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For about a year now, there’s this little green book we’ve kept nearby – on the night stand, in the backpack, next to the throne in the guest bathroom. It’s called “What We Think About When We Think About Soccer” by social philosopher Simon Critchley. (Here is a review by SoccerAmerica.com) We pick it up, read some chapters, ponder, and put it down. Wait’ll the World Cup starts, we say. Then it will become more important. Critchley calls soccer (or football, if you will) “a working-class ballet.”  “Why is it beautiful and in what does its beauty consist?” he writes about the sport on page 15 in a chapter titled “Socialism.” It continues: “I will use the method of what philosophers call phenomenology to try and give some kind of answer to these questions. Phenomenolgy is a philosophical tradition that beings in the early twentieth century in the writings of Hurrerl and finds its decisive existential elaboration in the work of Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. It is a very simply: Phenomenology is the description of what shows itself to us in our everyday existence. … (it) is relearning to see the world… My hope is that this approach will enable the reader to see the beauty of football with slightly different eyes.” You’re already kinda lost but intrigued at the same time. Time’s up. The World Cup in Russia begins Thursday, and Mexico plays its first game of its group against Germany on Sunday morning (8 a.m., Channel 11), and maybe by the time you digest all this until the final scheduled for July 15, you’ve got just a good a shot of reading this book, feeling a little more superior in a group of friends, and then forgetting all of it when someone asks, “Why didn’t the U.S. qualify again?”At the very least, recalibrate your cognitive dissonance meter.

Continue reading “06.11.18: Five things you should plan for the week ahead based on unscientific evidence of guaranteed importance” →

If you spent the last three days unplugged from the world of sports, recharge your knowledge here:

If you strip down the Dodgers’ season to this point, Ross “Boss/Chicken Strip” Stripling might be their only thrower worthy of NL All-Star team consideration. And Max “Headroom” Muncy is making himself a candidate for the NL roster as a super utility man. Stripling, the 28-year-old wearing No. 68, tied the MLB high this season with his fifth straight victory during a 7-2 win over Atlanta at Dodger Stadium on Sunday. Muncy, the 27-year-old sporting No. 13 who admits he still pays rent on a place with some teammates at Triple-A Oklahoma City,  homered in his third straight game to give him 12 (tied with Cody Bellinger for the team lead) in just 44 games and 125 at bats for a team-best 1.011 OPS. Stripling (5-1, 1.65 ERA) has 49 Ks and five walks in his seven starts and he’s third in the NL in ERA (minimum 50 innings pitched) behind Justin Verlander and Jacob deGrom. The Dodgers’ overall look: A 6-2 record in June and 33-32 overall.
Continue reading “06.11.18: Five things you need to know from this past weekend before you stumble back to work Monday” →

With the tragic passing of Anthony Bourdain — and other celebrities in recent weeks — Tom Hoffarth and Steve Lowery share their feelings on the state of mental health in American sports and life.
Remember:
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255 (TALK)
Self-Harm Hotline: 877-455-0628
Depression Hotline: 888-640-5174
Twitters: @Tom Hoffarth @SteveLowery12 @McKLVtheJon

After a brief absence, our probation officers have agreed it would be more productive to plug The Drill back in. Cordless has never been out style.
So from this latest 40-minute plus effort with Tom, Steve, Jon, Eric and Nicole joining the fray

Here are some reference points:
* “NFL owners, team presidents and chief executives react to President Trump’s comments,” is a Sept., 2017 piece in the Washington Post that reveals NFL owners who donated to Trump’s campaign, including the Rams’ Stan Kroenke.
* “Spanos issues reply after Trump rips NFL players, sport,” is from the San Diego Union-Tribune, also in Sept., 2017, about Dean Spanos’ displeasure with the Trump tweet and standing up for his players.
* A nifty piece by Drew Magary for GQ on this topic:

* Fox News decides to issue an apology after implying Philadelphia Eagles players were kneeling during the National Anthem.
*The Trump-NFL-Eagles narrative brings this illustration from Jim Thompson:

*The Wall Street Journal’s piece: “Gambling Is Coming, So Get Ready to Hate Sports” which includes:
“Gambling is what economists call an ‘inferior good’ — demand is higher among those at the lower end of the income scale. As economist Sam Papenfuss argued in a 1998 paper, state-sponsored gambling became popular as a way for high-income taxpayers to recoup some of the money spent on programs for the poor … Even if you believe the sports leagues can adequately police cheaters — and with modern data and techniques they probably can — gambling inevitably now becomes the tail that wags the dog.”
* From AwfulAnnouncing.com: “ESPN, FS1, and NBCSN are all reportedly looking into gambling-related shows to debut this year” back in March. And ESPN+ already has one with the witty title: “I’ll Take That Bet” with former Dodgers catcher Paul LoDuca.
* “Sports Gambling 101: What might our future of legalized betting look like” from the San Jose Mercury-News from May 21 opens with the paragraph: “First, it was legalized weed, now it’s sports gambling. What’s next, prostitution?”
*OK, one last “Back To The Future” jouney to the Biff Tannen Museum to find out whatever happened to Cal State Fullerton baseball fan Thomas Wilson:

We’ll set up the sports media pins for this weekend, you can knock ‘em down:

* Britney Eurton, our TVG reporter-turned-NBC SoCal reference point for all that is national Triple Crown coverage, gave us Santa Anita-based Bolt d’ Oro as her Kentucky Derby pick back in early May. Turned out, Justify was not just the stunner in the mud, but he’s come out pretty clean as a Triple Crown contender headlining Saturday’s 150^th Belmont (Channel 4, 1-to-4:15 p.m. with the race at 3:37 p.m.), which should attract more than just casual thoroughbred TV viewers.
Bolt d’ Oro hasn’t disappeared in a thunder clap – he’s running in the Met Mile as one of the older horses in that field at Belmont on Saturday, which will be part of the overall six-race NBC block of coverage (also on NBCSN, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.).
And while it would be justifiably so for Eurton to align herself with those who hope, wish and predict a three-peat for Justify, the one we still lay claim for building the foundation of fame in winning the Santa Anita Derby last April, we’ll let her explain her thinking after we caught up with her Thursday morning from New York:
“For the industry, for the connections, the Triple Crown is always what you root on, right? But I think many more were confident when American Pharoah came in (in 2015) because of how impressive he was in completing the Preakness. A lot of people after watching Justify in his Preakness win were skeptical about how much he’s done in just a short amount of time. I actually do think we’re not giving him enough credit for what he has achieved. It’s remarkable to have five wins at this level, with the weather conditions as they were, to even be here to compete for a Triple Crown.
“But all of that said, my heart is with Justify, but it’s asking a lot for him to complete this bid, and I saw him run this morning over the Belmont surface and he looked phenomenal. He doesn’t look like he’s losing any weight. But in my head, if I was betting, would be in another direction with Hofburg. He has the breeding.”

Then again, there’s the odds that everyone watching will have some vested interest in Gronkowski.
Named after the New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, he didn’t make it to either the Kentucky Derby or Preakness but he adds a spicy narrative to this one.
“He’s such a question mark because he’s never raced over dirt, a mile-and-a-half … just a lot of unknowns,” she said. “But one thing we do know is he’ll get plenty of play. Honestly, there are people on both sides of the spectrum on this, whether a horse named after him helps the industry – I think it does. Anytime you get a superstar or celebrity talking about this, you’ll have more casual fans tuning in, some may root for him, some will root against him, I love how involved he’s getting, and if we can expose the industry to more people because of that, why not? It adds another dynamic.” Continue reading “Sports media notes 06.07.18: On NBC’s Belmont bets, Yankee-ESPN threats and no regrets when it comes to a Jim Gray Hall-of-Something induction” →