EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
Rick Pitino had a little more on his mind than Jeremy Tyler when he stepped to the podium at Louisville Wednesday and began the public portion of his recovery from self-imposed wounds to his reputation. Seems the Cardinals’ hoops coach had injected himself into the national healthcare discussion with his admission that he had provided $3,000 to a paramour for “health insurance,” when she came to him six years ago with news that she was in the family way with his spawn.
Wearing an open-collared shirt and a grave expression, Pitino followed the blueprint in his remarks, admitting his “indiscretion,” asking forgiveness from Louisville, the fans, his family and any media types who might be screaming for his resignation/removal from the bench. He talked about the need to move forward, how the best way to confront a bad situation is head-on and that “if you have a problem and you tell the truth, it becomes part of your past; if you lie, it becomes part of your future.” That’s profound stuff, to be sure, and it’s part of the reason – along with the Cardinals’ need to compete with a fully-operational University of Kentucky Death Star down the road and need to sell tickets in a rough economy in the new arena they’ll be inhabiting next season – that Pitino will likely survive this sordid affair.
When Pitino does return to the business of coaching college basketball, he’ll have to meet with assistants to come up with some new big-man prospects to pursue, because the 6-11 Tyler, U of L’s top recruit for 2010, has decided to pass on his senior year of high school to play for Maccabi Haifa. Saying that next season would be “extremely boring” if he had to face the triple-teams that rivals used to neutralize his size and skill, Tyler has chosen to become the first American-born player to leave high school early and play professionally overseas.
And he won’t be the last. Say what you want about the magic of the prom and how seniors “rule the school,” but guys like Tyler have different priorities and goals than the typical prep senior. They want to play NBA basketball, and they are exploring new avenues to reach their ultimate destinations. There will no doubt be many people who moralize about Tyler’s family, agent (former NBA player B.J. Armstrong) and adviser (shady former sneaker shill Sonny Vaccaro) and their allegedly exploitative treatment of the young man, but they will be wrong. All around the country and the world, elite athletes are being removed from their cozy schoolyard cocoons and fast-tracked toward professional careers. Tennis players are harvested while still nine and 10 years old for special training. Golfers get the same treatment. Special “academies” have sprung up throughout the country designed to cultivate young talent and distribute it to the proper outlets. And yet Tyler and those around him are going to be excoriated for doing essentially the same thing: playing in an environment that will allow him to grow quickly.
Oh, but he’s being paid for it. And by missing out on his last year of school, he’s missing a chance at an EDUCATION, which is the buzzword used by the college basketball hucksters to stop those promoting the right-to-work in their tracks. It’s a classic tactic, the kind of apple-pie and mother term that can’t be assailed. “What? You want to deprive these youngsters of an EDUCATION? Well, you have some pretty strange ideas, mister.” Forget that the kids who want to play in the NBA, particularly those of the one-and-done variety, couldn’t care less about Intro to Philosophy (Descartes: “To be is to do.” Nietzsche: “To do is to be.” Sinatra: “Do-be-do-be-do.”) and are generally checked out of classes by March of their freshman years. The people pimping their TV product are disingenuous about the game, to be sure. They talk about the awful NBA and its powerful spell while trying to sell ads and attract eyeballs by hyping the latest Duke-Carolina matchup or screaming about this season’s best newcomers.
Jeremy Tyler has made a calculated move designed to further his pursuit of a career. He may well graduate with his class at San Diego HS after taking classes on the net or completing coursework with a tutor in Israel. Or, he might just take the G.E.D. Not that either option matters to the NBA executives who will be assessing his potential. They don’t care about chem lab. They want to see his drop step. Tyler’s time with Maccabi Haifa will improve his game, and the years he spends abroad will help him grow more than any history lecture could. You want to study the Middle East conflict? He’s going to live it, baby.
As for those who scream about the deterioration of America’s youth and the evil attraction of professional basketball at the expense of the “pure” college game, wake up. Tyler is an 18-year old man who can go to war, be charged with capital murder (and, in some states, fry) and get married. (It’s unclear which is more risky business.) He wants to go to work, and that’s not a bad thing. And anyway, El Hombre hears that this year’s prom theme at San Diego High is “All-a-Twitter.” Who wants to be part of that?
As for Pitino, he’ll be just fine. The Cardinals need a heavyweight on their bench for the coming wars with John Calipari and UK. Louisville can’t afford to take a step back, not with so much at stake. And as the coach looks for someone to replace Tyler in the 2010 recruiting class, he’s advised to be careful on the home visits and steer conversation away from his moral obligation to prepare mothers’ sons for life. Stick to basketball. That’s what this is all about, anyway. Jeremy Tyler knows that, perhaps better than everybody else.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: Reason number 932 professional golf is a joke: Tiger Woods broke the rules. Tiger Woods wasn’t fined. Think the PGA is scared of him? Nahhhh. Everybody knows a showdown between Hunter Mahan and Steve Stricker at this week’s PGA Championship would make for compelling TV…If the U.S. soccer team wants us to believe that it is becoming a world power, as its crowing after a second-place finish at the Confederations Cup indicated, it must stop playing for a tie on the road in World Cup qualifying matches. Once Mexico evened the count Wednesday at the Azteca Stadium beehive, the U.S. lined up at the 18 and assumed a defensive shell. Disaster was inevitable, and it struck in the form of a 2-1 loss in front of the typically classless tricolores throng…If there is a bigger jerk in professional sports these days than Chicago Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane, then stay away from him. Kane became abusive with a cab driver over 20 cents and allegedly hit the man who didn’t have sufficient change from $15 for a $13.80 fare. (He had the buck.) Kane will most likely avoid jail time for his alleged assault, but this wimp on the ice who delivered all of 18 hits last year sure looks like a classless dolt, especially after pulling out the “Do you know who I am” line. We sure do now, Patty…If you watch just one thing on TV this weekend, make sure it’s the 100 meter final at the World Track and Field Championships in Berlin. Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay are likely to square off in what could be one of the most compelling sprints in history...David Mamet is taking on The Diary of Anne Frank, for Disney of all places. Didn’t know there was so much profanity in the story. Wonder what part Alec Baldwin will play.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? The Phillies absolutely made the right decision in moving Satchel Moyer to the bullpen to make room for Pedro Martinez in the starting rotation. The Old Man was losing his precision, and when your fastball tops out at a school zone speed limit, you had better hit your spots. Moyer’s whiny reaction belied his 51 years in the major leagues and was surprising from someone who should know more than just about everybody that baseball is a business. Now, this whole thing comes with a codicil. Martinez may have picked up the victory Wednesday night against the Cubs, but his performance was hardly overwhelming: 5.0 IP, 7 H, 3 ER 99 pitches. If he’s going to need 100 pitches to get through five innings, even with a 12-1 lead, Martinez will be better suited in relief work, because at least Moyer could get into (and most of the time through) the sixth. Martinez deserves a couple more starts, but let’s not get carried away with his debut, because he looked very much like a guy at the end of his road.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: The entire Michael Vick situation is getting more ridiculous by the minute. As the disgraced QB approaches inclusion on an NFL team’s roster, his spin cycle is in danger of careening out of control. Vick will be on “60 Minutes” Sunday for the obligatory public mea culpa. He has had “adviser” Tony Dungy doing advance work for him. The TV folk are laying the groundwork for his return. Is there anybody else out there who smells dead, rotting fish? For the record, “60 Minutes” is aired by CBS, an NFL TV partner. Dungy works for NBC, another league outlet. (And wouldn’t you be a little mad, as a sports director, that one of your employees is withholding information from you?) And, of course, espn is a full-fledged propaganda cohort. Vick’s coming back, and the NFL is creating the perfect environment for his return and a great storyline for the upcoming season. If you think any of this is happening organically, you probably are betting on the Lions to make the playoffs this season.
-EH-
Showing posts with label John Calipari. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Calipari. Show all posts
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Working The System
EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
While 72,000 people were sitting miles away from the action at the Final Four in Detroit, praying that a local team’s good fortune would serve as a catalyst for their state’s economic recovery – but ultimately realizing that its ignominious defeat was a cruel metaphor for crushingly elusive prosperity – there were some big doings in the coaching world.
The big story, of course, was Johnny Cal’s arrival in Lexington to take over the program Rick Pitino once described as “The Holy Roman Empire of college basketball.” Anyone fortunate enough to watch Calipari’s introductory press conference saw a man at the peak of his powers. This wasn’t so much a debut as a coronation befitting the importance Wildcat fans assign to their roundball team. Had Calipari donned a crown and a velvet robe, it’s entirely possible his subjects would have bowed to him. They’ll continue the supplication, too, at least until Calipari loses to Gardner-Webb.
Despite his claims of being a “regular guy,” Calipari is anything but, at least in the world of basketball coaching. He’s one of the few people in the business with the ability not only to win the press conference but also to pile up the victories on the court. And make no mistake, he won the press conference. Kentucky is paying him about $32 over the next eight years, and he earned a good chunk of that with his performance in front of the fawning media and rabid UK supporters. Calipari said he’s not the “grand poobah.” Nor is he the “emperor.” Given his frenetic personality, it is kind of hard to imagine him hanging with the royals. At Kentucky, where champions are treated like monarchs, he certainly has the potential to achieve some sort of imperial status.
There are those who consider describing Calipari in regal terms naïve and practically scandalous. This is a guy who rehabbed his reputation at Memphis by hiring the parents of former players, in order to lure them to his program, and consorted regularly with William Wesley, aka “World Wide Wes,” a dodgy basketball impresario who was capable of delivering – at who knows what cost – Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans to the Tigers. Calipari has never been brought up on charges by NC2A gumshoes, but he does walk close to the edge. For that reason, some believed Kentucky’s decision to hire him was a mistake, especially given the school’s history of recruiting shenanigans. Why bring in someone who blurs the lines when your history is littered with trouble?
Because that’s what college sports have become, and don’t try to deny it. As much as there are those out there holding on to the quaint notion that big-time football and hoops are still the province of amateurs and a forum for competition in its purest form, one look at the Final Four proved otherwise. There was nothing about the event that accommodated fans, athletes or even coaches. This was a show staged by the NC2A for its own aggrandizement and profit. The players didn’t like the raised court or the Ford Field configuration, which had locker rooms well removed from the arena floor. The coaches didn’t appreciate standing three feet above the bench. And anybody in attendance (El Hombre was there) felt so removed from the action that true engagement in the proceedings was practically impossible, even if microphones captured every sneaker’s squeak and missed shot’s clank. By putting the court in the middle of the cavernous dome, the NC2A sold the maximum amount of tickets, sight lines be damned. The cash registers sang, and college sports took another step away from their intended purpose.
The corporate sponsorship part of the program was most impressive, as anything that even threatened to mention a rival company was eradicated from the area. It would have been interesting to see how the NC2A would have reacted had someone walked into the stadium wearing a Pepsi T-shirt, considering that Coke is an advertising partner. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario involving a SWAT team’s pouncing on the offender and tearing off the sacrilegious article. The stadium was completely locked down, and the city, the Lions and the hosting institution (Detroit Mercy) were perfectly content to let the big dog do whatever it wanted.
But that’s okay, because the Final Four brand is so well established that fans and media choose to look away from the corporate culture, so long as they get a seat at the table. Given the state of sports in this country, we shouldn’t be surprised by the event and its operation. Similarly, we should not be gnashing our teeth at the idea of Calipari’s arrival at Kentucky. The Wildcats just fired a man after giving him a mere two years to produce a winning program. That’s what it’s about today in college sports. Win fast or die. Billy Gillispie didn’t get to the tournament, so he’s out of work. Forget that garbage about his not fitting into the culture of the program. He could have driven around town in an ice-cream truck and spoken Esperanto in his press conferences, so long as he won 25 games a year and made a significant excursion into the round of 65. But he didn’t, so he’s gone.
And what’s wrong with Cal, anyway? He’s a pretty straightforward guy who never tried to hide the things he did to get players. He called World Wide Wes a “goodwill ambassador” for his Memphis program. He was up front about hiring Dajuan Wagner’s father, Milt, as an assistant coach. He finds great players. He recruits great players. He signs great players. And he often says good-bye to great players after just one year in his program. He plays the game as the current rules are set, and that upsets some people. Well, they had better get over it. If the NC2A wants to conduct its business with a cold, corporate touch, it had better make room for Calipari, who wins big, lives big and operates within the framework that has been established. You don’t like it? Change the rules. Don’t worry, Cal will adapt. He’s a survivor. And now, he’s Kentucky’s coach. Get ready for the Wildcats to be great again. Just don’t blame Calipari for working within a system that has become anything but pristine.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: Former NBA center Marvin Webster’s tragic death Wednesday from complications of coronary artery disease was a blow to anyone who enjoyed watching the shot-blocking pivot dominate and deter around the hoop. At a time when “D-Wade” passes for nickname creativity, Webster’s handle, “The Human Eraser,” is a reminder that there was a time when such monikers were earned, not merely tossed out with no thought…Let’s hear it for Majoke League Baseball’s continued insistence on staging season-opening series north of the Arctic Circle. Snow in Chicago torpedoed the Sox’ debut. Near-freezing temperatures in Philadelphia made the Phillies’ second game an endurance test. Let’s see now: L.A. (twice), San Diego, Houston, Texas, Florida, Tampa Bay, Oakland, San Francisco, Atlanta, Milwaukee (dome), Toronto (dome), Seattle (dome), Arizona and Minnesota (dome). That’s how you open the season, in places where snow is not a possibility, or at least it is kept from the public by ceilings. Everywhere else gets a home game when the frost warnings go away…Wide receiver Plaxico the Kid may have won his grievance hearing against the Giants and might have recouped nearly a million bucks, but give the team credit for cutting his misfiring backside. That shows some real fortitude, because New York’s passing game is a joke without him. Someone will sign him, but The Kid will get less money than his former contract would have paid and could be looking at some time in stir. The guy’s trouble, and any team that signs him deserves all the heartache it gets…Speaking of NFL miscreants, Michael Vick is having trouble convincing a judge that his bankruptcy plan, which is heavy on speculation about future earnings regarding a book and movie deal (“Dog Fight Club?”) and light on swallowing hard and doing sensible things like selling one of his two houses. Looks like Vick is still having trouble making good decisions, which should definitely endear him to NFL teams looking for reliable a QB…The trustee for disgraced Ponzi cheat Bernie Madoff is trying to convince the Mets to let him sell Madoff’s season tickets, the better to bring a maximum return and more money to help offset victims’ crippling losses. He had better move quickly, because once the Mets start their annual tank job, September tickets won’t be worth much at all.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Let’s see now, Brett Myers gets roughed up in the Phils’ home opener. Pop-Pop Moyer lasts five whole innings and digs a first-inning hole two nights later. Wednesday afternoon, Joe Blanton celebrates the arrival of his World Series ring by giving up seven earned in four innings. Meanwhile, the condition of Cole Hamels’ elbow remains a mystery, after he couldn’t get his fastball out of the mid-80s in an exhibition tune-up last weekend. The season is only three games old, and the Phils are notorious for starting slowly, but if you’re not concerned about this club’s rotation, you must be still hanging out on Broad Street, waiting for the rest of the parade to come by. The Phils’ strong bullpen and potent offense give their rotation plenty of wiggle room, but not even the ’27 Yankees could withstand a full season of early-innings conflagrations, not to mention a prolonged arm problem for Joe Cool. Let’s hope this isn’t an indication of what lies ahead, or all that world championship merchandise is going to look like throwback stuff pretty quickly.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Okay, golf fans, listen up, because here comes your exclusive Masters preview: Figure Jim Nantz for 27 uses of the word “cathedral” to describe Augusta National. Expect 56 breathless descriptions of Tiger’s latest miraculous shot. And don’t forget to dress for the occasion, since both espn and The Eye will treat this golf tournament as if it were high Mass. Please, people, it’s a game. And if you want to call these guys great athletes, refer back to the photos of the guy who stripped down to his compression shorts to rescue his ball from the mire a few weeks ago. He wasn’t quite the Pillsbury Doughboy, but he didn’t look like Chuck Norris, either. As for Phil Mickelson’s training bra, well, let’s just not go there. The Masters is a fine event, but the way its propaganda partners behave, one would think it’s live coverage of the cure for brain cancer. And if one more person declares a victory in the tournament a “win for the ages,” there will be blood.
-EH-
While 72,000 people were sitting miles away from the action at the Final Four in Detroit, praying that a local team’s good fortune would serve as a catalyst for their state’s economic recovery – but ultimately realizing that its ignominious defeat was a cruel metaphor for crushingly elusive prosperity – there were some big doings in the coaching world.
The big story, of course, was Johnny Cal’s arrival in Lexington to take over the program Rick Pitino once described as “The Holy Roman Empire of college basketball.” Anyone fortunate enough to watch Calipari’s introductory press conference saw a man at the peak of his powers. This wasn’t so much a debut as a coronation befitting the importance Wildcat fans assign to their roundball team. Had Calipari donned a crown and a velvet robe, it’s entirely possible his subjects would have bowed to him. They’ll continue the supplication, too, at least until Calipari loses to Gardner-Webb.
Despite his claims of being a “regular guy,” Calipari is anything but, at least in the world of basketball coaching. He’s one of the few people in the business with the ability not only to win the press conference but also to pile up the victories on the court. And make no mistake, he won the press conference. Kentucky is paying him about $32 over the next eight years, and he earned a good chunk of that with his performance in front of the fawning media and rabid UK supporters. Calipari said he’s not the “grand poobah.” Nor is he the “emperor.” Given his frenetic personality, it is kind of hard to imagine him hanging with the royals. At Kentucky, where champions are treated like monarchs, he certainly has the potential to achieve some sort of imperial status.
There are those who consider describing Calipari in regal terms naïve and practically scandalous. This is a guy who rehabbed his reputation at Memphis by hiring the parents of former players, in order to lure them to his program, and consorted regularly with William Wesley, aka “World Wide Wes,” a dodgy basketball impresario who was capable of delivering – at who knows what cost – Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans to the Tigers. Calipari has never been brought up on charges by NC2A gumshoes, but he does walk close to the edge. For that reason, some believed Kentucky’s decision to hire him was a mistake, especially given the school’s history of recruiting shenanigans. Why bring in someone who blurs the lines when your history is littered with trouble?
Because that’s what college sports have become, and don’t try to deny it. As much as there are those out there holding on to the quaint notion that big-time football and hoops are still the province of amateurs and a forum for competition in its purest form, one look at the Final Four proved otherwise. There was nothing about the event that accommodated fans, athletes or even coaches. This was a show staged by the NC2A for its own aggrandizement and profit. The players didn’t like the raised court or the Ford Field configuration, which had locker rooms well removed from the arena floor. The coaches didn’t appreciate standing three feet above the bench. And anybody in attendance (El Hombre was there) felt so removed from the action that true engagement in the proceedings was practically impossible, even if microphones captured every sneaker’s squeak and missed shot’s clank. By putting the court in the middle of the cavernous dome, the NC2A sold the maximum amount of tickets, sight lines be damned. The cash registers sang, and college sports took another step away from their intended purpose.
The corporate sponsorship part of the program was most impressive, as anything that even threatened to mention a rival company was eradicated from the area. It would have been interesting to see how the NC2A would have reacted had someone walked into the stadium wearing a Pepsi T-shirt, considering that Coke is an advertising partner. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario involving a SWAT team’s pouncing on the offender and tearing off the sacrilegious article. The stadium was completely locked down, and the city, the Lions and the hosting institution (Detroit Mercy) were perfectly content to let the big dog do whatever it wanted.
But that’s okay, because the Final Four brand is so well established that fans and media choose to look away from the corporate culture, so long as they get a seat at the table. Given the state of sports in this country, we shouldn’t be surprised by the event and its operation. Similarly, we should not be gnashing our teeth at the idea of Calipari’s arrival at Kentucky. The Wildcats just fired a man after giving him a mere two years to produce a winning program. That’s what it’s about today in college sports. Win fast or die. Billy Gillispie didn’t get to the tournament, so he’s out of work. Forget that garbage about his not fitting into the culture of the program. He could have driven around town in an ice-cream truck and spoken Esperanto in his press conferences, so long as he won 25 games a year and made a significant excursion into the round of 65. But he didn’t, so he’s gone.
And what’s wrong with Cal, anyway? He’s a pretty straightforward guy who never tried to hide the things he did to get players. He called World Wide Wes a “goodwill ambassador” for his Memphis program. He was up front about hiring Dajuan Wagner’s father, Milt, as an assistant coach. He finds great players. He recruits great players. He signs great players. And he often says good-bye to great players after just one year in his program. He plays the game as the current rules are set, and that upsets some people. Well, they had better get over it. If the NC2A wants to conduct its business with a cold, corporate touch, it had better make room for Calipari, who wins big, lives big and operates within the framework that has been established. You don’t like it? Change the rules. Don’t worry, Cal will adapt. He’s a survivor. And now, he’s Kentucky’s coach. Get ready for the Wildcats to be great again. Just don’t blame Calipari for working within a system that has become anything but pristine.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: Former NBA center Marvin Webster’s tragic death Wednesday from complications of coronary artery disease was a blow to anyone who enjoyed watching the shot-blocking pivot dominate and deter around the hoop. At a time when “D-Wade” passes for nickname creativity, Webster’s handle, “The Human Eraser,” is a reminder that there was a time when such monikers were earned, not merely tossed out with no thought…Let’s hear it for Majoke League Baseball’s continued insistence on staging season-opening series north of the Arctic Circle. Snow in Chicago torpedoed the Sox’ debut. Near-freezing temperatures in Philadelphia made the Phillies’ second game an endurance test. Let’s see now: L.A. (twice), San Diego, Houston, Texas, Florida, Tampa Bay, Oakland, San Francisco, Atlanta, Milwaukee (dome), Toronto (dome), Seattle (dome), Arizona and Minnesota (dome). That’s how you open the season, in places where snow is not a possibility, or at least it is kept from the public by ceilings. Everywhere else gets a home game when the frost warnings go away…Wide receiver Plaxico the Kid may have won his grievance hearing against the Giants and might have recouped nearly a million bucks, but give the team credit for cutting his misfiring backside. That shows some real fortitude, because New York’s passing game is a joke without him. Someone will sign him, but The Kid will get less money than his former contract would have paid and could be looking at some time in stir. The guy’s trouble, and any team that signs him deserves all the heartache it gets…Speaking of NFL miscreants, Michael Vick is having trouble convincing a judge that his bankruptcy plan, which is heavy on speculation about future earnings regarding a book and movie deal (“Dog Fight Club?”) and light on swallowing hard and doing sensible things like selling one of his two houses. Looks like Vick is still having trouble making good decisions, which should definitely endear him to NFL teams looking for reliable a QB…The trustee for disgraced Ponzi cheat Bernie Madoff is trying to convince the Mets to let him sell Madoff’s season tickets, the better to bring a maximum return and more money to help offset victims’ crippling losses. He had better move quickly, because once the Mets start their annual tank job, September tickets won’t be worth much at all.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Let’s see now, Brett Myers gets roughed up in the Phils’ home opener. Pop-Pop Moyer lasts five whole innings and digs a first-inning hole two nights later. Wednesday afternoon, Joe Blanton celebrates the arrival of his World Series ring by giving up seven earned in four innings. Meanwhile, the condition of Cole Hamels’ elbow remains a mystery, after he couldn’t get his fastball out of the mid-80s in an exhibition tune-up last weekend. The season is only three games old, and the Phils are notorious for starting slowly, but if you’re not concerned about this club’s rotation, you must be still hanging out on Broad Street, waiting for the rest of the parade to come by. The Phils’ strong bullpen and potent offense give their rotation plenty of wiggle room, but not even the ’27 Yankees could withstand a full season of early-innings conflagrations, not to mention a prolonged arm problem for Joe Cool. Let’s hope this isn’t an indication of what lies ahead, or all that world championship merchandise is going to look like throwback stuff pretty quickly.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Okay, golf fans, listen up, because here comes your exclusive Masters preview: Figure Jim Nantz for 27 uses of the word “cathedral” to describe Augusta National. Expect 56 breathless descriptions of Tiger’s latest miraculous shot. And don’t forget to dress for the occasion, since both espn and The Eye will treat this golf tournament as if it were high Mass. Please, people, it’s a game. And if you want to call these guys great athletes, refer back to the photos of the guy who stripped down to his compression shorts to rescue his ball from the mire a few weeks ago. He wasn’t quite the Pillsbury Doughboy, but he didn’t look like Chuck Norris, either. As for Phil Mickelson’s training bra, well, let’s just not go there. The Masters is a fine event, but the way its propaganda partners behave, one would think it’s live coverage of the cure for brain cancer. And if one more person declares a victory in the tournament a “win for the ages,” there will be blood.
-EH-
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