Catching Up On Several Things
Sorry I’ve been remiss in posting much of interest lately. Real life has intervened. Here are a few things in my brain today:
- I can sum up ESPN’s latest “30 For 30″ documentary, Straight Outta LA for you thusly: Los Angeles reflected the Raiders, the Raiders reflected Los Angeles, Los Angeles reflected gangsta rap, gangsta rap reflected Los Angeles, the Raiders reflected gangsta rap, gangsta rap reflected the Raiders, repeat those themes incessantly for an hour. Also, Al Davis apparently died somewhere around 2004 and his animated corpse is running the Raiders, and Ice Cube is not a filmmaker.
- Apparently there’s some bit of kerfuffle over the USA’s 30-man preliminary roster for the upcoming World Cup. Coach Bob Bradley left recovering forward Charlie Davies off the roster in favor of five other forwards who you could reasonably make the case are in form and weren’t, you know, in a coma seven months ago. Here’s the deal on Charlie Davies: We all wanted to see this story have a miraculous ending. We all like Charlie Davies. But he’s lucky to be alive, and it’s a huge step from “lucky to be alive” to “potentially ready to contribute meaningfully to a World Cup team.” For those of you who would say, “Well, why not bring him into camp and see where he is, how will you know otherwise?” I would say this: Bradley’s staff has monitored all of Davies’ workouts, they had people there, they observed him and they had information from his club that he hadn’t been given full medical clearance. Meanwhile, you followed Charlie Davies on Twitter. So there we are.
- Looks like there could be more team handball action in my future this summer. Which is good, because it looks like there will be less soccer action in my future this fall.
- Congrats to the Phoenix Thunder, who beat the Chicago Fire Department Blaze, 38-20 on Saturday. The Thunder will host the National Public Safety Football League championship on June 12 against an opponent to be determined.
- In Peter King’s world, if you take steroids, you should lose your Rookie of the Year Award, but if you murder someone, you shouldn’t be removed from the Hall of Fame. Okay, got it.
- How can a guy this utterly un-funny not still be writing for Leno?
Tags: Charlie Davies, columnism, football, Phoenix Thunder, soccer, team handball, unfunny people, US soccer, World Cup
May 13th, 2010 at 1:40 am
Wow, I’m glad that last link wasn’t to me.
Let me devil’s advocate the Hall of Fame. OJ didn’t murder anyone during a game. His hobby of murdering people didn’t affect his on-field performance. People didn’t pay to watch him murder - well, they might have if they had the opportunity. Also, he didn’t become a murderer until well after his playing days…we think.
So, while he’s a murderer and all, he didn’t actually do anything to the integrity of the game. If he had, I dunno, murdered Jack Lambert before a game in order to post more yardage, that would be different. Not morally, but as far as tainting his non-murder related accomplishments.
Now, if you want to say someone like George Preston Marshall, whose influence in segregating the NFL caused his team and the league lots of damage, should be removed from the Hall of Fame…well, now we’re cooking with gas. (I’d say the same about Cap Anson, because segregating baseball was even more damaging - man, what if Satchel in his prime faced Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig - but I don’t know if it was ALL Cap Anson. We can bounce Kenesaw Mountain Landis, I guess.)
Happy belated birthday, btw.