The Votes are In, You Lose

NFL owners have voted, and the Rams are moving back to Los Angles.  Well, not Los Angeles, but Inglewood, in a privately funded stadium part of a $1.7 billion entertainment complex.  Not a built complex, but a proposed one.  I wonder how long until the Rams propose a little public funding for their stadium?

And where does this leave St. Louis?  With an empty Edward Jones Dome, built with public money to the tune of $300 million back in 1995, that’s where.  Of course, St. Louis civic leaders and public officials didn’t go down without a fight.  They begged the Rams to go for a new $1.1 billion private-public riverfront project (home of the River Rats, maybe?), but to no avail.  Nothing like seeing the leading citizens of your community throw themselves at the feet of the NFL.

Public funding for the homes of professional sports’ teams never turns out well.  Back in the 1980s, when the White Sox were threatening to move to Florida, I helped author a plan that called for turning Comiskey Park into a working national monument.  Technically, the federal government would have picked up the tab of renovation—with the emphasis on historic, not Jumbo Tron/luxury-suite new—so maybe I’m talking out of both ends of my mouth here.  But I know this.  What we proposed was rooted in history, not Hollywood fantasy.   

 

Not Speaking Ill of the Dead

 Former Negro Leagues’ and MLB outfielder Monte Irvin died yesterday at the age of 96.  What struck me were his career stats of 99 homerun, 443 rbi’s and a .293 batting average, which helped earn Irvin election to the Hall of Fame in 1973.

Now compare those numbers to Minnie Minoso’s from the age of 30 on—118 homers and 595 rbi’s.  The stats come from baseballreference.com, which puts Minoso’s birth date at November 1925 while Wikipedia gives it as November 1922.  So, those numbers could be from the age of 33, not 30.  (Maybe the thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations will allow researchers to settle this question once and for all.)  Either way, Minoso had a career batting average of .298 to Irvin’s .293.  I’m sorry, if one goes into the Hall of Fame, the other has to as well.  If anything, Minoso should have gone in first. 

Tuesday, Through a Frosted Window

 January is a tough month for anyone not a masochist but still wanting to stay active.  I cannot bear to join the mentally challenged who think it’s not only ok but imperative to ride one’s bike through the snow and cold.  Don’t be surprised when bodies on bikes are found come the spring thaw.

And I won’t cross-country ski.  Michele and I have talked about it, but that would mean actually going out in the snow.  Anyway, I really hate seeing cross-country skiers on the news after a blizzard somewhere distinctly urban.  What could be more precious than someone on skis trekking down Broadway or Fifth Avenue?  On second thought, there is—people who practice cross-country skiing in the summer on bike trails.    

That leaves ice skating, which I truly wish I had learned as a kid.  The whole Hans Brinker thing speaks to me, zipping along frozen canals to immortality.  Only the Sanitary-Ship Canal doesn’t freeze over, probably because of what the “sanitary” part means.  My parents did buy me a really nice pair of skates, but the best I could do was figure out how to get up off my ankles and walk on the ice without falling.  Clare, of course, did learn to skate and loves it.  If she didn’t hit a ball first, I’m sure she would have gotten into slapping a puck around and throwing the occasional hip check.

Oh, well.  The Mid West is all about delayed gratification.  Spring will arrive, eventually, and I will bike.  Right past those thawing bodies, too. 

Home Field (Dis)Advantage

Tough weekend for the home teams in the NFL—Houston, Cincinnati, Minnesota and Washington all lost their wildcard games.  The home fans are supposed to be the twelfth man, like at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, right?  Or maybe it’s just so much noise to gloss over the cost of a playoff ticket.

In any case, the home team should always lose when fans act like they did in Cincinnati Saturday night.  In the third quarter of the Steelers-Bengals game, injured Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was carted off the field to the accompaniment of boos and garbage tossed his way.  But Karma’s a bitch, as they say, as Bengals’ fans discovered when their players matched them for bad behavior.  Two personal-foul penalties late in the game set up the Steelers’ winning field goal. 

If only the clowns were confined to Cincinnati; alas, they’re everywhere, including Chicago.  We don’t throw stuff as much as chant, with B******t! the odds-on favorite.  And, yes, White Sox fans are as likely to do it as anyone else.  You don’t have to be nice to opposing players, and, heaven knows I did my share of catcalling when I enjoyed seats just four rows from the field at Comiskey Park.  But in the end, it’s just a game that reflects back on us.      

Hoosiers

I dare you to watch the movie “Hoosiers” in a hermetically sealed room and not smell the sweat.  You could say this is a film that reeks of atmosphere.

At Elmhurst, Clare worked out in a newer, oversized gym where softball and basketball more or less coexisted come January.  At Valpo, she’s traveled back in time to a Hoosiers’ facility for winter practice.  It’s an old gym, dark and confused as to when best to be cold (for God’s sake, not now) and when to be hot (certainly not in spring, summer and part of fall).  The only basketball players on hand are ghosts, overseen from the shadows by the specter of an old coach or two.  You might even hear the echoes of Converse All-Stars squeaking across the hardwood floor.

Softball players tread carefully in such a place. 

A Made-for-TV Event

This is Wildcard Weekend.  Rejoice, oh football fans.  Your sport and the only way to watch it have taken over, Outer Limits style.  Do not try to adjust your channel.

A good thing for the NFL and its advertisers they can do so easily without me.  I don’t drink beer, I don’t want to buy a new pickup.  The ads are pitched to demographics that do.  I am merely a voyeur.  Let’s keep it on the down low.

As a boy, I watched my 1964 White Sox win 98 games, only to fall one game short of the Yankees and an American League pennant.  There was a finality to that year’s AL standings I’ve never been able to overcome, even with the advent of the (now expanded) wildcard in baseball.  The overlords do it to maintain fan interest; they do it to sheer the sheep a little longer.  One flock of fans got shorn into last November, another through February 7.  Rejoice.

One System Fits All

 Paul DePodesta was hired away from the Mets’ front office this week by the…Cleveland Browns.  Yes, that’s right.  A former baseball GM (with the Dodgers) known for analytics will be switching sports.

DePodesta wants the world to know how much he loves football, how he would’ve taken a job in the NFL had the Indians not hired him first.  Right.  Well, better late than never and never a better opportunity than with a franchise that screams dysfunction (hello, Johnny Manziel).  Tell me one thing, though: How is De Podesta going to get those square pegs into round holes?

Baseball and football would seem to have little intersection save for the latter sport’s borrowing terms like “home run” and “centerfield.”  What makes a great offensive lineman doesn’t readily translate to middle infielders, but DePodesta and the Browns no doubt will be hailed for, get ready, “thinking outside the box.” Only they’re not.  These days, anyone who looks good with a laptop can get hired by a front office.  DePodesta, who assisted Billy Beane in the creation of Moneyball, proves that.  Now, let’s see if he can hit a home run with the Cleveland backfield.