TWEETS & TAKES
Dale Robertson goes deeper than 140 characters.
Dale Robertson @sportywineguy Senior sports writer and wine columnist for the Houston Chronicle
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Tweets
Dale Robertson Retweeted 3/19/17 Jerome Solomon @JeromeSolomon Harden with the defensive play at the buzzer. Yeah, Harden.
Dale Robertson Retweeted 3/19/17 Jonathan Fiegen @Jonathan_Fiegen Nene bats away a lob for Plumlee. Rockets 125, Nuggets 124. Harden with 39 points, 11 assists, seven rebounds, and the game-winner.
Houston sports fans have been given myriad reasons to feel sorry for themselves over the decades, but a lovely payback of late has been the privilege of celebrating James Harden, who may be the most exciting and dynamic athlete ever to wear “Houston” on a jersey. Earl Campbell was powerful, Hakeem Olajuwon was regal and Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio were enduringly reliable. But Harden ... he’s already our all-time leader in “holy cow!” moments. And, yes, when necessary, he can play a little “D,” too.
Media
3/20/17 Greg Rajan @GregRajan @SportsMT and I were discussing the biggest shot in #Rockets history yesterday. Which one of these two is it?
The choices were, of course, Ralph Sampson’s accidental semi-hook, almost-no-look, tryin’one shot that bounced in and sent the Rockets into the 1986 NBA Finals and Mario Elie’s “Kiss of Death” 3-pointer in the final seconds in Game 7 of the 1995 Western Conference semifinals, which capped the Rockets’ recovery from a 3-1 deficit against Phoenix and made possible the second of their back-to-back NBA championships. I was at both games and there’s no decision to be made here: It’s Elie’s all the way. Sampson’s bucket was blind, dumb luck — I’m not sure he even knew where the basket was— and the Rockets were leading that series against the Lakers 3-1, having shown themselves to be the clearly superior team. But there’s a personal element involved, too. Going on to cover those Finals cost me a free week (reward points) at the fancy-pants Marriott Prince de Galles Hotel on what would have been my first trip to Paris with my wife. She was none too pleased by that turn of events, totally unexpected when I’d planned the trip months earlier, although I at least had enough sense to have her accompany me to Boston instead. The Rockets, of course, got thumped — they weren’t yet better than the Celtics — but we had fun.
3/20/17 Dale Robertson @sportyWHINEguy I keep checking Twitter for that first “stick to sports, you bleep” response to John Elway for his supporting Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court.
3/20/17 Dale Robertson @sportyWHINEguy None have been forthcoming, however. Also, Elway seems to be suggesting Gorsuch will be a great Supreme because he’s a great Broncos fan.
Elway’s endorsement in itself is perfectly fine. All he’s doing in exercising his First Amendment rights. What became an issue is that he appeared to have sent the letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on official Broncos stationary. But team spokesman Patrick Smyth insisted the letter bore Elway’s personal letterhead and not that of the Broncos, tweeting that Elway’s endorsement “is independent of the Denver Broncos.” The issue, of course, is germane because of how roundly athletes are being criticized for using their brains to question things they disagree with beyond the realm of X’s and O’s. Brandon Marshall’s No. 54 Broncos jersey got burned in the stadium parking lot after he knelt during the national anthem last season. And President Trump saw fit to hammer the currently unemployed Colin Kaepernick for same during a political rally in Kentucky recently. But note that Kaepernick is putting his idle time to good use …
Dale Robertson Retweeted 3/20/17 Ian Rapoport @RapSheet As Colin Kaepernick waits for a job opportunity, he continues to donate to charity. His latest includes $50K for Meals on Wheels
He also rolled up his sleeves to help raise more than $1 million through a GoFundMe site for a cargo plane to carry food and water to Somalia, which is in the midst of a catastrophic drought impacting more than six million people. Right … #badguy
Dale Robertson Retweeted 3/17/17 ESPN Stats & Info @ESPNStatsInfo Baylor women’s basketball: won last 2 games by combined 138 pts, largest margin through a team’s first 2 games in NCAA tournament history
Dale Robertson Retweeted 3/20/17 Steve Berkowitz @ByBerkowitz Four schools will have both their men’s and women’s basketball teams in the NCAA tournament Sweet 16s: Baylor, Oregon, South Carolina, UCLA.
The Baylor football program has brought shame upon the school of late, and the basketball program will always be haunted by the specter of Dave Bliss, who has managed to bring a lot of bad memories back to the fore in the recent Showtime documentary “Disgraced,” in which he repeats his claim that Patrick Dennehy, murdered by teammate Carlton Dotson on Bliss’ watch, was a drug dealer. So the current teams’ shared success comes as welcome relief. The men are through to the Sweet 16 for the fourth time in the past six years – only Texas A&M has gotten this far during the same period among all other Texas universities – and the women are eight-for-eight going back to 2009. One more victory puts them in the Elite Eight for the fourth year in a row.
3/20/17 Dale Robertson @sportywineguy Jersey-gate is one strange story. How did this guy get into the locker room by his lonesome to steal Brady’s jersey?
3/20/17 Dale Robertson @sportywineguy Why did it take so long for the video to show up? Weird.
This had to have been an inside job. I mean, we media types are watched like hawks in the Texans’ locker room every day – not because we’re pegged as thieves but because we’re considered a threat to coax controversy from a disgruntled or attention-seeking player – and the Patriots’ security apparatus surely leads the league in paranoia, especially on Super Bowl Sunday. How would a Mexican broadcasting executive be allowed to roam freely behind closed doors following the biggest game of the year? The fact that the Patriots will be playing in Mexico City next fall might have had something to do with his gaining special entrée, but the whole episode is beyond fishy. At least Houston’s finest came through and got Tommy’s shirt back.