Deep thoughts, cheap shots & bon mots ...
My launch angle is up but my velo is down. To sort it out, I’ll have a convo with my bobos, in hopes of decreasing my career exit speed. Go figure: Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid are unemployed because they took a knee. Marshawn Lynch is back with the Raiders, even though he sits on the bench during the national anthem. Maybe Lynch is protected by a magnetic force field created by Gatorade jugs.
Cute idea, the A’s bringing back Harvey the Mechanical Rabbit to deliver baseballs to the ump. But considering the state of the A’s pitching staff, they should have gone with Gary the Gopher.
Advice to A’s: Let Gary the Gopher deliver the baseballs, have Harvey pitch.
Another new feature: When an A’s player negotiates a contract, he is locked in an office with an animatronic Charlie Finley.
Attention basketball playby-play announcers: First, stop telling us, “It’s now a two-possession game,” as if you are providing deep analytical insight. Second, cease and desist already with “finish at the rim.” As in, “He can really finish at the rim.” Where else would he finish? It’s like saying, “He’s showering under the shower in the shower room.”
That said, I’m pretty handy with a margarita. Friends marvel at my ability to finish at the rim.
We’ll make you a deal, basketball broadcasters: You give up “two-possession game” and “finish at the rim,” and we’ll let you keep your beloved “score the basketball.”
Another nitpick: The baseball scoreboard radar-gun reading of pitch speeds, like the one at the Oakland Coliseum, does not need a decimal point.
If I had a 9-year-old son who was a pretty good pitcher, I’d
run him to the hospital right now for Tommy John surgery, to get it over with.
Big scandal in Australian cricket, a star bowler is caught defacing the ball with sandpaper. He faces possible expulsion from the sport. Hey, send him to America. We’ll enshrine him in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Some of the crying by NBA players over no-calls is due to embarrassment. You drive to the hoop, your shot gets snuffed, you lose your balance. So you pop up off the floor and cry that you got hammered. Stop doing that.
Robert Griffin III might be a serviceable backup quarterback. Except that injuries knocked him out of football. And running quarterbacks are unworkable in the new NFL. And RGIII was considered a high-maintenance diva and not a team guy. But he’ll be a valuable backup because he never took a knee for the anthem.
The difference between the kneel-down protests of ex-49er Reid, and the companies that pulled sponsorship money from his charity to protest his protest: Reid’s kneeling never took money away from needy children.
I always carry a catcher’s mitt, in case I’m in public and want to have a private conversation.
The Rams, like the Warriors, have a seat-license “loan” program for their new venue. The Warriors offer a bargain, in comparison. Their priciest seat requires an $80,000 loan to the team, refundable (with no interest) in 30 years. The Rams’ elite seats require a $100,000 loan, refundable in 50 years. If you’re a newborn baby in L.A. and you’ve got $100,000 in your diapers, this is a solid investment.
Thirty years from now, you Warriors’ season-ticket holders will get to choose: Your $80,000 “loan” refunded, or free beer for an entire game.
That Rams’ (and Chargers’) stadium is running just a tad over budget. Original projected cost was $2.6 billion. The tab is up to 5 b-b-billion, with two years to go.
How wise is a $100,000 ticket-license investment in a team that hasn’t won a Super Bowl title this century, has moved four times, and under-guessed its stadium cost by $3 billion?
$5 billion for a football stadium? Where are they building that thing, on Uranus?
The problem: Seagulls at the ballpark. The solution: Shotgun Night.
Profound words from basketball legend Bill Russell: “Everyone can work together in the cause of mutual respect.” Sounds cool, but I can’t shake the memory of multiple interactions with the great Russell where he displayed the polar opposite of respect.
That was a strong parting shot Marquette King took at the Raiders. “The people that work at the Broncos encourage you to be yourself.” Ouch. That used to be what set the Raiders apart, their maverick culture.
Raiders’ unspoken response to King: If 15-yard penalties for childish theatrics are you being yourself, be yourself elsewhere.
At a ballgame in Minneapolis, an American eagle lands on the shoulder of Seattle pitcher James Paxton, who happens to be Canadian. Maybe the bird is seeking asylum.