Life Ever Laughter

Vanderbilt is not known for a winning tradition in football. It is known for a lovable underdog role in the toughest conference in the country. I am going to miss Bobby Johnson something fierce, but I am already a big fan of Robbie Caldwell, who has willingly acknowledged the influence of none other than Jerry Clower when it comes to his public relations skills. I don't know if it's a comedian's humility that helps to wins games, but it does help to win the support of the press corps.

Dre Day

I am proud that Mr. Dawson is joining the ranks of the enshrined at Cooperstown. I am slightly alarmed that the Baseball Writer's Association picked Mark McGwire ahead of Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, and Dave Parker, but I guess that single season home run record, juiced or not, is still pretty impressive.

Substance Fueled

I won't be too fazed if they take a couple hundred of A-Rod's home runs away due to a suspicion of jammin' on the juice, but they can't ever take away Dock Ellis's no hitter, admittedly pitched during an acid trip. That's the difference between 1970 and 2010. That, and the facial hair of the mid seventies Oakland A's. But better let Dock tell the story:
"I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the (catcher's) glove, but I didn't hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder. I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn't hit hard and never reached me."

The Best of the Worst Part 1: Archie

Thirty years ago when Archie Manning was leading the NFL on the receiving end of sacks, with a New Orleans offensive line made seemingly of crepe paper, I am pretty sure a young future MVP was taking some mental notes. A lot of Indianapolis's payroll is wrapped up in Peyton and his offensive line, and the results speak for themselves. Archie was a God to people of my parents' generation (they were both enrolled at Ole Miss during Manning's heyday), and it's easy to see why. Peyton and Tom Brady are masters of the accurate pass and the smart play, and while their records are undeniable, so is their distaste for taking hits. Like I said, if I were Peyton, watching my dad get his can knocked off by Jack Youngblood, I wouldn't blame him for not wanting to take hits. But you watch the way Archie played and the only word that suffices is "heroic". He made plays when they weren't available elsewhere on the field. He moved with the ball, he wasn't afraid to leave the pocket, and he suffered some punishing sacks for all of it. In a way, there's a lot more of Archie in someone like Steve McNair than Peyton. And while two of Archie's sons have won Super Bowls, and one of them is destined for the Hall of Fame, it's their Pops that to me is the ultimate hero. Ten seasons at the helm of the New Orleans Saints was a Sisyphean undertaking for the noble gentleman of Drew, Mississippi, but he seemed to face the odds with relish.

the longest yard(age pass)

Gus Ferotte is not a household name...not even in the Twin Cities. But he did tie the record for longest touchdown completion pass, to Bernard Berrian. Pretty sure this is before Brett "retired" from the New York Jets.

Mr May Makes Good Big Time

The sporting world lost a pair of giants in the last few days. First Yankees announcer Bob Sheppard's passing over the weekend, and then this morning the many sided King George departed as well. I am by no means a Yankees fan, but as a fan of baseball and a fan of the city where the Yankees call home, I had to ponder the mixed legacy of "the Boss". As a New York transplant with a heart still in Ohio, a football man with a passion for baseball, a shipping magnate with an aggressive drive to restore glory to the nation's premier club, Big George's place in history shouldn't be in doubt. He bought the Yankees at a bargain and turned them into a billion dollar business. He loved the fans and did all he could to bring them wins, but his reckless pursuit of high price free agent players helped to drive up ticket costs. A Rod and Big George knew that money didn't grow on trees, but twenty dollar beers at Yankee Stadium made sure that at least it found fertile soil near home turf. And as for the players? He didn't make it easy to work for him and he had a revolving door system with farm team prospects, not to mention managers. At the same time, he did a great deal to take care of those close to him, and quite a few he never met.
Was he the Idi Amin of baseball? Nah, not really. But he wasn't Lincoln either. Or even Woodrow Wilson. I think he was a man of voracious ambition, moderate intellectualism, spare patience, and a remarkable sense of self effacing humor. When Ted Kennedy departed last summer, I felt a shift, a knowledge of loss that went beyond the hour to hour news coverage, the sense of knowing that a true leader and pioneer was gone and with that vacancy an era was soon to fade as well. I think the same thing of King George's passing. There won't be another like him for quite a while because there can't be. He has left us but the era he embodied left long before he did.
Much was made back in the day about King George's dissatisfaction with Dave Winfield in the lean mid eighties years of the Yankees saga. About an ocean of water has passed under pretty much every bridge to Manhattan since then but for some reason I wanted to post something from a happy moment in Winfield's career. He finally won a World Series with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992, the one he couldn't clinch during his stormy tenure with the Yankees. Based on the bridge mending Winfield and Steinbrenner made in recent years, I feel like it's a greater tribute to the man and the game to remember just that, the game.