From The Sports Desk

[Sancho]

Haha. Something about hell freezing over immediately popped to mind.

[bounty]

I watched a video yesterday of a little boy, in an effort to earn some doritos from his father, made a pig fly.

[bounty]

captain sisko on star trek: deep space nine is the captain of the station. he's a huge fan of an old American sport. an old rival from Starfleet academy shows up and challenges him to a contest. some of the highlights, with a heavy lean towards worf's involvement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzPQAeRsBXc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRRbYE9jRCk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N22YyheMW-c

[Sancho]

Haha!
That pitch wasn’t even close. Yer blind ump! What are ya? Regenerating?

I do love a good baseball metaphor. Came across this one in my current read. Dave Robicheaux has been surveilling a small-time mobster with binoculars and the guy sees the glint off the lens and goes to investigate. Dave figures he can skedaddle so he doesn’t get made, but:

I could have gotten out of there, I suppose, without being seen. But sometimes self-respect requires that you float one down the middle, letter high, big as a balloon, and let the batter have his way. I walked through the trees back to the road.

What Dave really wants to do is provoke the guy so he can beat the livin’ tar outta him, which he does.

From Black Cherry Blues, by James Lee Burke

[bounty]

I think the more you know about life in general, the richer any particular reading can end up being, a la your dave robicheaux section.

captain sisko keeps a baseball on his desk in ops on the station. when the federation had to evacuate and let the dominion capture the station, the old/new bad guy gul dukat takes over. watch from 2:11 to the end...

among other things, its interesting to consider that baseball lasts into the 24th century.

[Sancho]

Every time we think baseball is dead, it rises from the ashes. The king is dead. Long live the king. You know, spring training is just around the corner.

Hey, I was happy to see the baseball metaphor I posted above was more fully developed later in the novel:

Maybe it’s like the seventh-inning stretch, I thought, when they’ve shelled your fastball past your ears and blown your hanging curve through the boards. Afternoon shadows are growing on the field, your arm aches, the movement and sound of the fans are like an indistinct hum in the stands. Then a breeze springs up and dries the sweat on your face and neck, you wipe your eyes clear on your sleeve, scrub the ball against your thigh, fork your fingers tightly into the stitches, and realize that the score is irrelevant now, that your failure is complete, that it wasn’t so bad after all because now you’re free and alone in a peculiar way that has put you beyond the obligations of victory and defeat. The batter expects you to float another balloon past his letters, and instead you take a full windup, your face dry and cool in the breeze, your arm now weightless, and you swing your leg and whole butt into the delivery, your arm snaps like a snake, and the ball whizzes past him in a white blur. And that’s the way you pitch the rest of the game, in the lengthening shadows, in the dust blowing off the base paths, in the sound of a flag popping on a metal pole against the blue sky; you do it without numbers in your head, right into the third out in the bottom of the ninth.

Black Cherry Blues, by James Lee Burke

Oh yeah! The sh*t’s about to go down.

[hellsapoppin]

Baseball "dead" ???


Many moons ago I was outside of Kansas City and was thumbing thru a book about baseball. It included an article from a Baltimore writer who complained that ticket costs were exorbitant, that salaries were ridiculously high, and that so much fun had been taken out of the game. If this persisted, wrote the critic, baseball would no longer exist in ten more years.

The article was written in 1867.

While baseball is not as much fun as it used to be because the pace is so slow today, the strike zone much too small, the ball itself far too lively, so many commercials are shown, and that idiotic kiss cam is so repulsive, the game will live on. It's American as is apple pie and will always be with us.

[bounty]

and not to spite James lee burke in the least, but as far as baseball metaphors and pop culture, I don't think anything beats paradise by the dashboard light by meatloaf!.

[Sancho]

“…So now I’m praying for the end of time, to hurry up and arrive
‘Cos of I gotta spend another minute with you,
I don’t think that I can really survive…”

Why is it I can remember lyrics to thousands of tunes from the 70s, but I can’t, for the life of me, remember where I put my car keys?

“I am stuck on Band Aid, ‘cos Band Aid’s stuck on me
I am stuck on Band Aid, ‘cos Band Aid’s stuck on me”

Jingles too.
Enjoy the ear worm.

[Sancho]

I'll never break my promise or forget my vow
But God only knows what I could do right now
So I'm praying for the end of time
It's all that I can do, Woo, Woo
Praying for the end of time,
So I can end my time with you

Chorus

Well it was long ago and it was far away
And it was so much better that it is today

It never felt so good
It never felt so right
And we were glowing like
A metal on the edge of a knife

Ya know, this song speaks to high schoolers and to dudes in their middle age, but it probably doesn't get at it from the lady's perspective. I wanna think Mr Loaf came back at this song with a reply tune 20 or 30 years later, but I don't really remember that song.

[bounty]

i wonder about that, given how true we all know this to be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d3diodXKPU

just did a quick search for "reply to" and "sequel to" and nothing came up.

[Sancho]

I could be mistaken. I frequently am. I think maybe it was — I would do anything for love, but I won't do that. When the song came out the music critics liked to compare it to Paradise, so it’s probably not an answer song, but rather a compare-and-contrast song. It sort of tracks the arc of his music from Hot Patootie Bless My Soul, to Paradise, to I would do anything. Or not. Donno. Hey, it’s rock-n-roll.

[bounty]

that's a fun way to look at it---like the tunes on the beatles "red album" to their "blue album."

I just finished a ride while watching a DS9 episode and took a screen shot for you of the closing scene. note the forefront of the shot.

[hellsapoppin]

Super Bowl 58 soon!



San Francisco vs KC Chiefs



I have never missed a Super Bowl. Have seen each and everyone without fail. Am thinking of making a pork roast for the occasion. Will be fun fer darn sure ...

[bounty]

I have a love/hate relationship with football. on the hate side, its so regulated with rules, and those rules get transgressed with so much frequency, and the officials miss things, misjudge things and find consistency difficult, it makes loving the sport difficult.

my favorite part of the game is when its over, and the players from the opposing teams get together for congratulations, commiserations and other greetings.

who ya gonna root for?