Beware NBA & etc

This morning I read an Athletic article about options for the Knicks looking to fill out their rosters. The title started out:  "Cheap options for the Knicks." I didn't need to read further. I've been thinking about this since reading how writers were congratulating Sun's GM, Jone for his acumen finding chepa players to surround his Big Three, assuming he doesn't consider Ayton, which would make it the Big Four. In the recent past, Teams over the cap apron(s) have been faced with the same problems as the Suns. Take the Golden State Warriors, for example, finding vets they can sing for vet minimums. In 2022 in worked out beautifully; in 2023, the Dubs were not so lucky. Just not the same caliber vets, excpet for Donte DiVincenzo. Here's my worry. As the money rises teams can offer, I can foresee the bulk of it going to the super stars and a great deal less of it distributed among the solid rotation players. I don't believe vet rotation players and their agents would deny that NBA championship teams are built around their Super Stars and those stars, like great film stars, deserve top salaries, However, if the difference between Star contracts begin to infringe upon the contracts of the rest of the team, thing couls get a bit dicey around the league. Without getting into politics, this possibility in the NBA could at some point in the future begin to look like the disaprity betwee wealth in this country where most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the upper 2% of the population. 

ETC

After Basketball season ends, I blog less. I watch baseball, but baseball on television is a game for people who love statistics. Not that there isn't action. Watching pitchers is very satisfying, but I can only do it for so long. as pitching takes up over half of he time of the game. Whenever there's a homerun, I hear the voice of my dearly departed friend, Bill King, one time Voice of the Athletics: "It's going, it's gone, Holy Toledo! I've had the game explained to me by Larry Colton, one time Philly pitcher and now writer of great books. Read Counting Coups, you'll love the story of a Native American girls basketball team on it's way to a state championship. Even with Larry's tutelage, I know I'm not getting half the nuance of baseball. So I don't blog about it much.  

Of course there are so many sports I can write about. Presently, we have America's women competing for the FIFA World Championships. And I'll always have my eye out for tennis.  And I try not to miss major track and field events.  I know too little about winter sports such as skiing and iceskating that there's not interesting I could say about it, unless there is a rekated human interest narrative  involved.

 This all leads upt to the following:

Why not blog about the NFL and college football? Even though i recognize the sports' violence, I still enjoy watching football, especially the NFL, I guess because I prefer seeing sports played on the highest level. The only reason I can think of why I don't blog about football is simply that there are too many players to be taken into consideration to do a credible job. Twenty-two in all and most in positions I know little about except when pointed out to me by a color-commentator. Did you see what the left guard did to open up the hole for the running back? I did not, sorry Troy.  

But I have decided this season to go against my better judgement and write more about the NFL 

Allow me to begin: Hurrah, foe Justin Herbert for earning a five year contract worth $265.2 million. Note please that I didn't round up and kept the.2, which is about the total amount a teacher earns in ten years and probably less in a state like Mississippi. Ah, well. My wife is on board with this contract as she is an Oregon Duck and so is Justin. And she points out he went the full four years and graduated with a 4 GPA degree in science with an emphais in biology. Now we're talking roll model. 

Not to be upstaged by Herbert, Andrew Thomas, offensive tackle for the New York Giants has signed a contract worth $217.5 million. We're talking lineman here, I know zero about offensive tackles so i felt it would be a good start mentioning him. Well, I do know the job of offensive tackles is to clear a path for rurnning backs and to protect quaterbacks from getting crushed by defensive tackles. 

I'm a 49er fan. I go back as far a YA Tittle. I used to also be a fan of the Raiders, but when the team domped Oakland, I stopped. Vegas can have them. Although, I must say, if any city might carry on the raucous tradition of the Oakland fans it's Glitter City. Back to the 49ers: Nick Bosa has not showed up for training camp as his agent is working on the details of a new extended contract. I can't wait to see the numbers. I am a fan of Bosa, not only because he is a fabulous end rusher but because my wife's grandson,Jaxon, has named his cat Bosa.  

I don't think I'll push the envelope mush frurther for my first foray into football blogging, excpet for one last shot: The Winner of the All Time Name for an Athlete in any sport - Drum foll, please - is Amon-Ra-St. Brown. Like Wilt Champerlain's 100 point game, I doubt this will ever be surpassed.

 I leave you with this interesting factoid about football: In England in the 18th century, Rugby, the grandpa of American Football, along with Cricket, was the sport of the upper classes, while Football, which in America we call soccer, was thought of as the sport for the lower classes?  

HEAPS ON HEAPS

And now both bands in close embraces met,
Now foot to foot, and breast to breast was set.
Now all impatient grapple round the ball,
And heaps on heaps in wild disorder fall.
                 Matthew Concanen

               from A Match at Football
                     (1721)

The Temp is Rising

I read this morning in The Athletic about the Sun working to establish a G League team for next season. Good for them.  Sometimes I make comments at the end of articles. I wasn't going to, until a I read a comment about this article posted by a reader. It was not about basketball, but climate change. He questioned if in the future there would be a Suns team to write about, given that with climate change, the heat in AZ would be intolerable. That made me think of all the other cities in the NBA that are going to be massively affected by climate change: San Antonio, Houston, Orlando, etc. The City of Miami is going to be flooded. The Sun's new owner Matt Ishbia might want to consider moving his team to the Northwest  and let KD finish his career where he started in cool and beautiful Seattle. 

Today's 7.25.;23 Athletic had a marvelous, touching story about how Charlie Villanueva has helped rookie Celtic draft choice Jordan Walsh deal with their mutual condition, Alopecia, a disease that keeps hair from growing and lightens ones skin. According to one of the comments following the article,  when Villanueva was playing, Kevin Garnett said to him that he looked like he had cancer, a mean and childish thing to say. I had never thought of KG as a knucklehead. To bad, he was one heck of a player. If he hasn't done it already, let me suggest that he apologize publicly to Charlie and meet Jordan Walsh who is  a Celtic draft choice and embrace Walsh, also publicly. Of course, he doesn't have to. He can continue being a childish knucklehead. But one day, God forbid, KG might get cancer and then he'll have to look in the mirror. 

Just thinking: Anybody out there just a wee bit tired of hearing: Ya Know, bottom line, at the end of the day? And as much as I admire Leborn James, I could stand to open a sport page and not see his name for a few days. 

Women's soccer players are finally going to be paid the dame as the men's team. About frigging time. 

I just watched SLAM BALL. Holy Hops! They have finaly come up with the perfect sport for people suffering from hyper active disorder. Major sponsor Red Bull? 

While the super sports are going on, the fishermen are out abong the streasm and lakes, among them, my two son-in-laws. Here's a fishing poem for all the fishermen.

CATCH   

I imagine us dancing, a Mexican ballroom somewhere
(anything instead of fishing)
In faded, pre-war elegance, tropically flowered wallpaper
(jigs, flies, speckled lures and mr. twisters)
Drooping lushly like the evening sea-breeze
(damn the wind, they won’t bite now)
And you in sailor whites – tuxedo, if I blur my eyes
(black, shiny, slimy leeches, grubs, chubs, fathead. . . )
The band plays 40’s swing, a dark man croons “Darling”
(I’m a rapid oxidizer,” you announce, sweat streaming down your nose)
“Darling, Take My Heart. . . “
(walleye, pike, sunstroke, crappies)
And my red dress spins faster as you lift me off he floor
9jesus Christ, a four pounder!)
Its ruffled hem streaming round my knees
(landed)
Like a school of tiny iridescent fish
(darling, take my heart)
You sing at last.
 
             Ethna McKiernan