Let It Hit The Fan

Money.  In America, it's the number one reason why most people will do most things.  If you want to understand why adults are motivated to do things, follow the money.

Attention.  In America, it's the runner-up reason why most people will do most things.  If you want to understand why adults are motivated to do things besides for money, it's for attention, which is often monetized.  (See reason one.)

Is there a way to combine these two powerful motivators to accomplish something larger?  Absolutely.  And one of the main vehicles for this has to be the major organized sports leagues.

We've seen professional sports leagues and players, most notably from the NBA / WNBA, use their platforms to drive political and social change.  Just last year, players in those leagues so far as to boycott games in response to social unrest over the treatment of blacks in America.  It had limited economic impact due to the pandemic, but it got people's attention.

There are much better, broader examples from the past.  In the 1990s, states that didn't recognize MLK Day were eliminated as hosts for crown jewel sporting events.  (The NFL pulled the Super Bowl from Arizona.)  Something similar happened later in North Carolina and Indiana when those states passed anti-LGBTQ laws, and the leagues (along with the NCAA) avoided or pulled out from those states as hosts for events like the NBA All-Star game or the NCAA basketball tournament.

These actions also had a domino effect of making corporations not host conventions in those states.  Suddenly, when states realized the loss of revenue, not to mention the embarrassing attention, they got rid of those laws.

Examples like these highlight why organized sports leagues could be doing more now, as republican-led states pass anti-voting laws, and/or anti-LGBTQ laws.  If the NFL, NBA, NCAA, or Major League Baseball had their act together, they'd simply tell these states that they won't do business there, at least not outside of regular franchise operations.  An even more effective approach would be the players associations of the pro leagues boycotting games, ending the public's great desire to watch them.  Then things would hit the fan (pun intended!) although it would be a monetary sacrifice some players would not want to make.

This year, the Major League Baseball All-Star game is supposed to be in Atlanta, Georgia, the state most actively passing voter suppression laws.  They should move that game, and let the money and attention flow to states with smarter elected officials.  Then let's see what happens -- if the past is prologue, things will change fast.

2020

Another year is ending, this one also concluding a decade.  It would be a good time for a retrospective piece on the past ten years, but lots of other entities are doing that.  I'll just stick to my usual review of the things I wanted to have happen this year, and consider some things I would like to see happen in 2020.  We'll again start with the prior year's list, with comments in ALL CAPS:

The resignation or impeachment of a mentally unstable and unqualified president -- again, no names.
IMPEACHMENT HAPPENED.  I CARRIED THIS OVER FORM THE PRIOR YEAR, WHICH TURNED OUR TO BE VERY PRESCIENT.

The electric vehicle becoming America's fastest growing (by percentage) seller.
THIS IS HAPPENING IN THE U.K. BUT NOT IN THE U.S.

Alabama and Clemson and New England to have poor football seasons.
THEY WEREN'T POOR, BUT ALABAMA AND NEW ENGLAND AT LEAST HAD DOWN YEARS.

Some major medical breakthrough, perhaps a vaccine to eliminate a dread disease.
NO.

Consistent, moderate summer rain in central Iowa.
YES.

A priest actually arrested and charged and jailed for past sexual abuse.
THIS DID HAPPEN IN PENNSYLVANIA.  IT WAS TOO PREDICTABLE, AND NOT NEARLY ENOUGH.

More cities allowing app-based scooter rentals.
WHILE MORE CITIES DID ADOPT THEM, OTHER CITIES STARTED TO RESTRICT THEM.

Another scandal that ruins another Fox (News) TV personality.
NOT REALLY, ALTHOUGH THE PRIOR SCANDALS AND CURRENT PROPAGANDA AT FOX DID CAUSE SHEP SMITH TO LEAVE.

U.S. restaurants that allow payment by app, OR that bring the credit card reader to your table.THIS STILL HASN'T RECEIVED WIDESPREAD U.S. ADOPTION, WHICH IS SORT OF INFURIATING.

Me traveling to one of the five continental states in which I've never set foot.I WAS ABLE TO CROSS OFF NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTH CAROLINA FROM MY LIST.  DOWN TO IDAHO, MICHIGAN, MONTANA, AND NORTH DAKOTA.  (IT WAS ACTUALLY SIX.).

Now, for 2020 I'd like to see these things happen:

Me traveling to the final four U.S. states in which I've never set foot.

A new president-elect and a corresponding surviving, independent, democratic republic.

More chances to make a hole-in-one (which means more time to play golf).

Widespread acceptance of plant-based meats on restaurant menus.

The Minnesota Twins to break their streak of 16 consecutive playoff game losses.

Consolidation in the video streaming service industry.

A Summer Olympics without scandal.

Greater federal regulation of Facebook, and less people using it to show me pictures of their food.

A new artist who brings back the sound of classic rock.

That I never order from a bar that tells me it has no Crown Royal Apple.

No Thank You

Thanksgiving-time is here, and so is my 9th annual list of things for which I am not thankful.  You can get to the prior lists by starting here or by using following the Thanksgiving label on the blog.

As usual, the following list is in no particular order:

Charging my technology devices.

Confederate statues.

Office workers who don’t clean up after themselves.

Invitations to things I don’t want to attend.

Fake (Fox) News.

The first snowfall, and all of the others that follow.

Sexual harassment deniers who’ve had multiple independent claims against them.

Confirmation bias.

Those who forward their confirmation biases on social media dozens of times a day.

The excessively slow pace of college and professional baseball games.

Christmas advertisements and music before Thanksgiving.

Hurricanes.

2017

It's time for my annual review of the list of things I wanted to happen the prior 12 months, and give my list of things I want to occur in the next 12 months.  Here's the 2016 list, with comments in ALL CAPS:

-At least some progress, not regress, on medicinal marijuana legalization in Iowa.
NOPE TO DOPE AGAIN, BUT AT LEAST THERE WAS A BILL ON WHICH TO VOTE.

-Chris Christie versus Hillary Clinton for president, with ? winning.
HILLARY LOST THE PRESIDENCY, WHILE CHRISTIE LOST HIS POLITICAL CAREER.

-A higher stock market.
AFFIRMATIVE, BUT IT DIDN'T LOOK GOOD ON FEBRUARY 1ST.

-Just one actual, even very minor piece of legislation to make it slightly more difficult to buy a gun.
DESPITE MORE VIOLENCE, WE'VE NEVER BEEN FARTHER FROM THIS HAPPENING.

-The personal, financial, and political implosion of Donald Trump.
THE OPPOSITE HAPPENED THIS YEAR, BUT IT WILL EVENTUALLY HAPPEN.

-A way to charge devices without a wire.
NO, BUT WIRELESS HEADPHONE HAVE GONE MAINSTREAM.

-An à la carte option for cable and satellite TV channels.
THANKS TO PRESSURE FROM STREAMING SERVICES, SEEING SMALL PROGRESS.

-More time for eating right, less time for exercise.
ENDED UP DOING MORE OF BOTH, WHICH WAS A GOOD THING.

For 2017 I'd like to see:

Again:  At least some progress on medical marijuana in Iowa,

Some type of institutional or legal control over fake news / social media.

Related to the above, more critical thinkers, fewer idiots who believe everything they hear.

GPS technology used in major sporting events, e.g. to mark the ball in football games, and for the strike zone in baseball games.

More working from home by me.

The return of popular mainstream rock bands and rock music.

Implementation of the fiduciary rule, and the demise of commission-based financial advice.

The resignation or impeachment of an unqualified president -- no names, any one will do.

The Bandwagon Is Full

As I write this, it’s presidential Election Day in America.  And to help me get celebrate the end of the seemingly never-ending campaigns, I’m going to write about how it’s like…..bandwagon fans.

Last week, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time since 1908.  I’m not a Cubs fan, and frankly baseball is at best my 4th favorite team sport behind football, basketball, and even hockey.  (I’ve made blog entries in the past about how the baseball establishment has ruined baseball.)  But the Cubs’ triple-A team, the Iowa Cubs, play in Des Moines, and I’ve seen many of the players in past trips to those games, so even I was sort of rooting for those lovable losers.  (Also, it makes me feel better because I’d like to think that once in my lifetime, another perennial losing team called the Minnesota Vikings will win the Super Bowl.)

During and after the Series, there were somewhere between thousands and millions of people claiming to be long-suffering Cubs fans.  And while many of them were, some of them were not.  A lot of those so-called long-time fans couldn’t name even a couple of the players, nor had any clue as to how well the Cubs did in the regular season.  They were bandwagon fans, trying to attach their sorry souls to a contender they really don’t care about, giving them an excuse act silly and feel good about themselves.

Those fans drive me nuts.  They act like they care, but they don’t actually know enough to care.

In a way, it’s a metaphor for this year’s presidential election.  Millions of people are going to vote today, and lots of them know virtually nothing about the candidates, nor the issues they’ve been campaigning about for the past year.  They just know that a big contest is afoot, and they’re going to attach their sorry souls to a contender they really don’t care about, giving them an excuse to act silly and feel good about themselves.

Those voters drive me nuts, too.

Baseball's All No-Star Game

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game is this week in Minneapolis.  It's a big event, in close proximity, and it would be cool to see in person.  So why am I not even fired up to watch it at all?

Because Major League Baseball continues to be a flawed sport.

The last time Minneapolis hosted the MLB All-Star Game it, I was there, in the old Metrodome.  It was wall-to-wall future Hall-of-Famers:  George Brett, Carlton Fisk, Cal Ripken, Wade Boggs, Don Mattingly (that's just the American League), Ozzie Smith, Dave Parker, Ryne Sandberg, Nolan Ryan, and Pete Rose.  (I know, Rose isn't in the HoF because of gambling, but we all know he should be.)  This is a short list -- there were others.

Nearly 30 years later, there aren't more than a couple of cinch HoFers in the game, maybe only one (Derek Jeter).  It's been diluted by too many teams with too many players making too much money on too few contending teams.

About five years ago, I wrote about reasons why Major League Baseball sucks.  A couple of these have been partially cleaned up (replay and PEDs), but in the end, nothing has changed enough for me to spend a lot of time watching it.

Not even the All-Star Game.

April Fools

In honor of April Fool's Day (or is it April Fools' Day?), I wanted to set out a list of a few facts that should be April Fool's/Fools' Day jokes, but aren't:

* There are now successful reality TV shows based on hoarding, pawn shops, doomsday prepping, housewives, duck whistles, alligator catching, arm wrestling, dance moms, teen moms, naked survivalists, and other narcissistic freaks.

* Climate change.

* Most Major League Baseball teams start the year with virtually no chance of making the playoffs, and this is supposed to keep sports fans occupied all summer.

* A full jumbo jet was lost in the south China Sea and no one has the faintest clue exactly how or where.

* Fox News.

* This winter wasn't the coldest and windiest on record.

* Steve King is a U.S. Congressman.

* [This one gets added effective on April 2, 2014:  The U.S. Supreme Court again rules that there is a First Amendment protection given to those who want to make unlimited financial donations to political campaigns, and that said protection won't corrupt politics.]

Performance Enhancing Post

A combination of illness and Christmastime business has conspired to keep me from blogging lately.  As an alternative, I'm going to post the text of a great recent column by sportswriter Rick Reilly on espn.com:

I'm so pumped up for next July in Cooperstown!

I can't wait to see who's going to be in the crowd at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony for new members Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre.

Maybe Mark McGwire will show up?  It might be as close as he'll ever get.  La Russa managed him for 15 seasons in both Oakland and St. Louis and says he never saw McGwire do a single steroid.  Imagine that.

Maybe Alex Rodriguez will attend?  He probably won't get in, either.  Former New York Yankees skipper Torre says he didn't even notice A-Roid's alleged PED use in the four years he managed him.  A-Roid's got plenty of time to go to Cooperstown.  He's appealing a 211-game suspension for PEDs.  Torre?  No ban for him.  In fact, he's an executive vice president of Major League Baseball now.

Maybe former Atlanta Braves manager Cox will look out in the crowd to see his old star Gary Sheffield. Probably not.  Cox says he never saw all the PEDs Sheffield was taking when he had him right under his nose in the Atlanta clubhouse.

In all, the three managers being inducted oversaw at least 34 players who've been implicated as PED users and never noticed a thing wrong.

You could build a wing with the admitted and suspected drug cheats they won with:  A-Rod, Roger Clemens (Torre), Jason Giambi (Torre and La Russa), McGwire, Jose Canseco (La Russa), Melky Cabrera (Torre and Cox), David Justice (Torre and Cox), Andy Pettite (Torre), Manny Ramirez (Torre with the Dodgers) and Sheffield (Torre and Cox.)

If we get really lucky, maybe disgraced HGH pitcher Darren Holmes will show up. He played under all three of them!

It's just another year in the Hall of Farce, where the codes of conduct shift like beach sand; where the rules for one set of men are ignored for another; where PED poppers can never enter, but the men who turned their backs to the cheating get gleaming, bronze plaques.

Hail The Great Enablers!

La Russa's slipping on the Hall of Fame jersey Monday is the sight that really tested my gag reflex.  He did more for juicers than Jack LaLanne.  He managed McGwire and Canseco -- the Wright Brothers of the Druggie Era -- for 21 combined seasons.  He made millions on their pimpled backs, won his first World Series title on their syringes and built his 33-year managing career on their artificially carved biceps.

Under La Russa, the Oakland clubhouse became a kind of leather-upholstered showroom for creams, rubs and injections that allowed players to work out harder, recover quicker and attack the game like a wolf in a hen house.  It didn't change much in St. Louis, either, where he says he didn't notice what McGwire, Troy Glaus, Fernando Vina and Ryan Franklin were doing.

He spent eight hours a day around these guys, eight months a year, and yet he never saw a thing.  Maybe he dressed in a different clubhouse?

But he goes into the HOF and those players never will.  Maybe he can send them some Instagrams.

Hey, you think any of the three skips will mention how PEDS helped them get to that sunny afternoon in Cooperstown?

Oh, and I can't forget to thank Katalina at Tijuana Pharmacy for all her help. Like my players always said, "We can't get cut without Kat!"

You won't even have to be in Cooperstown to smell the hypocrisy.  Even the faintest scent of a rumor of PED use is enough to sink a player now.

Managers?  Odorless.

Take Houston Astros great Craig Biggio. He had more than enough career to get in, and even though there isn't a stitch of evidence against him, the writers have kept him out because they have a niggling hunch he might've used.

Remember, kids:  If you play the game under even a single cloud of suspicion, you're out.  Manage it under one? Come on in and pull up a plaque!

Can you imagine this in any other sport?  Do you think for a second Johan Bruyneel, the manager of all of Lance Armstrong's cheating, champion Tour de France teams, didn't know what was going on?  You figure Bonnie and Clyde's driver just thought they were always running late?

Next month, the writers are expected to vote down McGwire for the eighth time and Clemens for the second time.  They're right to do it.  Those guys are tainted beyond any reasonable doubt, though Clemens still maintains innocence.  But for the expansion error committee to let these three managers in -- unanimously, no less -- after winning hundreds of games with better chemistry is the gold standard of double standards.

If you believe they didn't know, then you'll fit perfectly in Dupers Town.

More East Coast Media Bias

I've written before about how weather events affecting the major east coast cities get so much more media coverage than if they occur in other major cities.  Today I'm writing about a similar phenomenon that impacts sports.

Why does it seem that whenever a pro sports team from New York or Boston wins a title, it's treated by the media as bigger than when it happens anywhere else?  It's happening again now, after Boston won the World Series yesterday.

That's fine, congrats to them, but just like the two other times they won in the last decade, it's getting so much more media coverage than it deserves.  Let's just admit, it's a lot less than when San Francisco or St. Louis each won it twice recently.

Today, national sportswriters and broadcasters are saying Boston's win 'transcended' sports and "defined' the city, while also fawning over the fact that while they've won it before, it had been almost 90 years since they won it at home.  The thing is, no one outside the northeastern seaboard thinks nor cares about those things, especially for a baseball team that finished last in their division last year.

This media self-infatuation carries over to football, too.  In the past decade or so, when Boston (New England) or New York (Giants) won a combined 5 Super Bowls, the media coverage is both breathless and endless.  But when a place like Indianapolis or New Orleans or Green Bay wins it, the coverage is much more muted.

We can only hope no Boston or New York teams win any pro sports titles again in our lifetime.  Meanwhile, this once again proves my theory that for all of the so-called toughness of the major east coast cities, they really are drama queens when it comes to wanting more national attention for events that happen everywhere.

R.I.P. MLB

The Major League Baseball season ended this week, with the crowning of the World Series champion.  Oh, you didn't know?  That's because only a few people in America care about baseball after late August, and most of the rest of them stop caring after September, much less late October.

How is this possible?  Because as I've previously written, baseball sucks, and it has been sucking for a while.  The games are too long, the season is too long, the players are too forgettable, the teams have too much disparity between them.  What other reasons do we need to not be interested?

This is all exacerbated by America's love affair with college and pro football.  When Labor Day rolls around, we care about football a lot more than we do baseball.

You'd think baseball would figure all of this out someday.  Maybe invoke some type of salary cap like the other pro sports, so every franchise feels like it could be a contender.  And/or maybe end the season earlier rather than later.  Instead, they watch as the ratings for the World Series go down the tubes.

Nice job, baseball.  You suck.

Major League Baseball Still Sucks

In case you hadn't noticed, the MLB playoffs have started. The World Series starts in two weeks - it's the November Classic now, you know.

If you didn't know any of this, it's understandable, considering this is still true.

http://streffblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/reasons-why-major-league-baseball-sucks.html

Dumb Rules

It might take a bit to get to my point, but follow along here.....

The other day I played golf at a local course that, like many courses in my area, had some flooding damage. In this case, large portions of several fairways were comprised of compacted dirt that remained after the floodwaters receded. In the end, this meant that hitting from some fairway lies was like hitting from a mixture of dirt/sand.

This made me think of this year's PGA Championship at Whisting Straits in Wisconsin, where one of the leaders was assessed a two-stroke penalty on the final hole for grounding his club in a sand trap, which neither looked like nor was maintained as a bunker.

This made me think of a fantastic column by ESPN.com writer Rick Reilly, on what a dumb rule that was, along with many other dumb rules of golf. (Read it at this link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5470940)

This made me think - now to the point - of a few other dumb rules (laws?) in life. To wit:

*Motorcycle helmet laws. If someone wants to crack their skull open and die - the primary outcome of a helmet-less motorcycle accident - and no one else is hurt, why should we care? It isn't like a seat belt law, because people in cars who don't wear those restraits will often still survive accidents, but then are permanently disabled, which puts on cost on society. Speaking of death and dying.....

*Bans on 'assisted' suicide. Again, if someone wants to end their own life, in this case with dignity, who else is harmed by that?

*No instant replay in baseball or soccer. We have the power of technology, but not the will to apply it. (Kind of like 'assisted' suicide.) If you have to defend something using the old 'integrity of the game' argument, consider yourself on the losing side of the argument.

*Criminalizing the possession of marijuana. Just go to the keyword 'marijuana' for this blog to find out all you'll ever need to know about why this is in the dumb rules Hall-of-Fame.

*Continued extension of unfunded unemployment benefits. Paying people to not work is not a viable or sustainable national economic policy.

*24/7 'citizenship' policies in schools. Schools have a hard enough time policing kids at school / school activities, why do they think they should also police the kids' behavior outside of school? Regardless, they don't have my permission to do it, so they need not bother.

Reasons Why Major League Baseball Sucks Right Now

Don't get me wrong, there are some nice things about baseball, especially Little League and Minor League Baseball. But here's a list - by no means an all-inclusive list - of why Major League Baseball sucks:

It's slow, the games are way too long.

There is no salary cap or effective revenue sharing, so 1) the teams in the biggest cities and media markets make the highest revenue, which they 2) use to get the best players, which means that 3) the same teams are good/bad every year.

No instant replay. And as verified by this year's playoffs, the umpiring is not that great.

It's boring. Incredibly, the post-season is actually more boring than the regular season, because people care more about football in the Fall, and again, it's always the same teams in the post-season.

Three words: Performance enhancing drugs.