A Slice of Bacon

On Sunday night, Bob Costas opened the second half of NBC’s Sunday night snoozer between the Steelers and the Chiefs with a rant about touchdown celebrations. He ranted, and raved, and screamed and sounded, frankly, old and dated, which is interesting because it seems he’s spent plenty of money to make himself look otherwise.

And all of it was just … ridiculous. Like keeping Jay Leno or canceling “Community,” NBC seems to do anything to keep the youth at bay, and the rant on celebrations by Costas was just another example of their decrepit outlook. 

I’ll make this simple, because it should be simple; the National Football League is a sport … a game … and it is out there because it entertains us. It’s a movie in real time, fit with fake-looking men with fake-looking muscles running at speeds none of us can comprehend and hitting with power we only see in vehicles fit for a ranch. We are passionate about sports, we care about them, and they make or break our year, but at the end of the day, it’s entertaining. 

Did people really hate when Joe Horn pulled that cell phone out of the upright? And Terrell Owens with the popcorn? Or even when Stevie Johnson took it a step further and mocked a player that had idiotically shot himself in his own leg with a gun at a nightclub? Did that really take away from the game we were watching? No. It can’t. It’s part of the entertainment. 

Deion Sanders was famous because he was really fast and incredible at his position, but he was a superstar because he was outgoing and entertaining, and, to other fans, annoying. That’s part of the sport. Flagging players for excessive celebration is pointless. Spending two minutes ranting about it is a waste of my time, and frankly, Bob, yours. 

A sports friend of mine was in a rage last night. Rage. Sitting at a poker table in Las Vegas, his weekly post for work and hair-loss, my buddy simply wanted some sports on the ill-placed televisions around the casino to keep his attention when the cards didn’t quite find his seat. 

Normally, that would be the NBA. The Pacers would be playing some meaningless basketball game against the Bobcats and he’d be partially paying attention because he’s a sports fan and that’s what we do. We watch whatever the networks will show us, and if that isn’t enough, we will shell out more money to see even more of the games we love that our cable providers won’t show us. 

So my angry friend started texting me. He complained about the owners, bitched about the players, and in all that hysteria, made some valid points. He said cable companies and sponsors should be willing to offer teams money in exchange for their product because, frankly, they need the NBA. Maybe not now, but they will. TNT needs it. ESPN could use it. When the Super Bowl wraps and the national champion has been crowned, the country moves it’s attention to basketball.

And through all his bemoaning, the point that stuck with me was the idea that we don’t really need the NBA until after football. Yes, there are some basketball fans that are dying for ball nights, but the majority of sports fans can pass the time with the NFL and college football. We have baseball playoffs for the majority of our October, and then football hits its stride. 

So why not do something out of this strike that makes sense? Why not push the regular season of basketball to Christmas? Wouldn’t that round out our sports calendar to perfection? 

Before you stop listening, let me ask you this; what is the worst time for sports? The summer, right? Baseball is still playing pointless games, basketball has wrapped, football still isn’t gearing up for preseason and fantasy drafts. We have days when Sportscenter will run just about anything to fill the slot.

On top of that, what is the most hectic time for sports? Probably the spring, right? You have both the NBA and NHL playoffs running simultaneously and no matter if you’re a fan of one or both, you’re either trying to catch everything or sharing your sports bar TVs with the other. 

Hockey playoffs need more attention. Frankly, it’s one of the sneakiest best sporting events of the year. I love watching NHL hockey, because like baseball, it really seems completely different than the regular season. Hardly any fights, great hockey, every team having a chance to win every game. I love it. 

So why not give the NHL the playoffs to themselves during the springs, and as the Stanley Cup finals is winding down, the NBA playoffs kick off? They run until the end of July/early August, finish up, and now you have preseason NFL and baseball playoffs kicking off at the same time. 

Seems easy enough, right? I know that this lockout means a shortened season, but why not just push it? Give NBA and the NHL a chance to breath on their own? 

I know as a sports fan, I’d absolutely love this. Every summer I have to go through without much on just seems to go longer and longer. 

There is a good reason why we all love sports. It isn’t because of guys like Peyton Manning or LeBron James. Yes, we love watching them play because they define logic, both with their athletic abilities and superhuman skills, but it isn’t Peyton and LeBron that make things like postseason sports so great. 

At times, yes, they do. We can root for the Derek Jeters and Tiger Woods of sports because they’re supposed to be great, so when they rise to the occasion we all high five and nod our heads, understanding that we’re seeing a great athlete be great at that exact moment. It happens a lot with Tom Brady, and even more with guys like Roger Federer Rafael Nadal. The rich will be richer, they say. 

But the main point of sitting around an entire baseball season and watching pointless regular season game after pointless regular season game is because of guys like Mike Napoli. A career .264 hitter, Napoli was drafted in the 17th round back in 2000. He spent most of his six-year career with the Angels before heading down to Arlington to become a member of a scrappy Rangers bunch hungry to fill the hole at catcher once left by Pudge Rodriguez. 

The reason I bring up Pudge is because that’s back when I was the biggest fan of the team. Growing up a baseball player in an East Texas house, I distinctly remember a t-shirt my sister used to own that had four Rangers on the front of it; Nolan Ryan, Ruben Sierra, Julio Franco and Rafael Palmero. Quite a lineup, the Rangers had a string of big names roll through over the years without much success, if any at all. But that didn’t stop me from hanging a Nolan Ryan poster in my room and worshiping a picture my neighbor, a preacher, had hanging in his foyer. A God-fearing man to the core, my neighbor had, hanging up right when you walk into his beautiful two-story house, a picture of Robin Ventura entangled in the arms of Mr. Ryan as the seven-time no-hit man taught the young Chicago White Sox what exactly it means to have Old Man Strength. 

I loved the team that were the Rangers, even as bad as they were. No big moves, always getting ride of their large acquisitions, Texas was always a team in flux. That was, until they decided to sign Alex Rodriguez. As strange as it may seem, A-Rod might be the man that brings this World Series to Dallas. It was a money-grubbing short stop that showed Rangers fans that the team was willing to spend the money if need be.

That was, as they say, the start of it.

But back to Monday night, when things seemed desperate for the Rangers. Tied 2-2 with a destiny-driven Cardinals team, the Rangers were down to St. Louis’ stud ace on a night that just seemed set for the Cards. That was, until things started to set up for Napoli.

It shouldn’t surprise you that Napoli is from a place called Hollywood, even if that is the one in Florida and not California. The 29-year-old catcher never seemed to be the star in a lineup that featured the likes of Josh Hamilton and Michael Young. But Napoli slowly started getting some big hits. In the divisional series. Against Detroit. And now, in the biggest stage of them all.

You see, sports are great because they make stars. These aren’t the stars we will remember for the rest of our lifetime. In 50 years, baseball fans will be able to recite game stats from Albert Pujos like they’re mandatory reading. No, it isn’t the Pujos’ of the world. 

It’s Napoli. And David Tyree. And Shane Spencer. It’s the guys you will never remember five years from now, but for an instant, or a week, or an entire postseason, that bring something you’d never see from them. 

In a spot where the Rangers desperately needed a hit on Monday, Napoli did just that. Again. And the fans chanted his name. Again. And for a moment, Napoli was Keith Van Horn and Christian Laettner, a guy that you will forever remember for what he did right this instant, and maybe for nothing else. 

Sports are great sometimes. We can thank Napoli for these types of moments. 

When I first unpacked all my bags at the University of Arizona in 2002, I knew few things, but one of those things was that Arizona was a basketball school and only a basketball school. Lute Olson, Jason Gardner, Luke Walton … these were the kings of this city, and that was who you rooted for when you signed your checks over to the U of A. 

But little did I know that the football games could be this much fun. Sure, I’d been to some pro games before and a few big college games, but to be at your own school, dressed in your own garb, it was exciting. Sadly, the football team was anything but. You went because it was the thing to do on Saturdays, and you left early because the team was constantly getting blown out. And then our coaches started to change. And we’d have random players show up and transfer. And you’d have those games that would show just enough promise that you’d get reeled in and then the next three weeks would be blowouts and you’d shake your head and wake up, much like a Sunday at McCarron seems to do to people. 

So when Arizona decided to bring in Mike Stoops, the hype began (I actually still own a faded ‘I Like Mike’ shirt, playing off the old Eisenhower push in the ’50s). And we waited. And waited. And waited. And figured things would change this time for real. It was almost like that relationship you keep finding yourself in again, and you’re promised things are going to change this time, and you start to believe it, and you’re hooked, and then you get burned, only to find yourself back in that carousel eight months later. 

That was the Stoops era. A bunch of broken promises and nights spent shaking your head, wondering why the hell you spent so much time invested in something that was doomed to fail. 

And it’s time for him to go. Like, right now. Today. We’re done. 

The reason it’s so frustrating to me is the Wildcats are all I have. I don’t live and die by any NFL team, and basketball is just the sport I like to see, not cheer. Nothing in baseball gets my hear pumping, but with the University of Arizona, the place I lived out my college days, the passion flows freely. 

But it’s embarrassing. The Wildcats are not good, and haven’t really showed signs of being good. Yes, we won a bowl game a few years back and everyone was excited, some because of the win, mostly because it was in Las Vegas. And yes, the team started out great a year ago, but their schedule started off like the in-the-air part of the seesaw, only getting harder and harder as the season progressed, which we showed by dropping our last five games. 

And the team just isn’t fun. No big plays, no incredible defensive stops, no imagination. Screen passes still make up a lot of our offensive playbook, and Stoops sits on the sidelines mostly chewing on the ears of the officials. It seems whatever situation presents itself, we always pick the wrong side of it (like not kicking the field goal in the Saturday loss to Oregon State with three minutes left, at least making it a one possession game instead of putting a quarterback who is miserable in the red zone again with the ball in the red zone, and ohbytheway, sticking with a kicker that has missed 18 extra points in three seasons … what, you can’t go to the club soccer team and find a kid that can boot a football 18 yards?). 

The Cubs we aren’t, but that can’t stop us from wanting what they want. To be relevant. To be successful. To be respected. To be anything. 

The thing that gets me so fired up is the fact that recruiting to Arizona shouldn’t be hard. It shouldn’t. No, the banners don’t fly freely like at Ohio State or Oklahoma, but it’s a beautiful place to live in a nice climate with beautiful, beautiful girls roaming the campus with their only worry being Dirtbags or Championship on Thursday night. If you’re a big-time athlete on campus, you’re the king of Tucson, because it isn’t competing with anything else in the city. It’s the Wildcats, and nothing else, and unlike Tempe or Los Angeles or Seattle, Tucson has no professional sports and likes it that way. Go Arizona, and forget about all the rest. 

And Stoops just isn’t the answer. I have no idea what I think of the guy, but I know he doesn’t need to be the head coach anymore. He doesn’t breath “leader” like a lot of the other guys in charge of 80 college kids, and his antics on the sideline are a little too childish for my liking. Yes, every coach gets heated, but to do it constantly gets old, and he’s been dancing that dance for seven straight seasons.

A fellow Wildcat friend of mine sent me a message today asking why I let it get to me so much. “I stopped caring five years ago,” he told me. But this is what being a fan is all about. Caring. Wanting. Wishing. Hoping. With Stoops, I get none of those, and it’s time for all that to change. 

I was once told “if you have to ask if you’re clutch, you’re not clutch,” and it’s something I think about a lot when I watch sports. Stoops is one of those guys that needs to ask. It’s time to find someone that just knows. 

I grew up in East Texas, right where the devastating fires are tearing up beautiful parts of that area. There is a place called Camp Fern north of my city that now has had four generations of my family, dating back to my grandmother, and with my nephew attending for the first time this past summer. My grandmother, now 86 beautiful years old, lives out by the camp, on the same lake, and god love her soul, isn’t exactly as sharp as she used to be. We were lucky; she was the type of woman that was just as quick at 75 as she was at 45, and always cared for us grandkids like we were the only people in the world. Now, the stories go around about some of the funny stuff she says, like every old person does, and as my mom and dad had to snag her from her lakehouse to bring her a safer location earlier this week, away from the fires, she told my mom something that made me chuckle, and brought a little light to an otherwise nasty situation. 

She told my mom, “If the fires had come close enough to my house, I would have just got in the canoe and paddled out in the middle of the lake.” This is a lady that uses a walker, and has trouble sitting down. The image of her in a canoe in the the middle of the lake just proves how awesome she really is. She’s 86, and I’m sure if it would have come down to it, she would have tried her hardest to get in that old, yellow canoe and paddle out to safety. 

If you have a minute, pray for the fires to stop. The last thing I want is my grandmother to have to rudder. 

My senior year of college, I started dating a girl I’d wanted to date since my very first class of freshman year. I was an insecure little kid from a town of 24,000 people in East Texas starting out at the University of Arizona in a town of nearly 1 million people, and didn’t have  the slightest idea of what the hell I was going to do, but my first day of class I had a 10 A.M. astrology class and as I sat down on the west side of the auditorium, I looked across the hall and saw one of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen in my life. I remember thinking that day that there was no chance in hell I was going to miss that class all semester, damn the pledgeship, hangovers and early morning tee times. Every other day, I’d get to that class in the morning and sit in the same area, occasionally making eyes with this young lady. 

Second semester hit, and I had another class with her. Somehow we ended up sitting next to each other, and a chartered flight heading into the Pacific wouldn’t make my hands as sweaty as they were during that Russian history class. So when we finally dated three years later, life was great. It was something I wanted. And sometimes that longing forces you to look past what is actually going on. When relationships, as they seem to do more often than not, hit that “end this now” point, it’s hard to do that because you want it to work so bad. You long for the days of kisses and laughs and fun, and sweaty palms. 

That’s the sports world with Tim Tebow now. Everyone wants him to succeed, because unlike most of these athletes in the world that have seven kids or have more drug possession charges than Pablo Escobar, Tebow was a saint, both in the flesh and on the field. He was the quintessential Duke guard for college football. A stand-up kid with raw talent and the ability to lead people, which to be honest, is rare these days in college sports. This kid was a leader. He was talented. He came off perfect. He was a saint.

And while I never really believed in that whole thing, I got the appeal. He’s the kind of player my dad likes, because he is what you want your kid to emulate. So as Tebow drops down the depth chart at Denver, it’s a story, because while it seems the general public wants him to work out, he just doesn’t have it. He can’t. It’s not in his blood.

It shouldn’t matter, really, because a ton of college quarterbacks hit the pros and can’t make it. They don’t have the chops. They turn into fullbacks or wide receivers or they move on to the UFL or AFL or DHL. As “Hard Knocks” has shown us through the years, it isn’t easy to make a roster in the NFL, no matter how talented you are, but Tebow is on the Broncos because people wanted to see him defy the odds. A white, slow quarterback using raw power to become a leader in the NFL. That story doesn’t happen much anymore, especially when you can’t hit your tight ends hands on a 10-yard out, but before the season started, it was a hopeful proposition.

Now, it isn’t. Tebow is now fourth on the Denver depth chart and falling fast. The coaches are starting to realize that it was just a pretty face, a good heart, but not much else there in the end. 

It’s tough when it hits you, but for now, it’s the way to that Broncos should go, and football fans are feeling the sting. 

On Thursday night, I got set up for my usual routine; a quick dinner and then plop in front of my couch for “Louis,” my favorite show on TV. It isn’t really my favorite show because it’s necessarily entertaining or hilarious, it’s just real. It’s a guy doing exactly what he wants to do for 30 minutes enough and being smart and witty enough to do it. Viewers will go 20 minutes without laughing at times, but you’re still glued to this red-haired, overweight man, wondering when a crack is going to come to wrap it all together. I call it intelligent chaos, much like “Tree of Life” was, where you could mix up six different segments of it and it would still make as much sense as if you watched them in order. 

But Thursday’s show had a twist; there was a man (playing himself) that is the complete opposite of Louis CK. If you’re a fan of CK, you hate Dane Cook. If you like Cook, you probably hate (or have never heard of) Louis. These men have had completely different careers, and while both are famous now, neither can really relate to the other. All of this is highlighted by some joke-stealing controversy that has caused even the most lackadaisical CK fans to put a target on Cook’s head. Stealing material in comedy is the “affair with your wife’s sister” of the joke world. There aren’t a lot of boundaries with comedians, but this is a huge one. It’s like how poker players will admit when they see an opponent’s hand. Everyone has some code they live by, and this one is that for the funny men of the world. 

It was amazing that Cook was on the show for a number of reasons. Louis had him on it because it knew it would cause idiots like myself to write something about it, thus bring more attention to his show. Cook did it for another reason, and it was brilliant; he knew by doing this, it would bring street cred to people that hate him. He would somehow get a hall pass by Louis CK fans because most look at this and think, “Man, what a gusty move by a guy not a ton of people involved in this side of comedy like.” My first thought when the episode ended was that. I was impressed by Cook. I thought it took a lot to go on there, and it wasn’t like he really needed to. And while it is still a television show, a lot of answers occurred during their four minute conversation.

But Cook isn’t an idiot. He’s a guy that knows how to make money and bring fans in and do whatever it takes to entertain (even if that means taking a joke or two from more creative personalities). This move was nothing more than smart business. Go out of your comfort zone, be made to look a little snotty, and eventually come off like a regular guy that is just trying to be liked.