I don't really care for or about basketball, but when the Lakers and the Celtics happen to magically play each other in the NBA Championship just after a referee betting scandal, the corruption is just too giddy and blatant to ignore. You've got to admit how ballsy it is for David Stern to go ahead and offer up some corruption as proof that there is no corruption. It'd be like Bud Selig allocating all the good players on bad teams to the Yankees and Red Sox free of charge in order to distract from the steroids scandal. I guess it could be just an interesting coincidence, and the fixing-mechanism known as the Salary Cap has been leading to something like this for a long time anyway, but it smells. The Celtics were a laughing stock not that long ago, and as I recall, Ray Allen was on the downturn of a stunningly uninteresting career at about that same time. Now, all of a sudden he's gone from being the poor-man's Reggie Miller to being the third prong in a three-pronged attack that has taken the NBA by storm. I mean, what the fuck, man? Did the royalty checks from He Got Game quit coming in?
In the interest of a fairytale storyline appearing and a resurgence of interest and goodwill shooting towards the eyes of the NBA, I guess it will have to go seven games. I guess Kobe Bryant will pass the ball to some white guy who makes a game-winning shot when the Lakers look like they have their backs against the wall. (Note: if the Lakers don't have white guys, we're counting Pau Gasol. I'm obviously not going to spend any time looking at their roster or whatever a real commenter would do. Incidently, I really like Pau Gasol. I've only met him once, but he was reading The Power of Now that once. Seems all right.) I guess one of Boston's big three, maybe even Ray Allen, will foul out in the deciding game. Overtime, dramatic three-pointers, close-ups of Kevin Garnett's sweaty forehead. That's what we have to look forward to, and it'd be thrilling if it were less predictable.
Equally predictable has been the dismantling of the never-proud Colorado Rockies empire. On one hand, you can't be too eager to dismiss the whole thing this year because injuries are a convenient and ready excuse for their shitty performance, at least in Philadelphia and Chicago. Pitching has been a completely predictable disaster, and the thing that annoys me most is that Clint Hurdle and Dan O'Dowd seem just as unsurprised as me that all the retreads they're trotting out to the mound are self-destructing at rates that would make even the most diligent suicide bomber uneasy. Glendon Rusch? Give me a fucking break. There's some reason to think that the triumphant return of Troy Tulowitzki and Matt Holliday will mean something, but if a god damn 8 run lead isn't safe, as it wasn't against Chicago on Friday, then who cares? The Rockies had a pretty good chance to put together something akin to the Twins of the early part of this decade or the current Indians and compete year in and year out for half a decade or more. Instead, they opted for sentimentality like the '93 Phillies and '05 White Sox and you reep what you sow, don't you? The best bet is that inflated expectations from last year mean that Hurdle and O'Dowd are on the chopping block, but that kind of optimism is dangerously neglegent of the power of the Good Ol' Boys Club. More likely; another 12 years of mediocrity before a big fluke season. Make no mistake, some guys are about to get traded and the return on Holliday, Atkins or whoever had damn well better be something more than Trader Dan got for Larry Walker. Got help us.
As a newly minted MLS season ticket holder, I think I have some obligation to comment on the goings-on in Commerce City, but I've been watching so gleefully at the dismantling of Rijkaard's men that I have to plead distraction on the soccer front. Zambrotta's the latest to go, and good riddance to the guy who seems like a swell chap for an Italian footballer but was consistently bad at, you know, his job. Edmilson's off to Villareal, and we can all just hope that Yaya Toure has the decency to take him out at the knees the first time the teams square off next year.
The Rapids have been a lot of fun to watch, in spite of their complete unwillingness to finish. Omar Cummings can only score when the ball's put right to his feet and he's in front of an open net, and then he only scores if he can somehow be convinced that in that situation it is totally unnecessary to dribble. Weird, slightly off-kilter Scotsman Tom McManus seems like he might get things going in a little while, but the weird loyalty to Cummings is going to have to stop sometime. Yes, be very afraid. 12 points from 9 matches is good for 2nd place in this ridiculous league, so any predictions or analysis are an exercise in intellectual masturbation that even I'm not willing to delve into.
Now, let's just wait to see who wins Euro 2008, and start shopping for padding and maybe bullet-proof vests ahead of the DNC Convention in August. I think it's better not to be too hasty on these things, but if you're not prepared, you're liable to be swallowed up by the crowd. Let's just say that if Germany, Holland or Italy wins the Euro, that taken in combination with the Celtics-Lakers nonsense is a harbinger of evil and it'd be best for everyone involved just to get out of this city when Barack and Hillary swing in to settle their bloodfight. You don't want to be involved, even as a witness. Believe me.
Showing posts with label NBA Championship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NBA Championship. Show all posts
6.01.2008
11.08.2007
Baseball & Politics, for Real This Time
Okay. Now that evil Rangers have been dispatched into the wilderness by the mighty goodness of Barcelona, we can get back on track. And that is, as promised, some thoughts on baseball and politics.
The big news, obviously, is steroids steroids steroids but let's be clear that none of that shit matters. Athletes have been taking drugs since there have been athletes and any self-righteous old-timer who thinks he did it the right way because he didn't inject HGH in his ass between series when he was, instead, hopped up on amphetamines to get by on those awful, cruel day games right after night games is as delusional as he is hypocritical. And, I'm not saying I'm talking about Hank Aaron, but who else could it be? At least Willie Mays, maybe the biggest speedfreak this side of Abby Hoffman, has the balls to stand by Barry Bonds, swollen head and all, while he shatters the record of the aforementioned Hammerin' Hank. If anything, I'd say, these old players might have the right to be disappointed that their drugs weren't as potent or useful as the ones Bonds, Giambi, et al have been ingesting. But any kind of moral outrage is obscenely hollow and short-sighted. These people are Liars or, worse, Naive. Someone should do something.
The real weirdness in the whole steroid thing is that humans are willing to risk everything for something as arbitrary as the home run record. If someone had found copious amounts of horse growth chemicals swimming around the coked-out skull of Ken Caminiti's carcass and said to themselves, "This would definitely be an appropriate price to pay to win the 1996 NL MVP," then I would have to disagree. But there are loads of folks who evidently do think that the lesson from Mark McGwire is less "It is a bad thing to embarrass yourself and your family in front of Congress" and more "Man, wasn't 1998 awesome?!" The Mitchell Investigation is about to name names, and there will be 11 current free agents on the list. No word on whether that includes Mike Cameron, who is already suspended for the first 25 games of next year for abusing some banned substances, or at least not knowing how to use a Whizzinator. We can run down the list of people who've actually been busted for steroids and think that they were all pretty likely targets. Troy Glaus? Obvious. McGwire, Canseco, et al, very obvious. But what about Wally Joyner and Lenny Dykstra and Jorge Piedra and Marvin Benard and Bobby Estalella? I think those are pretty good counterpoints, myself, but what the hell? The world needs a good witch hunt now and again, and since commies are all eradicated and all the Terrorists are being swung up on hooks and beaten like piñatas at Gitmo and Siberia or wherever, who better than Major League Baseball players? Do you hear that, Julio Lugo? We're coming for you, and we're pissed!
The freakshow of the primary candidates for the Presidential Election is another reasonable topic, although I'm a little worried I have nothing to say about them. The Republicans have sent out a whole host of folks who sounded like good candidates in 2004, but this is karmic revenge for selling their souls and probably asses to Karl Rove and BushCo for the last 8 years. You could have Big Bird and Mr. Rogers run on a platform of "Smile, everybody!" and they'd still lose if they ran as Republicans. Even if they promised to make Gandhi the Sec. of State and Orville Redenbacher the Sec. of Yummy. They're doomed.
Well, they should be. The Democrats aren't as good as they look, and if that's not a thought that sums up the Democratic party as a whole, I don't know what is. Clinton is a weird, fiendish matriarch, like an old schoolmaster out of a Dickens novel, only with a little bit better haircut. She said in a debate that Washington lobbyists represent ordinary Americans, and this was a good hint that she's been eating too many mushrooms out of the Capitol's staffer stash or, I fear, maybe she is just very very stupid. She doesn't seem too stupid, though, does she?, so mushrooms is the only logical conclusion. Nevertheless, a bunch of howling idiots support her candidacy, maybe because they're anxious to have a little more estrogen on the evening news. Ah, who the fuck am I kidding? No one watches the evening news. And Hillary would add about as much estrogen to the party as Bill did. To her credit, though, that's far more than has been emitted from Corazón Aquino, Margaret Thatcher, Andrea Merkel, et al. So, good luck with that. After she and Obama (possibly a decent man?), the crowd gets thin. Any liberal who's all pumped about the field of candidates this year would do well to remind himself that Joe Biden is the one that makes the most sense in the debates and then would do well to downgrade the tequila and rum he drinks to things a little more like rubbing alcohol in both flavor and lethal tendencies.
What freaks. The best possible scenario is a Clinton/Giuliani match-up where Bloomberg runs as an independent and Ron Paul carries his internet support to get his 5% for matching funds in 2012, even though it won't matter by then because nobody will win a majority, it will go to congress, who will fight it out for several years before turning it over to the Supreme Court. Then it will get ugly. I suspect Nancy Pelosi will take Clarence Thomas and Anton Scalia hostage and torture them in her horrible basement dungeon every night until they swear under oath that the Constitution is a living, breathing document. Just as they emerge, though, they'll all be killed in a hail of gunfire by a resurgent Tom DeLay, who will then install a grotesque and grisly Dick Cheney, since wounded heavily in the chariot races that Sitting President Charlton Heston instituted on the Mall (reflecting pool paved over and made a kind of luxury box for Mel Gibson and a raving mob of anti-semites to bet wildly and shout "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" whenever a Jewish rider or even a circumcised horse runs by) as Emperor For Life. No, of course, I am not wishing Dick Cheney to be instituted as Emperor For Life but it'd be a hell of a lot more fun than what's going to happen, a stupid frontrunner election that comes down to who wins Ohio or, worse, New Mexico.
In closing, Vegas seems to be offering stupid odds on the NBA Championship this year. Hint: a 7 game series is a hell of a lot more fluky than an 82 game season. So, even if San Antonio and Phoenix are the most likely to win it all, and surely the most likely to win the Western Conference, if you can get good odds on decent teams from the Eastern Conference, take them. Figure the 7th best team in the Eastern Conference is more likely to make the Finals than the 3rd best team in the Western Conference since the West is so top heavy. And you can get Washington at 80-1 right now. You're welcome in advance.
The big news, obviously, is steroids steroids steroids but let's be clear that none of that shit matters. Athletes have been taking drugs since there have been athletes and any self-righteous old-timer who thinks he did it the right way because he didn't inject HGH in his ass between series when he was, instead, hopped up on amphetamines to get by on those awful, cruel day games right after night games is as delusional as he is hypocritical. And, I'm not saying I'm talking about Hank Aaron, but who else could it be? At least Willie Mays, maybe the biggest speedfreak this side of Abby Hoffman, has the balls to stand by Barry Bonds, swollen head and all, while he shatters the record of the aforementioned Hammerin' Hank. If anything, I'd say, these old players might have the right to be disappointed that their drugs weren't as potent or useful as the ones Bonds, Giambi, et al have been ingesting. But any kind of moral outrage is obscenely hollow and short-sighted. These people are Liars or, worse, Naive. Someone should do something.
The real weirdness in the whole steroid thing is that humans are willing to risk everything for something as arbitrary as the home run record. If someone had found copious amounts of horse growth chemicals swimming around the coked-out skull of Ken Caminiti's carcass and said to themselves, "This would definitely be an appropriate price to pay to win the 1996 NL MVP," then I would have to disagree. But there are loads of folks who evidently do think that the lesson from Mark McGwire is less "It is a bad thing to embarrass yourself and your family in front of Congress" and more "Man, wasn't 1998 awesome?!" The Mitchell Investigation is about to name names, and there will be 11 current free agents on the list. No word on whether that includes Mike Cameron, who is already suspended for the first 25 games of next year for abusing some banned substances, or at least not knowing how to use a Whizzinator. We can run down the list of people who've actually been busted for steroids and think that they were all pretty likely targets. Troy Glaus? Obvious. McGwire, Canseco, et al, very obvious. But what about Wally Joyner and Lenny Dykstra and Jorge Piedra and Marvin Benard and Bobby Estalella? I think those are pretty good counterpoints, myself, but what the hell? The world needs a good witch hunt now and again, and since commies are all eradicated and all the Terrorists are being swung up on hooks and beaten like piñatas at Gitmo and Siberia or wherever, who better than Major League Baseball players? Do you hear that, Julio Lugo? We're coming for you, and we're pissed!
The freakshow of the primary candidates for the Presidential Election is another reasonable topic, although I'm a little worried I have nothing to say about them. The Republicans have sent out a whole host of folks who sounded like good candidates in 2004, but this is karmic revenge for selling their souls and probably asses to Karl Rove and BushCo for the last 8 years. You could have Big Bird and Mr. Rogers run on a platform of "Smile, everybody!" and they'd still lose if they ran as Republicans. Even if they promised to make Gandhi the Sec. of State and Orville Redenbacher the Sec. of Yummy. They're doomed.
Well, they should be. The Democrats aren't as good as they look, and if that's not a thought that sums up the Democratic party as a whole, I don't know what is. Clinton is a weird, fiendish matriarch, like an old schoolmaster out of a Dickens novel, only with a little bit better haircut. She said in a debate that Washington lobbyists represent ordinary Americans, and this was a good hint that she's been eating too many mushrooms out of the Capitol's staffer stash or, I fear, maybe she is just very very stupid. She doesn't seem too stupid, though, does she?, so mushrooms is the only logical conclusion. Nevertheless, a bunch of howling idiots support her candidacy, maybe because they're anxious to have a little more estrogen on the evening news. Ah, who the fuck am I kidding? No one watches the evening news. And Hillary would add about as much estrogen to the party as Bill did. To her credit, though, that's far more than has been emitted from Corazón Aquino, Margaret Thatcher, Andrea Merkel, et al. So, good luck with that. After she and Obama (possibly a decent man?), the crowd gets thin. Any liberal who's all pumped about the field of candidates this year would do well to remind himself that Joe Biden is the one that makes the most sense in the debates and then would do well to downgrade the tequila and rum he drinks to things a little more like rubbing alcohol in both flavor and lethal tendencies.
What freaks. The best possible scenario is a Clinton/Giuliani match-up where Bloomberg runs as an independent and Ron Paul carries his internet support to get his 5% for matching funds in 2012, even though it won't matter by then because nobody will win a majority, it will go to congress, who will fight it out for several years before turning it over to the Supreme Court. Then it will get ugly. I suspect Nancy Pelosi will take Clarence Thomas and Anton Scalia hostage and torture them in her horrible basement dungeon every night until they swear under oath that the Constitution is a living, breathing document. Just as they emerge, though, they'll all be killed in a hail of gunfire by a resurgent Tom DeLay, who will then install a grotesque and grisly Dick Cheney, since wounded heavily in the chariot races that Sitting President Charlton Heston instituted on the Mall (reflecting pool paved over and made a kind of luxury box for Mel Gibson and a raving mob of anti-semites to bet wildly and shout "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" whenever a Jewish rider or even a circumcised horse runs by) as Emperor For Life. No, of course, I am not wishing Dick Cheney to be instituted as Emperor For Life but it'd be a hell of a lot more fun than what's going to happen, a stupid frontrunner election that comes down to who wins Ohio or, worse, New Mexico.
In closing, Vegas seems to be offering stupid odds on the NBA Championship this year. Hint: a 7 game series is a hell of a lot more fluky than an 82 game season. So, even if San Antonio and Phoenix are the most likely to win it all, and surely the most likely to win the Western Conference, if you can get good odds on decent teams from the Eastern Conference, take them. Figure the 7th best team in the Eastern Conference is more likely to make the Finals than the 3rd best team in the Western Conference since the West is so top heavy. And you can get Washington at 80-1 right now. You're welcome in advance.
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