family.
2. Staying in shape for eventual comeback.
3. Grooming beard.
4. Grooming mustache.
.
.
.
.
.
.
847. Playing in handball tournaments.]
Aren't there a hundred questions you'd like to ask Jake Plummer?
[At least that many just about handball tournaments, right?]
Plummer knows what he wants to do for the rest of his life -- something in coaching, but not at any level higher than high school.
[OK.]
"I really don't know what I'll do exactly," [Plummer] said.
[No, Jake, you *do* know. You want to coach. King just said so. C'mon dude.]
Handball, he said, is a way to keep his competitive juices flowing. He has bonded with a lot of western handball players, who play the game for the love of the game instead of money.
[SO refreshing to hear. Personally, I'd about had it with all of the prima donna handball players.]
"It's the purest sport in the world," Plummer said. "Even the president [the President's Council on Physical Fitness] says it's a great sport to stay physically fit.
[Things that make this quote hilarious:
(1) The "purest" sport in the world? Per Wikipedia: "Contact is only allowed when the defensive player is completely in front of the offensive player, i.e. between the offensive player and the goal, this is referred to as a player sandwich." Mmmmmm, player sandwich. Pure.
(2) The fact that King had to include the bracketed portion. This means that coming off of the most publicized and hype-filled Presidential election in recent American history, Jake Plummer refers to the guy who heads the President's Council on Physical Fitness as "the president."
(3) I Googled the President's Council on Physical Fitness to determine the name of "the president" (so as to make an Obama joke), and found the following on the Council Members bio page:
PCPFS Chairman - Vacant
PCPFS Vice Chair - Vacant
PCPFS Council Members - Vacant
Acting Executive Director - RADM Penelope Slade-Sawyer, P.T., M.S.W.
How to become a Council member:
All Council members are appointed by the President of the United States. Please contact:
Director, Office of Presidential Personnel
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
(202) 456-1414
If a person who was appointed on the basis of asking-for-the-job-when-apparently-no-one-else-wanted-it says that handball is a great sport to stay physically fit, consider me officially convinced.]
"I TiVoed the game last year, but the last three minutes got cut off. I was a novice TiVo-er, and I recorded the game, but I guess it ran long, so there I was, watching the game and it just stopped. I was a little mad. The game was getting good. This year I'll make sure to TiVo the program after the Super Bowl."
[Best. Interview. Ever.]
Plummer did not watch the NFC championship game. He didn't see the team that made him its poster child a decade ago make the first Super Bowl in its history. "I caught the highlights,'' he said, "but I had a handball tournament in Seattle."
[Here's how my "Things I Bet Jake Plummer Is Doing With His Retirement" list looked prior to today:
1. Spending time with family.
2. Staying in shape for eventual comeback.
3. Grooming beard.
4. Grooming mustache.
.
.
.
.
.
.
847. Playing in handball tournaments.]
Aren't there a hundred questions you'd like to ask Jake Plummer?
[At least that many just about handball tournaments, right?]
Plummer knows what he wants to do for the rest of his life -- something in coaching, but not at any level higher than high school.
[OK.]
"I really don't know what I'll do exactly," [Plummer] said.
[No, Jake, you *do* know. You want to coach. King just said so. C'mon dude.]
Handball, he said, is a way to keep his competitive juices flowing. He has bonded with a lot of western handball players, who play the game for the love of the game instead of money.
[SO refreshing to hear. Personally, I'd about had it with all of the prima donna handball players.]
"It's the purest sport in the world," Plummer said. "Even the president [the President's Council on Physical Fitness] says it's a great sport to stay physically fit.
[Things that make this quote hilarious:
(1) The "purest" sport in the world? Per Wikipedia: "Contact is only allowed when the defensive player is completely in front of the offensive player, i.e. between the offensive player and the goal, this is referred to as a player sandwich." Mmmmmm, player sandwich. Pure.
(2) The fact that King had to include the bracketed portion. This means that coming off of the most publicized and hype-filled Presidential election in recent American history, Jake Plummer refers to the guy who heads the President's Council on Physical Fitness as "the president."
(3) I Googled the President's Council on Physical Fitness to determine the name of "the president" (so as to make an Obama joke), and found the following on the Council Members bio page:
PCPFS Chairman - Vacant
PCPFS Vice Chair - Vacant
PCPFS Council Members - Vacant
Acting Executive Director - RADM Penelope Slade-Sawyer, P.T., M.S.W.
How to become a Council member:
All Council members are appointed by the President of the United States. Please contact:
Director, Office of Presidential Personnel
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
(202) 456-1414
If a person who was appointed on the basis of asking-for-the-job-when-apparently-no-one-else-wanted-it says that handball is a great sport to stay physically fit, consider me officially convinced.]
"I TiVoed the game last year, but the last three minutes got cut off. I was a novice TiVo-er, and I recorded the game, but I guess it ran long, so there I was, watching the game and it just stopped. I was a little mad. The game was getting good. This year I'll make sure to TiVo the program after the Super Bowl."
[Best. Interview. Ever.]
Monday, January 26, 2009
Stay classy, Torre
Tell-alls are all the rage, I know. Britney is about to write one. Ditto for Sarah Palin. So Joe Torre is striking while the iron is hot, as the excerpt posted on SI.com illustrates.
The meeting was Torre's idea. Hank, Hal, Lopez, Levine, Trost and Cashman had kicked around the idea of what to do about Torre for the better part of a week. Do they offer him another contract, and, if so, for how long and for how much money? Do they even want him back at all? While they deliberated, Torre told Cashman he wanted to meet with the group face-to-face. It wasn't much different than how he managed: You look somebody in the eye and rely on direct honesty, rather than leaks and secondhand information.
[A bonus feature for purchasers of this book who also happen to work in the Yankee front office: Torre will come to your home or office and read the book aloud to you. Direct.]
"They only want to give you one year," Cashman told him over the phone.... "Cash, I have an idea. What about a two-year contract? It doesn't even really matter what the money is. Two years, and if I get fired in the first year, the second year is guaranteed. But if I get fired after the first year, I don't get the full amount of the second year, just a buyout. The money doesn't matter. I mean, as long as it's not just something ridiculous. It's not about the money. It's the second year."
[Exactly. The money makes *no* difference. Oh, but yeah, I'm going to want to see the terms of that buyout before I sign off on it.]
Torre had just gone through a hellish season, with constant leaks in the press, sniping from the front office, frequent rumors about him getting fired and the feeling that people within his own organization were rooting against him. He was worn out by all of it. There was no way he was going to go through another year like that.
[But *two* years of that? I can be persuaded....]
All Torre wanted was to manage one more season in relative calm, and the second year on a contract would help provide that kind of stability. The second year was nothing but an insurance policy. He planned to retire after that one season, anyway.
[Amazed that this negotiating tactic was unsuccessful, I tried it out myself following my recent performance review at my own place of employment:
Boss: Archie, is there anything that you'd like to discuss?
Me: Actually there is, sir: my employment contract.
Boss: OK, what specifically would you like to discuss?
Me: The length of my imminent extension. I know that we normally go year-to-year, but I would really prefer to get 2009 *and* 2010 guaranteed now.
Boss: Hmmm, for any particular reason?
Me: Yes. I'd like to retire in 2010 and move someplace warm..., maybe Scottsdale. But I'd prefer to get paid for that year.
Boss: .....But you have no intention of working for the company. You just admitted as much.
Me: You are focusing on all the wrong details, sir. Paying me for 2010-- even though I have no intention of working for you at all during that year-- will make me more productive in 2009.
Boss: I'm going to have to say "no" here, Archie. I'll see you on Monday.
Me: Maybe a buyout option?
Boss: Don't make me call Security.
"Yeah, I was leaving a lot of money on the table," Torre said, "but I didn't give a s---, because I knew what I went through the year before, dreading coming to the ballpark and sitting behind that desk every day. It would have been the same thing."
[How could the Yankees let this guy go?!?]
The meeting was Torre's idea. Hank, Hal, Lopez, Levine, Trost and Cashman had kicked around the idea of what to do about Torre for the better part of a week. Do they offer him another contract, and, if so, for how long and for how much money? Do they even want him back at all? While they deliberated, Torre told Cashman he wanted to meet with the group face-to-face. It wasn't much different than how he managed: You look somebody in the eye and rely on direct honesty, rather than leaks and secondhand information.
[A bonus feature for purchasers of this book who also happen to work in the Yankee front office: Torre will come to your home or office and read the book aloud to you. Direct.]
"They only want to give you one year," Cashman told him over the phone.... "Cash, I have an idea. What about a two-year contract? It doesn't even really matter what the money is. Two years, and if I get fired in the first year, the second year is guaranteed. But if I get fired after the first year, I don't get the full amount of the second year, just a buyout. The money doesn't matter. I mean, as long as it's not just something ridiculous. It's not about the money. It's the second year."
[Exactly. The money makes *no* difference. Oh, but yeah, I'm going to want to see the terms of that buyout before I sign off on it.]
Torre had just gone through a hellish season, with constant leaks in the press, sniping from the front office, frequent rumors about him getting fired and the feeling that people within his own organization were rooting against him. He was worn out by all of it. There was no way he was going to go through another year like that.
[But *two* years of that? I can be persuaded....]
All Torre wanted was to manage one more season in relative calm, and the second year on a contract would help provide that kind of stability. The second year was nothing but an insurance policy. He planned to retire after that one season, anyway.
[Amazed that this negotiating tactic was unsuccessful, I tried it out myself following my recent performance review at my own place of employment:
Boss: Archie, is there anything that you'd like to discuss?
Me: Actually there is, sir: my employment contract.
Boss: OK, what specifically would you like to discuss?
Me: The length of my imminent extension. I know that we normally go year-to-year, but I would really prefer to get 2009 *and* 2010 guaranteed now.
Boss: Hmmm, for any particular reason?
Me: Yes. I'd like to retire in 2010 and move someplace warm..., maybe Scottsdale. But I'd prefer to get paid for that year.
Boss: .....But you have no intention of working for the company. You just admitted as much.
Me: You are focusing on all the wrong details, sir. Paying me for 2010-- even though I have no intention of working for you at all during that year-- will make me more productive in 2009.
Boss: I'm going to have to say "no" here, Archie. I'll see you on Monday.
Me: Maybe a buyout option?
Boss: Don't make me call Security.
"Yeah, I was leaving a lot of money on the table," Torre said, "but I didn't give a s---, because I knew what I went through the year before, dreading coming to the ballpark and sitting behind that desk every day. It would have been the same thing."
[How could the Yankees let this guy go?!?]
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