Gone

 Somewhere out there, baseball is being played. 

The major league playoffs are in, if you'll pardon the expression, full swing. 

I could care less.

A large and somewhat immovable chunk of this apathy can be traced from the hometown Oakland Athletics moving to (checks notes) a pasture somewhere near Sacramento. Another big piece of this mildly held disdain stems from the lack of having a team which I would root for when I was growing up. Colorado was without a major league franchise until 1993, the year after I moved to California. At that point, I was dropped into a decided wealth of baseball. I was just a BART ride away from the Oakland A's or a slightly longer BART ride and a couple transfers to various other public transit options to watch the San Francisco Giants play.

Seeing as how I had a slot open in my vicarious sports thrill menu, I latched onto the scrappy Athletics, winner of four World Series and tenants of one of the least attractive concrete bunkers in which any major sport was played. We made our way out to the ballpark on a number of occasions over the course of any given summer, with a keen eye toward which home games provided the best giveaways. This is how I collected a number of bobbleheads that now exist in basement boxes, waiting to be unearthed in those future days when we need to see what grandpa was up to all those years ago.

As a fan, I got to take the ride on the Moneyball express, those halcyon days that eventually starred Brad Pitt, and Oakland went on a twenty game tear back in 2002 winning twenty games straight. A modern day record that stood for fifteen years until it was bested by, of all teams, the Cleveland Guardians. For a couple of decades, I had a team. 

Then they moved away. Ostensibly to Las Vegas, but first a stop in that pasture outside of Sacramento. They never did win a World Series while we were together in Oakland. 

Now I hear that the playoffs are taking place again. Without Oakland. Without the Athletics. 

Without me. 

World Wide

 I consider myself a sports fan. Not unreasonable, but fixated on the outcome of certain games being played by grown men and women for which I have a "rooting interest." I don't gamble on the final score or any of the other mathematical or statistical threads that could become a concern. I do participate in a "friendly" fantasy football league whose prize at the end of the season is primarily bragging rights for the following year. 

This being said, I know that I do not appreciate sports, or rather a sport, like the football fans across the globe who are currently immersed in the contest we now embrace as The World Cup. Far from the somewhat ridiculous exclusivity of Major League Baseball's "World Series" which is comprised entirely of teams from North America, FIFA brings together a truly international group of competitors. This event is, according to John Oliver, the way that Americans learn about geography. Each one of these teams has its own fan base which instantly reveals my "passion" for certain franchises to be a passing fancy. 

I learned just how tepid my own concerns were last weekend when my wife began to notice the sounds emenating from up and down the houses and apartment buildings on our street. Mexico and England were locked in a tense match, and each shot on goal or offsides was met with a roar coming from inside and out of neighbors' homes. As we walked up the street for dinner, we took notice of how still the rest of the neighborhood was outside of these periodic eruptions. It made me think of Super Bowl Sundays when "everyone" was settled onto their couches, staring at the uniquely American "football" spectacle.

Or at least the commercials. 

I was reminded of the 1970s. Back when we in the United States began to tense and surrender for the adoption of the metric system. It was right about this time that initial rumblings began to occur about how we should also brace ourselves for the next big wave of international influence: Soccer. Boys and girls began to organize teams that allowed them to move the ball only with their feet. 

How could this be? 

Most of us are still waiting for this domination to usurp our use of the term "football." But as I made my way down my street in Oakland, I was reminded of the multiculture in which I teach. On any given day there is a basket ball game, or some American football being tossed around, but by far the most regular attraction on our playground is the soccer pitch. Boys and girls from five to twelve are all kicking and screaming to their hearts' content, fully aware of the rules of the game if not the subtle techniques of the players they have grown up idolizing. Seeing this throng of children playing a game with such fervor reminds me of the melting pot in which I live. It makes me understand the World just a little better. 

Roy G Biv

 It's Pride Month. June is when LGBTQ+ contributions to the world are celebrated. 

This makes a lot of people uncomfortable. This has always been the case since it started, with marketing folks figuring it's another opportunity to sell mattresses and T shirts. Baseball teams hold Pride Nights to show their continued support of the gay community in their area by putting rainbows on things like hats and jerseys that they were going to sell anyway, but these will show everyone who is not LGBTQ+ how comfortable you are wearing something that you might have worn anyway but this one happens to have a rainbow on it. 

Of course, if these jerseys or caps were given away free to players to wear during games that were held to celebrate Pride Month, there might be a few of these players who would object to being "forced" to wear something that so obviously goes against the grain of their personal beliefs. And manhood. Such was the case in, of all places, San Francisco where a group of players chose to scribble bible verses on their caps in order to protect them from the cooties that would no doubt seep into their skulls from wearing the rainbow-infused logo. After a stern warning from Major League Baseball, the players in question went back to their business which involves wearing a lot of tight pants and patting other players on the fanny. 

That's when the Department of "Justice" stepped in. The Second Trumpreich seems committed to ignoring the pedophile in charge while inserting themselves into any and all other potential miscarriages of "Justice." In this case, it seems that the DOJ is investigating a violation of players' religious rights for scribbling the bible verse on their caps. The verse in question is Genesis 9:12-16 which reads, 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

I am not a bible scholar, but I can read. To me, this verse suggests that all god's creatures, "every kind," are bound together by the sign of the rainbow. I don't think that the rainbow is mutually exclusive for Giants fans or young men who are so insecure about their masculinity that they can't wear an alternative logo on their baseball caps for one night lest they start showering together. 

Not that showering together makes one LGBTQ+. Of course, wearing a cap with a rainbow on it probably doesn't either. 

If You Build It, They Will Come

 When I was born, there was already a professional football team in the area for which I could root. I grew up rooting for the Denver Broncos because they were literally the only game in town. I lived through more than my share of ups and downs with this franchise. By the time they reached their first Super Bowl, I was seventeen years old. 

The Denver Broncos did not win that Super Bowl. Through the 1980s, they struggled to remain relevant and flirted with success, appearing in three more championship games before finally coming out on the winning end of things. 

By this point, I was no longer a resident of the Denver Metro Area. I had moved to Oakland, California where I wore my orange and blue with pride and a little bit of fear in the heart of Raiders Country. Just for good measure, the Denver Broncos went ahead and won a second Super Bowl the very next year. I felt pretty smug about having a hometown team with those credentials. 

If you've spent any time poking around here, you've probably heard this song before. Again and again. But what struck me this week was the news that the Chicago Bears were moving ahead with plans to relocate their team to Hammond, Indiana. For perspective's sake, the Chicago Football Bears were founded in September 1920. For more than one hundred years, "da Bears" have been a cornerstone of what we understand as the National Football League. Those first couple of years, they played their games in Decatur, Illinois, so they weren't exactly Chicago Bears. In 1922, they moved to Wrigley Field to play their home games on the same grass where their ursine baseball counterparts on the North Side played. 

That's where you would find them, most autumn Sundays since. Until they move to another state. 

I have a great deal of sympathy for fan bases that lose their sports teams to new locales. Oakland has a somewhat tragic track record of misplacing their football, basketball and baseball teams. The Raiders have left Oakland twice, once for Los Angeles, and once again for Las Vegas. There are still plenty of folks hanging on desperately to their silver and black gear with the notion that the team somehow owes them something. Or they owe the team something. 

Like loyalty? 

When the 2026-27 NFL season starts, the Chicago Bears will still be the Chicago Bears. The Denver Broncos will still the Denver Broncos. The San Francisco Forty-Niners play in Santa Clara. The Baltimore Colts now play in Indianapolis. The Cleveland Browns now play in Baltimore with a new mascot: The Ravens. St. Louis had the Cardinals but gave them up to Arizona. Then St. Louis had the Rams, but they gave them back to Los Angeles. Houston has their Texans, but they probably don't notice that the Tennessee Titans bear more than a passing resemblance to what used to be the Houston Oilers. 

There is no crying in baseball, according to the guy who used to sell hot dogs at Oakland A's games. But I'm guessing a few tears will be shed in Chicago. 

Club

 I was being asked by the media to care about a golf tournament. 

With baseball just starting and the basketball season winding down, this has always been a tough spot for sports. The Stanley Cup is still months from being given away to the hockey team that manages not to succumb to the tedium of two months of playoffs. The Masters is the best chance we are told to see the pageantry of trophy celebrations on full display for spectators. 

Maybe we are supposed to care because Tiger Woods will not be playing in this year's tournament. Who will rise to that occasion and take Tiger's place? Who will get all hopped up on goofballs and drive his very expensive SUV into oncoming traffic before calling his "good friend" the "president" when authorities arrive to take him into custody? 

Then there's this other major challenge getting me to care about golf. There's this little matter of the more than one hundred million dollars American taxpayers are paying so that the aforementioned "president" could whack a ball and chase it on courses that (checks notes) the aforementioned "president" owns. Compound this financial burden with the seemingly unrelenting images of this convicted felon out on the greens while the country falls deeper and deeper into a dystopian caricature of itself thanks to his "leadership." I suppose we should be happy that he isn't actually playing a fiddle instead of whacking a ball and chasing it. 

So this Masters thing. It's been a big deal for a long time. Ninety two years, with only a two year break for that little inconvenience called World War II. The World Series, that's baseball, has a longer stretch than that, and Lord Stanley's Cup has been awarded more than one hundred times. But I guess we should give some appreciation to this pantheon of championships. Providing that we don't bother mentioning that it wasn't until 1990 that the golf club where the tournament has been held all those years allowed its first black member admission. Or that it took until 2012 for women to be allowed into the club. Of course that skews a little different when you consider that club rules stated that players would be assigned caddies by the club, all of whom were black. 

Ah, the storied tradition of The Masters. Aren't you glad you asked me to pay attention? 

I won't be watching. 

Again. 

Eyes Of The Beholder

 The Olympics are on. 

The ones that take place during the winter: skiing, bobsled, luge, and plenty of ice skating. I read somewhere that this kind of thing takes place very four years or so. Recently the powers that be in Olympia, where such a things are determined I guess, decided to move the summer version of this sporting Cavalcade up by two years so some version of the Olympiad will take place every two years in an alternating fashion.

This means the swimming and running and basketball stuff will happen just about the time the average viewer wonders, "Hey, are the Olympics on this year?"

There is some sad news to report from the frosty hills of Milan, Italy where the twenty-fifth Winter Olympics are being held. Apparently there are some questions about the accuracy of the judging involved in certain events. Some of the contests have pretty clear outcomes, like downhill skiing. If you strap slippery boards to your feet and hurl yourself down a mountainside faster than the other slippery boarded speed freaks, you win. Contrastingly, there are a whole passel of events that rely on scores for style and grace which have been left to be argued about for the past hundred years or so. Like whether or not someone "stuck the landing" or if their music choice somehow didn't resonate with the finicky "experts" sitting at the edge of the rink. Lately there has been some discussion about whethere or not artificial intelligence might do a better job of discerning whose triple axle is better than whose. 

This sort of talk probably has its origins way back before there were machines that could do it, but memories of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan debacle back in 1994 make it seem all the more likely that attempts to manipulate the scoring in figure skating are probably going on all the time. Only now the emphasis might not be on breaking your challenger's kneecaps to win the gold medal. 

All of which brings me back to the lack of patience we humans have with other humans. Leaving one of us in charge of watching a group of athletes to determine the outcome of any sporting event is a fool's errand. Referees, umpires, judges and officials of all stripes are the recipients of all manner of hate and ridicule based on their split second in the moment observations. So much so that have felt compelled to supplement their eyes and ears with electronic eyes and ears to make things "better." You can't argue with instant reply, but I'll be darned if we don't all give it a shot on a regular basis. 

Which for me begs the question: How much longer before we start sending machines out on the ice to compete so that there can be no question about the mechanics of the Salchow just witnessed? And why not fill up the stands with humanoid robots that won't boo and jeer when things don't go the way they had hoped? 

This is exactly the kind of thing that would keep Elon Musk out of trouble for a few years. 

Just sayin'. 

SportsBall

 Hey sports fans!

If you read this sentence it means you're not my younger brother because he's pretty decidedly not a sports fan.

He did, however, accompany his idiot brother to San Francisco ten years ago to soak up all the festive goings-on in Super Bowl City. That was just up the road from where the actual game was going to be played in Santa Clara. To be completely transparent, the San Francisco Forty-Niners played on the outskirts of the city from which the team took its name, some sixteen miles from the center of all that truly is San Francisco. Cable cars. Rice-a-Roni. 

Candlestick Park was not where I dragged my sports agnostic brother ten years ago. Instead we took a BART train under the Bay and wandered up to the surface to see armed guards patrolling the streets. The Streets of San Francisco, a Quinn Martin Production. Recent terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino had created a heightened sense of imminent danger surrounding special events. 

Like the Super Bowl. 

But once we were inside the relatively friendly confines of the armed perimeter, we found the carnival-like atmosphere of Super Bowl City to be every bit as consumer-driven as we might have expected. The whole area was bathed in a soft blue haze brought on by the pervasive beer sponsor, Bud Light. We encountered many different opportunities to both stand in line and give up ridiculous amounts of cash to experience standing in line and giving up ridiculous amounts of cash. 

Eventually, after only being separated half a dozen times by the milling throng, I made my way to the one attraction that truly held my interest: wading through a sea of like-minded individuals to get a chance to buy my Official Super Bowl Fifty baseball cap. At this moment, typing those words, I understand the full absurdity of buying a baseball cap to support my favorite football team, but that's how we learn. 

Sometimes it takes a full decade. Sometimes it takes just a few sentences. And if you happen to see my younger brother, let him know that I was thinking about him. 

Tis The Season

 I have the Denver Broncos National Football franchise to thank for giving me the better part of six months of distraction from "the outside world." During this period I watched only bits and pieces of the games that they played, eighteen of them during this past season, due to my inability to stare directly into the glare of the actual competition. This did not keep me from feeling the tension and anxiety associated with spectator sports that many individuals experience by actually watching their favorite team play. Amongst the seemingly endless quirks about my character is this odd fascination/avoidance combination. It makes for some strange behaviors on any given weekend from August through January. 

This past weekend, I enlisted the help of my very patient wife to stare at the goings-on in Mile High Stadium. She understands the significance of the decade that has passed since "our team" has been to the Super Bowl. As I sat in the office, looking for ways to distract myself, she watched the entire second half of the Broncos/Bills game, encouraging me every so often to "come and look at this." Every so often I would stray out of my self-imposed cocoon and watch a play or two. Just enough to feel that creeping pain in my neck from the tension created by caring about a group of men playing football in a city in a state where I used to live more than half my life ago. 

Why should I care? I have been disappointed far more often than I have been brought joy from this association. It is a condition that I was actively attempting to address even as the Denver Broncos continued to find a way to make me care. 

It's just a game. 

The joy I felt when "our team" prevailed was cautiously out of scale for the outcome. There were still games to be played for the victors. Contrastingly, there were tears in the eyes of the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills as he addressed the media. The Bills' coach was fired two days later. For taking his team all the way to the doorstep of a championship. This is, after all, big business and losing is not the way to hang on to a job in the National Football League. And in the midst of the mildly ridiculous euphoria that was my home came the news that Denver's quarterback had suffered a broken ankle and would not be able to participate in any of the games left to be played this postseason. 

Once again I felt relief from having to care, but mired in the past with a heart that somehow continues to bleed orange and blue. This is a legitimate medical condition I can assure you and may be the root cause of all this madness. 

At least that's what I will continue to tell myself for at least one more week. 

Into The Gap

 I have, over time, learned to talk the talk. 

Sports. 

I played some football, long before I turned sixteen. I was on my junior high wrestling team. I even went out for track, mostly because it was something to do after school in the spring. 

I was never really good at any of those endeavors. I was a kid who was picked last for most any game, and experienced the charms of being the round, slow kid. 

I was also the son of season ticket holders to the University of Colorado football team. I spent many a Saturday afternoon in those stands. Sometimes I sat with my parents. Sometimes was patrolling the aisles, selling hot dogs or ice cold Coca Cola. And all that time, I was absorbing the culture. Scores, statistics, and hopes for a big win next week. 

In high school, football season was spent in the seats and on the field as part of the marching band that had a better record than the boys scrambling to beat the cross-town rival. But it was in the gymnasium that my love for basketball blossomed. For all the lack of success I witnessed on the gridiron, I was witness to amazing basketball. The Boulder High Panthers won the Colorado State Championship when I was a junior, and came within one ill-fated game of repeating when I was a senior. 

Somewhere in the midst of all this was the looming specter of baseball. The reason my grandparents split up so many years ago. It was from here that I acquired my grandfather's devotion to the Chicago Cubs. It hung in the back of my sports closet, primarily as an amusing anecdote to describe that "wait 'til next year" feeling that all but a very few fans experience each and every season. 

I dragged all of that history out to California where I got to see more than my share of winning from a revitalized Golden State Warriors basketball squad. Championship parades? How about that? Even the Denver Broncos, whose legacy I was also trapped won a few Super Bowls. 

So I learned to talk to others about sports. Because it's so much more interesting than the weather. One particular father who shows up early with his daughters each morning will inevitably ask me, "Didja see the game last night?" 

The honest answer is "No," but I come equipped with decades of cliches and experience that allow me to speak as if I had. Which is where all the talk comes in. It is a bonding moment that doesn't cost a penny to connect. The price I pay is that I can expect that the next day he will return and ask what I thought about the most recent headline on the sports page. 

I suppose I could throw a wrench in the works and ask him if he's seen the most recent Paul Thomas Anderson film. Or his opinion on tariffs. 

But that's not why we're here, exactly. We are here to find ways to bridge a gap. 

Thank you, sports. 

Sports Ticker

 You might not remember that Danica Patrick, who used to be a race car driver, who used to date an NFL quarterback by the name of Aaron Rogers, was a big deal. She even did a commercial that first aired during the 2009 Super Bowl. It didn't really focus as much on her connection to football or race car driving or any other sport unless getting into the shower with another woman is a sport. 

Nonetheless, even though it has been five years since Ms. Patrick and Mr. Rogers (not that Mister Rogers) have been dating and even longer since she raced a car, she felt compelled to use her station as (checks notes) a podcaster to let us all know just how she feels about the upcoming halftime show for this year's Super Bowl. The one that was just announced, featuring Bad Bunny. 

"Oh fun..." she tweeted, "No songs in English should not be allowed at one of America's highest-rated television events of the year ... not just for sports."

For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Bunny, he is a Puerto Rican rapper and has the Spotify record for most streams of an album. More than (checks notes) Ms. Swift. Since Ms. Swift turned down a gracious offer from the National Football League to perform on what Ms. Patrick correctly describes as one of America's highest rated television events of the year, the NFL figured they should find someone on a scale with Travis Kelce's fiancée. They landed on Bad Bunny. 

A potential ratings juggernaut, not simply because of his streamability, but because there are plenty of folks who will tune in just to see the ugly scene that Department of Homeland Security adviser Corey "not one of the fun Coreys" Lewandowski guaranteed after the announcement. “There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else." Suggesting that those who have been hounded and hunted for the past nine months would be foolish enough to give it all up for their chance to catch Mr. Bunny live at Levi Stadium this coming February.  

For his part, Mr. Bunny has stayed away from the United States on his current tour, with the exception of his native Puerto Rico, which just happens to be part of those United States, even though they don't get a star on the flag or a vote in Congress. If this is starting to sound a little like the Sharks and the Jets, I will stake my sports reputation on the infinitesimal chance that the green team from New York will find itself playing for the Lombardi trophy.  At least those characters from the West Side had the good taste to sing in English. 

Oh fun. 

Measure For Measure

 Football season is upon us. 

I know this because there was a news item about how the National Football League used their first preseason game to test out their "virtual first down system." For those of you who don't follow the game of American Football or are simply waiting for the games to count, you may have missed this event. 

After more than a century of using two sticks and a chain between them to determine just how far ten yards is, science has provided a way to do that same thing with some very fancy and expensive new cameras. You may have been thinking that the 4K TV you have in your living room is a pretty amazing piece of technology, but Sony has 8K which gives twice as many Ks as your TV. This allows the game to be monitored from above by machines that can pinpoint the placement of the ball on the field and allow the game to progress without those lengthy time-outs for measurement. Since games can be won or lost based on a few inches here or there, this comes as a boon to those of us who have held our breath while that chain has been stretched and then that far stick is somewhat ceremoniously put down to show once again just how far ten yards is. 

No kinks in the chain. No "friendly measurement." No excuses to nip out to the kitchen for more chips while the best union in the world continues to hold sway in the twenty-first century. 

For decades now, people like me have wondered why there wasn't a chip placed in the ball with sensors on the field that could detect whether or not the line to gain had been reached. Still more adults across the globe have wondered why this matters so much. Meanwhile, those three guys with their orange vest and sticks have had job security more than anyone else in the league. These folks are getting paid the princely sum of seventy-five to one hundred fifty dollars per game. This feels like a pittance compared to the responsibility these stalwart keepers of the yards carry on their shoulders. My guess is that the Hawk-Eye camera system will be quite a bit more expensive to operate and maintain. 

And starts to meander in the direction of Artificial Intelligence. "Hey Google, was that a first down?"

"I'm sorry Dave. I don't think I can help you with that right now. Why don't you take a stress pill?"

Speaking of stress, you don't have to feel bad about those poles and vests and so forth. They will continue to show up for this season anyway. They'll be there to remind us just how important ten yards really is. 

All Time

 I was fortunate to be witness to a period of time when John Elway was rushing about and hurling touchdown passes with seemingly reckless abandon. I spent a lot of Sundays watching from my couch, and on a couple of occasions, I was able to take all that quarterback magic in from the stands of Mile High Stadium. This vantage point was in many ways inferior to the one that offered me close-ups and instant replays and unfettered access to the bathroom at home, but there was something mildly magical about being in rough proximity to that greatness. 

This was much the same feeling I had when I sat down in the Chase Center to watch The Golden State Warriors take on The Portland Trailblazers. Not a playoff game. Not a marquee matchup of stars, but it was my first opportunity to see Steph Curry play basketball in the flesh. 

Not being predisposed to attending professional basketball games, it had been a couple decades since I was in the stands for any NBA game, let alone one that featured the talents of Mister Curry. It just so happened that our school was selected to be a part of a Reading Partnership with the Warriors organization, and at halftime our principal was to be introduced and recognized for her tireless efforts to make readers out of the kids at our school. We were offered sixty tickets to a Monday night game, the aforementioned Warriors/Trailblazers tilt. It was decided that we would take fifty kids who had shown themselves worthy of such distinction, and ten staff members who would ride herd on this field trip. Across the bay. At night. With all manner of distractions and confusions. 

Where's the bathroom? Where's the food? Where's the bathroom again?

I went along on the chaperoning gig to help out. And to support our principal. And to try an squeeze in a peek at the extra-human efforts of one of the greatest natural shooters to ever toss a basketball at a hoop. I did not spend much time in the seat that was provided for me. Instead, I was up and down the steep stairs of the arena, leading or following eight to eleven year olds to the facilities and to explain that none of the vendors in the stadium was taking cash. They would need a credit card. 

This provided some sad faces, so I did what any chaperone might do: I bought four overly-expensive orders of french fries for my group to inhale. This combined with the mass of Lunchables, cookies, chips and bottled water we had served them on the bus ride over didn't seem to dampen their hunger in the slightest. It also did not keep the bulk of them in their seats for more than a few minutes at a time. They were not there to watch basketball. They were there to test the Chase Center plumbing. 

But somewhere in there, in a brief lull between trips up and down the aisle, I was allowed to watch a bit of the game. Just enough to take in the effortless or appearance of effortlessness of Steph Curry shooting a basketball. His motion on the court was similar to the other players, but his was more focused, more a matter of fact. Even his misses looked pretty. And he wasn't just there to put up three point shots. He was hustling on defense, creating opportunities for his teammates, and playing the game as hard as anyone on the court. 

I thought of John Elway breaking away from would-be tacklers to fling a dart to a receiver coming open in the end zone. I thought about how fortunate I was to see that kind of physical ablitlity combined with an ingrained sense of the game. I thought of Steph Curry. 

Just before it was time for another trip down the stairs to the bathroom. 

No Place Like Home

 Let's fact it: There are lots of reasons to be upset these days. If you're sitting down to read the "news," you might get caught up in what the kids call "doom scrolling." I call it my morning read. I would love to tell you that this news comes primarily from the world of politics, but as we know now the weather can be just as depressing as anything coming out of Washington. Please feel free to insert your own "ill wind" joke here. 

Unfortunately, I feel that I must now remind you that the sports desk is not free from their own painful updates. 

Let's begin with the reality I have been facing myself: Aging. Most fans of professional sports will find a point in their obsession when they had a golden era in which the team they cared about most had at least a player or two that formed the nucleus of a playoff run or two. Even a championship. I have been fortunate enough to live in the Bay Area during a time when Steph Curry and his teammates were rewriting record books and were familiar fixtures when it came time to hoist the NBA championship trophy. Now at the ripe old age of thirty-six, Steph is beginning to show signs of being somewhat more human than he used to be. This has allowed the naysayers to pop up across the basketball world, insisting that it is time to trade him away. Oakland already lost the team to that other city by the bay. The potential of losing one of the greatest shooters to ever play the game would probably be enough to make me start watching more professional indoor soccer. 

That is not the only recent item that has left my sports blood running cold. A recent hype piece promoting the upcoming Major League Baseball season suggests that the team formerly known as the Oakland Athletics were on the brink of putting together a team full of home run hitters that could potentially make a playoff push this summer. Add to that an ownership group that seemingly feels the need to loosen their pursestriings to pay more free agents and veterans to come in and bolster that lineup, and you've got the rumors of a contender. Unfortunately for us in the city currently known as Oakland, this is not where all that potential baseball glory will be experienced. 

So forgive me if I turn something of a blind eye to the run up to the Super Bowl, with its hyper focus on the Lombardi Trophy. If only they were going to have Tower of Power playing the halftime show. 

Bigger Than The Game

 You may not have heard about De'Vondre Campbell. He's a professional football player, but not in that upper echelon of professional football players that you see on television selling insurance or underwear. De'Vondre is a linebacker who played for the San Francisco Forty-Niners. "Played" because he will no longer be playing for that franchise. It is not clear if he will be playing for any professional football team in the near future. This kind of thing happens around this time of year, when injuries take their toll and careers begin to fizzle out. 

That's not why Mister Campbell's football future is in doubt. In the midst of a somewhat forgettable battle of field goals against the Los Angeles Rams this past Thursday, the linebacker who had started the game in front of De'Vondre injured his knee. When the coaches tapped Campbell to go in as a substitute, he declined. He chose not to play. 

The reason for this choice was initially a little confounding. Why suit up and head out in the wind and rain of December in the Bay Area just to turn down your chance to get a little playing time? As more of the story became clear, it seems that De'Vondre was unhappy with the way he was being treated by the organization, coaches and ownership. This was his moment to stick it to the man. Which got me thinking about another San Francisco Forty-Niner, a quarterback who led his team to the Super Bowl a few years back. 

You probably remember Colin Kaepernick. He was a star in the manner of Mahomes and Manning. Until he decided he wanted to take a knee during the National Anthem. Not during the game, mind you, just during the pre-game "festivities." This was in 2016. Kaepernick was using his non-presence as a statement against a country that he felt "oppresses Black people and people of color." Even worse, other NFL players began to follow suit, and eventually there were dozens of others joined in the protest. 

Cutting to the chase, Colin Kaepernick's career with the San Francisco Forty-Niners was over soon after that. Donald Trump was elected "president," and in spite of being in his prime a Super Bowl quarterback Kaepernick was not picked up by any other team. 

This memory sent me way back in the data files to a movie from 1987 called Amazing Grace And Chuck. It tells the story of a Little League pitcher who decides that he won't play baseball until there are no more nuclear weapons. A professional basketball player hears about this and follows suit. Eventually there is a house full of pro athletes taking this pledge, causing a national crisis. The president is played by Gregory Peck in this film, so there's a little more liberal tinge to the goings-on, and I won't tell you how it ends. But I can say that it makes for a good parable. 

I hope that De'Vondre Campbell gets to play football again. 

Home Team

 So, not for the first time, it occurs to me that my appreciation for professional sports may be misplaced. 

I was just reading how the repairs to Tropicana Field, those made necessary by Hurricane Milton, will not be finished until after the 2025 baseball season. The Tampa Bay Rays who have called Tropicana Field home since 1998. Now they will have to play baseball someplace else until 2026. 

So the Rays made a deal with the New York Yankees, losers of the most recent World Series, for fifteen million dollars to play their home games in the Yankees' Spring Training stadium. The minor league Tampa Tarpons (read that one carefully) will make "other arrangements" for their home games. 

This one strikes close to home for me, since the ****Athletics fled Oakland not because their stadium was destroyed by a hurricane, but by its ownership. The stadium in Oakland is most certainly in need of a facelift and perhaps even a replacement, but just up the road in Sacramento there is a minor league baseball stadium where the ****A's can play their "home games" until such time as the folks in Las Vegas get around to building a new ballpark in which they will become known as the Las Vegas Tax Breaks. The plot of land upon which that Vegas stadium will sit is the former home of (wait for it) The Tropicana Hotel. 

Millions of dollars are being tossed around at solutions to the problems of billionaires who own sports franchises. New stadiums spring up because the public and those billionaires demand their sacrifice. Meanwhile, the Oakland Unified School District languishes in yet another budget deficit. Talks about how to eliminate the shortfalls once again center on the "need" to close schools in order to save money. The money and movements made available to professional sports franchises do not exist for public education. That kind of money is reserved for the really important things. 

Like baseball stadiums. 

Maybe we could open up a few satellite campuses in Tampa or Sacramento and teach the kids how to fill out a scorecard. 

Out

 Pete Rose.

I'll let you mull on that one for a moment. 

He went to the big diamond in the sky on Monday. He was eighty-three. He goes to his eternal rest with four thousand two hundred fifty-six hits in the Major Leagues. Second place on that list is the late Ty Cobb. Then the late Hank Aaron. As a matter of fact, there are only two players still alive in the top ten when it comes to hits in the Major League, and both of them have retired from the game. Which means that it will probably be some time, if ever, for that record to be broken. 

Most of you know that this kind of distinction should put a player in the Hall of Fame, but somewhere along the line Pete fell off that list to be inducted into Cooperstown. He had to do something equally as bad in baseball as he had done good. 

But first, a digression: When I was a kid in baseball-free Colorado, I watched the Big Red Machine of the 1970s. The team from Cincinnati dominated the National League of my youth. Pete Rose was a large part of that. So was Johnny Bench. While I was told to respect and admire the ferocity with which Pete played the game, earning him the nickname "Charlie Hustle," I preferred the more self-effacing Johnny Bench. Johnny played his entire seventeen year career with the Reds. Pete played for the Reds, then moved on to the Philadelphia Phillies before finishing up his playing days in Montreal. He returned to Cincinnati to manage the Reds from 1984 to 1989.

And that's where the trouble appeared. Pete Rose was declared permanently ineligible for consideration for the Hall of Fame because while he as a manager he was betting on Major League baseball games. Including his own team. 

Johnny Bench never did that. His rough and tumble teammate was the one caught up in one of baseball's biggest scandals. The "hustle" in Charlie Hustle began to take on a new meaning. From the time of the ban in 1991, Pete Rose declared his innocence. In 2004, he confessed to the gambling issue, perhaps with an eye toward making himself available once again to be enshrined in Cooperstown. 

That didn't work. 

And now he has gone. The base paths on which he stomped are only part of the Terra where Pete Rose left his mark. Now we have this cosmic discernment to make: If Pete Rose was given a lifetime ban from the Baseball Hall of Fame, do we feel obligated to let him in now that that lifetime is over?   

Final Score

 Dear John,

Sorry it took me a few days to respond to your letter. Thank you for taking the time to address us, the fans of the Oakland Athletics, and for giving us all your vision for the future, and the past. Thank you for making an effort to try and explain why after fifty-six years of baseball in this town you have decided to leave for the much more hospitable climes of the Nevada desert. 

Thanks for nothing. 

In your letter, you say that you have tried your very best to keep this team in Oakland. Yet each time some sort of compromise was worked out with the city, there were new conditions imposed and all the while you kept looking for other places to have your team, because you are the owner, play. To be clear, you have it in your means to build a new baseball stadium just about anywhere in the world. Three billion dollars would be a nice pot of money to put a diamond in that other city by the bay. 

But that's not the way you roll. You need the city to come up with the cash and the infrastructure to pay for your illusory temple to the Gods of Baseball. Rather than strike a deal that would keep the A's in Oakland until you can get any kind of sweetheart package in Las Vegas, you found the folks up in Sacramento willing to provide you with a minor league stadium in which you can field your team until such time as the greedheads in Sin City come around to your line of thinking. The line of thinking that anyone would be pleased and excited to be the recipient of the team you ground into the dirt over the past eight years. 

This is not the team you reference in your letter. This is not the Ricky Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Moneyball Oakland A's. This is not the twenty-game win streak A's. Around the time that everyone in organized baseball started using Sabermetrics to put a team on their field, the difference that made Oakland unique disappeared. The overriding issue returned to the obvious: money. You have to spend money to make money. You have to spend money to win games. 

John, you didn't spend the money. You priced yourself once again at the very bottom of the Major Leagues in payroll. By more than twenty million dollars. If you had been saving up to help get a new stadium built in Oakland, it might have made sense. Instead, you created a vacuum of talent. Vacuums suck. And even the most die-hard fans of the game were hard-pressed to find their way out to the ballpark. 

Now that Field of Dreams is dead. Your billions are safe, but not the weekly paychecks of the security, the vendors and all the ancillary businesses that were employed by the Oakland Athletics. Your fortune, handed to you by your father, is in pants. Not in baseball. Your future is secure. Your legacy as one of the worst owners in professional sports is secure. 

You made my son cry. I fully support his burning impulse to punch you in the head if he ever encounters you in some chance meeting. 

Thank you for your whiny excuse of an explanation. But it doesn't hold up. 

Thank you for nothing. 

I Was There

 Sooner or later, everything ends up on Al Gore's Internet. 

It's an information sponge. 

To wit: I was idly searching about on the waves of the world wide web the other day when what should appear but the Colorado Triple A State Basketball Championship from 1979. Someone had taken the mild effort of uploading the entire game between Boulder High and Regis. Complete with play by play commentary by Mike Hafner and a smattering of local commercials. 

I had never seen the broadcast. 

Because I was there. 

In the last six seconds, Doug Wilson sank two clutch free throws to tie and then win the game. I was sitting in some pretty bad seats along with the rest of the Boulder High Pep Band, but it didn't matter. 

I was there. 

It would be the third state basketball championship for Boulder, and as of this writing, the last. They got close the next year. In 1980, they were favored to win their second title in as many years. But I wasn't there. Not for the beginning anyway. For reasons recounted elsewhere, along with a couple of friends, I was late getting there. The Boulder High Panthers lost to Green Mountain. By a lot. 

I have not made any effort to find a recording of that game. That was my senior year and the high point of my vicarious sporting life was ruined in that one night. Championships would elude me and the teams that I followed for another decade. The Golden Buffaloes winning the National Championship of college football. The Super Bowls won by the Denver Broncos. There was even a World Series win for the Chicago Cubs. 

But back in 1979, that was my first taste. And to think I found it on Al Gore's Internet. 

You Said Hey

 I don't do requests.

I thought I made this clear. 

But then again, polite suggestions for topics that may have missed my usually zeitgeist-driven view of the world should not go without some kind of recognition. A good friend and constant reader wondered why I hadn't gotten around to saying something about Willie Mays.

The Say Hey Kid went to the big ballpark in the sky on June 18, rounding the bases for the last time at the age of ninety-three. Willie was by most every measure one of the greatest to ever play the game. Over a career that lasted twenty-three years. In his rookie year, he hit twenty home runs and helped his team, the New York Giants win their first pennant in fourteen years. He was named National League Rookie of the year for his efforts. 

The next year, he only played in thirty-four games before reporting for the Army induction center after being drafted. He played baseball on the Army Wheels team, playing one hundred eighty games before a foot injury sidelined him for the rest of his two year hitch. The day after he was discharged in 1954, he reported to the Giants' spring training camp. 

1954 was his second full season in the majors. All he did was help the Giants win a World Series and the Most Valuable Player for the National League. By most accounts, Willie just got better. Home runs. Stolen bases. Amazing catches. At the end of the 1973 season when he retired after playing his last two years with the New York Mets, he had hit six hundred sixty home runs and stolen three hundred thirty-nine bases. 

Along the way, he helped bring baseball to California, When the Giants moved from New York to San Francisco, crowds flocked to see him. So much so that nowadays when Bay Area fans want to catch a Giants game they pull up to the park located at 24 Willie Mays Plaza. 

So, why did it take me so long to get around to eulogizing this all-time great? Maybe because I never had the relationship that some did, having myself grown up in the baseball void of Colorado. I was more familiar with the cultural phenomenon that was Willie Mays. He even showed up in an episode of Bewitched. There was no ESPN. No Baseball Tonight. Willie was a force of nature as far as I was concerned, but the realities of that force were never made apparent to me. 

Until now. Willie Mays stomped on the Terra, specifically its base paths. He paved the way for generations who came after him. And he did it all for the love of the game. His salary in his twenty-first year as a major leaguer was $165,000. In 2024, the Major League minimum rookie salary is $740,000. Yeah, I know, inflation blah blah blah. Willie Mays was a great player and an even better bargain. 

Sports Metaphor

 Eight years ago, the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl Fifty. They did this in spite of having a stellar game from one of the game's premier field generals, Peyton Manning. 

It's hard to look back on the season that preceded Super Bowl L, as it was known in Rome, without remembering the struggle that took place in the weeks and months leading up to The Big Game. As a Broncos fan, I was delighted when my team was clever enough to take a chance on this old guy whose best years had by his own account passed him by. Peyton Manning was a bit of a gamble, having been out of football for a year rehabbing from surgery to repair a bulging disc in his neck. 

He came to Denver at the ripe old age of thirty-six. As damaged goods. To the surprise of many, Peyton seemed to pick right back up where he left off, adding to his Hall of Fame resume, rewriting records that he had set himself and adding even more gloss to what had been a stellar career. Even with all those offensive fireworks, it took a couple of seasons to get the Broncos back to the Super Bowl. 

In Super Bowl Forty-Eight, the Broncos were embarrassed by the Seattle Seahawks, with a highlight reel that included the first snap going over Peyton's head, ending in a safety for the Seahawks. Manning did not throw a touchdown pass in that game.

So there was some grumbling around the Mile High City when the old guy was back the next year. In a season when he broke still more passing records, the Peyton's Broncos were unceremoniously bumped out of the playoffs in the first round. 

The next year, 2015, Manning agrees to a pay cut in order to return to play quarterback for Denver. He proceeds to miss seven games due to injury, and the folks around organized football figured he was through. In January 2016, Peytong came off the bench for the first and only time in his career and leads his team to a victory that ensures that the Broncos will have home-field advantage for the playoffs. 

Then he went out and beat Tom Brady in the AFC Championship game. But this didn't calm the critics, who were correct when they noted that his role was more one of game management than the pinpoint passer that he had been just a year before. 

Peytong Manning did not win Super Bowl Fifty. His team did. A swarming defense kept the Carolina Pahthers' quarterback Cam Newton from being able to settle in and operate as he was accustomed. Newton's two fumbles and one interception were enough to keep them from winning. Peyton Manning was essentially a non-factor in the game, throwing for just one hundred forty-one yards and no touch downs. His final pass was for a game-sealing two-point conversion that put the Broncos over the top. 

Peyton Manning retired from football a month after that. 

This is pretty much how I feel about Joe Biden's performance in the first debate. 

It's a metaphor.