Listen: Tom Hamilton’s call of Nick Swisher’s Walk-off Grand Slam
June 19, 2014Rex Ryan takes a shot at Mike Pettine for talking to media
June 20, 2014It’s Friday, the World Cup is happening and it’s summer time. What are we really waiting for? The time is now.
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I thought I’d start this week with something personal. I know nothing about parenting really. Like most of the rest of you who have done this or are doing it, there are a bunch of things you just make up as you go along. Somehow last night, the conversation in my house got to normal vs. weird. My four-year-old seemed to be turned off by the idea of being weird so I asked him.
You know who’s weird? Your daddy. You know who else is weird? Pretty much every cool person I’ve ever met. Musicians, actors, writers, even bosses and business people.
I don’t know if it made any sense to him, but when it started coming out of my mouth I became even more emphatic as I thought about it. You have these moments where you think you’re making all the sense in the world as a cultural tour guide for your children and you have no idea if it gets through or not.
And of course I worry that maybe his impressionable mind will take my message to mean that the booger-eater in his daycare class is somehow other-side-of-the-pillow cool because he just doesn’t conform to societal norms regarding Kleenex. All I can do is try, right?
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Before the World Cup started I contributed to a post at RedRight88 and thank goodness I didn’t pick Spain to win it all… Spoiler alert, I picked Argentina, but I didn’t totally avoid implication from looking stupid with regard to Spain.
Yes, they very well could. I’m not picking Spain to win the whole thing, but I’d be far from shocked if they won it all.
Ugh.
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I’ve been talking a lot about the financial bubble in sports and how it might break at some point, and the NCAA / Ed O’Bannon trial might prove it more than anything else. The problem at the root of the issue here is money. College athletics came from a place where amateurism made sense because the education was the valuable reward for playing. At some point though the money being made via TV deals and ticket sales became so big that it destroyed the whole system. If schools were just about breaking even on their football programs and weren’t paying head coaches millions of dollars and signing lucrative uniform deals with Nike, they could keep things as they’ve been for so long.
The only way to fix it? Take all the money out and truly make it amateur again. Or, it would have to be some approximation of a professional system where players get paid. The key here is that you can’t mix amateurism and the gobs of cash that result from modern day sports on TV. It’s a fascinating time to take it all in. I hope none of you are too sentimental though because change is coming and it’s going to destroy the historical system that we grew up with in college athletics.
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Bill Simmons was at his best with his wrap-up to the NBA finals… There are lots and lots of nuggets in there, but one thing that really stuck out to me was digging deeper on the costs of conserving Dwyane Wade. While the Heat were desperately counting the minutes on Dwyane Wade, true cost of that conservation was on their most important player, LeBron James.
Nobody knows what LeBron James is going to do, but considering how he made his choice last time, would it shock anyone if he avoided this kind of situation with Wade and Bosh going forward? I hold out very little hope that LeBron James comes back to Cleveland, but I do think there would be some justice to Micky Arrison losing LeBron James and being forced to deal with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh sticking around to collect $40+ million per season for the next two years.
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Earlier this week, I saw this Vine somewhere and everyone in my Facebook circles loved it. It’s just awesome what some people can do with Vine. (That last sentence made me feel like someone’s grandparents.)
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Even though it was posted yesterday, I’m going to post it again. Tom Hamilton’s call of Nick Swisher’s grand slam is worthy of being posted twice.
That’s it from me for this week. Hope it’s a great weekend for you. Hug a stranger. Well, a stranger that looks like they won’t hurt you for hugging them, anyway.
14 Comments
No shame in backing Spain. It may have been unlikely that they would repeat, but no one could have seen them flaming out in 2 games and looking horrible while doing it.
Diego Costa was horrible, though, and didn’t fit in with the team (and Iker Casillas wasn’t much better). It looked like all those high-profile games over the past six years finally caught up with a number of players.
As I mentioned on Twitter last night, kind of crazy that Spain, England and Portugal are all going to be eliminated after playing just 2 games.
Re college “amateur” athletics, taking the money out won’t be voluntary when so many schools have become addicted to and reliant upon that sports revenue stream. So many now have an enormous nut – in the form of expensive academic programs, expensive buildings and campuses, etc. – funded by athletics.
Re parenting, my own take: rotsa ruck imparting your wisdom and values via perfectly nuanced speeches to tender minds, Craig. They may remember a few pithy quotes, but much as we agonize over right words/right tone/right time, they’ll model what you do way more than what you say. Both the good and the not so good, obviously.
Good lord, is Bill Simmons a smart and entertaining writer.
So many rumors floating around this morning, but the idea of rooting for a Cavs team featuring LeBron, Carmelo and Kyrie fills me with dread and self-loathing. Three great talents, three players who epitomize the entitled gene-pool winners I’d rather root against. But since I was fine with Albert, Manny and Robbie Alomar maybe it’s just that I don’t like the NBA that much.
My god that Hammy call is amazing, particularly when you compare it to the ho-hum Underwood call that I pulled up from Indians.com yesterday afternoon at work when I realized my job caused me to miss a walk-off grand slam.
Thanks for reposting. Great stuff.
agree on both takes. i’ve been fascinated by the fall of college athletics for some time now. it’s amazing to watch an empire crumble (and the walls are definitely cracking).
on kids, all you can do is make sure you are aware that everything you do and say is going to be copied and strive to push them on the right path. amazing how different each child is too and how the same tactic will have wildly different results on each.
So Nick Swisher finally does something and we don’t get a dedicated write-up dedicated to the Indians? I’m on to you, Liberal Media.
Trade rumor Cavs send #1 to Utah for #5 and Favors.
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/06/20/report-cavaliers-and-jazz-have-discussed-trading-no-1-pick-for-no-5-derrick-favors/?ocid=Yahoo&partner=ya5nbcs
My knee-jerk reaction to this was “not enough value” for the #1 pick, but I also think it could put you in a positional logjam at PF. I suppose Favors could be a Center, but imagine if we make this deal and the first 4 picks are some combination of Wiggins-Parker-Exum-Embiid. That would be a disaster because you’d be looking at a PG like Smart or adding to our glut of PFs with Vonleh, Gordon, Saric or Randle.
I guess if you coupled this with a Thompson/Bennett/Andy deal that netted a shooter it could make more sense. Lots of chess pieces to move…
After just watching the Spurs smoke the Heat with great ball movement, the idea of adding an expensive ball-stopper like Carmelo Anthony petrifies me.
I just posted it because I hadn’t seen it mentioned. I agree I think moving down to #5 is to far given Favors was the only additional asset.
LeBron could fit with anybody. But Kyrie and Carmelo? Dion and Carmelo? Not even LeBron and a coach with a playbook marked “Genius” could mediate that sorta playground squabble.
Swish is this season’s walk-off king
I really think the Ohio State thing was the straw that broke the camel’s back. So many people (the fair-minded ones who aren’t just OSU haters) can look back at that and say, “what is really wrong with that?”
And then we have the Cam Newton and the U of Miami thing being so egregious that it’s ridiculous that they still have a football program. I think people finally got to the point where they said, “so selling your own stuff is somehow worthy of suspension, and getting a coach fired, but hookers, drugs, cars, and cash are ok. uh, sure.”
also, the Reggie Bush/USC hammer compared with the no sentence on Auburn in the same situation (parents instead of kid taking benefits). and, letting the Buckeye players play in the Rose Bowl. it became obvious they only wanted to punish when there was no more $$ to be made off of them.
oh, that and the UNC-academic scandal that was brushed under the rug a few times and keeps coming up.
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at the end of the day though, none of that matters except that there is so much $$ being made and the athletes are the main ones not being helped (gray-shirting, 1 yr scholarships, etc.). that is what is the final undoing here.