Everything like that is real close, isn’t it?

The love, the hate that live side by side at Yanks-Red Sox games; the respect and competition between mortal enemies on the hoops court; paint and lipstick; dog and wolf; man and beast; woman and __________  the thin line between an overworked lady of the night and a tooth-challenged hockey goalie.

Hey, it’s that invisible line we’re toyin’ with all the time and sometimes crossin’.

Don’t lose your way.

(look who’s talkin’)

“Ain’t that America?” (Tony M.’s relative, John)

Herewith are my friend’s prediction and followup quotes:

rbermea (18 hours ago)
Tonight the Suns are gonna beat the crap out of the Spurs like we did last time and the Spurs are gay because they are both boring and ancient and old. Spurs are like a funeral wearing black all the time working at a mortuary and they can all burn in hell. Spurs suck! Suns are gonna win tonight! Spurs were around the time when the dinosaurs and the Bible existed. That’s how ancient they are.

bgfour (17 hours ago)

wow! why don’t you tell us how you really feel, my man!;=)

I actually think the Spurs could take this tonght with the Shaq down and the Spurs gettin’ into playoff mode…they ARE the reigning champs!

rbermea
rbermea (8 hours ago)
Did you see tonight’s game? The Suns beat the Spurs I was happy they won because the Spurs suck and they’re ancient and old like I said.

bgfour (Just now)

I saw it! Fantastic! Good call. Suns might have what it takes if Shaq plays like that and Stoudamire continues to evolve into the greatest power forward, like Shaq said afterwards.

I’m gonna honor you and the Suns by putting their background up! And I’ll make my blog your prediction! thx! I’m really happy that it went that way. It was a phenomenal closeout and Shaq led it!

You may recall that Ohio State made a brief appearance in the NCAA Championship game last year. Then the season ended. Then a starting senior graduated. Then THREE , as in THREE ,freshmen went to the NBA.

So, you’re in the championship one year and in the Big Ten also-rans the next. That tends to happen when you lose 80% of your starters in the most watered-down talent pool the NCAA has ever had. Don’t blame me for that. Blame Bradley, Drake, Creighton, Butler and all those other schools who keep eating up all the depth by making them starters.

I guess that’s my problem. No, it’s Florida fans’ problem, too.

“Dogpatch” was a cartoonish place made famous by “Daisy Mae”, the skimpily-clad Hillbilly Girl (parallel to modern “Valley Girl”) who actually graced a country porch or two down on Coal River where I lived.

The town’s real name is Sylvester. I lived in “Lower Dogpatch”, lodged between the hills on one side and the river, then hills, on the other. I liked to go down and play on the riverbank, but my parents wouldn’t let me swim in Big Coal River, even then.

“Upper Dogpatch” was on the hillside away from the River. The people who lived on those hills, up those hollers and such, were the real “hillbillies”. I can still remember the first time I heard, up there, “Wait a Little Longer, Please, Jesus”. People up yonder had some things they wanted to do before Jesus returned, back then.

Now up the river toward Charleston, the state capitol then and now, somewhere not too far, my older sister went to high school, Sherman High. And it was from my sister, who could give a hoot about sports really, that I first learned about a cat named Jerry West.

The big guy at Sherman High was about 6-7 and played center and was a friend of my sis. When Jerry West, from nearby Cabin Creek, came to play against Sherman High, my sister reported that her friend and them got blown away by the future great. He jumped center, at 6-3, and dominated. Jumping center was something Jerry was going to do all the way through college even though he played Guard…or wherever he wanted to.

Jerry went on to WVU and I listened, rapt, as he ran the scores up on weak teams or pulled out sensational last-second wins, time after time, against bigtime college teams.

By the time, Jerry was headed to the national championship, I no longer lived in DogPatch; my folks had moved us from backward Boone County to progressive Raleigh County, centered on Beckley. I continued to glue my ear to the radio during basketball season, just like I glued it to every Dodger or any baseball game I could get during the baseball season and just as I listened to Sam Huff and company during football season. I was an ‘eers fan(that’s Mountain-eers, for you non-initiates), although the only time I went to Morgantown back then was as a high school “forensic tournament” player.

Jerry had been preceded at WVU by a clown named Hot Rod Hundley, who was a pretty damn good player also. (The Harlem Globetrotters were big in those days and Hot Rod wanted to show that there was a pale-faced guy who could clown and play with a roundball). Hot Rod went to the Minneapolis Lakers.

When Jerry got done with WVU he followed Hot Rod to the Lakers. There he teamed with the great Elgin Baylor.

Young people today will never know how great Baylor was, back in the day when blacks were still discriminated against and were in the minority of players. I remember with pride one time that the Jerry West Lakers refused to stay at a southern hotel that wouldn’t let the great Baylor stay there. Of course, Baylor did the
60+ some points in a game back then before Wilt came in and destroyed all records forever.

Years later, I talked to a Minnesota high school coach who had attended that game: “He was unconscious,” said this talker. “He threw it up from everywhere and it went in.”

Watch an old film of Baylor at his best; you’ll understand.

Jerry stayed with the Lakers all the way to L.A. I’ll never forget when the Lakers lost another championship to their archrivals, the Boston Celtics (man are they back; can anyone beat the Celts this year?). Somebody asked the non-Havlicek guard for the Bostons that year, after Jerry almost single-handedly brought the Lakers back, about Jerry and the guy replied in proper Bostonian, “He’s THE GUAHD”, leaving the distinct impression on the questioner that he was intentionally
making the word a double entendre wherein “Guahd” sounded like “God”. The late Red Auerbach said that it was the greatest individual performance he had ever witnessed.

Jerry West became the symbol of the NBA. Hot Rod became an announcer. And Elgin Baylor….he’s tryin’ to put together Bill Crystal’s team….and NOBODY even thinks about denying him a room….anywhere. (I hope)

I went back to DogPatch years later. Everybody still remembers Jerry West.

And, sure enough, up one of those hollers where I visited, someone was still singing
“wait a little longer, please, jesus”….

One thing I’ll bet, when Jerry West was learning his craft alone on an outdoor hoop at his house in Cabin Creek, WV–he heard the same tune.

And, Jerry West put that team together that won the Lakers those championships…

Now, it’s Kobe and Phil and the gross Dr. Buss and all that–they don’t seem to quite have it right yet, so I’m singin’

“Wait a Little Longer….”

my take on the Super Bowl is that, if anyone other than the PATS could take it, it would be Favre or the Cowboys.

but, i just don’t see that happening. Brady had a champ team BEFORE Moss came aboard, so….with Moss, I think they are twice the team of all others …

You know the Survivors
And those who weep within
Away
Away
Away
From Family, Friends,
Love.

You know Us All
Who take each day so lightly,
So freely,
So glibly
While others Give that which
No One really wants to give;
Even Yeshua knew the conflict
In Gethsemane.

So, You Know.
Move, I pray,
This Day
To
Honor
Them
All.
May they know Love and Peace and Courage all the Way.

And if it cannot be, for hardness of men,
That they come home,
Please
Give them Your Home
Forever
Today.

Amen.

An Old Warrior

I’ll be at a wedding.

Not a beach wedding where I can bounce in and out in my bares and kiss the bride and drop a (whatever’s on those bills I use for such occasions) and hit the sports lounge on
bayshore drive wherever…

Oh no, this is INLAND, in a yard, I’ll be in a tux or somethin’ otherworldly like that, under a tent while the one game is on and then to a private party restaurant room while the other is on….

You believe in karma…..?

I do.

God, I hate my loves sometimes…..;-)

Of course, I feel it is a bad omen….I’m bettin’ the dogs….I need to be there, somewhere…in front of the screen….silently rooting them to upsets…..otherwise ,
everything happens as it should, right?…..Green Bay cakewalks and those cocky drugstore cowboys from the Lone Steer Nation swagger some more….I can’t stand that…oh, yes I can…conflict resolution, anyone?

They are good kids…the ones gettin’ married, probably most of the ones in the games, too…I like ‘em…..and it’s just a couple football games that I got myself worked up about….fan-tasy stuff, you know! (that’s what I’m talkin’ about…and, isn’t “marriage”? uh oh…..)

Goldarnit (you know what I mean)….where’s the TV?

Vernon opposed, among other things many of us accept as “O.K. Americana”, the using of Indian names, symbols and mascots in sports.

In 1970, I believe, his rival in the movement, a cat named Russell Means, whom I know even better(see his alleged “autobiography”, entitled “Where White Men Fear To Tread”–I really didn’t…fear) headed up Cleveland AIM or CLAIM. Years later, after a huge split in the AIM hierarchy, Russell soldout to the Cleveland Indians, representing AIM, for a measly $35,000 or less.

In this the apparent “warring bros” pulled the ultimate con on the Cleveland Indian organization–albeit for not very much money: one brother selling out while the other continued to protest and “jinx” the club.

The day Vernon died during the playoffs this year, the Indians appeared to have a World Series appearance pretty well “in the bag”.

Instead, you know what happened. I watched the final game of that series to see if the Cleveland “Indian hex” was still in place, even as Russell had sold out and Vernon had passed on…..

When Lofton slid into second obviously safe, with the game still close, on a throw from the “indifferent” Manny Ramirez, suddenly becoming the Rifleman….and he was called out….when the same Lofton was held up at third when he could have easily scored in his next time on and the score still close, I knew the jinx was on.

Apparently so did the “Indians”…they folded like those dollar bills you crumple in your shorts at the convenience store by the beach….

The funny thing about it is, the Rockies and Cleveland would have made for a better draw and probably a longer series and you wouldn’t need the Boras-AROD announcement to spike the moment….IN THE FREAKIN’ WORLD SERIES

Ah, well, but that’s my America…..

R.I.P. Vern Bellecourt. The jinx lives on….:-)

Lick your lips and smile, Russell. Go back to Cleveland, tell them you can lift the curse….cash in.
The timing’s good.

SP-S
*Footnote to the Cleveland Indians Owners: I’m a qualified medicine man and will do it for a gratuity of a mill, giveable when you win the pennant. _

It depends.

Germane to the outcome is Jermaine (O’Neal) and whether he can stay on the court.
Also relevant is whether Dunleavy can play in the regular season like he plays in the preseason. (Last year, with the GS Warriors, he couldn’t)

Indiana is special to me.

I did some sportswriting there.

One piece I did was on a junior varsity game in which guys who could barely play left everything they had on the court against much more talented, and smug, opposition.

Nevertheless, what I noticed in that piece was the fervor of all the players, on both sides of that lopsided deal.

I could understand the guys who wanted to get off the JV and onto the “real” basketball team, guys who had a chance to make the team, hustling and putting on a “show” for their coach.

What intrigued me was the hustle of the also-rans, guys without a chance, talent-wise.

In the end, I chalked it up to Hoosier Hysteria.

Roundball riotry, Indiana-style. Where every kid on an outdoor hoop nailed to the garage dreams of being the next no-name turned Larry Bird, the next “shooter” like that guy who didn’t make it in the NBA (whatsisname?), the next IU star to suffer the reign of Bobby Knight….back in that day…..the next Shawn Kemp before he became, well, Remember Shawn Kemp…the father of us all…..

Hoosier Hysteria….a female term for a mostly male condition, when you’re in Indiana….

These Pacers need to quit pacing themselves and turn it loose…..then the magic would happen….remember the movie with Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper?

Like that…come on Tinsley, come on Granger (there’s a couple names that remind me of non-basketball things in Indiana….) come on, whoever.

Let’s put some fire in that booty!

Give Indiana back its first love….

The Rockies got a baseball team about the time I was finding myself on the pucky end of a long marriage. They had great fans and were a joke.

Right up until the humidor.

Why is it that ‘roids, which didn’t bring a championship to any club that had a chronic user, are bad. But humidors are o.k.?

All of the inequities in baseball parks in years past are suddenly irrelevant in the present.

Maybe that guy who wanted to nuke the moon to make the climate pleasant all over the earth was onto something? (I think not; I think that guy’s an idiot, like I think guys who mess with MY game, baseball, are idiots. It’s not fair, never been fair….check it out. That’s why we like it. The very inequity of it is a draw. We like to see guys play well no matter what the odds.)

Anyway, the Rockies are a fluke. That’s my opinion. An interesting one, but a fluke.

Which brings me to that other fluke: the Yankees.

AROD I mean. Well, they aren’t together anymore…so we have to treat them separately. What a bunch of rich losers!

So, that brings us to the next dynasty in the making and why it won’t be a dynasty: Red Sox Nation.

It won’t be a dynasty because the Red Sox won’t ever play the Rockies again in the World Series.

They will play teams that are better than they are…and they will lose. The Rockies weren’t the better team, despite what their owner said.

AROD is simply the best individual fantasy player on earth….bar none.

It’s too bad he has to actually play baseball for a TEAM. Any team who gets AROD, beware. He’s a rich loser. Once a Yankee, always a Yankee. And Yankees have been rich losers ever since me and Podres and Amoros jinxed ‘em back in 1955.

And one other thing, the QB from South Florida runs the ball too much. What, they don’t have halfbacks like we did back in the day?

Now, it’s basketball season…and I’m fielding a bunch of teams on ESPN again.

I like these guys….

Now about the guy who makes all the noise at the Tampa baseball team’s homegames. (I forget their name) Let’s drown him out next season, Tampa Bay!

We’ve got a pretty good team happening here! All we need is a humidor that works the other way….?