Blogger Beware

ESPN's Outside the Lines had an interesting roundtable on the back-and-forth among the press and blogosphere concerning the late-career explosion of Raul Ibanez:

Another Great Moment in NBA Officiating History

When Mark Cuban once snarked that he wouldn't hire the director of NBA officiating to manage a Dairy Queen, the folks at DQ memorably took offense and challenged Marky Boy to put up or shut up, which he humorously did. Here's the thing: the NBA would find a way to royally screw up a Dairy Queen. An NBA ref would call three seconds on the M&M toppings of a blizzard.

When the coach of the winning team is publicly pointing out to the officials that they've blown a call at the most critical moment of a championship series game, and pretty doing it for no particular reason other than a feeling of, "Hey, somebody should point out that we've got rules", you have a problem. I wouldn't want David Stern's lackies handling my laundry, much less my basketball team's fate.

Jers-day at Work Day?

A freebie to all of you who think that ESPN is actually a vast conspiracy concocted by the shadow governments of New York and Boston to shower East Coast teams with nothing but praise and adulation - I have to say that I sometimes find myself in agreement with you. I mean, how else can you explain the penchant for painting the decade-long incompetency of the Knicks as "brilliantly positioning themselves for LeBron in 2010"? Note to NYK ownership: it worked for the Democrats, who tripped over themselves just often enough for Obama to place himself as the man who would not only save Howard Dean from himself, but America by extension. Do not expect lightning to strike the same place twice.

Anyway, I digress. Today was an opportunity for all employees to show off a little team pride by wearing the attire of their favorite MLB team to work. The occasion was a visit by MLB's Chief Operating Officer Bob DuPuy. The top choice teams, by an overwhelming margin?

Well, it wasn't the Mariners and the Rockies. What does it mean? You be the judge.

Pedroia and Jeter weren't on campus today, but they would've fit right in.

Fun with Language

You never know what you might find while scanning the day's news. For instance, while reading up on today's important policy speech by President Obama, I learned the following:

Obama's remarks were televised on all radio and television stations in Israel...

Now, I'm more than willing to chalk this up to a simple miscalculation by the editor: it's basically second nature to say all stations televised the speech without considering the medium. Makes you wonder though: how precisely could a radio station televise something?

Huh???

The "Huh?" Moment of the Day is brought to you by the man who invented the concept of being "A Legend in His Own Mind", the announcer who loves fewer things more than hearing himself talk, Ken The Hawk Harrelson. Analyzing the swing of one Jack Cust for the Oakland Athletics, the Hawk-aroo sent even his most devout followers in search of a head to scratch when he dropped this line:

If he were about 115 years old, that movie The Natural would've been dedicated to him.

As Harry Doyle would say, "Dynamite drop-in. That broadcasting school has really paid off." You're still my boy Hawk, even if you hear what nobody is saying.

Time Goes By

First, updating our top story from yesterday: Hummer's gonna make it after all! Okay, maybe a little bit too excited, but there will be a save of about 3000 jobs for the soon-to-be-ex GM brand, as a Chinese company has agreed to buy the obnoxiously fuel-inefficient minivan on 'roids line. Drinks at the Backer are on Rick Wagoner.

Moving on...a few things happened this weekend that made me feel old. Or more accurately, they made me acutely aware of the fact that I'm getting older, like it or not.

First, my sister got married this weekend in Chicago - gorgeous weather, wonderful ceremony, perfect union, wild and crazy after-party for the reception (and really, would the Heidkamps do it any other way? Of course not). I even tried to add to the specialness of the moment by educating the wedding party on the parallels between the wonderful adventure the happy couple was embarking on and the moving lessons of Up. I'd say the response was mixed between, "That was very sweet" and "pass me another beer."

The specialness of the occasion, and the fact that two more good friends from college are getting married this summer, while a third close buddy from high school is already married (and welcomed his first child) kind of hit me hard with the knowledge that - hey, ready or not, here comes the big stuff. For the longest time, big life-altering stuff like marriage, having kids, moving to far-off places (or better yet, trying to lock down a career) seemed a dozen worlds away. When I was 10, which would place me in the year 1995, maybe I'd think off to life as an adult some twenty years or so from now, but it was a pure fantasy. 2015? Yeah, sure, 2015 will be here one day. We'll all be flying around on HoverBoards, hydrating all our food, and we of course will no longer need roads. If only that were true. Then you turn around one day to find 13 years have passed, and we're probably not gonna be zipping through the sub-stratosphere in our HoverCars (dang!), but all those seminal moments that were out in the distance weren't that far after all. They also tend to pass by pretty quickly, so make sure to pay attention.

Another milestone got touched when Jay Leno signed off of The Tonight Show Friday. Now, since I'm not 63, the evening news and a touch of Jay are not regular appointment viewing for me; I can truthfully say I've never watched a completed episode of any late-night talk show, unless one includes The Daily Show on Comedy Central. But I do remember Johnny Carson and the passing of television's most famous comedy flagship from him to Leno, more vividly because of the Cheers episode that aired right around the transition which featured Cliff Clavin's gloriously stupid attempt to get one his jokes read by Carson on the air. (For those who don't remember, Cliff wound up in jail, and his mother hammed it up on Johnny's couch.) I was a young kid when that happened; now I'm a college graduate watching a gray-haired Jay hand off the show to Conan O'Brien, who's in the process of going bald in front of our eyes. If you think this has me catching myself with the wonder of how fast things recede into the rearview mirror, think of how my parent's generation, which came of age watching Johnny Carson, must feel. Not only is Carson dead, but the guy who replaced him was on the air for nearly two decades before retiring himself!

Time does indeed go by, ladies and gentleman. We've got to make the most of it, and I mean all of it, because it turns out we've got a lot less of it than we think.

Show Us What We've Won

A hearty congratulations to all of us, first and foremost. We good, honest, American taxpayers have just bought ourselves an auto manufacturer! (Awkward pause added here) I'm sure it has been a dream of every U.S. citizen to own a slice of General Motors, although we probably didn't imagine having to discontinue the Hummer in order to do it. This is another blow to the area surrounding my adopted college hometown of South Bend, as the central Hummer production plant was located in nearby Mishawaka. Historically the downfall of South Bend as a major industrial city coincided with the demise of the Studebaker in the the late '60s. Hopefully the loss of the international gas guzzler of choice will not produce a deeper sinkhole, because anybody who's been there knows South Bend needs all the help it can get...

With barely 14mpg highway, the Hummer can be green in color only.