Hail the covetous heroes

Baseball’s in full swing again – it keeps turning up, like a bad penny (not Brad Penny) or a strain of mutant cicadas that return every year.
Something else that’s inevitable every year is at least one story on baseball salaries, usually a spread with pie charts or graphs that gets readers’ blood boiling and puts them in the mood to resent baseball players through another long season.

Personally, I don’t begrudge Mr. Ballplayer anything he can get. The life of a Major League player may look like a rose garden, but there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye.
To begin with, players don’t just saunter out to the field, play the game and go home. They have to be at the ballpark early, for motivational meetings (called “pep talks”) – and everybody knows how dreary those can be – and for batting and fielding practice, during which they can get all sweaty and feel like they have to take a shower before the game even starts.
After the game, players, especially the good ones, have to dodge interviews and autograph seekers on their way to the parking lot or the stadium bar.

Then there are the games. When a player is in the field he must constantly be making critical decisions, such as how to play a particular batter and whether to stand with his weight on his right side or his left, to keep his legs from going to sleep.
In the dugout, in-between turns at bat, the player must keep himself from going to sleep. This can be dicey, as managers frown on activities like card playing or bringing a TV from home, so players have to entertain themselves by telling jokes, watching people in the stands or spitting tobacco on each other’s shoes.
Then, although there are equipment people to handle the player’s gear before and after games or when the team is traveling, he has to keep up with his own glove and bat during games. Other things he has to remember are the number of outs in the inning, the meaning of all the third-base coach’s gestures, and where his car is parked when he leaves the stadium bar.

Being on the road is the worst part of all. Flying to major cities in a private plane, staying in luxury hotels and eating in fancy restaurants can be OK for a while, but then the awful emptiness and monotony of it sets in. Since most games are played at night, players have nothing to do all day but lie around watching TV, and we all know how dreadful daytime TV is.

Above all, what makes the life of a ballplayer so hard are the fans. Mr. Average Joe, just because he forks over three or four hundred bucks for a night at the park with his wife and kids, thinks he has the right to criticize the player’s performance or expect him to sign an autograph. (Players, believe it or not, used to sign autographs for free, but now they have recourse to shows, where fans must keep their proper distance, wait in line, and pay a reasonable price, say $75 or $100, for their signature.)
Seriously: Even at the cartoonish salaries baseball players are pulling down, I’m sure none of them feel they’re even a bit overpaid. After all, they have to undergo daily job evaluations, overcome the assumption they’re cheating if they excel, and live with the knowledge that almost all of us feel they’re paid way too much -- even as we file, lemming-like, into the ballparks to watch them work.

Bulls vs. Heat, Easter surprise

Carlos Boozer a first-team All-Groaner Team, just behind Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade in the voting...Tom Thibodeau looks like a guy waiting for a bus...Jeff Van Gundy coins a word: sideline interviewer Doris Burke is "indefatigueable..."

Knicks jump out to 26-6 lead...Chandler goes to bench at 2:13 of first quarter, gripping one of his tattoos...Boozer makes a layup, gets fouled, and Derek Rose claps on the bench while looking as always like he's thinking about what's for dinner...Omer Asik (anagram: more saki) blocked 19 shots in a game in Turkey, Mike Breen informs us...Knicks may be Lin-less but aren't listless--the division is up for grabs!

Van Gundy decries "the state of sports journalism" in regard to the controversy swirling around his bro Stan in Orlando.

Baron Davis (anagram: Bravado? Sin!)passes up a wide-open five-footer, passes the ball, gets it back and goes one-on-one for a flailing fallaway, gets bailed out by a foul, but misses both FTs...A minute later Davis launches a 28-foot airball, and Bulls come down and get a 3-pointer the hard way. They're back in the game...

At the half Jon Barry points out that the Bulls are thankful on Easter for J. R. Smith, who's "just chucking away" (1 for 7 from the field, mostly ghastly 3-pointers.)

Second half: Joakim Noah puts up a patented grotesque jumper -- has no one ever worked on Noah's arc?...Rose, heating up, cuts lead to 2 but then the Knicks go back up by 5 on a 3-pointer by---J. R. Smith, of course...How much time does Coach Mike Woodson work pregame on manicuring his beard?...J. R. Smith (no anagrams) goes one-on-one and forces another dreadful fallaway, which inspires Carmelo Anthony to do the same next time down...The Bulls cut it to 1...

Breen and Van Gundy engage in a lengthy and spirited debate over Melo's shot selection as Bulls take the lead...Rose 14 points in third quarter...

4th quarter: Knicks down 5, get a steal but Davis lobs another airball, Smith clanks a 3 then passes the next time down to Iman Shumpert, who buries one...Bulls by 1...Smith goes 1 on 1, gets stuck in midair and has his shot blocked...

Smith again--clank! 3 for 15...Boozer counters with an airball...Shumpert clanks a 3-pointer, and Rose converts a 4-point play to seal it, probably (Bulls up by 9 with five to go...

Woodson starts to yank Smith, but he cans a 3 (3 for 16) and Woodson changes his mind...Smith then misses another 3...Chandler inexplicably fouls Lual Deng 32 feet from hoop with 34 seconds left, but Deng (Lual Deng anagram: aged null) misses both FTs...Knicks down 3, Novak comes in, Knicks run play for him and his 3 goes halfway down and spins out...But Rose misses 2 more FTs and Melo comes down and cans tying 3 (degree of difficulty 10.0)...Rose airballs at the buzzer.

Overtime: Noah finally stirs up a brouhaha--has to go to OT to do so...Smith nails back-to-back jumpers, Rose does the same...Novak and Shumpert try ill-advised 3s...Chandler plays volleyball on three offensive rebounds in a row, giving Knicks life...Melo buries another 3 (degree of difficulty 11.0) to give Knicks the lead, and Rose, harried by Iman Shumpert (anagram: inputs hammer) as he has been all game, misses runner at the horn. Knicks win!!

The day's heroes are Carmelo Anthony (43 points) and Iman Shumpert (anagram: Triumphs! Amen!)

Second careers

The Los Angeles Times reports that NBA player Delonte West, whose last job was with the Celtics, has taken a job selling furniture. (Visit the Times ’ sports blog.)
In the event of an NBA lockout, there are some other gigs that come to mind for certain players, such as:

Dwyane Wade—doctor. Radio doctor, to be precise. Wade showed his talent for diagnosing patients long-distance when he pooh-poohed Dirk Nowitzke’s purported fever during last year’s Finals.

Kobe Bryant—cartoon actor. The Lakers star could reprise the Michael Jordan role in Space Jam, this time with a slightly darker take. Kobe would disrespect and alienate teammates Porky Pig and Daffy Duck and then precipitate an intergalactic furor by hurling a sexual slur at the Martian referee.

Carmelo Anthony—chocolatier. Each box of Carmelos could be wrapped with a colorful headband. The candy’s shelf life would be a short one—a month, say, before it turned sour.

Chris Paul—seafood mogul. The savvy playmaker would join forces with another famous Paul personage to market Chris and Mrs. Paul’s New Orleans fish sticks.

Tim Duncan—pastry chef. Tim Duncan Donuts, with no frosting, no holes and in one flavor only, would appeal mostly to gourmets.

Derek Rose---salesman. Just so we could say “Rose peddles.”

Zach Randolph—outbuilding manufacturer. The enterprise would be called—what else?—Z-Bo’s Gazebos.

Lebron James—anything, so long as he wakes up every day and has the same personal worries he had yesterday.

Leave your ball and go home

"I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who loves sports hates common sense." – H. L. Mencken.

Sports, according to the latest census, is now the third-largest religion in the world. And like all religions, it is based on a set of highly questionable premises, one of them being: Life is a game.

All of us are born with the instinct to play, along with the instincts to feed, talk, and pack crayons up our noses, but we’re taught not to let any particular instinct become an obsession – except play.

From the time you’re old enough to open your eyes, it seems, there’s always somebody shoving a ball in your face, expecting you to throw it or catch it or kick it – or at least look like you would if you could.

As you grow up and learn to walk and then run, the sports paraphernalia begins to pile up around the house, and pretty soon you can’t even sit down and read a comic book or pick your toenails without your old man wanting you to come outside and throw the old cantaloupe around.

In school they expect you to play, starting with recess. Teachers never let you just stand around on the playground enjoying the clouds and the trees and the smell you just made, but demand that you participate in their idiotic games of Red Rover or Capture the Potato.

As if this weren’t enough, you’ve got to cope with all those extracurricular activities: Little League, YMCA, Cub Scouts or Brownies, camp, soccer teams, swimming clubs, gymnastics, ballet, Fourth of July races, and so on, until you just want to crawl into a nice hot bath and drown yourself.

By the time you reach high school chances are you’ve already logged millions of hours in pools and gymnasiums, on gridirons and diamonds – and now the serious part starts. You’ve got to decide what sport to major in.

Let’s say you decide on one, because you like it more than any other – love it , even. What happens now is that the person in charge – your coach – takes something that started out as fun and turns it into something different.

A coach is usually a former athlete, and consequently bitter and bent on revenge. Most coaches pass along the things they’ve learned from their own coaches, things like the importance of teamwork and keeping your shirt tucked in.

The one useful function the coach may serve is to sour a youngster on sports for the rest of his or her life.

Football follies

Are you ready for some FoooootBALLLLLL???? In my case, that’s like asking Socrates if he’s ready for his hemlock.

Football is a violent and dismal affair, conducted by psychopaths and circus behemoths, sometimes in the same body. And, on top of that, excruciatingly boring.

How did football achieve such a hold on our imagination? Do we identify with the players, most of whom are the size of livestock and sometimes of Thanksgiving Day floats? Do we envy them their murderous assaults on one another? Do we marvel at the intricate strategy, which mainly consists of the terrified quarterback handing the ball off or throwing it as quickly as he can, before he gets mugged?

I say it has to do with our ever-shrinking attention spans. Football, with its repetitive pattern of seven seconds of activity, followed by a minute or so of consultation (the huddle), during which a steroid-addled crew of analysts tell us what we’ve just seen and what we’re about to see, is the ideal pastime for our Republic of ADD. It is our most cherished diversion--or religion, in many cases.

Happy viewing, football worshippers, on this your holy day!