Category: Sports

Posted on

Passing for Preterition

Several years ago, I had a Continental flight from O’Hare to Newark after  the annual BIO conference, an event once described to me as “a singles bar for governors and venture capitalists.” It’s very finance-heavy, and a lot of the exhibit hall space is bought by regional economic development groups that are looking to attract investment.

At the gate, the airline called all passengers with Elite Access status for early boarding. As God is my witness, only three passengers remained seated, while the rest of us got on line. “Sorta defeats the purpose of ‘Elite,’ huh?” I asked one of the money-people heading back to NY/NJ.

I was reminded of that this morning when I read John Clayton’s latest NFL mailbag column, which begins with Clayton’s take on the importance of “elite quarterbacks”. He offers up his criteria for “elite” and proceeds to name the FOURTEEN starting QBs who qualify. So, out of thirty-two teams, nearly HALF of them have “elite” QBs?

In case you’re wondering:

The elite AFC quarterbacks are Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Philip Rivers, Carson Palmer and Joe Flacco. In the NFC, you have Drew Brees, Brett Favre, Tony Romo, Donovan McNabb, Aaron Rodgers, Kurt Warner, Eli Manning and Matt Ryan.

In other news, you are all beautiful, unique snowflakes.

Posted on

Trippin’ Baseballs

During A.J. Burnett’s start against the Angels in the ALDS, I told my wife, “He threw the sloppiest no-hitter of all time, I think. He had like 9 walks over the course of the game.”

I conveniently forgot about Dock Ellis, who threw a no-no while . . . well, you’ll just have to watch:

Posted on

The L Gets An F

For the first time in years, there’ll be no Virtual Memories NBA Preview, dear readers. Neither Tom S. nor I were too enthused by the league this year and couldn’t get motivated enough to put together even crappy one-liners about the teams.

I can’t recall ever seeing such clear lines between champion contenders (LA, San Antonio, Boston, Cleveland and Orland), playoff fodder, and truly horrible teams. The idea that the Atlanta Hawks are a near-lock for the 4th or 5th seed in the east speaks volumes about the league’s mediocrity.

In any case, “my” team

  1. gutted its roster in the off-season in order to save money,
  2. is just the pivot for Bruce Ratner’s giant real estate scam in Brooklyn anyway, and
  3. will be sold to a Russian gangster by year’s end, so it’s possible their new building will actually go up in Sheepshead Bay.

The other local team is going into its second consecutive year of deliberate awfulness as part of its plan to attract the league’s best player. Prior to this, its awfulness was accidental.

My local hoops scene is so bad that I can’t make any jokes about how Tom’s team (he’s from Indiana), stocked with such great white nopes as Jeff Foster, Josh McRoberts, Troy Murphy, and Mike Dunleavy, Jr. on the roster, decided to use its lottery pick on . . . Tyler Hansbrough.

So we’re going to pass on the NBA Preview this year. Go about your business.

Posted on

Not By George

Looks like it’s Tangential Connections to George Plimpton Week here at Virtual Memories! Here’s another passage that stuck with me from George, Being George:

MYRA GELBAND: By the late 1980s, of course, the magazine evolved, and the kind of journalism George did for [Sports Illustrated], which was his signature journalism and I would guess his most commercial, took a backseat to the type of hard-sports journalism that became prevalent in the 1980s with the advent of things like ESPN and cable television.

I think it became harder for George to figure out stories that would work for the magazine, because his interests had changed, too — he wasn’t gonna go suit up and play football for us, and we weren’t gonna run those kind of stories. So it became a little more challenging for him to get into the magazine.

So SI faced the challenge of 24-hour sports coverage by . . . trying to replicate it on a weekly basis? Rather than play to the strengths it had in long-form writers like Plimpton, Dan Jenkins, Frank Deford, etc.? Because the media only got faster, but SI has to keep coming out once a week.

I’m not saying anything new; here’s a piece from 2007 by John Levin on why SI sucks. Still, I knew there was a reason that the only articles I remember from the last 10 years of SI were Frank Deford’s long pieces on Bill Russell and Roger Bannister and Edmund Hillary. (Wait: 1999 was 11 years ago, huh? Man, that decade just flew by.)

And of course, the most memorable piece published in SI in the past 30 years was Plimpton’s Sidd Finch prank, from 1985. The section on that article in George, Being George is hysterical, as expected. There’s a great passage from one of the Paris Review young’uns, detailing how afraid he was that he and Plimpton were going to get mugged by a trio of thugs, until one of the thugs realized who Plimpton was and told him how much he loved the Sidd Finch article.

Oh, well. I guess this means last April’s TEN-PAGE FEATURE ON A PROFESSIONAL SURFER was SI‘s attempt at getting back to its roots.

Gripegripemutter. . .

Posted on

What It Is: 10/19/09

What I’m reading: I finished Moby Dick last week, and got swept up in George, Being George, an oral history of George Plimpton, over the weekend. Reading the section on Plimpton’s divorce from his first wife, I felt really sad for his kids. I went to college with his oldest daughter, but don’t recall having any interaction with her during our time at Hampshire. When I finished that chapter, I thought, “Man, I hope she has kids and they give her a big hug today.” Outside of that, the book’s very entertaining. The scenes at the Paris Review offices sound like they were wonderful, although I’m guessing that, had I submitted a resume back in my post-college days, my name would’ve triggered a lack of a callback. (Not that Plimpton was anti-semitic, so much as, um, well, it just sounds like there weren’t many Jews (or black people) working at the Review, is all I’m saying.) Midway through the book, it occurred to me that Plimpton was “Fitzgerald who wanted to be Hemingway.” I thought this was a pretty good insight until I reached the last quarter of the book, where I learned that Plimpton had in the 1990’s adapted Fitzergald and Hemingway’s correspondence into a dramatic dialogue that he performed with Norman Mailer and Mailer’s wife Norris Church (who played Zelda). So I’m no genius. Anyway, it’s a really fantastic book, despite the sadness of the closing years of Plimpton’s life, where it became clear that his devotion to the social sphere had taken its toll on his body (and was part of his inability to be a good husband). Here’s the only passage that I dog-eared:

JAMES SCOTT LINVILLE: The only time I saw George nervous was when he was about to interview Andy Warhol for the magazine. There was something in Warhol’s voice, which had always been so flat, almost inhuman-seeming, but here . . . well, I thought: My God, he really wants George to like him. I realized he’d have had to have been hurt by the Edie book years before, and here he was talking to him. And George, George clearly did not like him, but he was fascinated by him. I suddenly realized these two guys had in some sense studied each other, for decades, how the other fashioned himself in the media — George of course with his effortlessness, the patrician thing, and Warhol . . . well, whatever he was. It was clear they had each paid attention to how the other had moved through some grid of public awareness.

It’s a topic I’d love to spend time writing about, trying to understand these two representative figures and how they shaped our ideas of celebrity. But I’m too busy watching the Balloon Boy story unfold. (Just kidding; I laughed about the story when it first began and devoted zero time to it after that.)

What I’m listening to: Nothing specific; just letting the iPod shuffle away.

What I’m watching: Adventureland (meh), the Yankees (yay!).

What I’m drinking: Not a thing till I’m over this cold.

What Rufus is up to: Wearing his coat when we go out for walks, and making friends at our local dry cleaner. I was a little nervous when the proprietor said, “Greyhounds are very valuable in Korea!” but he didn’t make any comment about how tasty their haunches are, so yay.

Where I’m going: Probably down to suburban Philadelphia, to deliver a TV. Don’t ask. Also have a get-together with a bunch of pals at Peter Luger in Brooklyn on Thursday evening.

What I’m happy about: That my wife’s pal Kate delivered her baby! Welcome, Charlotte!

What I’m sad about: Getting snow on Thursday. And being sick for basically two straight weeks. Grr.

What I’m worried about: Pettitte will have That One Inning this afternoon in Anaheim. You Yankee fans know what I’m talking about.

What I’m pondering: When NJ diners began getting liquor licenses. Was it around the same time they got rid of their jukeboxes?