While the unthinking cosmos turns in its splendor around us, and our national soul is rent asunder on the political stage, it is always comforting this time of year to know that we can turn our careworn eyes to sports to find ourselves reflected in its warming glow.
But this warmth comes not from the beer-soaked artificial grass of the football field, with the communist NFL teams each vying to be more average than one another and the slaveholding plantations of College Football using computers to see which one gets to discriminate against the Mormon colleges. Nor do we see ourselves in the vast array of minor sports, from lacross to hockey to basketball.
No, I speak of that truest of American sports: Baseball.
Baseball is a microcosm of life, capitalism, and truth: rich teams like New York or Boston are able to shower players with money, thus allowing them to hold a competitive edge that can never be erased. This is good, and right, and completely American. Who wants underdogs succeeding when we have rich, cocky favorites to support?
You see this attitude rightly reflected in sports film. When I saw the first Rocky, there wasn't a dry eye in the house when cocky champion Apollo Creed finally put the common street man in his place. Once again sanity reigned, and the favorite won out over the plucky underdog. This is why Rocky is a successful movie that won a screenwriting Oscar, the first ever awarded to a functional illiterate.
Who among us cannot help but smile when the rich, elite private school that recruits players from out of state wins out over the small, rural public school in the local sporting levels? This is right, and good, and the way that the world should work: underdogs should lose, because that is why they are underdogs.
There are signs of hope in the NFL that this mediocrity might finally begin to fracture, and we could once again have the elite and the scum, which is the way of the world. Everyone I know is praying for an uncapped year, so that we can finally see football teams vastly overpay for fading stars at the tail end of their careers, just as we so often see in baseball.
Because as the old joke goes, what's the difference between Lehman's CEO buyout package and Carl Pavano's contract with the Yankees?
The Lehman CEO wasn't a part-time employee.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Cowboys to Build Second Locker Room
Jerry Jones today hit back at growing rumors that the Dallas Cowboys sought to part ways with troublesome wide receiver Terrell Owens, saying that his organization "valued this great receiver and all of the contributions he can make on the field."
However, the Quixotic owner announced that there would be changes to the Dallas stadium for the 2009 season.
"Listen, I'll admit that the guy's a locker room cancer," Jones told reporters. "So we're going to be building a second locker room, just for T.O. It's gonna be eighty thousand square feet, with Italian marble sinks, a solid gold locker, and mirrors everywhere so that TO can see his favorite person night and day. And it might not even be in Dallas: we're thinking of putting it in Austin, where someone with TO's personality can fly under the radar."
Jones had other plans, too. "We're not just putting him in a separate locker room, though. He'll have his own staff, from coach to trainer to ballboy, dedicated to making TO happy. A separate uniform for TO. A different charter flight. A different practice schedule. Everything designed to keep TO completely isolated from the team except on Sunday afternoons, some Monday nights, and Thanksgiving Day."
Some questioned whether the plan, dubbed Typhoid TO around Dallas headquarters, went far enough. One inside source said that "everyone is completely sick of hearing TO, TO, TO. Well, everyone except Donovan McNabb and Jeff Garcia, who are laughing their butts off at us."
However, the Quixotic owner announced that there would be changes to the Dallas stadium for the 2009 season.
"Listen, I'll admit that the guy's a locker room cancer," Jones told reporters. "So we're going to be building a second locker room, just for T.O. It's gonna be eighty thousand square feet, with Italian marble sinks, a solid gold locker, and mirrors everywhere so that TO can see his favorite person night and day. And it might not even be in Dallas: we're thinking of putting it in Austin, where someone with TO's personality can fly under the radar."
Jones had other plans, too. "We're not just putting him in a separate locker room, though. He'll have his own staff, from coach to trainer to ballboy, dedicated to making TO happy. A separate uniform for TO. A different charter flight. A different practice schedule. Everything designed to keep TO completely isolated from the team except on Sunday afternoons, some Monday nights, and Thanksgiving Day."
Some questioned whether the plan, dubbed Typhoid TO around Dallas headquarters, went far enough. One inside source said that "everyone is completely sick of hearing TO, TO, TO. Well, everyone except Donovan McNabb and Jeff Garcia, who are laughing their butts off at us."
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Fluffy Bunny Prices Soar
European markets sagged today on news that the fluffy bunny shortage is expected to continue, with prices more than doubling to 55 euros/bunny on the German stock exchange. The move comes after the world's largest Fluffy Bunny exporter, Hamas, released a statement that their primary processing facility had been destroyed by angry Israeli soldiers wielding unfair, high-tech weaponry.
"Once again the evil crusading Zionists have shown their true colors and turned their computerized weaponry on our fluffy bunny facilities," said a Hamas spokesman late last night. "In addition to the total destruction of the fluffy bunny plant, we have also had severe damage to three schools, and old folk's home, and one entire side of our Sesame Street set was burned down. Big Bird was killed in the attack, and we still haven't located Oscar the Grouch, although a badly-burned trash can lid was found that may have been his."
Sue Messersmith-Cooper, president of International Response, criticized the US and Israel for their continued attacks on Fluffy Bunny factories. "How much longer will the citizens of this world put up with the barbarians who insist on destroying these cute, defenseless, fluffy bunnies? After coalition forces razed facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and continued sanctions strangle the fluffy bunny economy in Iran, was it really necessary to launch an illegal, immoral, and indefatigable attack on the poor Gazans, whose only source of income is fluffy bunnies and 'Hang In There!' cat posters?"
Even in the US ordinary consumers are starting to feel the pinch. Shopping with his family in New York, blue-collar worker Greg Packer said that "I'd planned on getting a fluffy bunny for my fiancée for Valentine's Day, but now I don't think I'm going to be able to afford it. I hope that Obama can do something to change this situation, otherwise it'll be a really long, cold night."
"Once again the evil crusading Zionists have shown their true colors and turned their computerized weaponry on our fluffy bunny facilities," said a Hamas spokesman late last night. "In addition to the total destruction of the fluffy bunny plant, we have also had severe damage to three schools, and old folk's home, and one entire side of our Sesame Street set was burned down. Big Bird was killed in the attack, and we still haven't located Oscar the Grouch, although a badly-burned trash can lid was found that may have been his."
Sue Messersmith-Cooper, president of International Response, criticized the US and Israel for their continued attacks on Fluffy Bunny factories. "How much longer will the citizens of this world put up with the barbarians who insist on destroying these cute, defenseless, fluffy bunnies? After coalition forces razed facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and continued sanctions strangle the fluffy bunny economy in Iran, was it really necessary to launch an illegal, immoral, and indefatigable attack on the poor Gazans, whose only source of income is fluffy bunnies and 'Hang In There!' cat posters?"
Even in the US ordinary consumers are starting to feel the pinch. Shopping with his family in New York, blue-collar worker Greg Packer said that "I'd planned on getting a fluffy bunny for my fiancée for Valentine's Day, but now I don't think I'm going to be able to afford it. I hope that Obama can do something to change this situation, otherwise it'll be a really long, cold night."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
