Ball! Ball! Ball!
My mind is all over the place these days. My boss was telling me about her year-old son and how he's learned how to say "ball" and he'll point at everything and just call it "ball". This is about how I feel these days. I read an article or watch something on TV and I know that I have an opinion on it, but dammit if I can actually put it into words. So everything I try to say is going to sound no more insightful or well-phrased than if I just wrote "ball", but if that's not a reason to try and push my mind a little bit and maybe snap it back into shape a little, I don't know what is.
Ball #1: I was going to leave you a little present of some mp3s, and tell a fascinatingly boring story about how listening to Neko Case's "Deep Red Bells" (likely in my top 10 songs of all time) got me thinking about how she once toured with Nick Cave and I was sorry I missed it, which got me listening to "Red Right Hand", which is easily one of the coolest songs of all time.
Nick Cave is a very unusual music figure for me. On one hand, the theory of his music is so often much better than the practice of it, I feel. I really want to like him more than I do. But then I read some of his more violent lyrics and then I want to like him less than I actually do. Then I hear "Red Right Hand" and I just figure, screw it all...this song's enough.
Ball #2: Having the Nationals play their first game last night was pretty exciting. This is the first Washington-area (including Baltimore) team that I actually like (and one of the few that I don't actively dislike). The enthusiasm that's surrounding them right now obviously has to do with the excitement that surrounds any brand new team, but I also think that it involves that issue that I really think has a lot of sway on fan enthusiasm: the name. Of course, people will root for their home team, but you really need to give a team a good, proud name to really keep the people behind them.
Ball #3: The issue of athletes going pro out of high school has been around for a while now, but it came up again with some recent comments of Jermaine O'Neal's, ones that were brought up by King Kaufman in Salon this morning. O'Neal said (somewhere between outright and implying) that the objection to NBA and NFL going pro too early has to do with race, and Kaufman and some Salon readers correctly pointed out that, while he's not right, he's not wrong either.
The underlying question that no one can answer is: why is there the objection to 18-year-olds going pro in basketball and football, but not in hockey or baseball? People try to make it out like they're concerned for the safety of the players in football, but the guys who go pro when they're 21 and have 10-year careers end up nearly hobbled after they retire. If we're really concerned about the players safety, we'd have to just outright ban the sport. There's the argument that 18-year-olds aren't emotionally mature enough, but there's PLENTY of players that went pro at 21 and 22 who aren't emotionally mature enough. Rasheed Wallace? Ron Artest? Besides pro athletes, I've known plenty of people in my lifetime that prove that four full years in college have absolutely no bearing on emotional maturity.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: if someone is qualified for a job, they should have it. If they turn out to be not qualified, then the problem is lack of foresight on the part of the people doing the hiring, as is the case with any job. Which, as Kaufman points out, is exactly the objection of the NBA: they don't want to be put in a position of having to roll the dice on some unproven high school player. For the NBA, it's not a racial question; it's a question of money. Now, what the issue is for the general public...that's another debate.
Ball #4: Girls are pretty.
12 comments:
I was just listening to Deep Red Bells last night. Great song, although I like some of her other songs better. I keep waiting for her to come back to Iota someday.
I was totally into this post until you had to go and bash the Orioles. I'm happy for the Gnats, but I wonder: at their home games, will people yell "O" during the national anthem?
there is a fundamentall difference between the two sports that people don't complain about players forgoing college, and the ones that do. Those players who are good enough to go to the professional level in hockey and baseball have already been playing in highly organized clubs for years and years. They're better than everyone else their age, AND they're already accustomed to a system similar to that of a professional team.
Whereas baseball and hockey have excellent amateur ranks, football and basketball do not. A lot of times, it IS about the safety of the kids. They're not used to playing with guys who are bigger and stronger than they are. They've been head and shoulders above the rest for a long time. A lot of other times, it's just that the athletes still have a lot of things they could learn from playing collegiately. If nothing else, how to play as part of a team rather than as the shining superstar.
I'm just saying that in baseball and hockey, they have highly developed amateur leagues, and the players who are good enough don't really stand to gain anything by playing collegiately. Especially in hockey, where there are only a handful of competitive progeams in this country. Baseball, of course, is a different story. Lots of great college programs. But I still think that the baseball player who has nothing to gain from a college experience is much more common than the basketball player.
ball!
They might not scream out "Oh" during the national anthem, but they'll most likely scream out "RED".
They won't need to scream out anything! It's the NATIONAL anthem! It's not one word; it's the whole thing!
I saw a pretty girl once. I was on a bike and thought something along the lines of "Ball!" and then I almost got hit by a bus.
Tracy McGrady, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Jermaine O'Neal all came out of high school. That's four of the top players in the league. They all took a little while to get their game really going in the pros, but they were still able to take the job and develop at their own pace. Those four guys alone have killed the idea that you need a college career to have a good pro career, that it teaches you something you could never learn in the pros.
...not to mention plenty of players who were huge stars all four years in college and never did anything in the pros. A good player is a good player, and the ability to turn in a pro career of note has nothing to do with college or minor league or amateur leagues.
I think that there's another take on this issue that never gets mentioned, and that's another side of the economic coin (pardon the pun). A lot of these guys come from desperately poor backgrounds, and for middle and upper class people to demand that they go to college rather than being able to use their talents to make money at whatever age they can get a job at (as happens in any other profession) is just wrong. And I don't want to hear that it's because "it's bad for them to go from poverty to being a millionaire" because a) that would happen coming out of college anyway and b) if it's really a problem, then put some sort of cap on players under 20.
It's a cliche argument, but it's still absolutely correct when O'Neal asked, "If I can go to the U.S. Army and fight the war at 18, why can't you play basketball for 48 minutes and then go home?" So we're really concerned for the safety of 18-year-olds? We really don't think they're mature enough? Then why do we send them off to war but won't let them take a job they're qualified for?
I think since the national anthem was written in Baltimore, the Orioles should be compensated whenever the other teams play it.
Speaking of which, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the national anthem (only 9 years away now), our mayor has decreed that all U.S. flags flown on city property be of the 1814 version. Which looks fine when you're visiting Fort McHenry, but it's a little weird to walk by city hall and only see 15 stars on the flag.
Hey Scott, that's pretty sweet! Are they gonna have a Battle of 1812/Battle of Baltimore re-enactment? If so, I'd like to sign up for that. That'll give me several years to practice and to get into proper character. I'll have to trade my contact lenses in for eyeglasses of the time, and trade in all my cotton clothing for wool, and not wear any underpants, and contract dysentery and consumption, and all sorts of other illness. If you're going to do it, you've got to do it right.
They just had the Battle of Guilford Courthouse re-enactment, and I was envious of those guys.
I think they do one every year. From the website:
DEFENDERS' DAY – THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER WEEKEND!!, Friday, Saturday & Sunday, September 9, 10 & 11
Join us for Fort McHenry’s flagship event! This three-day encampment and extravaganza is celebrated with over 100 War of 1812 reenactors, parades, military bands, fireworks, a symbolic ship-to-shore bombardment and much more!
http://www.nps.gov/fomc/pphtml/eventdetail15417.html
BTW...I think they only let you join the reenactment if you studied history in college. Someone coming straight out of high school wouldn't be experienced enough to operate 19th century technology.
you guys crack me up.
My favorite part of the National anthem is the fact that it is sung to the tune of a British drinking song.
Do we have ANY American drinking songs? reid, can you try to get the positions to record one? I hardly think we should continue singing to a british tune.
by the way, I just realized that I may haave presented a point that was kind of murky.
Baseball and hockey both have highly developed amateur leagues AND highly developed professional minor leagues. Seldomly does a hockey or baseball player go directly from being a hot-shot 17 year old kid to the big show. Even though they've spent years with a club team, they still spend a few more years playing in minor professional leagues, honing their skills, and becoming more physically developed. Football doesn't have this at all, and basketball has a decent amateur system with the AAU and whatnot, but the minor professional league of basketball is kind of a joke.
All that aside, I DO agree with you, Reid. If someone wants to make the leap for financial or other reasons, let them. They probably are qualified for the job.
The only reason I was bringing that stuff up is that you and King Kaufman wondered why people don't raise hell when baseball and hockey players forgo college. 99.9 % of those hockey and baseball players who forgo college, we've never heard of, and we won't hear of for a few years because they play minor league for a few years. On the other hand, basketball stars are forced into the limelight immediately.
By the way, doesn't the NFL have a rule against kids coming in? Wasn't that the issue with Maurice Clarett? I'm under the impression that they have to be out of high school 3 years to enter the NFL. or is it 2? I can't remember.
i'm just sayin', is all.
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