Louisianan Mr. Bo-rail rode the name of an extinct Park Slope, Brooklyn, drug store to victory in the 136th edition of the premier equine race in North America. Yes, Super Saver (the colt, not the drug store) hugged the rail and then split a couple of fellow thoroughbreds amid the mud and mint juleps to be adorned with roses.
He was in our trifecta box along with Ice Box. Boxes abound! Alas, Lookin at Lucky finished out of the money to render our ticket another relic of 2010 nostalgia, along with the bull market. Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve. As Dandy Don used to say on Monday nights, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a very merry Christmas. Got to hand it to Meredith. He knew how to use the subjunctive mood, which Cosell would have applauded when “speaking of sports.” We loved those radio spots.
And if we hadn’t broken our Cardinal rule (pun intended) of going against Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia club today we would be in the money despite the plunging Dow Jones Industrial Average, which forgot to beware of Greeks bearing debt (forget about the gifts). Granted, there may have been someone pushing a button that he thought was a million and turned out to be a billion, but times being what they are, he took the job and took the market away down south in Dixie.
Still, there’s more going on than an errant ring finger on a keyboard. There are too many languages in the old world. You travel 100 miles and you’re in a different land. If you can speak a bit of Spanish, you’re OK in the new world, which awaits the jobs report tomorrow morning. This may be China’s century, but the USA still has a few licks left in her. Expect gains in payrolls but not enough to nick the unemployment rate
We’re betting against the euro and still believe that investors should hold Ford, buy Hovnanian Enterprises (a home builder; ticker HOV) and never go against Halladay.
We can’t say it better than this:
“France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter--it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart.”
(F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Swimmers”)
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Break 'em Up
The sun came up this morning. The coffee percolated and we breathed a sigh of relief. Our golf clubs were still with us. Phew! We had awoken from a dream in which some rascal stole our gear out of the cart when we were sauntering down the fairway looking for our ball. He left us our wedge and putter in the correct belief that we had used up all the good shots God had granted them.
When we gathered all the suspects at a dinner table in the grill room, it became obvious who the culprit was. Too obvious. It wasn’t the mustachioed sandbagger with a sly sneer on his lips. It turned out the club pro, resplendent in Nike logos, had swiped them because he wanted us to buy another set from him and take another lesson.
Aha! we exclaimed, as we petted Asta, kissed Nora, mixed a martini and watched the flat-footed detective take the son of a gun away in handcuffs.
Essentially, didn’t certain Wall Street banks sell us certain sets of clubs with the expectation that we would lose them to a purloiner and thus have to pay for another? It was a contract in which the golfer finds that the seller has collected the insurance because he had another contract predicting with assurance you would lose the shiny Titleist blades. Heads I win, tails you lose, and you are left with two clubs that have spent their usefulness.
President Obama is slated to speak today at Cooper Union in New York, the same venue at which Lincoln argued that the republic had the power granted by the founding fathers to prevent extension of slavery into the western territories.
But Mr. Obama’s address will be pointed at a different kind of plantation owner asserting his “rights” – not the Southern demand that an owner of human chattel be assured the privilege of taking his slaves into whatever jurisdiction he chose, but the Wall Street clamor to indiscriminately create trading opportunities for its own benefit at the expense of the public contract.
Blankfein and Dimon must yield. Tea Partiers and latte-sipping Park Slopers at least agree on this: “Break up the Yankees!”
Meanwhile, take the Phillies every time Roy Halladay is on the mound.
When we gathered all the suspects at a dinner table in the grill room, it became obvious who the culprit was. Too obvious. It wasn’t the mustachioed sandbagger with a sly sneer on his lips. It turned out the club pro, resplendent in Nike logos, had swiped them because he wanted us to buy another set from him and take another lesson.
Aha! we exclaimed, as we petted Asta, kissed Nora, mixed a martini and watched the flat-footed detective take the son of a gun away in handcuffs.
Essentially, didn’t certain Wall Street banks sell us certain sets of clubs with the expectation that we would lose them to a purloiner and thus have to pay for another? It was a contract in which the golfer finds that the seller has collected the insurance because he had another contract predicting with assurance you would lose the shiny Titleist blades. Heads I win, tails you lose, and you are left with two clubs that have spent their usefulness.
President Obama is slated to speak today at Cooper Union in New York, the same venue at which Lincoln argued that the republic had the power granted by the founding fathers to prevent extension of slavery into the western territories.
But Mr. Obama’s address will be pointed at a different kind of plantation owner asserting his “rights” – not the Southern demand that an owner of human chattel be assured the privilege of taking his slaves into whatever jurisdiction he chose, but the Wall Street clamor to indiscriminately create trading opportunities for its own benefit at the expense of the public contract.
Blankfein and Dimon must yield. Tea Partiers and latte-sipping Park Slopers at least agree on this: “Break up the Yankees!”
Meanwhile, take the Phillies every time Roy Halladay is on the mound.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The Credit
There are missed chances and then there are missed chances.
Aging Mr. Posada fails to glove a pitch and his New York Highlanders fall to the rival bloody ankles of Boston on opening night. Oh well, one hundred and sixty-one games to go, and Mr. Posada will catch again tonight.
Young Mr. Hayward of Butler launches a half-court last-gasp shot that just rims out and the Dukes of Hazard claim the NCAA Division 1 men’s championship. No rematch, but at least the Bulldogs covered the spread (for entertainment purposes only).
It makes one wonder how old and young men handle failure. Mr. Posada has World Series rings galore in his jewelry box and will likely get another. He’ll be fine.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hayward will probably replay that last three seconds in his head to the grave. But he earned a place in sports history.
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly,” wrote Teddy Roosevelt (OK, Dick Nixon quoted him, too).
The credit. Raise your head up, young man. Mr. Posada of the Highlanders will catch pitches from Mr. Burnett, who isn’t exactly simpatico with his battery mate, in their second game of the year tonight (take the bloody ankles tonight for entertainment purposes only).
Mr. Hayward, however, will find a cure for cancer, if not the common cold or financial derivatives. Even if he doesn't, he can know he was valiant.
Aging Mr. Posada fails to glove a pitch and his New York Highlanders fall to the rival bloody ankles of Boston on opening night. Oh well, one hundred and sixty-one games to go, and Mr. Posada will catch again tonight.
Young Mr. Hayward of Butler launches a half-court last-gasp shot that just rims out and the Dukes of Hazard claim the NCAA Division 1 men’s championship. No rematch, but at least the Bulldogs covered the spread (for entertainment purposes only).
It makes one wonder how old and young men handle failure. Mr. Posada has World Series rings galore in his jewelry box and will likely get another. He’ll be fine.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hayward will probably replay that last three seconds in his head to the grave. But he earned a place in sports history.
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly,” wrote Teddy Roosevelt (OK, Dick Nixon quoted him, too).
The credit. Raise your head up, young man. Mr. Posada of the Highlanders will catch pitches from Mr. Burnett, who isn’t exactly simpatico with his battery mate, in their second game of the year tonight (take the bloody ankles tonight for entertainment purposes only).
Mr. Hayward, however, will find a cure for cancer, if not the common cold or financial derivatives. Even if he doesn't, he can know he was valiant.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Bow Your Heads in Prayer
We used to think that all things become quaint. Hula hoops to Frisbees to My Mother the Car. Mutual Assured Destruction to Jonathan Livingston Seagull to frosted mugs of A&W root beer. American women who love Mad Men to American men who tuned into Australian Rules Football when ESPN was in its infancy.
But sweet little sixteen, in Chuck Berry’s phrase, resonates every year. The riches of this sporting season embarrass us. Northern Iowa dethroning Kansas. Purdue plodding along without its stalwart. ‘Cuse dominating without its big man. The scholarshipless Cornell winning two to meet mighty Kentucky.
And the greatest moment so far, a Spartan who ducked and gave his teammate the chance to catch and shoot at the buzzer.
He must have seen out of the corner of his eye young Lucious calling for the ball. Looking for an open man, the Michigan State fellow dribbling upcourt fired the rock that way, and the gentleman in the way, rather than reaching for what anyone would have taken for an errant pass, lowered his impressive frame to let the ball zip by into the hands of his intrepid teammate, who took a bounce of the ball and drilled it. String music.
“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em,” as a Tammany Hall lieutenant said in the 19th century.
As the world turns (some say the earth has tilted a couple of inches off its axis because of the devastating earthquakes in Haiti), the better part of valor is to decline so that another may insure success for the clan.
Competition is a constant. We think it’s what Einstein was looking for to complete his unified field theory. We continue to miss the moment in space and time when a young man bows his head so that his brother might succeed.
Nothing quaint about that.
But sweet little sixteen, in Chuck Berry’s phrase, resonates every year. The riches of this sporting season embarrass us. Northern Iowa dethroning Kansas. Purdue plodding along without its stalwart. ‘Cuse dominating without its big man. The scholarshipless Cornell winning two to meet mighty Kentucky.
And the greatest moment so far, a Spartan who ducked and gave his teammate the chance to catch and shoot at the buzzer.
He must have seen out of the corner of his eye young Lucious calling for the ball. Looking for an open man, the Michigan State fellow dribbling upcourt fired the rock that way, and the gentleman in the way, rather than reaching for what anyone would have taken for an errant pass, lowered his impressive frame to let the ball zip by into the hands of his intrepid teammate, who took a bounce of the ball and drilled it. String music.
“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em,” as a Tammany Hall lieutenant said in the 19th century.
As the world turns (some say the earth has tilted a couple of inches off its axis because of the devastating earthquakes in Haiti), the better part of valor is to decline so that another may insure success for the clan.
Competition is a constant. We think it’s what Einstein was looking for to complete his unified field theory. We continue to miss the moment in space and time when a young man bows his head so that his brother might succeed.
Nothing quaint about that.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Song of the Sporting Man
A friend of ours voiced a thought recently that has often struck us. To wit, “It’s a young man’s game,” which is why we play golf and doubles tennis rather than touch football anymore.
We envy men with theme songs to serenade them through this vale of tears: The Nazarene Jeter and strains of New York, New York; the saintly Brees aboard the City of New Orleans; the maple-leafed Crosby and O Canada, King James and the Cuyahoga (burn on big river).
Song and the sporting man are linked in a way that is poetry in motion (yep, it was Johnny Tillotson, he of telethon fame).
Though motion eludes the sporting man approaching his dotage, every now and then he ignores the doubtful knee and the looming obligation of completing the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle to aspire to the artistry of Tim Lincecum’s delivery or Ichiro Suzuki’s swing.
“C’mon, man,” get the legs moving, give it a try. There is nothing more dispiriting to us than the young man or woman who slothfully gives up and yields to the blandishment of the easy way out. Granted, talents are parceled out unequally and what few we may have decay with age, but that iron-clad fact of nature can’t keep us from seeking glory.
We will never find it at the plate, or under center, or in the crease, or behind the three-point line, but isn’t there a chant that we hear in our heads that keeps us shaving every morning and attending girls’ softball games.
Ours is: “G-o-o-d-e-y-e. Good Eye, Good Eye, Good Eye!”
We envy men with theme songs to serenade them through this vale of tears: The Nazarene Jeter and strains of New York, New York; the saintly Brees aboard the City of New Orleans; the maple-leafed Crosby and O Canada, King James and the Cuyahoga (burn on big river).
Song and the sporting man are linked in a way that is poetry in motion (yep, it was Johnny Tillotson, he of telethon fame).
Though motion eludes the sporting man approaching his dotage, every now and then he ignores the doubtful knee and the looming obligation of completing the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle to aspire to the artistry of Tim Lincecum’s delivery or Ichiro Suzuki’s swing.
“C’mon, man,” get the legs moving, give it a try. There is nothing more dispiriting to us than the young man or woman who slothfully gives up and yields to the blandishment of the easy way out. Granted, talents are parceled out unequally and what few we may have decay with age, but that iron-clad fact of nature can’t keep us from seeking glory.
We will never find it at the plate, or under center, or in the crease, or behind the three-point line, but isn’t there a chant that we hear in our heads that keeps us shaving every morning and attending girls’ softball games.
Ours is: “G-o-o-d-e-y-e. Good Eye, Good Eye, Good Eye!”
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Elephants and Whales
We were deep into the healthcare reform summit, determined to figure out this enigma wrapped in a riddle, when a friend notified us that the women’s curling semi-finals were on the USA network. We left the gas bags behind and quickly switched channels.
You can have your Lindsey Vonns, Apolo Ohnos, Johnny Weirs and snowboard dudes and dudettes; we’ll take the ladies of delicate releases, gentle twists of slim wrists followed by the furious sweeping or gentle nursing of dedicated handmaids, aiding the direction and speed of m’lady’s stone.
It’s a chess match on ice, matched only by the thrust and parry of our republic’s representatives in advocating competing cures for healthcare nation. To hear them talk, one would think 300 million people were in the intensive care unit and the remaining few were asking the ailing if they want to live forever.
“It’s a thingy, a fiendish thingy!” as George Harrison exclaimed in the curling sequence in “Help!”.
Yes it is, George. Luckily, Ringo escaped the exploding stone and the Beatles found themselves at Scotland Yard, seeking protection.
“And you shall have it,” the intrepid inspector promised as he cowered beneath his desk.
Just as the wide-eyed Ms. Ott of Switzerland (is she related to Mel of New York baseball Giants fame, who caused Leo Durocher to famously assert, “nice guys, they’ll finish last”?) and the steely Ms. Bernard of Canada dueled in Vancouver, the lawmakers slid their stones, sweeping with statistics, studies and anecdotes in an effort to announce checkmate. Alas, it was a stalemate.
In curling, competitors get extra innings, er, “ends,” to determine a winner. In policy-making, suits and ties and strands of pearls spin stories until the mind is dizzy with argument.
It seemed to us that one of the purposes of these United States is to save capitalism from its voracious self. Someone has to train the captive elephant not to step on the fleas, or let the beast roam the savanna; persuade the captive killer whale not to eat its keeper, or let the whale kill who it might in the ocean.
‘Tis a special art, like curling and (dare we mention it) golf, which requires furious effort or benign neglect. Yet, as Joyce told us, the newspapers were right. The snow was general all over Ireland, falling faintly on the living and the dead.
You can have your Lindsey Vonns, Apolo Ohnos, Johnny Weirs and snowboard dudes and dudettes; we’ll take the ladies of delicate releases, gentle twists of slim wrists followed by the furious sweeping or gentle nursing of dedicated handmaids, aiding the direction and speed of m’lady’s stone.
It’s a chess match on ice, matched only by the thrust and parry of our republic’s representatives in advocating competing cures for healthcare nation. To hear them talk, one would think 300 million people were in the intensive care unit and the remaining few were asking the ailing if they want to live forever.
“It’s a thingy, a fiendish thingy!” as George Harrison exclaimed in the curling sequence in “Help!”.
Yes it is, George. Luckily, Ringo escaped the exploding stone and the Beatles found themselves at Scotland Yard, seeking protection.
“And you shall have it,” the intrepid inspector promised as he cowered beneath his desk.
Just as the wide-eyed Ms. Ott of Switzerland (is she related to Mel of New York baseball Giants fame, who caused Leo Durocher to famously assert, “nice guys, they’ll finish last”?) and the steely Ms. Bernard of Canada dueled in Vancouver, the lawmakers slid their stones, sweeping with statistics, studies and anecdotes in an effort to announce checkmate. Alas, it was a stalemate.
In curling, competitors get extra innings, er, “ends,” to determine a winner. In policy-making, suits and ties and strands of pearls spin stories until the mind is dizzy with argument.
It seemed to us that one of the purposes of these United States is to save capitalism from its voracious self. Someone has to train the captive elephant not to step on the fleas, or let the beast roam the savanna; persuade the captive killer whale not to eat its keeper, or let the whale kill who it might in the ocean.
‘Tis a special art, like curling and (dare we mention it) golf, which requires furious effort or benign neglect. Yet, as Joyce told us, the newspapers were right. The snow was general all over Ireland, falling faintly on the living and the dead.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
This Lenten Life
The cruelest month? ‘Taint April, Mr. Eliot. It’s February in Brooklyn: bare trees snarling at us; snow still piled on the shady side of the street; surly young men with sweatshirt hoods shrouding their faces, looking like so many Unabombers; nervous young mothers and take-charge nannies clogging the grimy sidewalks, pushing strollers that wrap their young’ns in plastic; sad brownstones gray with a kind of bone-deep moisture; the endless analysis of NBA contracts, the hair-shirt advent of Lent (how’s that for mixing liturgical seasons?).
But there’s hope. Lent’s privations will lead to Easter. Tulips will bloom and bare trees will smile. The hooded swains will bare their heads to seek their Jills. The byzantine NBA will give way to the Amen Corner at Augusta National. Children will frolic in parks while radiant parents and caretakers enjoy a picnic lunch, leaving the sidewalks free for us surly old men on meaningless jaunts.
We know these things are true because a flock of millionaires and wannabes are at this very moment spitting sunflower seeds before heading to the golf course in the gentler winters of Florida and Arizona. We all would have been among them at one time if not for the indisputable fact that hitting a curveball is impossible in the real world. This feat requires a magical incantation passed down among a select few from Nap Lajoie and Wee Willie Keeler (“hit ’em where they ain’t) to Joe Mauer and Albert Pujols. Will Dan Brown reveal it in his next “Da Vinci Code” spin-off?
Forlorn as we are in this somber period, itching to take to the local muni track with yet another new swing and putting stroke, the boys of summer at winter training (hey, it ain’t spring yet) fill us with hope of life after death. They have convinced us to embrace each new minute of sunlight that appears with every revolution of the planet until the vernal equinox, an event for mourning because the hourglass is turned over and the daytime begins to dwindle ever so sneakily.
Before that day in June, we predict the Kansas City Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates will meet in the 2010 World Series and Eldrick Woods will retire from golf to become a Buddhist monk.
But there’s hope. Lent’s privations will lead to Easter. Tulips will bloom and bare trees will smile. The hooded swains will bare their heads to seek their Jills. The byzantine NBA will give way to the Amen Corner at Augusta National. Children will frolic in parks while radiant parents and caretakers enjoy a picnic lunch, leaving the sidewalks free for us surly old men on meaningless jaunts.
We know these things are true because a flock of millionaires and wannabes are at this very moment spitting sunflower seeds before heading to the golf course in the gentler winters of Florida and Arizona. We all would have been among them at one time if not for the indisputable fact that hitting a curveball is impossible in the real world. This feat requires a magical incantation passed down among a select few from Nap Lajoie and Wee Willie Keeler (“hit ’em where they ain’t) to Joe Mauer and Albert Pujols. Will Dan Brown reveal it in his next “Da Vinci Code” spin-off?
Forlorn as we are in this somber period, itching to take to the local muni track with yet another new swing and putting stroke, the boys of summer at winter training (hey, it ain’t spring yet) fill us with hope of life after death. They have convinced us to embrace each new minute of sunlight that appears with every revolution of the planet until the vernal equinox, an event for mourning because the hourglass is turned over and the daytime begins to dwindle ever so sneakily.
Before that day in June, we predict the Kansas City Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates will meet in the 2010 World Series and Eldrick Woods will retire from golf to become a Buddhist monk.
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