Random Thoughts

Some random thoughts on the first non-football weekend since August......

• So, what will YOU be doing with no football this weekend? Winter Olympics? NBA All-Star Game? Read a book? Talk to your family?
• Speaking of reading, I am currently reading "The First Fall Classic" by New York sportswriter Mike Vacarro. It is about the 1912 World Series between the New York Giants and the Boston Red Sox. According to the author, it was after this "world's series", as it was then known, that the event began to be referred to as the (capitalized) World Series. John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Tris Speaker, and Smokey Joe Wood become the main protagonists. What I find to be most interesting is that back in the early days of baseball, the owners were a greedy lot, intent on lining their pockets at all costs, and screwing the players any way that they could. Makes you wonder why it took almost 60 years to pass before a Marvin Miller-like figure to emerge.
• Sure the Red Sox won the Series that year, but James McAleer, owner of the Red Sox, makes Bob Nutting look like an absolute prince.
• Belated Farewell to former Philly Eagle and CBS broadcaster Tom Brookshier, who died two weeks ago. I have little memory of Brookshier as a player, but I do remember him teaming with Pat Summerall on CBS football broadcasts. It seemed like a game never passed where Brookshier didn't at least once refer to the football itself and a "hog bladder."
• So, how tired are you of the snow? Finally got out of the house on Thursday. Not for any other reason than to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!!!
• Did you catch the opening ceremonies in Vancouver last night? Very impressive production, but really long.
• The Coke commercial of the athletes having a snowball fight in the Olympic Village was better than any commercial that Coke did for the Super Bowl. In fact, if that one was on the Super Bowl, it might have been among the Top Five of Super Bowl commercials.
• Watch for a lot of parochial journalism coming out during the Olympics being critical of the winter Olympic sports. Just because a sport isn't practiced to a great extent in the USA doesn't make it any less important in other parts of the world.
• That said, I can't get a lot of enthusiasm going for a sport that is played against a stopwatch. Eight runners going around a track in the Summer games, is a lot more exciting than a guy skiing down a hill against a stopwatch.
• I have the same feelings about sports where judges are involved.
• Does the name Dick Pound mean anything to you? He's the Canadian Olympic official who now heads up the World Anti-Doping Agency, and he is always in the papers criticizing major league baseball for it's poor record in regard to drug testing and all that goes with that. Not that he's wrong on that count, but he needs to read the bible about throwing the first stone. I heard that there were over 30 winter Olympics athletes who were supposed to come to Vancouver, but didn't because, oops, they were juicing.
• What will the over/under be on athletes busted for drugs during the next two weeks in Vancouver.
• Point is, while the Olympics are catching and punishing these dopers, which is what baseball is now doing, they aren't preventing the athletes from doing it in the first place, are they?
• I hope Luke Ravenstahl had fun at his birthday party in the Laurel Highlands last weekend. Good thing for the Boy Mayor that he's not up for reelection for three more years.
• Old movie update. Watched 1971 Best Picture "The French Connection" on Turner Classic Movies this past week. It holds up pretty well, and the car chase scene in there may be the best one ever in a movie.
• Aside to Brother Bill - I wondered, too, why Willie Mays wore a hat through the Costas interview. Late in the show he mentioned how he had some eye troubles recently (and his one eye was tearing up towards the end), so maybe the cap was to shade his eyes from the TV lights. I don't believe that Mays is of a generation that would wear a hat at an inappropriate time merely as a fashion statement. Just conjecture on my part.
• Watching all of the Canadian athletes and celebrities participating in the Opening Ceremonies last night, I wondered "Where's Mario Lemieux?" I mean, Ann Murray gets to help carry in the Olympic flag, but no Mario Lemieux? Is this a French v. English thing up there in Canada? I can only imagine what Mark Madden would have to say about that.
• Spring Training opens this week. All is right with the world.
• I have sixth pick in the first round of the North Park League draft. I am thinking that a Philadelphia Phillie could be my first choice.

Signing off for now. Enjoy the curling and the half-pipe.