And at the top of the hour....

Ramblings Post #225
I'm about to say some things that might be taken in the wrong way. It happens. I'll live. But it's been a minute, I've been slapping letters on paper here and there and getting over a cold...or the flu...or the plague, so I decided to chime in. Something to do. Since gutting the transfer budget won't get me enough money to keep even one of my....never mind. A bit of rage quit. This isn't so much a rant as commentary. Edited down because halfway through I kinda answered a question of my own and didn't see the point of exposing my own ignorance. Or at least that much of my own ignorance. 

If the NBA player who came out of the closet had shot the ball like Jordan or Lebron, not only would there be no voices of dissent in the locker room, his fellow players would be ready to brawl in the street if you said anything bad about him. It's a team thing. That's just my opinion now, because maybe fervent religious belief is bigger than sport. But I'm from the south...where Roll Tide can be substituted for Amen under the right circumstances.

Jason Collins, former Celtic and Wizard, said "I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay."  I wonder if he'd done this in mid-season, when he had a team, what the reaction would have been. Don't get me wrong, doing this just after the season closed so it wouldn't be a distraction to the team was gracious on his part. But he's a free agent, he has no current locker room in which to stand. And he's 34, on the tail end of his career. He's a player in a professional sport because he hasn't turned in the required league retirement paperwork.

And by announcing it now he's also placed himself in a dicey position. As one commentator put it, he's a position where if he gets picked up next season, it could look like a publicity stunt. But if he's not picked up, it's because he's gay and discrimination is afoot. Rock and hard place. Now, by dint of the sheer number of professional athletes there have to be a few hundred gay men who suit up and play some "game" at the professional level each week. And teams replace those players all the time, for a variety of reasons. You see where I'm going with that. I'm just theorizing here, spitting out hypotheticals if you will.

On another note, another commentator I heard today also mentioned for some reason the "I'm black" part as being important. Why I don't know. As though he might be the first gay black person ever. Probably not. As though black people don't accept gay people. Um, yeah. We kinda do. Maybe I should have listened more, but I was getting a haircut at the time.

Now, as I said, I'm from the South. Where, if you can play football on Saturday with great ability, why it doesn't matter what your race or religion might be. Sport transcends if you will. Black, White, Indian, smart, stupid, crazy, it doesn't matter. So gay probably won't matter either. If you can play. It's unfair, but it's not new, its wrong in the same way that as long as we can remember the abusive high school jocks are treated as young gods because they can break a tackle on a fine Friday night. It's not crazy...it's sports. (via ESPN).

And since when is life fair?

Barkeep. Roll Tide.

(I'm not really an Alabama fan, I'm just trying to make a point.)

A short sermon

Basketball great Dennis Johnson died the other day, and I suddenly miss pro basketball.

There was a time in the mid-eighties when basketball season actually meant something. You had Magic and Kareem running the Showtime Lakers out West, and the in the East the battle for supremacy meant that whoever got the Finals had already run the gauntlet to get there.

Bird, Parrish and the Celtics.
Dr. J and Seventysixers.
Isiah and Pistons.

Those were playoffs you watched like March Madness, roaming the day after a game with oft repeated "Did you sees?" at the physical artistry that was a pro basketball game. The Sky Hook. The Finger Roll. The wild momentum shifts and the last second heroics better than anything on the movie screen.

Then came Jordan.

Some consider Jordan the greatest basketball player of all time. I'm not one of their ranks. Much like the old "Evander Holyfield-Charlie Steiner" commerical from ESPN...I not sure I would put him in the best 50 basketball players. Of all time, you ask? In the Eastern Divison.

To me Jordan, who seems like an affable fellow mind you, represents what went wrong with pro basketball. Before Jordan there were stars, but those stars were attached to teams. After Jordan there were only players.

Players obsessed with shoe contracts.
Prima donnas who swear they're the best thing for basketball.
Ball hogs who don't even remember the fundamentals.
Players with more going on off the court than on.
Players who won't be remembered for their game.

Dennis Johnson was from another era of basketball. Back when you rooted for the team, for pride. When the team meant more than a place for the player to collect his paycheck. Dennis Johnson, who was for a long time THE Ugliest Man in Basketball, played on a real team, not a supporting cast for this year's basketball prodigy. Teams that ran plays, had well coached people contributing off the bench, and in many cases at the final buzzer you couldn't concentrate on keeping it out of one players hands....cause all of them were liable to toss it up.

DJ. We'll miss you.

Barkeep...just some vodka and ice.