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What my musings are all about...

Blogging might well be the 21st century's form of journaling. As a writing teacher, I have always advised my students to keep a daily journal as a way of organizing their thoughts for future writing projects, a discipline I have unfortunately never consistently practiced myself. By blogging, I might finally be able to follow my own good advice.

The difference between journaling and blogging is that the blogger opens his or her writing to the public, something journal- writers are usually reluctant to do. I am not so reticent.

The trick for me will be to avoid cluttering the internet with more blather, something none of us need more of. If I stick to subjects I know: sports and literature, I believe I can avoid that pitfall. I can't promise that I'll not stray from time to time to comment on ancillary subjects, but I will make every attempt to be interesting and perhaps even insightful.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

The Key is and always has been, DEFENSE

Every player and every coach know what KISS means: Keep It Simple Stupid. The Dubs need to follow this simple advice and focus on their defense. From the beginning of competitive sports, defense, not offense, wins games. It is the spine of the team. I have watched every Warriors game from the start of the season, and even though I've consistently been proud of my old team, these young Warriors, I'm more proud and impressed by them when they play smothering D, which leads to Turnovers, which leads to easy fast break points, which rattles the opposition, which ensures victories.

As an ex player, I know how hard it is at the end of a season, with the standings in place, to get down and dirty on D. It takes lots of will power.

I am confident that the Warriors will muster the will power needed to see them through the last four games and into the playoff to a second NBA title.

Win or Loose: IT WILL BE ALL ABOUT DEFENSE.

My Blog title reads Sports, Literature, and Life. Here's something about American Life: Let's hear it for the Treasury Department for enforcing a law put in place by President Obama and the Democratic Party that blocks American companies from going overseas to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Removing the incentives, the U.S. drug maker Pfizer and its Irish rival Allergan decided to drop their plans to merge. It is my opinion that companies and their corporate boards should be tried for treason if it is proved they moved their companies overseas to avoid paying their fair share of taxes like every American citizen is required to do. There is no wiggle room here. No rationale. No excuses. IT'S TREASON.

I was looking through a book of sports poem for a baseball or basketball poem and ran across this lovely little quatrain about tennis.

From Adulescentia   by Robert Fitzgerald

Miraculously, through prayer to Saint Anthony,
The lost tennis ball was found in the alders:
That dun, worn, airy to-be-bounced
Treasurable and humble sweller in closets.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

Glad you're blogging again, Tom. Two comments. Comparing athletes and teams from one era to another is a time-honored recreation by sports fans, and a great way for fans of different generations to bond. And while there there are players from every era that I've witnessed who could play the game today, the reality is that today's athletes are, well, more athletic: bigger, stronger faster, better jumpers, and they benefit from advanced training and dietary techniques. The tree great Hawks from the early sixties were Bob Pettit, Cliff Hagan and Lenny Wilkins. Both Pettit and Wilkins could play today and be solid players, but I'm not sure they could be as good as they were back then given that the competition was much weaker. Most of the other guys on the roster wouldn't even be low round draft choices today.

What's so strange about the absurd comment about Steph Curry is that it came from a very smart and classy guy who would have been a Hall of Famer in any era, Oscar. But you're right: he couldn't have guarded Curry or Thompson.

mskeels64 said...

I still say that your postings are not posting...having said that, I wonder why Luke would want to leave the W's...in GS he has the talented players to win it all again and again (with the Mavs always in the way)...how long would it take him to build a situation like this at another franchise?