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Opening Day is exactly one month away (so long as you ignore that game on Sunday night between the Yankees and the Red Sox). The Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues are in full swing. The stories about the Spring phenoms have started as have the stories about players hoping to rebound from down years or returning from injuries.
March Madness is here as well. Cornell is the first to qualify for the NCAA Men’s Tournament. The final regular season men’s games are this weekend. My Kentucky Wildcats have their "Senior Day" tomorrow against Florida (although one of the "honorees" is Patrick Patterson who is only a junior but will be graduating in June – yes, a probable NBA lottery pick will have graduated in three years).
Freedom Hall in Louisville is most likely hosting it’s final basketball game today (assuming the Cardinals make it off the bubble and into the Dance) as Louisville hosts #1 Syracuse (doG but I hate writing that) this afternoon. Freedom Hall will remain but UL will be playing their games starting next year in a new arena. If you don’t know Freedom Hall’s basketball history, where ya been? It hosted six Final Fours from 1958 to 1969. It also hosted the Kentucky High School Basketball State Tournament (The Sweet Sixteen) 23 times over the years. Believe me when I say that the Sweet Sixteen is almost more important in Kentucky than the NCAA Tournament. For many Kentucky boys, hitting the game winning jump shot from the top of the key to win the state tournament is among the earliest and strongest of sports fantasies.
Smaller basketball conferences are in the middle of their conference tournaments this weekend, with many of them getting their only ESPN exposure of the year with their championship games. These are the conferences that provide the 13, 14, 15, and 16 seeds in the dance.
So in a month we will be in the middle of Final Four weekend. Opening Day is also that weekend as is Easter. With all that will be going on that weekend, any wagers as to how much News Where We’re Abused will be dumped on "Good Friday" in hopes that no one is paying attention?
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ESPN just flashed an “All-Time Freedom Hall Final Four Team” during the Louisville/Syracuse game:
Jerry West
Oscar Robertson
Lew Alcindor
Elvin Hayes
Rick Mount
Do you know if it’s true that all MLB teams have an embedded evangelical Christian minister associated with them? Such a minister has unique access to the players, serves as a team chaplain/counsellor, maybe serves as the team’s special envoy to God. This is all done rather quietly, away from the public eye. If that’s not true, do you know what is regarding a generic MLB team vis a vis Christian evangelism?
Not sure if I’ve ever heard of “embedded evangelical Christian ministers” with every MLB team. They may have chaplains but from what I recall, most are quite mainstream religious (in the traditional sense) and not evangelicals.
Baseball has always had large numbers of folks who are not particularly religious in the clubhouses so I find it doubtful that there’s some big conspiracy of evangelicals run by the teams.
With the NFL I can believe this is possible but not so much with MLB.
“Embedded evangelical Christian ministers” is my expression.
Evangelical is definitely part of the idea.
I’ve followed baseball a long time and I’d never heard it before about 6 months ago. There was language associated that this was something Bud Selig would just as soon not have be common knowledge and that journalists don’t write about. I believe the idea was that this took place in most pro sports, NBA as well, but maybe not NHL. The NCAA also, at least football.
To be honest, I’d find it even less likely with the NBA as with MLB. Both sports have too many ‘free spirits’ as well as such large areas where they pull players from.
Football is the sport that seems to be most likely to push evangelical ideas and even then I’d be a little skeptical.
The only sport I care about is baseball and the only team I care about are the Astros. Unless you count the Padres. In their case, I only care that they lose. Often and badly!
Baseball is my first sport (Cincinnati Reds here with the Red Sox as the AL team) but I love basketball as well. The two seasons compliment each other so well.
Shit Sports and Religion in the same discussion… WTF has the World come to??Shit time bury my head and sing la la la la la al ala ala ala ala lalalala la a on and till it goes away…sigh..
shit fuck can’t a guy enjoy sports with the church getting in the way?? Like they are doing in the bedroom…shit fuck…sigh..
Oh well the Sharks are on in 15… Good Hockey and NO Religion… Don’t ya havet’a check ya church at the door??
I’ll just say I was a bit surprised when I saw the original comment as it’s not something that has ever come up before at all in conjunction with baseball.
REALLY!
Ban all Religious commenting on all Sport threads!!
There I said it…
Second, by god!
I know that Joey Jay was the 1st of the Little Leaguers to make the majors and I believe that Cotton Nash spent some time as an Angel farmhand. Shucks. I see from baseball-reference.com that he played in the majors, which I didn’t know until just this minute. If I’m right about evangelical religion in the clubhouse or locker room and endorsed by MLB or the other pro leagues, then maybe it’s pro sports that don’t belong here. As far as I’m concerned, pro sports needs to prove it’s free of the taint of religion.
And the non-sequitor nature of this comment is what has confused me about your comments since yesterday. I have no idea what Joey Jay’s being the first Little Leaguer to make the majors and Cotton Nash having played in the minors has to do with evangelical religion supposedly being endorsed by pro sports. And frankly don’t care.
But since this was my diary and topic, I will continue to talk about sports like baseball and basketball, pro and college for both and you can continue to wonder about whatever put the bug in your head in the first place.
So if you don’t like pro sports and think they’re all infested with evangelical religious types go for it and I will henceforth ignore your ravings.
Why would you talk about baseball qua baseball here? What kind of responses or expertise do you expect?
http://www.cincinnatireds.com
http://www.bostonredsox.com
If I picked up Harper’s or the Atlantic I wouldn’t expect to see preseason prognostication. Maybe an article about tax giveaways to owners or evangelical religion in clubhouses, but not arguments about pitching depth or when a particular minor league prospect will be ready.
Do you remember when the Reds were the Redlegs because of McCarthyism? Do you remember when the Reds had an International League farm team in Havana?
What is your point? Yes, I remember the “Cincinnati Redlegs.” I’m quite familiar with both the Reds and Red Sox web sites (I do cheer for each team after all).
Are you upset that I took the time to write a sports related diary at the Seminal? Do you think life should be all politics (or anti-religion) all the time?
What. Is. Your. Point.
Edit: I guess this must be considered an “inappropriate topic” for this blog.
I’m with Nahant, shitfuck, fuckshit (bless Shitfuck Schultz, Ball Four).
Separation of church and sport!!!!!
Skkkyyyyyyyy Pilot,
How high can you fly.
*G*
Go Orange!
Assuming you mean Syracuse, they kinda walked into a buzz saw today didn’t they? (Louisville is probably my number 3 team in college basketball for cheering purposes)
I never could watch basketball. It was always more of a participant sport for me
well, I was never good enough to play so it’s always been a spectator sport for me. I couldn’t even make my freshman team in high school (at a school that won ten games total in four years).
Welcome to the ‘all-field – no hit’ club.
I don’t want to deceive you, I was never good enough to play either. That didn’t stop me from getting out on the court for exercise and making a fool out of myself though!
Oh, well I did that. Still do in fact once in a very rare while. It’s probably been ten years though since I last played a game of softball (standard company pick-up games of course)
Yep. For me it’s been going on twenty years I guess since my last softball game when I hit a stand up triple, right over my boss’s head.
I hear ya there although in play offs the intensity changes..
Me I love Hockey first(the Don’t BLINK Sport), Football and then Baseball.. But we do watch a lot of sports around here…
Hey Mods where are the Filters when ya need them??
I mean Sports AND Religion??
I predict the San Diego Padres will be 0-165 this year.
I like that spot in the fall when the NHL is just starting up, the NFL is in full swing, the NBA is about to start, and the holidays are
threateningupon us again.I sleep very soundly, and with the teevee off. No news is good news.
For me, it’s this weekend a month away. Both the Men’s and Women’s Final Fours and Opening Day all in the same weekend. The end of the best part of the basketball season (I watch the NBA and NHL but just as a general sports fan) and the start of the MLB season all together.
I’m not sure if the set-up was planned or just has worked out this way, but I like it.
Easy for you to say. You don’t have to preach on Thursday and Friday and twice on Sunday.
Yeah that would be a tough weekend for you.
But at least you can take Monday and veg and watch the Opening Day games on ESPN and the Championship Game Monday night.
Amen. Monday is definitely a holiday.
Interview Monday. Skirt, stockings, make-up, the works. I want the interview and I need this job but must I have to be tortured for it?
Would it be problematic if I said you would be in my prayers?
Not at all. Though I don’t believe, I certainly know how to appreciate good thoughts and intentions. Thanks. :-)
You’ll be so hot that they can’t say no.
Gorsh, going from running away from the war movie and I come back to baseball.
(Chocolate chip oatmeal raisin walnut cookies in the oven.) Just sayin’.
WooHoo. Those sound great after a trip to the porch!
Religion and baseball?
Try this.
Go Cubs!
Okay, unusual for an Astros fan to say but I like the Cubs second best. :-)
I really think this is the Cubs’ year.
Not really but hope springs eternal.
On this, we can agree.
A good friend of mine was sitting on the 3rd base line during that infamous Cubs/Marlins playoff game with his brother-in-law who, uh, interfered with that foul ball that appeared to jinx the Cubs and send the Marlins to the World Series. He said he wasn’t sure if they’d make it out of Wrigley intact.
Yeah, I’m just hoping the Reds can be competitive and maybe break .500. Growing up, pre Big Red Machine days, they were still always in the hunt.
It really has hurt the last few years to see them where they are (and the Pirates as well)
But then, as a Reds fan, the Cubs were always a team to beat.
I think Wrigley might be one of the last of the old style ballparks. Great place to watch a game, I hope they use it forever.
Never been to Wrigley. But it and Fenway are the two icon parks. I went to the old Crosley Field in Cincinnati a few times and it was the same type park. That was pre-Riverfront and now they’ve gone on to an even newer park there.
Edit: I have been to Fenway a few times over the years but not since the ‘new’ owners started all the reconfiguring.
Probably the main difference is the old ballparks were used for baseball, period, so no mega-arenas. Wrigley is small by modern standards, I don’t think there are any bad seats, provided there isn’t a pillar between your seat and home plate (there are a fair number of those).
You oughta see the Astros home field. The Astrodome sucked lemons but Minute Maid Park is a great ballpark.
Yeah, all the cookie-cutter stadiums of the early ’70s were multi-purpose and I think most of the cities that built one of those (like Cincinnati) have wound up building new baseball primarily and football primarily stadiums to replace the single cookie-cutter. Mainly because of the stadium box and seat licensing scams but it also helped to sell the idea to purists.
I watched a few games at the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis and it seemed like a race to see who would expire first from the heat, the players or the spectators. The outfielders had to keep moving because the astroturf was burning their feet.
As a freshman in college, I saw eight games in six days from the bleachers of Wrigley Field. It was “orientation week” with placement tests in the morning and “meet the adviser” type stuff in the evenings, with the afternoons free. The Cubs were 20+ games out of first place, the sun was warm, the beer was cheap, and life was good.
There is no finer place in all the world than the bleachers of Wrigley Field for watching baseball.
(And as long as we’re talking religion, lights at Wrigley Field are the work of the devil.)
Yeah, that was a bad day when they put up the lights.
But then, these are the same people who don’t allow daytime week day World Series games.
The first time the Cubs played under the lights at Wrigley, the heavens opened and the game was a rainout.
Some would say this was a sign from God.
One would think but we are talking about people who would do it in the first place.
Brazen is one of the milder terms I think were used.
I predict that the San Diego Padres will all simultaneously contract Loser’s Lurgy and have to forfeit the entire season…
I predict that on opening day, The San Diego Padres will be attacked by a swarm of bees and that their trainers will have forgotten the Bactine…
I had some mild interest in the Padres when I was stationed in Hawai’i as the then Hawaiian Islanders were their Triple A farm team. I got to see Tony Gwynn and some others ther as they were on their ways up.
Why the hate for them? (I can easily explain my personal hate of the Yankees and Dodgers)
Why the hate for the Padres?
In Chicago, it would be September 1984.
It goes back to the time I lived in San Diego when I was in the Navy. Every year it was “This is the Padres year” and “They are sure to take the pennant this year because…” and so forth. And Tony Gwynn! Good gravy how they worshiped Tony Gwynn! I hate the Chargers for the same reason. The city was just over the top delusional about it’s various teams’ chances.
I’ve lived all over the country over the years and have to say, there are a lot of areas where that happens. The excess hero worship and the over estimating the team chances.
Although I think it happens a tad bit more in football than in baseball (says he who will pick Kentucky to win the championship just because)
So have I dakine but San Diego of the mid to late eighties was the worst by far. Before that I thought Houstopolis was bad but I got to San Diego and it was omnipresent and overwhelming.
Duck the Fodgers!
Boy, do I miss booing LaSorda as he strides out to pull his pitcher.
Yep!
Tigers fan here. I hate the Red Sox. Especially Kevin Youklis. I hate the way he dances at the plate.
Saw an Astros vs Cubbies game at Wrigley in 1986. My mood was …enhanced… Lotta fun. Great ball park.
In the early ’90s my Chicago friend scored free tickets to a game at Wrigley. There was an airshow occurring simultaneously over Lake Michigan with planes in sight of and sometimes flying over the field. It was a pretty cool way to spend an afternoon.
And thanks demi. I hope the warpaint and all the female gear are worth it!
Since you’re doing war paint, make sure you emphasize that sweet little cupid’s bow on your lips.
And, regarding the cookies, yes. Takes one to know one. Why else did God invent incense and peppermints?
Yep, even going to go two tone on the eyelids if you can believe that.
Why else did God invent incense and peppermints?
Because she’s very practical…. ;-)
She is!
Incense is the mother of necessity. No. Necessity is the incense of mothers. No.
Fucking nylons are definitely worth the price. All things considered.
Yes but only thigh highs. Pantyhose are right out! A MAN invented pantyhose because he knew he wouldn’t have to wear them.
More men wearing pantyhose than you might think. Broadway Joe wasn’t the first or last (I’m certain).
Broadway Joe?
Broadway Joe = Joe Willie Namath, University of Alabama to the NY Jets – “Guaranteed” that the Jets would beat the Colts in Super Bowl III
Joe Namath wore them under his Jets uniform, ostensibly (cough) for the added warmth.
Well, he sure as hell didn’t wear them for comfort. Unless he’s a masochist!
What’s with the cough? Are you visiting the porch too?
I wish. Seems like all my sources outgrew it or went away. Being a hermit I don’t make new connections. Still hope they might legalize it before I’m too old to care but not holding my breath. Anyway, I’ve grown accustomed to life without, probably better off. Keep more of my money at least.
The costume counts Peg. No matter how much we don’t like it. I really want my mowhak back, but…
At the risk of sounding Rumsfeld-ian: there’s the world that there is, and the world we wish to have.
And I’d rather have you working and at least economically safe, mon cher…
Me too flat. After 14 months, me too. It’s a small price to pay.
this seems like a trash talk thread, and I got some old business I need to git off my chest
for about the past 5 years, I’ve wanted to cut Brian Westbrook, Philadelphia’s starting back
I jes go crazy every time I see westbrook drop a third-down swing pass (and it happened more than you’d think)
well, this past week, WESTBROOK GOT RELEASED
WOO HOO (snoopy dance)
jes had to say it
in case you’re worried about the karma involved in rootin for a player to get cut, ya gotta go “All IN” if ya wanna catch the reigning hubcap king, especially when that player is the second leading rusher in the league at the time you want to cut him
it’s a life consumin kind of thing …
I predict that The San Diego Padres will lose every game until the All Star break and then simultaneously die of humiliation.
I hope you’re only half right. :-)
I predict a meteor will hit Petco Park and the Padres will be forced to play at the abandoned Miramar NAS.
The last time I went to a baseball game, and you know I’m in LA, there was puke on the ground in the row in front of us, and there was a pee smell. And, it was a really hot day. Okay? That was a long time ago.
Ewww! That would turn me off from it too, yep!
Welcome to every stadium’s men’s room during 7th-inning stretch.
I love sports. I hate watching/cheering for professional sports. Most are nothing more than spoiled selfish millionaires with absolutely no manners. Watch hockey and you see a bunch of grown millionaire men spitting and hacking and picking their noses. Yuck. Baseball? Full grown millionaire men scratching their balls and standing for hours on end pretending to be athletic. Football? Hit your heads together harder. Isn’t that fun boys? Basketball and soccer? Run up the court/field, run back. Repeat over and over and over. Golf? Announcer whispering like the damn golfer can hear him when he’s like a mile away. How do you follow a white ball against white clouds? Even camera crews can’t. And all of these sports have the exact same thing in common. None of these players or teams give a shit if they win, as long as they make money. Lots and lots of money. Take your family to a game if you can still mortgage your house.
I predict that a swarm of locusts will eat all the grass at Petco park and the Padres will have to play on ASTROturf!
“Guaranteed” that the Jets would beat the Colts in Super Bowl III
I take it they didn’t?
No actually they did win. And it pretty much sealed Namath as a future Pro Football Hall-Of-Famer even though his overall career wasn’t all that great.
I know squat about football except that I hate the Tennessee Tick Turds!
I’d bet in the same way Baltimore fans hate the Colts (or at least the late Mr Irsay)
That and I used to work for Bud Adams. Wasn’t the worst job I ever had but a lot of sexism went on. Never met Adams though.
Was he the guy on the Beauty Mist commercials in the pantyhose?
Yes. It was partly because he’d gone through a bunch of knee surgeries on both knees as well.
That’s the one! That sure was a long time ago.
Lots of blown out knees in that era. I suppose year round conditioning is part of the reason there don’t seem to be as many today, plus they don’t inject multi-millionaire athletes who get injured with painkillers and send them back out on the field.
The surgery techniques combined with the rehab programs have improved tremendously.
Fortunately our athletes will never be denied the best healthcare available. When I broke my hand back in the ’80s the orthopedic specialist told me that if I were an athlete they’d do surgery and put a pin in it but since I was just a lowly graphic artist a cast would suffice… not like I needed hands for anything important.
Wouldn’t your need as a graphics artist though lend itself to the cast over the surgery? I seem to recall most the folks in casts I’ve known over the years wound up with more flexibility with the cast than if they’d had surgery (though I haven’t known more than a couple who’ve had hand/wrist surgeries)
I had pretty good insurance at the time, so it kind of irritated me that the doctor appeared to think surgery would be preferable but they insisted I take the cheap option.
It turned out only to be a minor nuisance. I barely had enough room to grip a pen between by thumb and forefinger. One of the first assignments I had after getting the cast was a detailed drawing of a race car. I was able to draw the outlines, then scan it and finish it on the Mac. Biggest problem was that for three weeks I could only type with one hand.
Anyway, since then arthritis has done a LOT more damage to my hands than that fracture.
It seems that while I may have long term loss of short term memory, I don’t yet have short term loss of long term memory. I’m surprised I was able to pull Beauty Mist out of all those years ago.
Just tried on the suit. I haven’t worn it in over three years and in that time I gained and lost nearly 180 pounds! Just a teeny bit big on me now but very wearable. Good to know. :-)
never quit smoking cigarettes unless you’re prepared to gain weight and then work really hard to lose it again.
I predict that San Diego will secede and join Mexico and the minute men won’t let the Padres back into the United States to play baseball.
Oyasumi Nasai Koinu!
I’d like to root for KY, but with those two asshole Senators it has, I can’t bring myself to do so.
Let’s play two! Damn, how did I miss this diary? Shit. Fuck.
Not to worry – there will most likely be another one or two of these in the upcoming weeks…
A cat diary and a baseball diary every week?! Heh, we’re shittin’ in high cotton now. Go Dodgers.