Greetings from the most hated man at the pep rally.
I’m not going to rehash the whole cheerleading argument at this point. It’s time to put it to rest.
I’ll only say that I’ve received a lot of support for my side of the argument from folks who wish to remain anonymous because they think they still have a shot at dating a cheerleader some day.
Okay, on to other things:
What can you say about a guy like Gilroy’s Mike Mathiasen? Here was a man who, unlike so many of us, put his fanny where his mouth was – on the seat of the bicycle he rode to raise awareness and funds to combat lymphoma.
He died of a heart attack Tuesday in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains as he began a crosscountry bike ride to fight the disease from which his wife, Kathy, suffers. If there’s any solace to be found in this Biking Viking’s passing, it’s that he died doing two things he lived for: biking and fighting for his wife’s and others’ health.
Sticking with the sobering subjects, Thursday morning’s terrorist attack in London goes automatically to the top of the list of sports parties broken up by out-of-the-blue horror. Other events with this dubious honor include the 1989 World Series and the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Who knows if the timing of the bombings had anything to do with London’s successful bid to host the 2012 Olympics? But if it did, does this mean that there were terrorist cells and plans in place to bomb the other four cities in the running?
Scary.
Now excuse me while I click over to National Review Online to brush up on how diehard ideologues are supposed to spin this latest blow to the War on Terror.
If you listen to sports talk radio, you’ve been hearing the annual grumbling about All-Star selections, and the rule to include at least one player from every baseball team.
Yes, there are always a few players having All-Star years who get shafted so some journeyman from the Devil Rays (or, yikes! … the Giants) can ground into a double play in his only All-Star at-bat. People who follow baseball religiously all agree that this is a crime.
But here’s the thing – the All-Star game’s most important purpose isn’t to satisfy the baseball purists (who think the game is a joke) or even to reward the very best players (who’d probably rather be golfing during the break).
No, the most important purpose of All-Star weekend is to build up a love for the game in tomorrow’s paying fans, the kids.
When you’re a kid you don’t want to see an epic Roger Clemens-Manny Ramirez showdown, unless you happen to be from Houston or Boston. What you want to see is your guy, from your team, get his All-Star at-bat or inning pitched.
I know this, because as a kid in the mid-1980’s I used to sit through the All-Star telecast, waiting with misplaced hope for the likes of Chili Davis or Chris Brown to rise from the very end of the bench in the ninth inning to win the game for the glory of the San Francisco Giants.
Never mind that the closest that anything resembling this pipe dream ever came to pass was in 1983, when Atlee Hammaker gave up the only grand slam in All-Star Game history to blow the game in spectacular fashion and send his career spiralling toward a fateful and even more gruesome encounter with Jose Oquendo in Game 7 of the 1987 NLCS.
No, I was hooked on the All-Star Game because of the opportunity to see some hometown mediocrity grinning next to the real All-Stars during the pre-game introductions like a reality show contestant at the Emmys, not in spite of it.
Baseball’s a business, and its overseers know that snot-nosed kids like I used to be grow up to be snot-nosed adults who spend bucks at the stadiums because their love for the game was fostered by things like the every-team-gets-an-All-Star rule.
