Fistball

I used to play on a fistball team at a German club we used to belong growing up. From time to time this comes up over the course of conversation and, consistently, no one has any idea what I'm talking about. If you click on the title of this blog you can check out a fistball YouTube clip. Worth seeing. It's a good game.

Tight Spandex

Last night, as I got out of work early, I had my head set on going for as long of a bike ride as possible. I was rushing around cause it gets dark pretty early this time of year and riding around Boston at dusk has brought granted me a couple near death experiences. As such, this is now avoided as much as possible. In my haste, I went through my pre-ride routine (filling water bottle, bring bike downstairs, bring shoes downstairs, check tire pressure, etc.) a little out of order. This apparently threw me off completely because I ended up forgetting I hadn't brought the bike downstairs.

Having come to this realization as I looked down at my cycling shoes, I shuddered to the sound of the door slamming shut behind me. My cell phone and apartment keys were in a pouch on the bike on the other side of the door.

Immediately I started freaking out. In one fell swoop the bike ride was no longer on my mind. With no phone I couldn't call Mussolini, or anyone else for that matter. So, in my cycling spandex, I put on my Timberland work boots, the only shoes in the hallway without carbon soles, and walked down to a friend's apartment to see if anyone was available to let me use their phone or just for a little QT. No dice. I'm sure I was a spectacle for all passersby. I looked like a huge asshole.

Furious, I walked back to my apartment and sat on the stairs for approximately 45 minutes, twiddling thumbs and brainstorming for ways to break into a second floor apartment. I noticed a ladder at a neighbors place but thought better of it. If a neighbor called the police, thinking I was a burglar, and the police actually came, I may have created bigger problems for myself, given the fish whistle left out on the table in the living room.

After trying to pick the lock with a clothes hanger, I gave up. I'd also taken note of the paradoxical panic and resignation reigning over me. Completely pissed off and frustrated beyond belief, I moved not an inch. I just sat there. Approximately 45 minutes after that, I noticed a black Ford Explorer parallel parking behind me. Recognizing the car for the same make as my landlord's I remember thinking how I never catch breaks. Only this time I actually did. She was in the neighborhood to sign a lease.

"Kerri!" I called out as I walked toward her.

"Seamus!?"

"How are yah?" I asked with a forced smile.

"I'm good, you?"

"I've been better," I said while motioning toward the sartorial curiosity that was me. "I locked myself out. I was about to go for a bike ride...."

Her uncontrollable laughter cut me off. As I don't know her very well, her reaction made me uncomfortable. Instinctively, I covered my groin with my hands while awkwardly shifting my weight from side to side, scrambling to come up with something clever to say. Eventually, as I crept ever so close to a nervous breakdown, she agreed to let me in.

Fantasy

Leading up to each and every fantasy season I struggle to decide whether or not to participate. Fantasy sports are becoming, if they have not already, an institution for American twenty-somethings. As they revolve around my two favorite sports, baseball and football, I pretty much need a reason not to participate rather than the other way around. However, there are causes for trepidation on my part. Ultimately, I guess it's a bit of a paradox.

As an adult, I most often deal in absolutes, albeit reluctantly. It's not so much the opinion that matters, it's how closely it conforms to the truth. If it's not well-informed then, quite frankly, it's stupid. Sports, to a degree, aren't like that. Being a fan provides a realm where we allow simple, somewhat arbitrary allegiances to color our interpretations of the truth. This is not only OK, it's part of the point. (One's taste for art is similarly objective but not remotely as arbitrary...perhaps a subject for another time). To fully embrace fantasy sports is to lose, or at least compromise, a big peice of that makes being a fan so great. No longer are we simply fans of teams because our fathers were or because we grew up in a certain suburb of a certain city. And no longer will this color the vast majority of the conversations/arguments we have about baseball and football. Now burdened, as a fantasy team owner, with the task of quantifying and predicting individual athletes in terms of prowess and performance in pursuit of putting together the most competitive team possible, we subsequently root for athletes as commodities. Fantasy encourages an objectivity we didn't know as kids. And this objectivity isn't what drew us to sports.

Conversely, I'm a pretty die hard fan. I take a certain level of pride in knowing what I'm talking about, and I get frustrated when people who don't know what they're talking about pretend to. Not that everyone has to follow sports at the same distance I do. I like talking shop with my delusional friends from Philly who think the Phillies and the Birds are going to reach the apex of their respective sports each and every year. I also like talking to the walking encyclopedia types that make me feel like a pussy. For me, however, before I'm a Giants and Yankees fan, I'm a fan of two games. And as someone who was never particularly good at either one, I genuinely enjoy watching and talking about athletes capable of playing them at their highest levels. Fantasy is a convenient tool for this.

.....So I took Shaun Alexander with my first pick. But when Seattle plays New York, if they do, I hope he gets the shit kicked out of him.

The Fighting Irish

People get ridiculous about Notre Dame Football. Casual fans, pundits and myself included. Either you love 'em or you hate 'em. Prior to Saturday's schilacking at the hands of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, you had Lou Holtz, who has not always been blindly pro-Notre dame since he gave up coaching for pricy speaking engagements and ESPN, boldly claiming the Irish would win 10 games, while conversely, as part of the very same broadcast, Mark May, who's always been anti-Notre Dame to the point of delusion, claiming they'd escape no more than 3 games this year with a win.

With the benefit of the clarity that has come with this adjacent work week, it appears the ladder will be at least more correct than the former. Be that as it may, proclaimations of permanent doom under the golden Dome or for Charlie Weis' tenure there, are not only unwarranted but they're downright blasphemous. Who do you think is God's favorite college football team is?

Don't get me wrong. Saturday's debacle turned my stomache, but a string of 4 blowouts at the hands of superior tallent, and most recently, at the hands of superior experience, is hardly indicative of major problems in South Bend.

To the contrary, the Irish enter this season a blank slate in some very major ways. A new defensive co-ordinator has brought with him a new scheme, the 3-4. An experienced offensive line, an all-world quarterback and two all-world wide receivers have to be replaced by inexperience. In fact, of the four return starters that immediately come to mind, two are skill position players, and one of them spent the entirety of last season on the other side of the ball.

Defensively, they weren't as bad as the score and the stat lines would have you believe. Handicapped by horrible field position the entire first half, courtesy of an atrocious offensive performance, initially the unite didn't break, holding Tech to three field goals. By the second half, however, disproportionate time spent on the field began to take its toll. In a major way. Take a look at the final score.... And the statistics.

The only way, unfortunately, to address the inexperience that permeates the offensive side of the ball at the present moment.....is experience. The offensive line has to learn how to play together and the skill position players have to develop a repoire with their starting quarterback, Jimmy Claussen (true freshman). These are all surmountable obstacles if you put stock in a coaching pedigree that includes 4 Superbowl rings and a tallent pool that's consistently ranked in the top 5 since Weis' arrival.

If Notre Dame is to return to prominence, as judged by national championships, this is the coach and these are the quality of players that can get them there.

And We're Back

What a difference a sweep of the Boston Red Sox makes. Whole new perspective. The big problem coming out of the series with Detroit seemed to be starting pitching; Mussina's ongoing futility in particular. Joba Chamberlain being inserted into the rotation amongst the potential remedies? Probably not. They won't use him on back to back nights, let alone throw him into the starting rotation during a playoff run.

A few days ago I actually wrote the following email:

"While their pitching looks like it will be great in the future, it's the same old story (since their last trip to the World Series) for the Yanks here in late August heading into the home stretch. Even if they make the postseason, do they have enough starting pitching to be competitive once there? I don't know. After a night like last night," Mussina's last start, "I'm inclined to say 'probably not'.

It's going to come down to Clemens' and Hughes' performances here down the stretch. Makes for an interesting dichotomy actually. On one hand we have a star in the twilight of his career trying to make one last run while raking in an obscene amount of cash. On the other hand we have a 21 year old phenom. Pettite and Wang have been dependable but we all know what's what with Mussina. There's no hiding it. You can pencil him in for a loss every time he starts from here on out. As such, margin of error for the rest of the staff: nil. Kind of like his margin of error when he steps to the rubber with an 88 mph fastball (92 mph if he's overthrowing). They got themselves into this mess, it'll be interesting to see if Torre can rally the troops enough to get them out of it and into the postseason. And what better test than the Red Sox?"

Well well well. Here we are. Three days later and I'm holding a broom. No, seriously.

We had a company wide meeting today. Everyone meets in this big room, sits around in a circle and someone from each department fills everyone else in on recent market developments and some procedural stuff. Blah blah blah. We eat donuts and bagels and then go about our slightly abbreviated days.

So I came in this morning and went to the meeting room to prop up a broom against a chair right in the middle of everything. Yeah, I know. This was premature but it was just a fucking joke. I figured people would come in and sit down one by one and have a little chuckle. The people who actually saw this did think it was funny. Everyone's always giving me a hard time so I figured it was only fair that I reciprocate. This was really my first opportunity to do so this season.

So this sales guy comes into the room, en route to the kitchen to get some coffee, and completely flips his lid when he sees the broom. Immediately, he takes the broom and puts it back in the closet and moves the chair back to the circle. Naturally, when he leaves the room moments later, I put the broom back on display. Then I leave the room once more to use the little boys room. When I come back, the broom's gone again. Co-workers who had already arrived for the meeting eagerly tell me how pissed this guy was to have to remove the broom for a second time.

Well, it's after-hours now. I'm sitting here in my cube writing this alongside the broom and a ratty old Yankee hat I coincidentally had in my desk drawer. They're going to be propped up against the Sox' biggest fan's chair, right in front of his computer when he arrives tomorrow morning.