Halfway home

Remember those old PGA Tour commercials?

“These guys are good.”

That’s the Golden State Warriors.

These guys are good. And they’re halfway home to a championship.

The Washington Capitals? My hometown team? They’re pretty good too. And also halfway home to a championship. Tonight it could move to three-quarters, in what will no doubt be a scene similar to that seen Saturday night in D.C., one of the most wild happenings I’ve observed in 30 years of watching sports.

It’s spread out into the suburbs too.

Gettin’ a little wild in Loudoun County tonight.

Two for two

Two for two.

I’m calling my predictions two for two.

Yeah, it took a miracle save for the Caps and a bizarre play for the Warriors, but those two teams prevailed, no?

Because no one watched TV on Friday nights there is no game, hockey or basketball, tonight. Games aren’t played in arenas, remember; they are played on television.

And tomorrow night…

it’s on.

Game Two tonight

The Washington Capitals and the Houston Rockets each discovered the same lesson Monday night…

their opponents are really good.

I never doubted Golden State would come back to win its Game Seven; they’re just too good to lose. Vegas, though? They can be beat. Even if the Capitals lose tonight I can still see it happening.

Local bias? Preferential bias? Wishful thinking?

Probably all of the above.

Still gonna be a great game.

Championship Season

I usually think October is the best part of the sports year. Football’s in full gear, winter sports are starting up, and of course there is the World Series.

There are other spots on the calendar when fate smiles upon us as well, and the end of May happens to be one of them.

In case you’ve been on Mars (or outside Vegas or the D.C. area) you know the Stanley Cup Finals begin tonight. For better or worse hey’re up against Game Seven of the NBA’s Western Conference Finals, but this is why God invented picture in picture. (Or this thing called the “last” button.) Yesterday, of course, we were treated to the Cleveland LeBrons’ victory over the Boston Celtics in yet another Game Seven (first time since the ’70s that happened), and the Indianapolis 500 to boot. Enlightened readers will note the most popular sport in the world also had its “championship” match over the weekend, with the UEFA Champions League soccer final between Real Madrid and Liverpool. Real Madrid won its third consecutive Champions League crown. Didn’t see it? You know more people watch that thing than watch the Super Bowl? Like way more.

This afternoon, of course, is also the NCAA championship lacrosse match between Duke and Yale (yes, that Yale) from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. (I was there for it 10 years ago… how time flies.) Oh, that it could have been Albany, mere semifinalists in the tournament this year.

As they say in Albany… wait ’til next year… we’ll have steamed hams.

Mmmm… steamed hams.

Stanley Cup Finals here we come!

Many, many happy people going around Northern Virginia today. People who could care less about hockey 99% of the time are rocking the red and putting up #ALLCAPS messages on Twitter.

The last time a sport engulfed a town like this was 2012. It was the fall of 2012, specifically, and my first football season as a resident of the DMV. Remember this one? RG3’s rookie season? Seven wins in a row to close out the regular season and win the NFC East? That was the new bandwagon and I jumped on it.

Let’s hope this one turns out a little better.

Game Seven tonight

Dare I call this the most important D.C. sporting contest this century? Caps-Lightning Game Seven tonight from Tampa Bay. This is big. Either way there’s going to be a lot of people around here calling in to work tomorrow morning.

Will this finally be it for the Caps, setting up a Washington-Las Vegas final? (Those are the two places Americans send and spend the most money, by the way.) Or will it be a matchup of those two great hockey towns, Las Vegas and Tampa, Florida?

This is big.

That is all.

The grind is always interesting

It is often said that the baseball season is “too long.” One hundred sixty-two games is too long a grind for fan and player alike.

You know what really takes forever? Hockey and basketball playoffs, which I believe started around Valentine’s Day and are still in progress. ‘Round these parts, the Capitals’ slow death has been simply excruciating.

To baseball, though, where interesting things happen every day. Literally.

Here’s something for you to ponder… without looking, can you name the last time a major league baseball team repeated as World Series champions?

Didn’t happen this century. (Well sort of not.) It was the 1999-2000 New York Yankees (who also won in ’98).

Don’t look now but the Houston Astros have a real chance of pulling off that feat this year. They currently sit in first place in the AL West, with five of the best starting pitchers in baseball. Yes, five of the best.

Check the AL ERA leaders today. The top three are Astros starters! The only two not on that list are Lance McCullers (owner of five wins–only four AL pitchers have more) and Dallas Keuchel, owner of a freakin’ Cy Young!

This is an interesting development.

D.C. is now “cool”?

The cover of Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine proclaims that “D.C. is now a cool city.” It’s an interesting read, if not a decade too late. Working for the federal government became “cool” about 10 years ago, not so much for the Obama presidency (though that had a lot to do with it), but with the contraction of the private-sector job market. Kinda like it was cool to work for the WPA in the ’30s. Then for Uncle Sam during World War II. Then everyone went back to doing real jobs. This time around, I’ve afraid the “govsters” (get it? hipsters who work for the government?) are here to stay. Unfortunately they are of both parties, so flushing out half of them with each election cycle isn’t going to work. They’re a lot more like locusts. Locusts who drink macchiatos and post selfies on Instagram.

The author of the story recognizes some of the problems inherent in such a scenario. To me the criticism doesn’t go far enough. There’s the usual bit about gentrification and how terrible it is (because, ew, who wants their neighborhood improving?), but only a casual reference to the bigger problem of out-of-touch (read: elitist snob) lawmakers who haven’t the slightest idea of life outside the “cool” city. These same elitist snobs live in New York and Los Angeles too. At least there they’re good looking.

There is no shame in working at a “real” job and living in an uncool city. It’s what 99% of Americans do. Some of those folks invent things and create things and really do make our lives better. What scares me are the one percent of the populace who think that being good and bright (if not the best and brightest) means that one should work for the federal government. Honestly, I think our best and brightest should do real jobs, like the aforementioned inventor (or cop or chef or cab driver). Let the uncreative types work in Washington (at least they’ll follow protocol), and don’t worry so much about whether it’s “cool” or not. When tourists from foreign lands come to our shores and laugh at how boring our national capital is, just show ’em an iPhone. Or a WiiU. Or the Golden State Warriors.

Govsters didn’t make that stuff happen.

It was 20 years ago today…

Three major American events occurred 20 years ago today. All three were highly anticipated, though in very different ways.

The most welcomed of these three was a fond farewell to the sitcom that dominated television ratings in the ’90s and ushered in a whole new way to write stories for the small screen. The final episode of Seinfeld aired on May 14, 1998. Critics, for the most part, didn’t like it. I thought it was just fine and have said so for two decades. It was a little silly, yes, but amusing enough for longtime fans and fair-weather fans alike. When one considers TV sitcoms, “longtime fan” can happen with about five years of viewing. Seinfeld was my glimpse into adulthood from 1993-1998 (my teenage years). I remember watching it at a friend’s house that evening and thinking, wow, staying out until after 10:00 on a school night. Forget Seinfeld, this is what being an adult is really like.

A much different ceremony occurred in Arlington National Cemetery that day. Night, rather, for disturbing graves always works best under cover of darkness. Lieutenant Michael Joseph Blassie had lain in Arlington for more than a decade, though his grave was not marked by his name. He was the Vietnam solider in the Tomb of the Unknowns. Armies all over the world make such marks to honor fallen soldiers, and in our nation the tomb is cared for with great respect. But on May 14, 1998, a soldier’s remains were disinterred, later confirmed through modern DNA testing to be those of Lt. Blassie. Not an easy decision to make on anyone’s part, Blassie’s remains were returned to his family. He was reinterred at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis later that year.

Death came to an American icon May 14, 1998, as well. Frank Sinatra passed away at the age of 82. The final blow was a heart attack, and though he was rushed to the hospital (helped by the zero traffic that evening because everyone was home watching the final episode of Seinfeld) it was not enough to overcome several years of poor health. Sad, yes, but one of those celebrity deaths you knew was coming. He hadn’t been seen in public in over a year, and hadn’t sung in public since 1995. This from the man you thought would never stop.

I’ve expressed my admiration for Frank Sinatra on this site many times before. Most of it started on May 14, 1998. Or I should say May 15. This was the day Frank’s old record companies (there were four) started rereleasing all of his old material: a blatant effort to cash in on his death. This was when I began collecting Frank Sinatra recordings. In time I became what we Sinatraphiles call a “completist.” Need to own every recording. Every movie. Every TV special. Every biography. I have half a dozen posters with his image and an entire shelf of LPs. I never play them. They just sit there like the prized mementos they are.

No complaints about the whole cashing-in-on-his-death thing. It got me into jazz and the Great American Songbook I’ve enjoyed exploring the past 20 years. The recordings don’t go away. New ones, though, do get harder to find.

I’ve been at it for 20 years and it’s still fun.