Old News

JW,

Let's be honest. Watching Phil Mickel . . . er, Tom Watson choke away the British Open this weekend had all the emotional significance of seeing a billionaire lose at five-dollar blackjack. Yeah, I feel for the guy, but there's plenty more where that came from. After all, this is a guy who made a living playing golf, who holds the adoration of millions of fans, and who has to be in the top five for best white celebrity voices of all time (right behind Barack Obama). Watson has had a better life than I have any chance of having, and it's not close. So pity him? Not bloody likely!

If anyone deserves our sympathy, it's the media, for whom a Watson win could only have been topped by Tiger snatching the victory from Colin Montgomerie on the 72nd hole before beating Monty about the head with the Claret Jug. Talk about getting your journalistic rocks off! Now, instead of celebrating the athletic prowess of the aged with golf's largely aged viewership, sportswriters are stuck with the most depressing story I may ever have heard: Old people are almost good enough, but not quite. Yikes.

Still, Watson's saga is a good reminder of why golf can compete with sports that move at speeds greater than a brisk walk. A Hail Mary pass lands in three or four seconds, a jump shot in just over one. Golf's clutch moments, on the other hand, last forever. I made a sandwich in the time it took Watson to miss the clinching putt, and my hands were shaking the whole time! By dragging out its crucial segments, golf gives us time to pass through the whole spectrum of emotional fanhood, from hopefulness to abject despair and back again, depending on the player. With Watson, just like with Mickelson, we knew it was lipping out, or not getting there, or disappearing into the tall stuff, but that hope still existed that just maybe we were wrong about him. You can't get that deep into other sports' individual plays, and I can't help finding the experience exhilarating.

How about you?

-GM

GM,

Golf gives us something that other sports struggle to give: honest emotion from people who look like us. Watson looked like he was about to cry on the 75th hole as his hopes slipped away. And yes, his voice is incredible, which means that his life likely would have been far better than ours regardless of his chosen field--a sad truth, to be sure.

We've been doing this blog a little over a week now, and I think it's time for the usually-to-be-avoided Top-10 list. So you're welcome, folks. My portion of today's blog will be an easy read, as I present to you...

"JW's Top 10 Choke Jobs of All Time That He Has Seen Live and Not Used The Internet to Recall"

(Hey, it may be a long title, but I'm not going to do any cheap stuff like combine similar choke jobs to make for one big one. Chris Berman, I'm looking your way. Oh, and I'm sure I'll miss some good ones, but I'm really not using the Internet except for name spelling. I dare you to check my facts.)

10. Chris Webber's timeout (1993 NCAA Basketball Championship Game)

- This barely, barely made the list. The chances of an entire group of college sophomores executing a game-winning play against North Carolina are slim at best. A choke, in my opinion, is when you have it won and give it away. Remember that Michigan was behind. Also remember that Webber definitely traveled in the backcourt, and that the referee definitely saw it but didn't call it anyway.

9. Trailblazers' Squandered Lead (2000 NBA Western Conference Finals, Game 7)

- An incredibly talented Trailblazers team blew a 15-point, fourth-quarter lead to lose Game 7 and the series to Phil Jackson and the Lakers. Replace "Lakers" with "Bulls" and "Game 7" with "Game 6," and the exact same event occurred in the 1992 NBA Finals, but it's not part of the list because I cannot stand rulebreakers on top-10 lists.

8. Chuck Knoblauch Bamboozles Lonnie Smith (1991 World Series)

- Smith would have scored the eventual game-winning run for the Braves had he not been fooled by Knoblauch's half-hearted fake throw, which led Smith to believe that the ball was back in the infield when it was actually still bouncing around near the fence. The Twins won 1-0 in 10 innings. Still the best I've ever seen, this was the first World Series I watched every game of. The last was 2002.

7. The Bluegrass Miracle

- In 2002, Kentucky had a respectable football team--for the first time since Tim Couch. With one second left on the clock, LSU connected on a 70- or 80-yard pass that was tipped and hauled in for a touchdown--behind the Wildcats' last line of defense. I don't remember a single name from that play, but I do remember a closeup of one of the Kentucky players, who was being comforted by one of the assistant coaches. He was so heartbroken that he punched his coach in the stomach! OK, probably not, but you be the judge (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c1ANN6EVyU&feature=fvw 1:25). That's the main thing I remember, but of course the Kentucky players drenched the coach and the fans stormed the field thinking they had won. They did this after the final play. Way to watch the whole game, fairweatherers. The only thing that could have made it better is if the situation had been completely reversed. It's unthinkable that LSU fans would ever storm the field after beating Kentucky in football, but take your average degenerate LSU fan. You're drunk off your ass from the 12-hour tailgate, and you're ready to go eat some alligator or tip over a fan bus. You hop on the field, help rip down the goal post, and proceed to commit heinous and lewd acts on anything and anyone in blue. You're finally arrested on a number of charges, some felony, and you learn the next day that your team actually lost. At this point, you're angry enough to drop out of sch . . . er, quit your job at the oil refinery.

6. The Mavericks' Should-be Championship (2006 NBA Finals)

- I don't know if the bigger choke was in Game 3 against the Heat (when Dwyane Wade went crazy to lead a late comeback) or the series as a whole. Either way, I'm irritated that Dallas couldn't stop Pat Riley, Shaq, Jason Williams, Antoine Walker, and Gary Payton from getting rings.

5. Cubs (with Steve Bartman) Fail to Clinch Penant (2003 NLCS)

- The Red Sox had a similar mishap a few days later, but we're still waiting for the Cubs to redeem themselves. Not me, actually; I hate that organization.

4. Mickel-slam Avoided (2006 U.S. Open)

- Phil Mickelson would have won his third straight major if he hadn't used driver. I could be wrong, but I think he missed every fairway on Sunday.

3. Phoenix is San Antonio's Bitch... Again (2008 Western Conference Semi-Finals, Game 1)

- Must I even talk about it? Michael Finley. Tim Duncan. Manu Ginobili. In that order. I knew each of their shots were going in, and there was nothing anyone could do. The NBA god is a boring one who enjoys the halfcourt game, team defense, and rebounding. In the Steve Nash era, the Suns were incapable of losing to the Spurs in a non-devastating fashion.

2. Nick Anderson's Free Throws (1995 NBA Finals, Game 1)

- This would be number 1 if I didn't firmly believe that the Rockets would have won the series anyway. They swept the Magic, but only because Anderson missed four straight foul shots in the closing seconds of regulation, opening the door for a Kenny Smith three.

1. Jean Van de Velde (1999 British Open)

- Need I say more? This guy was put on earth for one reason--to blow a three-stroke lead on the 72nd hole of the British Open by acting brave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XU94TwmmYk. This was the wackiest moment I've seen in golf, and it happened when everything was on the line for a guy who, to my knowledge, hasn't contended for anything else in his career. Best of all, Van de Velde is a Frenchmen, and his choke job came from trying too hard to be brave!

-JW

Population Controlled

GM,

If you ever wanted proof of the Left's elitism, racism, obnoxious paternalism, and just plain wickedness, consider Ruth Bader Ginsburg's statements from two weeks ago:

"Yes, the ruling about [Harris v. McRae–in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] surprised me. Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion."

This woman represents one-ninth of our nation’s most authoritative entity on matters of legality–and, indirectly, social policy and justice–and she unabashedly admitted to trying to limit the birth rate of certain "populations." For her, "pro-choice" would not be the correct term; she is undeniably pro-abortion–at least for certain "populations." She believes in choice, but she would prefer that the "right" choice be applied over and over, resulting in a decelerated birth rate in certain "populations." So here’s the million-dollar question: Who is a member of these populations? The poor? The stupid? The uneducated? The jobless? The invariably ill? Every recipient of Medicaid?!?! Have she and her fellow liberal justices taken it upon themselves to monitor the breeding habits of these people and even, through legislation, nudge them in the "right" direction?

Let me tell you something that you already know. Even before we explore a certain possibility regarding the identity of the "populations" discussed in Ginsburg’s statement, it is itself absurd, bigoted, elitist, paternalistic, immoral, patronizing, backwards, un-American, and evil. It shares a logical basis, though not an extreme, with Hitler’s plan for Germany. She condoned forcing all Americans to contribute financially to what many consider to be a reprehensible act. Obama has us doing this again overseas, but to me, the idea that my tax dollars would fund the abortions of my compatriots is more offensive. I imagine Ginsburg’s stance was: "It is our duty to financially support societal drains, but if we can stop them from giving birth to more people who are likely to be societal drains, it’ll be cheaper in the long run." Any Medicaid recipient should be deeply offended by this remark. "We don’t want your kind having children."

But maybe, just maybe, a certain type of person should be really, really curious about what she meant by "populations." Twenty-two percent of the black population is on Medicaid–the highest of any demographic. I’ve been taught–by liberals–that liberals are the more progressive party on racial issues. But if Ginsburg was referring to African-Americans–a concept so racist that it would seem impossible were it not for the absurdity of the statement even if taken in the best possible light–we need to reevaluate what the American Left actually wants.

-JW

JW,

Deep within the dark heart of liberalism lies the notion that individuals exist primarily as members of racial and socioeconomic groups, and that the competing claims of those groups can be ranked on a moral scale that takes into account both present circumstances and historical wrongs. Hence liberalism's concerns with equality and conservatism's with liberty. Equality is possessed by groups (women equal to men; blacks equal to whites; gays equal to straights), whereas liberty is held by individuals.

I'm not surprised, then, by Ginsburg's thinking in terms of "populations." She's only being true to her underlying philosophy. In Ginsburg's mind, America consists of not one but many populations, and the notion of our country as a melting pot--as having an identifiable culture to be either preserved or lost--is simply anachronistic. Seriously, say the word "assimilation" to a liberal. And then stand back.

Furthermore, Ginsburg's comments are indicative of liberalism's tendency to view human life as quantifiable. (Simply put, she doesn't believe in the existence of the soul.) Thus, abortion is nothing more than a mathematical equation--so many Medicaid dollars for abortions versus so many Medicaid dollars to support those who made it out of the womb, quite literally, in one piece. It's an obscene calculus, yes, but not a surprising one.

Nor is it surprising, I'm sorry to say, that Emily Bazelon (Ginsburg's interviewer) seemed entirely untroubled by Ginsburg's statement. No follow-up question was asked nor clarification requested, and one can almost see Bazelon nodding in agreement as Ginsburg moved America yet another step closer to the forced abortions of "modern" China.

Whether or not the tide is turning, Ginsburg represents a brand of secular liberalism whose devaluing of life renders it unsustainable. God willing, some alive today will live to see the end of it.

-GM

And the Race Continues

JW,

I’d like to pause for a moment and reflect on a year-old movie that no one saw—Rachel Getting Married, a plotless, interminable paean to multiculturalism and the spiritual deadness of the privileged American Left. Starring Anne Hathaway and a back-from-the-dead Debra Winger, Rachel consists largely of a cinéma vérité-style depiction of a rehearsal dinner and wedding reception. While there’s some editing, these meandering scenes together account for at least half of the movie, a fact that would be less problematic if the impression created weren’t of watching a stranger’s home videos.

But of course that’s the point, as this is a wedding party to make a liberal’s heart sing! Racially diverse, secular (except for its forays into Hinduism), and utterly lacking in ceremony, the wedding and its accoutrements are not a diversion from the film’s ostensible “plot” (Hathaway’s drug-addicted Kym returning home for her sister’s wedding) but the plot itself, a fact captured neatly by Roger Ebert when he skips talking about the movie in his review in order to move straight into its politics ("Apart from its story, which is interesting enough, Rachel Getting Married is like the theme music for an evolving new age.").

Look, I've got no problem with multiculturalism, as long as it's not asked to carry the entire movie (unless that movie is Coming to America). As you can imagine, however, I was already on edge when I started Rachel, having spent the day watching the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, whose celebratory air owes as much to the Democrats’ sixty-vote threshold as it does to the color of the nominee’s skin. Sotomayor is all smiles, of course, and while I’m willing to concede that her stunningly halting speech doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s stupid, she seems unaware that her placement on the court is a political ploy—an electoral buried treasure to be unearthed when Hispanics break two-to-one for Obama in 2012. Or maybe she is aware. After all, she’s clearly been taking courses from the Barack Obama Academy of Sounding Thoughtful While Saying Nothing (minus the stuttering, thank God), and her answers have practically shined with focus-grouped polish. As others have suggested, her biography, her gender, and her race are doing the work for her. Why risk a perfect storm of political luck by saying something interesting?

A final note. You know that the term “waterboarding” has lost its cachet when Chris Matthews uses it to refer to the length of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questioning sessions. It’s like the first time I said “fo’ shizzle.” An entire culture gasped.

-GM

GM,

I wish I could have been there to hear “fo’ shizzle,” as would anyone who knows how far removed you are from slang, fad phrases, and African-American vernacular. (I’m only attributing the phrase to African-Americans because South Park told me that’s where it came from; I’ve primarily heard white people use it.)

I really only want to respond to your point that Sotomayor’s biography is doing the work for her. Isn’t that the point?! I thought being a U.S. Supreme Court justice was just a lifetime achievement award anyway, like the NBA MVP award, the presidency (war hero vs. half-black guy), or any position in corporate America. Everyone knows that, in the Western world, you continue to elevate vocationally until you reach a position at which you finally fail, and there you shall remain. (Hey, it’s better than the caste system.) You become a CEO because you were a good chief financial officer. You become a head coach because of your work as an assistant. You become president because you made for a nice senator (or, in this case, because the opposing party’s execution down the stretch was Maverick-like; pun intended). And half of these people turn out to be complete failures. With politics, though, it’s tougher to judge failure, and with an SC justice, we wouldn’t be able to stop her anyway!

I understand and agree with what you’re saying, but as long as overcoming racism in what is now one of the least racist—and most hypersensitive—countries in history is considered an accomplishment, you should expect it to be rewarded by the guy who had the same treatment. I can only hope that one day I’ll be generously rewarded for overcoming my slothfulness, arrogance, and argumentative nature. It’s only fair.

-JW

Still Pitched Off

GM,

If you watched the MLB All-Star Game’s pre-game show last night, you’ll know where I’m going with this. If you didn’t watch it, go to Google and enter the following:

obama all-star “why did fox”

There are plenty of results.

The buildup to Obama’s ceremonial first pitch was beyond sufficient. Torn between its two main objectives, achieving high ratings and convincing viewers that they have a cool president, ESPN dedicated significant time to promoting FOX’s All-Star Game coverage. Maybe I’m just being cynical and ESPN shows such as Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn were simply practicing responsible sports journalism as they always do (except when it comes to interviewing Stephen Curry nine times a quarter). But let’s just say I got sick of hearing instructions like “aim high” and “don’t try to do too much” directed toward a man who should have been too busy to hear them.

They got me, though, and I cancelled exercise plans in order to see Obama’s pitch, hoping it would be dainty enough to draw some criticism from the sports media (since the real media don’t dare). Finally, it was time. Obama stepped out of the cart, took the ball from Stan Musial, shook the hand of the uninformed driver, and trotted to the mound enthusiastically. And this is where it goes downhill.

I’ve been watching baseball on TV since I was 5 or 6 years old. No matter how many advances they make in game coverage, the angle from which the pitch is shown does not change. Sure, we occasionally get a shot from behind the plate, but we’ve pretty much established that the camera needs to be in left-center field and zoomed in on the pitcher, catcher, and umpire. FOX, however, decided to put a camera guy at third base so that all we could see was half the flight of the ball once it left the president’s hand.

I demand to know the politics behind that decision. Naturally, I would assume that it’s the liberal media making sure that we don’t see Obama fail at anything. (Keep in mind that the FOX broadcast network differs from FOX News. See Family Guy, a show that’s not only fiercely liberal but preachy!). But he didn’t fail, as I know from my Internet search, so why not show a replay? It was no post-9/11 George W. Bush strike, but it was still better than 90 percent of the ceremonial first pitches I’ve seen.

So which do you think will come first, GM—an explanation from FOX or a National League win?

-JW

JW,

I was actually listening on the radio, and wouldn't you know it, they cut to commercial the second the ball left his hand.

Seriously, I don't understand what happened, either. It seems to me that the chances of Obama getting it across the plate were about as good as those of George Bush changing the channel back in Dallas. In other words, pretty good. After all, this is the guy who "accidentally" appeared shirtless in a tabloid during the campaign. (Thank God Hillary didn't feel the need to follow suit.) This is the guy who plays basketball! And buys his daughters a puppy! He's just like us, only better. Of course he throws a zinger.

So why does FOX cut away? I'm guessing that the shot you saw was the network's "Capturing a Historic Moment" shot--wide, iconic, and in no way confusable with the standard camera work that the cretins pitch to. Sure, regular sports fans wanted to see if the guy could bring it, but the tens of casual fans who tuned in were looking for a live-feed of the next cover of Time.

If there's a lesson here, it's that liberals were completely justified in their desperation to see the end of the Bush presidency. I swear, I'm so sick of Obama after just six months that I'd voluntarily give up the next seven years of my life. Can't you see it? A contemporary Rip van Winkle, I wake up just in time for the final months of yet another endless election cycle to find that a fresh new face will soon be tinkering mindlessly with the economy, deploying our troops with no underlying military philosophy, and renewing Maya Angelou's White House pass. Maybe a new i-product will have been invented, too.

In any case, let's not get too worked up about missing that pitch. FOX cut back to the correct angle in plenty of time to show the White House Press Corp carrying the president off the field.

-GM

I'm Pulling For You, ESPN... for my own sake

GM,

I was watching TV last night, and I saw a show that had a little of everything: emotion, shouting, awkward moments, a live studio audience, a rational and understanding host, and some black guy from Mississippi. At one point, the crowd starting chanting, “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” Of course, I was watching Homecoming, the new ESPN show hosted by Rick Reilly, and Jerry Rice was the guest of honor. Were you expecting something else?

I’m pretty sure ESPN has assembled an entire team dedicated to deciding how to fill programming after the NBA playoffs come to an end. Title Town USA, Who’s Now?, My Wish, 50 States in 50 Days—these are all gimmicks that ESPN uses to try to keep ratings high when baseball and poker are the only competitions that could possibly be worth watching. If I only knew the number of any of my channels besides ESPN, ESPN2, and Comedy Central, I’d give something else a try.

You would think that the world’s sports leader could come up with something better to get us through the two months of angst before football season. For us, however, the challenge is to think of something worse than the aforementioned snoozer segments.

How about Almost Relevant: an inside look at all the runners-up in unpopular sporting events who were devastatingly close to becoming a blurb on SportsCenter. “Have you heard of Marwa Moustafa? Didn’t think so. She was one solid hit away from clinching the Women’s World Golf Croquet championship in 2007, and her life has been heartache ever since.”

Personally, my biggest thrill would come from watching Cold Pizza/First Take lowlights consisting of one of those top-25 countdowns for “Dumbest interview questions asked by Dana Jacobson and Jay Crawford.” Considering her propensity to deeply offend Christians and his to allegedly sexually harass makeup artists, shouldn’t they have talent to offset the cons?!

Can you think of any killer segments?

-JW

JW,

How about This Week in Slow Motion (alternate title, Frame By Frame)? If we're aiming for the gutter, I can't think of a better starting point than the most loathsome development in sports since Joe Buck. Picture this: Erik Kuselias and Dan LeBatard attempting to fill air time while unforced tennis errors and wild pitches drag to forty-five seconds each.

Actually, I think I'd watch that.

Perhaps the bigger issue here is the coordination of the worst part of the sports calendar with the least tolerable months of the Southern year. It's one hundred degrees outside, the folds of my gut have created a suction effect, and the only thing on television is people talking about first-half baseball. If it weren't for the British Open this weekend, I'd be considering a crime spree.

Speaking of which, how about a segment devoted to Places in Sports You'd Rather Be Right Now? First we see the pastoral dunes of Turnberry, followed by the view from my living room window—Hiroshima circa 1945, but hotter. I love the idea of living vicariously through ESPN's camera crew, and as long as they're willing to turn on the sprinklers, any number of ballparks could be featured.

Just think: The final shot could be the lovely halls of 935 Middle St., Bristol, where athletes roam free like so many Serengeti antelopes, and the swimming pools are icy cold. What else could scratch that self-mythologizing itch that's so troubled ESPN lo these many years? What else could remind us that NL-only Fantasy Baseball coverage is over when they say it's over?

Come on, SportsNation. Let's demand it.

-GM