1. The Chicago Cubs win a playoff series.
2. Playboy stops running nude photographs.
3. Democratic presidential candidates make the occasional cogent argument at a debate.
Begin to worry, everyone.
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Much as I love seeing my hometown Washington Redskins play reasonably well I can’t help feeling a bit a bit nostalgic for games of yesteryear, when I assumed they had no chance of winning. Games such as that played yesterday, which raise my hopes for not for a fleeting moment or two but for 97 percent of the game are no doubt more disappointing than the one-sided drubbings to which I’d become accustomed.
Just sayin’.
This past Wednesday I turned 33 and 1/3 years old. Not exactly a milestone, but noteworthy nonetheless. I’m happy to say that in conjunction with said “birthday,” my new album, Still Playing at 33 1/3, will be available for sale at iTunes/Amazon/Spotify, etc. in the next few days. Here’s a mock-up of the cover art and disc itself, and yes, that CD is meant to look like a vinyl record. Get it? Still playing at 33 1/3? A full review of my own album will soon follow on this very blog.
Well, at least I got to sit down and actually watch one full baseball game this season. Unfortunately it went pretty much as I expected.
I’ll admit I got to see only an embarrassingly-small number of baseball games this year. I get to see the Yankees play only when they’re on national TV or they’re playing the Orioles, and this past weekend was the first time, really, I concentrated on at least a few innings of a few games in a row. None of it made me feel too good. I barely recognized half the players and a lot of them were a decade younger than I was. Ouch.
Enter an even younger opponent I still have trouble remembering is in the American League and you’ve got those errors compounded by about a million. Guys I never heard of who graduated from high school in 2012 and are ruining my evening.
Bring on football or something.
How did I spend my weekend?
Watching sports, natch.
On Saturday I was treated to the most dominating pitching performance I’ve ever seen. On Sunday I had 14 hours of NFL games, capped by a Sunday night classic that rivaled, well, my most recent post about the NFL’s most recent primetime game. Sandwiched in there was a thrilling Redskins comeback that brought them to… wait for it… tied for first! in the NFC East.
As a bonus I got to see my beloved New York Yankees slide ass-backwards into the playoffs through a series of final-day-of-the-season confusion executives dream of in February.
Yeah, sports are good.
Proof again that football is taking over more and more of our lives, the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers played an instant Thursday night classic last night at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, like most of America (it seemed) I was rooting for the Steelers. And let’s face it, really I was rooting for Mike Vick. Add him to the list of how-did-these-guys-become-lovable-underdogs? with A-rod, LeBron James, Tiger Woods, and Tom Brady.
And… 2015’s latest MLB playoffs entrant: the New York Yankees.
This September was not one to remember for my hometown Washington Nats. What should have been a month-long coast to a division title became, rather, a struggle to stay alive that turned into an undignified total collapse. Teammates literally coming to blows in the dugout brought out tags usually reserved for that other dysfunctional Washington-based franchise… the one with the politically-incorrect nickname.
Well, as they used to say in this town and elsewhere…
Wait ’til next year.
I realize I’m a few days late on this, but I couldn’t let the passing of Yogi Berra escape a tribute on this blog. I’ve got to do it for him, because otherwise he probably won’t do it for me.
Lawrence Peter Berra was born in 1925 in St. Louis to immigrant parents Berra claimed didn’t even know what baseball was. In the coming decades he would serve his country with distinction in World War II, play for the most dominant sports franchise in the nation, and be celebrated by actors, presidents, and poets alike. His charming malapropisms, sometimes called simply “Yogi-isms,” have amused, befuddled, and enlightened us for so long that they now eclipse his accomplishments on the baseball diamond. Let us not forget that Yogi was an 18-time All-Star, three-time MVP, and 10-time World Series champion as a player: more than anyone else who ever played the game.
Berra’s numbers show both amazing skill and consistency, and for career numbers, his longevity puts many of them out of sight. (Who’s playing in 75 World Series games this century?) In 1950, Berra somehow struck out only 12 times in 656 plate appearances. For eight seasons from 1950-1957 he never finished lower than fourth in AL MVP voting. And on teams featuring Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, he led the Yankees in RBIs every year from 1949-1955. Lest we be swayed by sabermetric disdain for the RBI, remember that Bill James himself called Berra the greatest catcher of all time.
The only man ever to take both the Yankees and the Mets to the World Series, Berra showed himself a leader as both manager and coach for a quarter century after he retired. An informal advisor for decades after that, Berra became one of the game’s elder statesmen, still admired and adored more than half a century after his last game.
For a man who once reminded us it ain’t over ’til it’s over, his legacy lives on.
I’ve written previously about Pope Francis (see “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?,” Dec. 13, 2013), so I don’t feel as though I need to rehash how I feel about his economic illiteracy and completely ignorant platitudes that fall somewhere between pathetic self-help books and fortune cookies.
Instead, I thought I’d write today about how I’ve completely changed my mind about Pope Francis and think he’s playing the part exactly as he should.
Yup.
Keep in mind I still think he’s wrong about everything. Every. Single. Thing. That being said, why wouldn’t he use his platform and his place in society to say whatever the balls he wanted? Greedy corporations? Global warming? Selfishness? Consumerism? Yeah, I would rail against it all. You know why?
No one is actually listening and I don’t have any real power. Zero. I’m a streetcorner hippie who happens to have a giant microphone and fawning media accomplices. Well played, Pope, well played.
Gotta give the guy credit, too, for dining with the homeless rather than Washington elites. Stick it to the people whose reason d’être is feeling important and better than everyone else. I’m giving it to the pope on this one, who just doesn’t care how important you think you are.
Hippies are cool like that.
I had high hopes for the Muppets’ new television series on ABC, cleverly called The Muppets. I think they put about as much thought into the title as they did anything else about the show. I think the only thing that would have made it halfway entertaining is if they had those two old commenting curmudgeons in the bottom corner of the screen for the entire episode.
Maybe next week.