These are a few of our favorite things when the dog bites and the bee stings:
Mustard on scrambled eggs.
Marlboros, not the generic brand.
Parlays over straight plays (for entertainment purposes only).
Diet coke with a Big Mac and fries to keep our girlish figure.
The Meineke Car Care Bowl.
Directing the placement of the Christmas tree from a perch on the couch.
Christmas Eve shopping with the kids at the South Street Seaport and lunch at Wendy’s.
Paula Creamer’s beautiful swing and pink ball.
Laughing at ourselves when putts for double bogie lip out.
Faithful friends who are dear to us and gather near to us once more.
We are torn, torn we say! when it comes to remembering the last year of the aughts and reminiscing over a decade in this sporting life.
We learned to simulate playing golf, no small feat given our advanced age and lack of cocktail waitresses.
Our children, who advanced far beyond us in scholarship and athletic accomplishment.
Those who endured much with more grace and wit than can be measured.
The hound hotel, which can be a good place to go when the slings and arrows cloud the skies.
David Tyree’s miraculous helmet catch.
OU’s national championship against Florida State.
Boise State’s trickeration win against OU.
Of course, the 2004 Red Sox.
New Year’s resolutions are upcoming (six-pack abs are among them). Have yourself a merry little Christmas. We’ll muddle through somehow.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Time and Tide
Some think this sporting life we lead is all candy and nuts and a very merry Christmas. Let us let you in on a not- so-secret secret; it’s really ifs and buts, double faults, a chunked wedge shot and a parlay (for entertainment purposes only) that against all advice successfully calls the money line on the Pittsburgh vs. Cleveland game but not the over-under. Ouch, baby.
But all is not lost. Though the Browns and Steelers failed to get near the point total predicted, retail sales last month jumped twice as much as the consensus expected. Things are on the mend in this season of light, though youngsters are still sent marching off into the maw of endless war, perhaps the only job they can land, while, God bless them, Goldman Sachs executives make the sacrifice of taking their bonuses in stock.
We loved the player who walked out on Cincinnati Bearcat coach Brian Kelly when he told his undefeated team at its banquet that he was leaving them in the lurch before the Sugar Bowl game with Florida to take the Notre Dame job. This bold, go-to-hell response from a young scholar bodes ill for the golden domers who desire above all else relevance and enlivens hope for the future of American youth.
We are usually an optimistic sort, believing that the next drive will soar straight into the fairway, that the five-iron will land softly close to the pin and that the birdie putt will rattle into the cup. Is there a more satisfying sound than that rattle? Well, maybe the gentle snore of a well-fed baby, or new-born whippoorwills calling from the hills, as Nat King Cole crooned a million summers ago when summer was a comin’ in but fast.
Where has that world gone? Each generation when it reaches a certain age asks the same question. We recently spoke with a person dear to us who called the closing out of the “oughts” as a lost decade. Not so.
Mark Ingram, the remarkable young halfback from Flint, Michigan, playing for Alabama, tearfully and gracefully accepted the Heisman Trophy last night, ushering in a new decade for us sporting men and women. His next job is against Texas and then on to professional riches. Some 40 years from now, he might be savoring that rattle in the cup.
But all is not lost. Though the Browns and Steelers failed to get near the point total predicted, retail sales last month jumped twice as much as the consensus expected. Things are on the mend in this season of light, though youngsters are still sent marching off into the maw of endless war, perhaps the only job they can land, while, God bless them, Goldman Sachs executives make the sacrifice of taking their bonuses in stock.
We loved the player who walked out on Cincinnati Bearcat coach Brian Kelly when he told his undefeated team at its banquet that he was leaving them in the lurch before the Sugar Bowl game with Florida to take the Notre Dame job. This bold, go-to-hell response from a young scholar bodes ill for the golden domers who desire above all else relevance and enlivens hope for the future of American youth.
We are usually an optimistic sort, believing that the next drive will soar straight into the fairway, that the five-iron will land softly close to the pin and that the birdie putt will rattle into the cup. Is there a more satisfying sound than that rattle? Well, maybe the gentle snore of a well-fed baby, or new-born whippoorwills calling from the hills, as Nat King Cole crooned a million summers ago when summer was a comin’ in but fast.
Where has that world gone? Each generation when it reaches a certain age asks the same question. We recently spoke with a person dear to us who called the closing out of the “oughts” as a lost decade. Not so.
Mark Ingram, the remarkable young halfback from Flint, Michigan, playing for Alabama, tearfully and gracefully accepted the Heisman Trophy last night, ushering in a new decade for us sporting men and women. His next job is against Texas and then on to professional riches. Some 40 years from now, he might be savoring that rattle in the cup.
Monday, December 7, 2009
He Sendeth Rain...
We awoke besotted by riches yesterday morning after a college football banquet that kept this sporting man on a couch that doubles for a bed and breakfast nook, remote control in hand, watching a Far East-made flat screen for a whole half of a three-hundred-and sixty-fifth of a twirl around the star that rises in the east. You’ve seen the son of a gun, it has something to do with chlorophyll and Vitamin D.
The love handles expanded, but so did a love for a game meant for the teenager and the man child. The pro game consumes the sporting public, but the student-athletes inspire awe. After a tough day of calculus, pre-med and Shakespeare, they take to the gridiron to win one for ….
Forgive us, but when a Nazarene invests a game -- a game, mind you -- with biblical significance emblazoned under eyes that are misting over, we have to chuckle (a character flaw of ours that has others chuckling at us).
“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). Oh yeah?
Perhaps Tim Tebow, the formidable Florida quarterback, should have had Matthew 5:45 on his coal black strips: “For He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.”
The just being the proud Nebraska squad with a coach in a collarless sweatshirt who would have been forgiven if he ranted at the blatant rigging of the Bowl Championship Series. Time had run out on the evil empire from Austin as the wide-eyed McCoy inexplicably rolled right and threw the ball out of bounds. Any other game and the refs are jogging off the field, letting the underdogs celebrate.
But no! From out of nowhere! An extra second is allowed for a BCS scenario that was pre-ordained. OK, call us conspiracy theorists, but, hey, any other game?
Wait, there’s more.
Fresno State, attempting a game-ending two-point conversion to defeat the Fighting Illini, appeared foiled by a brilliant deflection of a pass at the goal line, but a large man captured the flying pigskin in a gut that we are approaching and trundled into the end zone for the winning points as time waned. So he’s got that going for him, which is more than we can say, having slept through the calculus final.
And then there was the holder for Pitt’s extra point. He couldn’t get the ball down and twirl the laces, giving Cincinnati a chance to come back and win a pick’em game.
God bless all the gallant young men -- and the ladies and old sporting fellows who cheered them -- for 12 hours of sedentary bliss (well, not the ladies; they were jumping and shaking pom-poms)
He maketh his sun to rise…
The love handles expanded, but so did a love for a game meant for the teenager and the man child. The pro game consumes the sporting public, but the student-athletes inspire awe. After a tough day of calculus, pre-med and Shakespeare, they take to the gridiron to win one for ….
Forgive us, but when a Nazarene invests a game -- a game, mind you -- with biblical significance emblazoned under eyes that are misting over, we have to chuckle (a character flaw of ours that has others chuckling at us).
“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). Oh yeah?
Perhaps Tim Tebow, the formidable Florida quarterback, should have had Matthew 5:45 on his coal black strips: “For He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.”
The just being the proud Nebraska squad with a coach in a collarless sweatshirt who would have been forgiven if he ranted at the blatant rigging of the Bowl Championship Series. Time had run out on the evil empire from Austin as the wide-eyed McCoy inexplicably rolled right and threw the ball out of bounds. Any other game and the refs are jogging off the field, letting the underdogs celebrate.
But no! From out of nowhere! An extra second is allowed for a BCS scenario that was pre-ordained. OK, call us conspiracy theorists, but, hey, any other game?
Wait, there’s more.
Fresno State, attempting a game-ending two-point conversion to defeat the Fighting Illini, appeared foiled by a brilliant deflection of a pass at the goal line, but a large man captured the flying pigskin in a gut that we are approaching and trundled into the end zone for the winning points as time waned. So he’s got that going for him, which is more than we can say, having slept through the calculus final.
And then there was the holder for Pitt’s extra point. He couldn’t get the ball down and twirl the laces, giving Cincinnati a chance to come back and win a pick’em game.
God bless all the gallant young men -- and the ladies and old sporting fellows who cheered them -- for 12 hours of sedentary bliss (well, not the ladies; they were jumping and shaking pom-poms)
He maketh his sun to rise…
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Whose Woods These Are, I Think I Know
It turns out that Eldrick Woods is just like you or me. OK, he has a little more do-re-mi, no love handles and is able to escape from impossible lies to make par with a panache that perplexes we triple bogey fellows. But stuff happens -- even to the world’s best golfer. The best a man can get? We’re clean-shaven, too, but fall far short of expectations. We missed a patch of whiskers on one jowl the other day and felt the sting of imperfection.
Mr. Woods, after all, is just a man. As much as we wish not to revel in celebrity gossip, it is impossible not to look away from the billionaire with a flaw, though his swing and putting stoke are, dare we repeat, the best a man can get.
Only Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jack Kennedy remain in our pantheon of stainless heroes. Well, Jackson, a college professor, superstitiously sucked lemons while leading his corps, Lee ordered the calamitous charge against Cemetery Ridge, and JFK had a dalliance with the gal who crooned “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.”
Charles Barkley and John Daly can laugh at themselves. Mr. Woods, apparently, can only kiss his wife, children and dogs in photo-ops. Not that Mr. Woods is required to do so, but Messrs. Barkley and Daly lead this sporting life and accept it for what it is.
Which leads us to the conclusion that we are all sinners and have tales that are easily punctured. In one way or another, we all have had someone angry at us for our sins chasing us with a metaphorical seven-iron.
Let’s hope we get off with a $164 fine and enough left over for the greens fee at a muni track, which we will attempt to conquer in a few hours.
Mr. Woods, after all, is just a man. As much as we wish not to revel in celebrity gossip, it is impossible not to look away from the billionaire with a flaw, though his swing and putting stoke are, dare we repeat, the best a man can get.
Only Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jack Kennedy remain in our pantheon of stainless heroes. Well, Jackson, a college professor, superstitiously sucked lemons while leading his corps, Lee ordered the calamitous charge against Cemetery Ridge, and JFK had a dalliance with the gal who crooned “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.”
Charles Barkley and John Daly can laugh at themselves. Mr. Woods, apparently, can only kiss his wife, children and dogs in photo-ops. Not that Mr. Woods is required to do so, but Messrs. Barkley and Daly lead this sporting life and accept it for what it is.
Which leads us to the conclusion that we are all sinners and have tales that are easily punctured. In one way or another, we all have had someone angry at us for our sins chasing us with a metaphorical seven-iron.
Let’s hope we get off with a $164 fine and enough left over for the greens fee at a muni track, which we will attempt to conquer in a few hours.
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Better Part of Valor
Football genius Bill Belichick took the road less traveled and it meant all the difference. Instead of punting on fourth down with 2 minutes and change left in the game, ahead by 6, he ordered his troops to go for it on 4th and 2 at their own 28-yard line. They failed. Kevin Faulk took the pass beyond the first down marker but juggled it and was driven back, giving Peyton Manning and his horseshoe helmeted heroes a short field for the victory.
As a young friend wise beyond his years pointed out to me the other day, in Frost’s poem, the narrator sighs, wondering what might have been had he followed Yogi’s advice that when you come to a fork in the road, take it. And all along I thought Frost’s protagonist was smugly patting himself on the back for turning his back on the crowd.
This hubris seems to be spreading. On Saturday, in The Game, Yale’s young coach called for a fake punt on 4th and 22 deep in the Bulldogs’ own territory. The ensuing run came up 7 yards short and Harvard took over to score the winning touchdown.
Also on Saturday, Les Miles, the coach at LSU inexplicably failed to call a time-out until 9 seconds remained. His Tigers pulled off a remarkable screen pass to cover 40-plus yards and a first down at the Ole Miss 6-yard line with 1 second remaining. Then, even more inexplicably, the LSU quarterback spiked the ball to end the game.
To coin a phrase, sometimes we cut off our noses to spite our faces. The same is true of this sporting life. Instead of punching an errant tee shot into the fairway from the lie between imposing oaks, we try the heroic 7-iron over the expansive canopy in an attempt to reach the green. But the Titleist smacks into a trunk and ricochets with the speed of a gunshot and returns to fracture the hero’s fibula, ending his golf season prematurely. You can look it up.
Sometimes the road less traveled is that way for a reason.
As a young friend wise beyond his years pointed out to me the other day, in Frost’s poem, the narrator sighs, wondering what might have been had he followed Yogi’s advice that when you come to a fork in the road, take it. And all along I thought Frost’s protagonist was smugly patting himself on the back for turning his back on the crowd.
This hubris seems to be spreading. On Saturday, in The Game, Yale’s young coach called for a fake punt on 4th and 22 deep in the Bulldogs’ own territory. The ensuing run came up 7 yards short and Harvard took over to score the winning touchdown.
Also on Saturday, Les Miles, the coach at LSU inexplicably failed to call a time-out until 9 seconds remained. His Tigers pulled off a remarkable screen pass to cover 40-plus yards and a first down at the Ole Miss 6-yard line with 1 second remaining. Then, even more inexplicably, the LSU quarterback spiked the ball to end the game.
To coin a phrase, sometimes we cut off our noses to spite our faces. The same is true of this sporting life. Instead of punching an errant tee shot into the fairway from the lie between imposing oaks, we try the heroic 7-iron over the expansive canopy in an attempt to reach the green. But the Titleist smacks into a trunk and ricochets with the speed of a gunshot and returns to fracture the hero’s fibula, ending his golf season prematurely. You can look it up.
Sometimes the road less traveled is that way for a reason.
Monday, November 2, 2009
World Series Diary III: Scaredy Cat
Fear is a valuable but debilitating emotion. It is one thing to fear God and the tornado tearing across the prairie toward your ramshackle farmhouse, rightfully causing you and Auntie Em to run for the root cellar. It’s another to fear failure and thus invite it. How many putts has Kev left woefully short for fear of sending the Titleist down a sloped green to the rough on the other side?
After a camera carom and a flair for the flare handed New York the game the day before, the fireman- turned-arsonist Brad Lidge helped the pinstripers to the brink of a 27th World Series triumph. Eschewing his best pitch, the slider, scared that a wild pitch could plate the go-ahead run, the Phillies’ Lidge served up a two-out fastball to Alex Rodriguez, who stroked the winning hit in the ninth inning yesterday. Might as well have hit him in the ribs again and fired up your team with -- what? A bench-clearing brawl, of course.
It’s bracing how this sporting life teaches us, even as we age ungracefully, that knee-knocking moments, like fatigue, make cowards of us all. Except for Johnny Damon, who used to look more like the Nazarene than Derek Jeter. After a nine-pitch battle, He singled and then promptly walked on water, stealing second and going on to third, taking advantage of an unguarded third base caused by the shifted infield.
Now the Philadelphia team rests its hopes on James Bond, alias Cliff Lee, who was a work of art in the first game. Fellow Arkansan A.J. Burnett goes for the empire on three days’ rest. Expect no parade on lower Broadway yet. Another game will be played in the Bronx.
Meanwhile, Kev loves to putt. Think I’ll roll a few on the carpet right now.
After a camera carom and a flair for the flare handed New York the game the day before, the fireman- turned-arsonist Brad Lidge helped the pinstripers to the brink of a 27th World Series triumph. Eschewing his best pitch, the slider, scared that a wild pitch could plate the go-ahead run, the Phillies’ Lidge served up a two-out fastball to Alex Rodriguez, who stroked the winning hit in the ninth inning yesterday. Might as well have hit him in the ribs again and fired up your team with -- what? A bench-clearing brawl, of course.
It’s bracing how this sporting life teaches us, even as we age ungracefully, that knee-knocking moments, like fatigue, make cowards of us all. Except for Johnny Damon, who used to look more like the Nazarene than Derek Jeter. After a nine-pitch battle, He singled and then promptly walked on water, stealing second and going on to third, taking advantage of an unguarded third base caused by the shifted infield.
Now the Philadelphia team rests its hopes on James Bond, alias Cliff Lee, who was a work of art in the first game. Fellow Arkansan A.J. Burnett goes for the empire on three days’ rest. Expect no parade on lower Broadway yet. Another game will be played in the Bronx.
Meanwhile, Kev loves to putt. Think I’ll roll a few on the carpet right now.
Friday, October 30, 2009
World Series Diary II: The Empire Strikes Back
What must it feel like to see the empire’s Mariano Rivera jogging to the mound when you’re down a couple of runs? Though we are not privy to the inner monologue of Philadelphia’s hitters, it would surely be screaming: “We’re doomed! Doomed, I say”!
Yes they were. Mr. Rivera overshadows all, much like an eclipse of the sun sends the tribesmen of aboriginal civilizations scurrying away from the boiling pot holding the leader of a safari who stumbled onto sacred ground. The hi-def screens at Yankee Stadium should read “Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here” when Mr. Rivera stands 60-feet, 6-inches from the hexagonal plate we fondly call home.
He should be the MVP every year. The exception that proves the rule, of course, is the seventh game of the 2001 World Series, but that was against a drawn-in infield. In this case, a six-out save seemed all but predestined. Rivera is Calvinism personified. Since God has already determined who is to be saved, it matters not a whit what one does on the diamond to achieve it.
A.J. Burnett left his evil twin in the clubhouse, allowing only one run and Mr. Rivera to summon the gods to push the moon between the sun and the earth and scare the Phillies into submission.
Pedro , for his part, made two mistakes, but “for want of a nail” on the hoof of a horse a battle is lost.
We must question, however, Charlie Manuel not sending the runners in the eighth inning with one out on a 3-2 count, as the redoubtable Tim McCarver pointed out. Still, blue’s call was wrong. There was no double play. Utley was safe, but life is not fair, something we are impressed with every day.
The cure for the senior circuit representatives? They must resume swatting the ball out of the confines to retain their championship. The series, as this sporting life, will not be won by small ball.
Yes they were. Mr. Rivera overshadows all, much like an eclipse of the sun sends the tribesmen of aboriginal civilizations scurrying away from the boiling pot holding the leader of a safari who stumbled onto sacred ground. The hi-def screens at Yankee Stadium should read “Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here” when Mr. Rivera stands 60-feet, 6-inches from the hexagonal plate we fondly call home.
He should be the MVP every year. The exception that proves the rule, of course, is the seventh game of the 2001 World Series, but that was against a drawn-in infield. In this case, a six-out save seemed all but predestined. Rivera is Calvinism personified. Since God has already determined who is to be saved, it matters not a whit what one does on the diamond to achieve it.
A.J. Burnett left his evil twin in the clubhouse, allowing only one run and Mr. Rivera to summon the gods to push the moon between the sun and the earth and scare the Phillies into submission.
Pedro , for his part, made two mistakes, but “for want of a nail” on the hoof of a horse a battle is lost.
We must question, however, Charlie Manuel not sending the runners in the eighth inning with one out on a 3-2 count, as the redoubtable Tim McCarver pointed out. Still, blue’s call was wrong. There was no double play. Utley was safe, but life is not fair, something we are impressed with every day.
The cure for the senior circuit representatives? They must resume swatting the ball out of the confines to retain their championship. The series, as this sporting life, will not be won by small ball.
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