Is there something wrong with me? There must be, for I am completely fed up with the maudlin maundering over the death of Michael Jackson.
He was an extraordinarily gifted kid who made a vast fortune with a unique style of music/dance that uncounted millions of fans came to treasure, came to treasure and celebrate while ignoring a side of Michael that wasn't so pretty.
He was a hop-head, of course, to use a blunt old term. And while I don't suggest he be harshly condemned for becoming an addict -- it's a tragically common weakness -- it doesn't make him a model for adoring fans, particularly the young, to emulate.
And his relationships with other people's children -- young boys, taken to his bed -- are something else entirely. Though he was acquitted a few years ago of serious criminal charges, he publicly admitted and vigorously defended sharing his bed with many children other than his own. Why?
On the occasion of his death, like the best and worst of us, he was entitled to a certain period of respect. Not day after day of blaring media sentimentality.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
summertime
SUMMERTIME
The other day a Bronco running back voiced a timely observation on Denver’s attitude toward major sports. What he said was that since the Nuggets had been knocked out of the NBA playoffs, local fans were already “looking forward to football.”
He didn’t exactly say they were facing an empty summer, but I fear many do, indeed, feel they are. They have little or no affection for the third major sport, which is sad. For at least a few of us, the No. 1 game is baseball.
For us, those other sports are seasonal diversions. Baseball is serious business.
That is not to say the baseball fan always enjoys it. Baseball can make him suffer.
Remember 2007? The Colorado Rockies, after years of mediocrity, somehow put together a magic season-ending string of victories that landed them -- whoopee! -- in the World Series.
And then? Well, they blew it, ignominiously, four-zip.
Remember 2008? The Rockies returned to mediocrity. In 2009 they started out as one of the two worst teams in the major leagues. They couldn’t pitch, hit or defend. They were just awful.
But then, inexplicably, something strange happened. Overnight, they began to do it all -- pitch, hit and defend, all at the same time. They won eleven games in a row, sweeping series from the Cardinals in St. Louis, the Brewers in Milwaukee and the Seattle Mariners in Denver.
They did it with style. They even, eventually, got the full attention of the Denver Post. As this was written, in fact, there was a hopeful murmur that hey, guys, maybe we could see another run to a playoff berth.
That seemed unlikely. Nevertheless,for this fan, whatever happens the rest of the way, baseball remains No. 1.
Now I admit it’s a slow game with many breaks in the action, which turn off many people, but it’s partly because its a game that forces participants to stop, think and make adjustments.
When a hitter steps up against a top pitcher, he knows he may get a 95-mile-an-hour whistler two inches from his knuckles, or a nasty slider that looks quite hittable before it dives toward his shoe, or else a tantalizing curve that may or may not ever enter the strike zone.
At the same time, his manager or a coach may be flashing a signal he must recognize – hit, take, bunt, swing away. And meanwhile the opposing pitcher and catcher are guessing whether they’re more likely to whiff him with the slider or a knee-buckling curve or plain old high heat.
It takes lots of pondering.
Are other sports similar? Well, I know basketball teams have their game plans and plotted maneuvers, but the basic idea is simply to get the ball down the court and stuff it in the basket in fewer than 30 seconds and then race back to stop the other team from doing the same.
Football has extremely complex playbooks, and a forward pass can be a lovely thing, but who’s kidding? Most of the game is out-muscling and out-running the other team.
By comparison, baseball has a pace that is orderly and satisfying. It has a pleasing complexity. It has a down-home feel. And it has heart.
Think about this. To my knowledge, nobody has ever written a novel about football or basketball as good, as gritty, as down-to-earth as the Henry Wiggen books of Mark Harris. No other sport has inspired films as fine as “Bull Durham” or “Bang the Drum Slowly.”
Or has produced such a cast of characters:
Satchel Paige: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you. . . .Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move.”
Yogi Berra: “If the fans don’t come out to the ball park, you can’t stop them . . . Baseball is 90% mental – the other half is physical”
Casey Stengel: “Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It’s staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in. . . .Can’t anybody play this here game? (the Mets, 1962)
The other day a Bronco running back voiced a timely observation on Denver’s attitude toward major sports. What he said was that since the Nuggets had been knocked out of the NBA playoffs, local fans were already “looking forward to football.”
He didn’t exactly say they were facing an empty summer, but I fear many do, indeed, feel they are. They have little or no affection for the third major sport, which is sad. For at least a few of us, the No. 1 game is baseball.
For us, those other sports are seasonal diversions. Baseball is serious business.
That is not to say the baseball fan always enjoys it. Baseball can make him suffer.
Remember 2007? The Colorado Rockies, after years of mediocrity, somehow put together a magic season-ending string of victories that landed them -- whoopee! -- in the World Series.
And then? Well, they blew it, ignominiously, four-zip.
Remember 2008? The Rockies returned to mediocrity. In 2009 they started out as one of the two worst teams in the major leagues. They couldn’t pitch, hit or defend. They were just awful.
But then, inexplicably, something strange happened. Overnight, they began to do it all -- pitch, hit and defend, all at the same time. They won eleven games in a row, sweeping series from the Cardinals in St. Louis, the Brewers in Milwaukee and the Seattle Mariners in Denver.
They did it with style. They even, eventually, got the full attention of the Denver Post. As this was written, in fact, there was a hopeful murmur that hey, guys, maybe we could see another run to a playoff berth.
That seemed unlikely. Nevertheless,for this fan, whatever happens the rest of the way, baseball remains No. 1.
Now I admit it’s a slow game with many breaks in the action, which turn off many people, but it’s partly because its a game that forces participants to stop, think and make adjustments.
When a hitter steps up against a top pitcher, he knows he may get a 95-mile-an-hour whistler two inches from his knuckles, or a nasty slider that looks quite hittable before it dives toward his shoe, or else a tantalizing curve that may or may not ever enter the strike zone.
At the same time, his manager or a coach may be flashing a signal he must recognize – hit, take, bunt, swing away. And meanwhile the opposing pitcher and catcher are guessing whether they’re more likely to whiff him with the slider or a knee-buckling curve or plain old high heat.
It takes lots of pondering.
Are other sports similar? Well, I know basketball teams have their game plans and plotted maneuvers, but the basic idea is simply to get the ball down the court and stuff it in the basket in fewer than 30 seconds and then race back to stop the other team from doing the same.
Football has extremely complex playbooks, and a forward pass can be a lovely thing, but who’s kidding? Most of the game is out-muscling and out-running the other team.
By comparison, baseball has a pace that is orderly and satisfying. It has a pleasing complexity. It has a down-home feel. And it has heart.
Think about this. To my knowledge, nobody has ever written a novel about football or basketball as good, as gritty, as down-to-earth as the Henry Wiggen books of Mark Harris. No other sport has inspired films as fine as “Bull Durham” or “Bang the Drum Slowly.”
Or has produced such a cast of characters:
Satchel Paige: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you. . . .Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move.”
Yogi Berra: “If the fans don’t come out to the ball park, you can’t stop them . . . Baseball is 90% mental – the other half is physical”
Casey Stengel: “Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It’s staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in. . . .Can’t anybody play this here game? (the Mets, 1962)
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