Happy Father’s Day to all the Pops out there (including Cliff Huxtable, who still kills me when I watch that scene posted above).
Want to thank my Dad of course, who taught me most everything I know and mostly about being a good, decent human being, and my stepfather Arny, who has been a wonderful blessing in my life these last two decades.
Jane Leavy, an outstanding writer, had a great father as well. I was looking for the perfect piece to illustrate Father’s Day, and she wrote a darn good one here for Grantland.com. Enjoy.
**Then of course, since it’s Father’s Day, I must post the greatest father-son scene in the history of film, as I did last year. Probably be an annual tradition here at Wide World of Stuff since it’s my favorite movie of all time and all:
**Finally, some sad news came down Saturday night. Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, the iconic saxophone player in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, died a week after suffering a massive stroke. He was 69.
I’m not going to claim to be the biggest Springsteen fan in the world; I love his music and own several albums (do kids still know what those are, albums?) but I’m not obsessive about it. But Clemons always struck me as the heart and soul of the band. He was large, of course, but also seemed so fun-loving and dedicated to putting on a great show. Here’s Bruce Springsteen’s statement about his dear friend, and two clips of “Big Man.” The first is a solo on “Jungleland” which is just so beautiful, and the second is Clemons telling the story of how he met Bruce. It’s a terrific tale.
A story that made me shake my head leads off today.
A University of New Mexico football player named Deshan Marmon was arrested while on a US Airways flight Wednesday.
His offense? Wearing his pants around his ankles, and then allegedly refusing to pull them up.
Seriously dude? You’re going to wear your pants around your ankles on AN AIRPLANE????
I don’t see any possible defense here. I really don’t.
Of course, this story gives me reason to show my favorite “American Idol” moment ever. Deshan, listen to the words to this song, and do as they say, for the good of America!
**So I thought it was a terrible idea when I heard that the brilliant book “Moneyball,” written by my namesake Michael Lewis, was going to be made into a movie.
It’s just not a movie kind of book. It’s a terrific story of how the Oakland A’s, led by Billy Beane, their general manager, began to revolutionize baseball by using advanced statistical analysis, and instead of going after superstars it couldn’t afford, developing prospects from within.
The book was roundly mocked by the “old guard” at the time, because baseball people are slower to change than molasses. But it was a NY Times bestseller and was a fantastic read.
Not surprisingly, the movie has had problems getting made. They’re now on their third director and third script, but I’ll be darned if it doesn’t look like it’s a real movie now.
Starring Brad Pitt.
Here’s the just-released trailer; gotta say, it looks like a bit of a mess and quite far from what the book was. They’re making it look like a cross between “Hoosiers” and “Field of Dreams” and well, I don’t know what else.
But hey, maybe it’s better than this…
**Finally, my love for “Saved by The Bell” is equal to that of most of my generation. We laughed with Zack and Screech, we swooned over the beautiful Kelly Kapowski, and we enjoyed the witty repartee between Jesse Spano and A.C. Slater.
But Mr. Belding, well … he took the cake. Always there for the kids of Bayside, with a stern talking-to or a shoulder to lean on, he was a rock.
OK, that’s all crap. “Saved by the Bell” was bad TV but we loved it. And Belding was not exactly Laurence Olivier, you know what I mean?
Anyway, Dennis Haskins (aka Mr. Belding) may have hit a new low this week. He threw out the first pitch at a minor-league baseball game, and then slurred his way through “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
Oh Richard Belding, if only your brother Rod had been there to save you…
I don’t get it. Someone please explain it to me.
You’re a huge fan of a sports team. That team gets all the way to the brink of a championship, a Game 7. And they lose.
And so you go out and burn the city that you live in. You smash cars, break windows and set fires all over the place. This is what happened in Vancouver Wednesday night, when the Canucks lost to the Bruins and once again didn’t win the Stanley Cup.
Where does this come from, this bullshit behavior? Alcohol can’t be the only reason; people are drunk and angry all the time in other cities.
Anger over their team losing? Do we take sports that seriously in the world that our team getting beat prompts law-breaking violence?
I just don’t get it. I get rioting for other reasons. I understood, at least a little bit, the Rodney King riots, and the riots in the 1960s for civil rights.
But this is SPORTS. These are games. And it sickens me that the outcome of a hockey game can cause destruction like this. It’s despicable.
I know the vast majority of Vancouver residents didn’t do this. And they’re embarrassed by it, as evidenced by the heartwarming outpouring of volunteer cleanup crews that sprung up Thursday.
It just really makes me wonder if as a society our sports obsession has gone too far. Funny argument from a sportswriter, I know.
But for God’s sakes, these are games. They ain’t that important.
I hope all the riot morons are found and put in jail. And forced to watch Game 7 over and over again as punishment.
P.S. That couple kissing on the street photo, in the gallery linked above? Incredible. It’s going to win a whole lot of photography awards, methinks.
**The website funnyordie.com usually highlights their own work, and it’s usually great (like this Ralph Macchio video, “Wax on, F#ck Off”)
But they Tweeted a link Thursday to maybe the greatest local commercial ever. It’s for a car wash in California, and well, there are no words…
**Finally, I’ve extolled the virtues of the wonderful Charlotte Observer writer Tommy Tomlinson before, and the incredible wordsmith has done it again in this story.
It’s a short read, but oh so great. It tells the story of a newlywed couple named Kristopher Watkins and Nina Leavitt.
Check out how spare his prose is here. No wasted words or energy. And a beautiful final sentence. Just such great writing.
The best adventures and risks in life are the spontaneous ones, aren’t they?
I took one Wednesday at about 4 p.m., which is how I ended up in the backseat of a NASCAR pace car doing 130 miles per hour around the Daytona 500 track.
Just a typical Wednesday afternoon.
Let me back up a little. I was out at Daytona International Speedway on assignment for the newspaper; I write racing stories about as often as Sarah Palin admits she was wrong, but in this case my boss wanted me to go out and do some “non-racing” racing stories, and interview visiting guest celebrities Bubba the Love Sponge (he’s the offensive but popular radio DJ; apparently “Bubba The Love Sponge” is now his legal name, which leads me to wonder: When he makes a restaurant reservation and his table is called, do they say “Mr. Sponge, party of 2?” or “Mr. Love Sponge, Party of 2?” This is the kind of stuff I think about) and NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Brad Keselowski, who was super-nice but looks about 13 years old.
Anyway, so me and a bunch of other media folk ask our questions of them, watch Brad take Bubba (that’s him, above) around for a few laps, and then the Speedway folks ask if any media guys want to do a lap in the pace car with Brad.
My first thought? Nah. My second thought after watching other people do it? Definitely not. Those cars were going fast. Finally, when my fellow scribe Godwin Kelly nudged me and said “Come on, it’s a life experience, when are you ever going to get to do this again?” I succumbed, and climbed into the back seat. (After first signing a waiver that said I won’t sue the Speedway if something, you know, bad happens to me.)
It was … exhilarating. And scary. And fun. And scary. Keselowski knows what he’s doing, of course, and driving on an empty track is like cake to him, since he usually is battling 35 other dudes.
Even in the back seat of the Dodge pace car, looking over and seeing the spedometer show 135 was pretty cool.
As he accelerated, it totally felt like I was on a roller-coaster ride. Blood was rushing to my head, and my neck got a little stiff, and I was sort of afraid to breathe. You really, really feel how fast you’re going.
Even more frightening were the turns. Keselowski was hugging right up against the wall (“I love torturing media folks!” he laughed maniacally) and if I looked to my right I saw there was very little room between us and the wall. I cannot imagine driving that on a regular basis like these guys do.
At one point Keselowski, who really seems like a good guy, heard a few of my “oh (bleep)’s from the backseat and turned around to look at me.
“Oh come on man, I haven’t even done anything crazy yet, like drive with no hands,” he said, then took his hands off the wheel for 3 seconds.
He’s quite a comedian.
Finally, after 4 laps he pulled us into pit road with some hard braking and tire screeching. I unbuckled, got out, and again felt like I’d just been on a scary ride at the amusement park.
Here’s the clip of us going round and round; and at the 3:10 mark, that’s me unleashing a swear word:
**You know, I really hate most Boston teams. Because as a New Yorker, you’re raised to hate them.
But until about 10 years ago, I did kind of feel sorry for them. Except for the Celtics, they never won anything. New York and L.A. and Chicago were always kicking their teams’ butts in the playoffs of the four major sports, and I even felt a few pangs of empathy for my many Beantown friends.
Now? Screw that. With the Bruins’ Game 7 win to clinch the Stanley Cup Wednesday night, Boston teams have now won seven championships since January, 2002.
The Patriots have three Super Bowls, the Red Sox two World Series titles, and the Celtics won one NBA title.
Happy to see the Bruins win Wednesday; they were the better team the whole series, and their goalie, Tim Thomas, is a phenomenal story. Guy played 10 years in the minors before getting a chance in the NHL.
But, yeah, Boston fans can’t bitch about anything for a long time.
Guns ‘N’ Roses was absolutely, positively the most important band to me in 1987. And probably 1988, too.
Those of us who were teenagers at the time remember their incredible influence. How big was their influence? My mother once stunned her friends by singing along to “Sweet Child O’ Mine” in the car.
“My kids play it all the time!” was her response.
Anyway, my love for G ‘N’ R hasn’t faded too much over time. Which is why I thought this was incredibly cool. It’s their first hit, “Welcome to the Jungle,” played by two guys named Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser on a cello.
**Tonight, the two best words in sports get to be said again:
Game 7.
The Stanley Cup Finals between Boston and Vancouver have been nuts. There’s been dirty play on both sides. Great goaltending on both sides. Fantastic action, blowouts, close games, and about 11 different emotions for Canucks fans when thinking about their awful/fantastic goalie, Roberto Luongo (seriously, this guy has caused fans more heartburn than a lifetime of eating at Taco Bell).
I have loved all of it, though I have absolutely no idea what will happen tonight. Gun to my head, I think Vancouver wins, 3-2. (Check out this fantastic column by Bruce Arthur of the National Post, in Canada. Just great writing here.)
I do know that it’ll be fantastic viewing. Even if you’re not a hockey fan, you’ve got to love the drama of a Game 7. 8 p.m. tonight, NBC.
And you know, while we’re talking hockey, this happened 17 years ago Tuesday. Still the greatest sports memory of my life, and I don’t think it’ll ever be topped:
**Finally, there were a bunch of great photos in the wake of the Dallas Mavericks’ win over the Miami Heat. I like this one, a T-shirt worn by Mavericks forward (and LeBron antagonist) DeShawn Stevenson (scroll down halfway).
But this one has to be my favorite. Really, name me a photo you’ve ever seen of a man peeing at a urinal that’s better than this one? Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, you are my hero… I wouldn’t want to be the next guy holding that championship trophy, though.
I haven’t written about an unsung athlete you should root for in a while, and I came across a great one in the Sunday New York Times.
Jeremy Affeldt is a 32-year-old pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. He’s had an OK career, bouncing from team to team, but that’s not really important.
What is important is all the good work he does. He’s involved with so many charities, not just lending his name but his time. Right now Affeldt is helping build an orphanage in Uganda. He financed ballfields in Brazil and Thailand, and helped build a well in Uganda.
Clean drinking water. Such a little thing. Such a big thing.
Listen to this quote from an athlete who so clearly gets it:
“I don’t want to be an American that just sits there and says, ‘I only care about my country; it’s all about me in America,’ ” Affeldt said. “Sometimes, because of what we have — and we’re blessed to have it, I’m not against it, every day I feel very fortunate — we’re selfish. We think of all the problems we have in America, but they’re not problems compared to the rest of the world. So I try to remove myself from that and say, ‘What can we do to help out humanity?’ ”
So many athletes are in a position to help. Not that many go to the lengths that Affeldt does. What a good man.
**I really hope there’s more to this story than this. Because if it’s true… a Danish tourist was on a bicycle in New York City last month when she claims a police officer pulled her over and told her her skirt was too short, that it was too racy for the street, and that she was “dangerous” and a distraction to the drivers.
Because, yeah, New York drivers have trouble with distractions. You have 4,332 distractions every second when you’re driving in NY.
Maybe the cop was just trying a new pickup line. After all, ya gotta figure that eventually the “I’m a police officer, so I can drive as fast as I want” line gets old after a while.
**There really was no way I wasn’t going to love the HBO documentary about Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe.
It was the tennis rivalry that started making me a fan. It was the summer I turned 5 when the Swedish ice king and the bratty New Yorker with the ridiculous touch on the court met at Wimbledon in 1980. As a little kid I remember always rooting for the bratty Johnny Mac, while my Mom hated his tirades and cheered for Borg.
Until 2008′s Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal clash at Wimbledon, Borg/McEnroe 1980 was considered the best tennis match ever played. Borg won an epic five-setter for his last Wimbledon title, then abruptly retired in 1981, shocking everyone because he was still near the top of his game.
The movie, coming on the heels of two new books about the rivalry, does an excellent job looking at their contrasting personalities and styles, and how each of them suffered “tennis burnout” in the 1980s.
I think the most telling moments come when Borg still struggles, 30 years later, to explain why he stepped away from the game, and when McEnroe talks of how he was diminished without his rival around.
Even if you’re not a huge tennis fan, I think you’d enjoy McEnroe/Borg: Fire and Ice. It’ll be on HBO tonight (June 14) at 8, and Friday at 7.
And if you’re a tennis nut like me, it’s required viewing.
They threw a party back in July, celebrating like they’d already won a championship.
Go ahead, click this video and watch it. You’ll see LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh of the Miami Heat, with one title between them, ever, prancing and preening and carrying on like they were the greatest damn thing ever.
All year, they had a target on their back. And rightfully so.
They rolled through everybody in the playoffs, until they ran into the Dallas Mavericks, who finished off a surprisingly convincing Game 6 Sunday night, and won the NBA title.
It was a fabulous game, just like every other game in this series.
So many thoughts… I’ll try to be fairly brief.
– LeBron James’ legacy is not forever tarnished, and people who are saying that forget that the dude is only 26. He’ll have at least another 10 years to get a few rings. But wow, this series really does damage to his rep for a while. He was better Sun. night in the 4th quarter, but not good enough.
– Can’t say enough good things about the Mavs. Their role players all were fantastic; Tyson Chandler got so many big rebounds in Game 6. Jason Terry was unconscious shooting the ball. J.J. freaking Barea couldn’t be stopped, and even DeShawn Stevenson chipped in.
It wasn’t just Dirk Nowitzki. This was a hell of a team effort.
– Very happy for Jason Kidd, 38 years old, in the league so long, and finally getting a title. I wish he’d gotten it for my Nets, but hey, at least he got one. One of the 5 greatest point guards to ever play.
– Definitely bummed we didn’t get to see NBA commish David Stern have to hand the trophy to his mortal enemy, Mark Cuban. In a classy move, Cuban had original Mavs owner Donald Carter accept the trophy.
– That relentlessly promoted ABC show “101 ways to get thrown off a Game show” or something like that? Yeah, I’ll probably watch 1 episode. I’m sick like that.
– Hope you enjoyed Game 6 if you’re a basketball fan. NBA is headed for a lockout this fall, just like the NFL has. Yep, millionaires arguing with billionaires in another sport.
Good thing we have hockey. Go Bruins! (Game 6 tonight).
**Tricia Bliven Chasinoff is a friend of a friend. She’s the mother of two, she’s smart, she’s funny, and she’s just a really cool person (though I’m sure she’d vehemently deny that.)
She writes a blog called Just Breathe, about her life, and motherhood, and all the crazy stuff that goes on.
This may be her funniest blog post yet. It’s titled “Letter to My Spawn,” and I predict at least 7-9 chuckles if you read it. It’s honest and witty and if you’re a parent, you will totally empathize.
**Finally, didn’t watch Sunday’s Tony Awards since it was on against Mavs-Heat, but did catch this online. Larry Kramer, one of the most important AIDS activists of all time, saw the revival of his play The Normal Heart win a slew of big awards.
Kramer gave a short, eloquent speech here about the cause that has inspired his life.
Thirty years after the scourge of HIV/AIDS was first discovered, people like Larry Kramer are still fighting for acceptance.
This story made me all kinds of happy, and I’m neither a father nor a daughter (that’ll make sense in a minute, I promise.)
Last week on CBS Sunday Morning, the story was told of Jim Brozina and his daughter, Alice Ozma, from New Jersey.
When Alice was in the 4th grade, Jim was worried that as Alice grew, their close relationship might suffer a bit. So he made a vow to read her a story every night. And he kept that up, every night. For nine years. Alice came home from parties in high school so she could read with her Dad. They didn’t miss a night, amazingly.
It’s a beautiful story about fathers and daughters (Alice wrote a book about it) and the joys of reading. It’s guaranteed to brighten your Sunday. And make you want to read a book.
**This is one of the more ridiculous scientific “studies” I’ve ever seen. It basically says that vivid TV advertisements make people believe they’ve had experiences that they haven’t really had. Like, they gave one group of subjects popcorn, and another one didn’t, then showed the subjects a really awesome TV commercial about popcorn.
Then they followed it up by asking the subject groups about the popcorn, and some people in the group that didn’t get popcorn actually said it tasted good and they enjoyed it.
I’m sorry, I call B.S. on this study. But here, read for yourself.
**Very psyched about Game 6 of the Mavericks-Heat series tonight. LeBron gets one more chance to prove he’s not a stiff in the clutch. Excellent column here by Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski on Mr. James and his big moment.
Personally, I think Dallas must win tonight if it’s going to win the series. Winning a Game 7 on the road is gonna be awfully tough.
Anyway, who cares about Dirk or Dwyane? The real drama is with the benchwarmers. Check out this funny video (above) by Jimmy Kimmel and Usher about the dudes who never play…
If you’re too young to remember “The National Sports Daily,” let me try to explain it to you.
Twenty years ago, before the Internet and before there were sportswriters spouting nonsense on TV, there was this idea: A daily newspaper in America, devoted solely to sports. It would come out five days a week, be filled with the best writing on sports in the country, and would have all the info you could possibly want.
The National hired every great sportswriter working in 1990, it seemed: John Feinstein, Mitch Albom, Dave Kindred, Charlie Pierce, Scott Ostler … it was the most amazing collection of sportswriting talent ever seen before or since.
I was in high school during The National’s brief life, and I vividly remember reading it every chance I got. My parents had recently gotten divorced in 1990, and I can still recall going to my Dad’s apartment in Great Neck, N.Y., walking to the newsstand near his place, and buying The National and savoring it.
It was everything I loved and everything I wanted to do, and I dreamed of one day being able to write for such an amazing newspaper.
But, well, there were problems. Distribution was awful, the paper wasted an insane amount of money on travel and salaries, and after a year and a half it folded under a pile of bills.
Why am I telling you all of this now? Because ESPN’s new website, Grantland.com (which is fabulous so far, by the way), did a beautiful two-story piece on The National and its glorious successes and failures. The first part is a hilarious oral history from the men and women who worked there, and the second is a beautiful essay by Charlie Pierce, an ode to the best place he ever worked. I highly recommend checking them out, whether you, like me, miss The National all the time, or if you just want to know what it was like.
**Here’s a little life moment. I went to the eye doctor Friday, and in addition to finding out he grew up in the same town as my cousins in New City, N.Y., I learned something else:
My right eye vision is only 20/30. This bothered me a lot, because nine years ago I had LASIK surgery and they swore to me then that I’d have 20/20 sight.
And as far as I know, I’ve had 20/20 vision since the surgery.
And now I’m down to 20/30.
Maybe I just had a bad day guessing the letters. Maybe the assistant was wrong.
Or maybe, I’m just getting a little bit old.
20/20 was a beautiful thing while it lasted.
**Finally today, here’s a man we all can be proud of. 20-year-old computer repairman Trevor Harwell was arrested after he put spyware on the computers of women that allowed him to take candid photos of them, often in the nude, by having remote access to their machines.
Trevor, sweetheart, there are a lot easier ways to get nude photos of women, pal.
I’m just going on record and saying this is a video you’ll be sending along to your friends and family. It may be the cutest thing ever. Five-year-olds Elliott and Bowie share their first kiss; she’s literally the girl next door and, well, just watch.
My favorite part is at :53, the expression on his face is priceless.
**Another scintillating game in the NBA Finals Thursday night. Another dramatic Dallas win. The Miami Heat are now one game away from elimination and the biggest disappointment in South Beach since NBC cancelled “Miami Vice.”
Some quick-hit thoughts from Game 5…
– This is a legacy-altering series for Mr. LeBron James. Once again, he came up incredibly small in the fourth quarter of one of these games. He now has ELEVEN points in five games in the last period, the most important one. It’s almost unfathomable; he was so good in the clutch for the first seven years of his career in Cleveland.
Is the pressure getting to him? Something in his personal life? Is he sick or hurt? Something is seriously wrong here.
– Writing this sentence 15 minutes after the last one. My boy Tony, the biggest LeBron fan I know, is seriously depressed. We agree this series is a permanent stain on his reputation if the Heat lose. I tell Tony it’s not over, the Heat can win in 7.
He doesn’t believe me.
– As a Jason Kidd fan for two decades now, I’m overjoyed to see him playing so well and that he’s so close to a title. I got such joy watching him bring my beloved New Jersey Nets to the NBA Finals two straight years. One of the greatest players ever deserves a ring.
– Said this on Twitter last night: I’m now genuinely surprised when Dirk Nowitzki misses a shot.
– This has been a sensational series. Maybe the best I’ve seen in 20 years. Go Mavs.
**Finally, we love anniversaries here at Wide World of Stuff. And 25 years ago Thursday, a movie that my generation knows by heart was first released.
RT @pourmecoffee: With gays now allowed, look for Boy Scouts to be exactly the same as before on account of they are kids doing activities,… 13 hours ago
On the day before my wedding, I wrote a blog post tribute to the woman who has agreed to marry me: wp.me/pzIMZ-3qj13 hours ago
