Shoplifting in China

I read in this morning's sports page that the three UCLA basketball players arrested for shoplifting will remain behind in Hangzhou while the rest of the team returns to America to start their season.
"That serves them right, the idiots," my wife says. I say, "Isn't shoplifting some kind of rite of passage for boys?" "Yeah, but most do it when they're twelve, not eighteen and in college," my wife says, adding, "they stole Louis Vuitton sunglasses, not Playboy Magazines."

One of the young men is DiAngelo Ball, the brother of Lonzo Ball, the NBA Lakers' first round draft choice heralded to be the next Magic Johnson (never happen) and son of the kookiest sports dad since the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. What motivates fathers (and mothers) to  insert themselves so strongly and negatively into the lives of their children? The easy answer is ego and a desire for fame that they, otherwise, believed they deserved in their own lives. The hard answer runs something like this: mental illness.

In the summer before my son Matthew, who was on his eighth grade basketball team, entered high school, he came to me and said,"Dad, in high school, the band and the basketball team practises at the same time, would you be terribly disappointed?" Matt went on to play music and for a while after college had a Hip Hop band named OPM that toured Europe and for six weeks was Top of the Pops in England. Although he no longer has the band, Matt still writes and publishes songs. I wonder if the Ball kids ever had a chance to make their own choices. And what does that do to their personalities, that their lives were determined for them?

Meschery's Trump Watch: Since Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017 at 9 AM, it is 295 days, 23 hrs, 49 min,and 33 sec and counting. On today's Internet, there was a quote by the North Korean dictator calling Trump an old man. Trump replied by Twitter (of course)."I wouldn't call him short and fat." For 25 years I was a high school teacher, and I recognize two adolescents bad mouthing each other in the hall as their classmates egg them on. Aren't we lucky to have a president who at 71 acts like a sixteen year old?

As our adolescent president threatens nuclear war, here is one of the greatest anti-war poems I've ever read.

Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio    by James Wright

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like stared pullets,
Dying for love.

Therefore,
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October,
And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.

Jimmy

With the acquisition of Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo from the New England Patriots, the 49ers are clearly the winner of the Melanie Meschery Handsome Quarterback Award. The 49ers want him to be a star, Melanie wants him to pose for a portrait. I suggested Patris' morning life drawing sessions. That would work too, she replied. Melanie wanted Harrison Barnes of earlier Warrior success to pose as well. Let's hope Garoppolo is at least as good a quarterback as Harrison was a Warrior.

I need to draw attention to one of the better lines of sports writing. Here's a a paragraph from an article written by Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post about the Houston Astros, winners of this year's World Series: "Now, we have the "Houston Strongest" Series featuring two games that stand among the 10 best World Series games ever played, plus a jubilant, exuberant young champion that will bring power, energy, advanced critical thinking and athleticism to the sport for years."

ADVANCED CRITICAL THINKING? Was there any doubt this retired English teacher didn't raise his arms above his head  and whoop for joy? Now, if only the President and his clique would subscribe to the same kind of thinking.

My Warriors are off to an uneven start. Last night, at first it looked to be one of  those games that was going to fall diplomatically into the "uneven" category. Uneven, as more reasonably defined as total crap. But after the first dismal quarter, the Dubs rallied and defeated the Spurs soundly. How did they do it? The Warriors are deep off the bench. They are stronger at every position then they were last year when they won the championship, thus they can substitute with greater effectiveness than other teams. Eventually a team with seven strong players will succumb to a team with 12 strong players. It's a law of physics. Or Meschery's law, whichever you prefer.

Speaking of law. I wonder how long it will be before the law catches up to our lawless president. His collaboration with Vladimir Putin, an ex KGB hit-man is by any other name against the law. On the front page of our morning Sacramento Bee, there's a photograph of the Rump kissing the proposed new tax plan that will make wealthy people in our country more wealthy and the middle class poorer.
It is the same kissing pose were the tax plan Putin's buttocks.

Here's a baseball poem in honor of the the great World Series we witnessed.

To Satch   by Sam Allen

Sometimes I feel like I will never stop
Just go on forever
Till one fine monrnin
I'm gonna reach up and grab me a handfulla stars
Swing out my long lean leg
And zip three hot stikes bunrin down the heavens
And look over at God and say
How about that!

Al Attles Fashion Statement

Huge applause for Golden State Warriors' Coach Steve Kerr's imitation of Coach Al Attles Championship garb pm the night the team was honoring him A floral shirt collar over the top of the jacket collar was all the rage in the Seventies. Thank God, he didn't wear bells.

As well as the Wizards were playing in the first half of last night's game, shooting at over 50%, I never felt the Warriors were going to lose. If you've been in the game as long as I have, you can tell if a team is rattled, and the Warriors always seemed to me reasonably composed, albeit sometimes frustrated with their own performance.

Talking about composure, Bradly Beale lost his. Then Draymond Green lost his and his jersey, which Beale had ripped in half. Not sure what that was all about? Uniform envy? Given the league's stand against violence on the court, I suppose Draymond had to be ejected, but surely the NBA's eagle-eyed observers in New Jersey had to have seen that Beale started the ruckus with a hammerlock on Draymond's head, not to mention defiling Dray's uniform. My fine suggestion: Beale=$25,000; Green $999,00, Referees: $5,000 each for not seeing where the D & B trash-talk was leading.

Jim Barnett, the Warriors color commentator, quipped that if Al Attles, the great Warrior guard and HOF coach had been attacked by Beale, the Wizard guard would have been SWIFTLY dispatched by a few of Al's well known and lightening quick punches. Let it be known, Al Attles was pound for pound the second toughest player in the league back in the day. The first was Wilt Chamberlain, both terammates of mine. I never had to worry if I got in a fight, which I often did, that my back was not covered. Truth be told, their presence probably provided me with fool's courage.

In today's Life portion of my blog, how about this to ponder: Why is it that all these vile predators of females are creepy dudes? Like Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly, our creepy looking president, and this California Assembly creature, Bocanegra accused of groping in this morning's newspaper? I use the word creepy rather than ugly, which they are, but there have been saints who were ugly, and I don't want to give ugly a bad name. Back to the creepy dudes. Without their power or money, they couldn't find a date in a Sultan's harem.

With my upcoming birthday, I've been perusing old jock poems and found this. I may have posted this one on a previous birthday blog, but most poetry is better re-and-reread.

Ulysses    by Claude Clayton Smith

There is yet some elastic
in this tired old jock,
enough to toss the ball
around and teach my son
Telemachus the subtle art
of looking left - while
thinking right. To catch
the opposition napping,
to cross them up and leave
them guessing. Elastic
yet to flip the pages of 
faded clippings and narrate
tales than live as legends:
the hours of practice,
the hard-fought game,
the occasional moments
of glory.

Warriors' Third Championship and etc

That Steve Kerr continues to emphasize JOY proves to me once again how completely he understands the condition of today's NBA. The 84 game season is too long and too grueling to be won simply by loading up great players. Or by having a stalwart defense; or by possessing a fearsome offense; or by X's and O's, or creative match-ups, or game day strategies, or successful practices, or luck, although all these obviously figure into a winning equation. But to win it all, the ring and the glory, in today's game, a team must possess an intangible. For Coach Kerr, this is JOY. What other coaches decide is the intangible that best fits their team, they must make that determination for themselves. But there can not fail to be one. Because, finally, basketball is the quintessential "touchy, feely" team sport. It's a form of modern dance; it's Isadora Duncan at her instinctive best. So, JOY make so much sense to me. It's what ever kid who loves basketball takes with him to the playground and returns home with him from the playground, the ball tucked under his arm, joy in his heart.

As the first game of the 2017/18 NBA season approaches, I'm with Coach Kerr all the way with his JOY for the game, for his players, and the JOY his players will give back to him with another RING.

At the top of page 7 of the Sacramento Bee sports section: a color photograph of Hertha Berlin soccer players taking a knee before their German Bundesliga (that's the top pro league in Germany) match in solidarity with their NFL brothers in sports. "We're no longer living in the 18th century but in the 21st century," Herta defender Sebastian Langkamp told Sky TV at half-time. "There are some people, (think Trump and Pence) however, who are not that far ideologically yet. if we [his team] can give some lessons there with that then that's good."

In the photograph there are seven players kneeling. Except for one black player, the rest are white. Are you paying attention WHITE NFL players? Are you at all embarrassed to be schooled by German soccer players?

In honor of baseball playoffs, though I rarely watch.

Pastime   by Emilio De Grazia

A girl nine years of wonder
Still on her face,
Stands directly on the bag at third
Running amazed fingers along the wrinkles
Of my old leather mitt.
It is the bottom of the ninth,
And everywhere in the world
The bases are loaded.

Enough Already with the ScruffyAss Beards.

I've nothing against a nicely trimmed beard, but what's with the bug filled nests some professional athletes are allowing to envelop their jaws. Will their wives even kiss them? Would any sane person let those beards near their faces? Yuk! Double Yuk! my wife, Melanie, adds.

That said, I'm proposing a contest for the ugliest, most scruffy, beard in pro sports. The winner will receive the President Rutherford B Hayes Award. I would have picked James Garfield whose beard was longer, but he got assassinated, and I don't want to imply any desire on my part for the futured departure of the candidates. My picks for the RBH Award are the following:

NBA James Harden - Houston Rockets

MBL Dalles Keachel - Houston Astros

NFL Eric Weddle - LA (really, another LA team) Chargers

NHL Joe Thorton - San Jose Sharks

STARTERS (nba talk show commentator) Trey Kerby.

Comment on your choice or add your picks. 

On another subject. Our so called president (he doesn't deserve a capital p) is trying to force NFL owners into firing players who kneel during the playing of the National Anthem as a way of protesting their belief that police forces discriminate against African American males. The protest is not about dishonoring the flag, donald, can't you get that through your weeny brain.. Americans have been protesting successfully since we protested mightily against the King of England and won our Independence. I'm reasonably certain King George thought we were dishonoring the British Flag. Hell, we didn't just kneel, we burned that flag and threw their damn tea into the drink. And, finally, we shot their soldiers and wrote our Constitution that allows for peaceful protest.

Anyway, I've long given up on the idea the Trump has ever read our Constitution, let alone a synopsis of it, to worry about such stupidity. Didn't his own Secretary of State call him a moron?

Anyway, twice said, it seems clear that in the future there will be a great deal of pressure applied to the black members of the NFL teams by owners and NFL officials. It is time, high time, more  than high time, for the white players on each of the NFL teams, no matter what their stance is toward the flag, to support their black brothers and take a knee. They don't have to kneel for the entire time of the playing, a half would be symbolic enough to tell Donald Trump to stuff his intimidation where the sun doesn't shine. And they don't have to do it for all the games. But they must do it once, all at once, as a show of solidarity, for team unity, for team friendship, for team loyalty, for team humanity.

I commented recently that Melania Trump rarely smiles and never looks happy. My wife's response was something she heard from an aunt long ago, "No women works harder for a living than one who marries for money." I get it.

Beard Poem  by Tom Meschery

What are you hiding
in that mess? A kernel
of something in the future
you can eat, like squirrels
or rodents that escape
the nightly owls's winged 
prowl do for when winter
comes, kept cozy
in your furry jaw-line purse
for after those bountiful
seasons end, and you
in all your glory, will join
your bearded brothers 
signing on street corners.