Sports headlines of the future

UNITED STATES DISBANDS ALL TEAM SPORTS
Citing a clear inability to win any competitive event that includes more than one athlete to a side, the U.S. has ended all team sports in favor of individual activities. While some purists lament the loss to youth of the feeling of succeeding as a member of a team, others say working together is a bygone remnant that doesn't fit into America's current individualistic culture. Some holdouts remain - John Wooden, still alive at 187 years old thanks to clean living, constantly tells everyone at Santa Rosa Riverfront Group Home about the five fingers being weak separately, but strong as a fist. Everyone else there, still in their early 100s, wishes he would just stop telling them about Alcindor, whoever that is. Clearly, today's youth, and even some of the elderly, don't have the time for a relic like Wooden who hasn't won a championship in a century and a half.
Herewith, a brief rundown of America's current sports landscape. There are still team sports; there just aren't any teams.
The NBA is now a one-on-one league where LeBron James III (11 years old, 6 feet 10 inches tall, 312 pounds, 28-inch rims) is currently leading the standings. Heaven knows what he'll be like when he hits puberty.
The NFL is no longer even a league, but rather an ingeniously designed artificial intelligence engine that spits out random numbers that are followed religiously by fantasy football players. The game was discontinued 40 years ago for two reasons: one, because the players grew so large and strong that it was safer to play in rush hour traffic than take the field, and two, because America had lapsed into severe economic depression due to a lack of productivity that leading scholars connected directly to fantasy sports. However, the fantasy football players could not be bothered by the fact that the fantasy no longer had any connection to reality, and they still rabidly draft, trade and tell elaborate stories about their leagues.
In professional baseball, the game has been reduced to little more than a robotic pitcher (developed at MIT) throwing 147-mph knuckleballs in a batting cage. Each player gets a few swings and then steps out to be immediately drug tested. While not the best player, the most talked about is Julio Franco, who is playing in his 71st season in the big leagues. He spent half the year on the DL last season for a heart transplant but is back better than ever.
Golf has always been an individual sport, except for rare tournaments played in teams. The U.S. quit this barbaric "team" playing many years ago because of horrible results and because, at the behest of Commissioner Annie Rand, each man or woman deserved to play solely for himself or herself. After the shocking revelation 30 years ago - uncovered by journalist Geraldino (The Tiny Mustache) Rivera - that legendary golfer Tiger Woods was a cyborg from an alternate dimension, the helm as greatest human golfer has fallen to Pee Wie, grandson of Michelle Wie.
While the major sports have gone to one-on-one competition, less popular sports have retained the team concept and some individual sports have gone fully toward teams as a way to draw in fans who miss camaraderie, fellowship and men slapping each other lovingly on the hind quarters for making a good play.
Tennis: Now a team sport played only on grass. However, there are only two teams: World's population minus Roger Federer Jr. and Roger Federer Jr. This season, Federer Jr. is 37-8.
Soccer: The U.S. still sucks. It won't change. Deal with it.
Track and Field: Due to dwindling interest, a decade ago the world's track and field governing body chose to randomly select which athlete would compete in which event prior to each meet. While a world record has never been broken since the decision, it is always fun to watch the discus throwers pole vault.
Bass Fishing, Bowling, NASCAR, pool, poker: Little has changed with these sports. They are still regularly shown on the country's cable sports channels (such as ESPN Jr.) and they are still extremely boring.
Will teams ever return to U.S. soil? It's unclear. Other countries have stuck with the team concept, but Americans, always strongly self-reliant, have shown no plans to return to the antiquated notion of cooperation among five or nine or eleven. But then again, it is about who's number one.

Blogging Roadshow

I am coming to you live from the Yuma County Library. I thought it was time to break out of my blogging rut and try some other locations. However, all this particular location has to offer is teenagers looking at things they can't look at when at home and some heinous body odor.
Alas, there is no time for delay. There is a lot to get to.
1. The Z Team (Kat, Eric, me and quasi-Z third wheel Maddy) took a day trip to Julian, California, a tourist trap for people who like antiquing, riding motorcycles or both. It was actually a really fun place. I would suggest it for anyone who happens to be in the area. However, be careful when driving there. There are twisty roads and mistakes made by others may cloud your vision. Do not be distracted!
2. Despite the fact that Chris Berman became an enormous caricature of himself a decade ago, I badly miss NFL Primetime. NBC's horrible substitute, Football Night in America, couldn't really be worse. The highlight packages are so short that I'm forced to actually watch games, rather than simply get it all from Primetime. I like Bob Costas, but he's been a little too smarmy during the first two weeks. Cris Collinsworth is so smug that the word smug doesn't even begin to cover it. I think it should be SSSSSSMMMMMMMUUUUUGGGGGG. Sterling Sharpe could be a character in Dave Chappelle's haters sketch, and Jerome (He's from Detroit!) Bettis thinks he should still be playing. All of this would be acceptable if the highlights were better. But they show like two scoring plays and that's it. No analysis, no here's how this play happened, no here's a run for eight yards. I'm saddened because Primetime has been an important part of my life for years. It's like having a beloved pet die. I know that You're With Me Leather and Tom Jackson are doing Primetime lite on SportsCenter on something imaginatively (by that I mean extremely unimaginatively) called The Blitz. But I don't want that. I just want Primetime.
Primetime was like any good television show: two strong characters, guaranteed drama every week, running gags that ran on far too long and so much fun that you would wish you were there. Football Night in America has none of these things. It's overproduced, boring and doesn't seem like it would be fun to sit with those four guys and talk football. That wasn't the case with Primetime. Most people thought it would be fun to hang out with Boom and TJ, bust their chops for getting fat, hope Michael Jackson caught a touchdown pass (hee hee) or someone from Brown University or Louisville factored into an important play. FBIA isn't cutting it, so I'll think I'll just cut it out. But I mourn Primetime.
3. I saw the documentary Grizzly Man. I hesitate to say it was enjoyable considering the ending, but I did like it. I would be willing to do just about anything with Werner Herzog, even if it was just folding his laundry or running errands. The man who created Fitzcarraldo is a man I can be down with. What I loved about Grizzly Man is that if some other director had made it, it would have been about bears or the craziness of Timothy Treadwell or the dangers of nature. But with Herzog, a movie about a guy living with bears and then being eaten by one, actually ends up being about filmmaking. It seems like a documentary about Herzog watching the Treadwell footage and trying to craft a coherent documentary out of it might be interesting as well. But that might be way too meta, but anyway, I typed it so I'm sticking with it.
4. Everyone at work says I type too loudly when I get to writing something, and judging by the looks I'm getting from people in this library, they are absolutely right. Some 15-year-old pulled himself away from Perez Hilton long enough to glare at me. And he's listening to an iPod and yet apparently he can still hear my clacking. Oh well, if he can look at Web sites for lad mags in a publicly-funded institution for free, I can be allowed to type loudly. If not, the (insert current hated subgroup) win.
5. No new Project Runway ep last night. I'm jonesing for some discussion of "whether he had a woman's body in mind." Maybe I just need to lay down.
6. I'm currently reading Ravelstein by Saul Bellow. It's categorized as a novel, but it seems more like an extended meditation on being a dying Northeast Jewish liberal professor at a leafy university. That doesn't mean it's not good, but Philip Roth, Mr. Bellow and Don DeLillo have plowed the field pretty clear in my estimation. But I'm a Philistine, so if you like, check your local library. I don't think I'm the target audience for Bellow's Adventures of Abe and Chick as they reminisce about the past before they shove off this mortal coil.
7. I'm listening to a sample of Saddle Creek songs that was included on Cursive's latest Happy Hollow. I'm enjoying the Bright Eyes tracks that will be included on the upcoming "this and that" album called Noise Floor. I like the Cursive album, although the absence of the cello player is felt. If you just want one song off iTunes, I'd go for Bad Sects. It combines moddy rhythms with bad puns, Catholic psychosexual guilt and Midwestern sameness. I think. Or I read a Pitchfork review and couldn't successfully purge all of it out of my cerebral cortex.
8. I think that's about all that I've got for you. If anyone actually got to the end, I applaud you. You can prove it by finding the 37th word (contractions are considered one item, punctuation is not counted) in item 7 and typing it into the comments section. I will then mail you an autographed photo and whatever uplifting message you choose, courtesy of The Yumanity. Happy hunting!

Seeking comment

I need a "take" as Jim Rome would say on this story from someone who has lived in this area and possibly even been affiliated with one of the entities mentioned. I'm confused as to why being the UNC punter is so important. Any and all explanations welcomed in the comments. Thank you for your time.

Quotent Quotables

"I don't care what other people think just because they're retarded ..."
- Kat, Sept. 10, 2006

This was in response to me explaining that I thought the Stealers Wheel song "Stuck in the Middle With You" sounded like Bob Dylan, so I was confused as to who sang it. I cited the Wikipedia entry as proof that I was far from the only person who made this mistake. The somewhat vulgar and reductionist quote was her retort.

She wanted this comment to be encapsulated for posterity in case it became some sort of "Show me the money!" level catchphrase or just so she could remember it as her catchphrase. So, if you want to, use it in good health. Salud!

Yuma meet nutshell

Tuesday night my feminine compatriot and I attended the documentary "Wordplay" at our local cinematheque. We didn't have to elbow anyone out of the way to get a good seat since WE WERE THE ONLY TWO PEOPLE IN THE THEATRE! Apparently, a human Yuman requested that the movie be shown here and either this person has compromising pictures of people of consequence or Harkins Theatres can afford to just burn money because no one seemed the least bit interested in the movie. I'm not saying Yuma totally lacks culture - I'm just saying it gets closer to it every year.
However, the movie is a good one and worth seeing if you get a chance. Jon Stewart is funny in it, people who compete in crossworld puzzle tournaments are even nerdier than you thought people could actually be, and New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz is pretty cool. Daniel Okrent, former public editor of The Times, author, raconteur and one of the founders of fantasy baseball (he called it rotisserie baseball) is also in it. He has kept a log of the time it takes him to complete the NYT crossword for years into the past because A) he is absolutely insane and B) he wants to chart the deterioration of his faculties. One of those explanations is actually true. Pick one and then choose your own adventure for the rest of this blog entry!

If you picked A: You were wrong. As a result, a boulder fell off a cliff and landed on your Yugo. You are stranded, so you can take your cyanide pill or try to scream for help. However, all you can see around you are the shadows of circling vultures who are roughly the size of train cars.

If you picked B: You're right and get to hang out at the club with Diddy and Danity Kane (whoever it is they are). However, there is no more blog because I have nothing else to say. This is why my numerous fan fiction choose your own adventure Manimal screenplays have not been published at www.manimalfanficadventure.com.

Keep cool!

Not Hellas Good

I suppose I should add a coda to my posts about the US basketball team's adventures in Japan. I enjoyed watching them play and feel like more than anything else, they just picked a horrible time to play a horrible game against Greece. However, defense shouldn't take a night off like shooting sometimes can, and that is what seemed to happen. Maybe if the roster stays largely the same the defense can be improved. Still, it was disheartening to see them play so well and then lose everything because they played so poorly. It was good to go out on a high note with the win over Argentina. I think that officially makes him LeBronze James, who, despite occasional horrid jump shooting, passed the ball splendidly. If Wade, James and Anthony stick on the team for the coming years and stick together, I think the US can succeed. Maybe FIBA rules and international basketball just aren't the venue for NBA players, but I don't know that there is any better option.
The general apathy by the American public toward the tournament can be looked at in different ways. They just don't care whether the team is good or not or they just don't care because they can't seem to win anymore. The cynical view is that the team is nothing more than a good excuse for disgruntled sports columnists to rail against the lack of fundamentals in the American and NBA game. But I've decided to let that go and just focus on the spectacle. I enjoyed watching the games. I did not enjoy Jim Durham and Fran Fraschilla.
I taped over the US/Argentina game for the gold medal game, which with the beyond lackluster performance by Greece, made me instantly regret it. Greece looked worse than JD and FF sounded. I'm excited about next year's continental Toronto Raptors based on what I've seen of their Spaniards.
I promise - as a result of a court order - that there will be fewer basketball posts in the next few months. In other news:
Tiger Woods - seems to win a lot of golf tournaments. He was on 60 Minutes last night (it was a rerun, but I missed it when it aired because I'm under 75 years old and not in a wheelchair) but TW said nothing of consequence, offered no interesting insight or anything new, period. He did give Ed Bradley some dap now and then, but I think that's only because Ed Bradley wanted to go back to his assisted living home and make everybody else at lunch jealous.
Steve Irwin - sad and bizarre ending.
Labor Day - nice when you don't have to labor.
Brokeback Mountain - I'm going to sound like the Jim Gaffigan bit where he just saw Heat about six years after it came out and now wants to talk about it, but I just saw Gay Cowboys in Wyoming last night. It's beyond cliche to say a book was better than a movie (in fact, it may beyond cliche to say it's beyond cliche that a book is better than a movie) but the Annie Proulx short story is so fast-moving that every single word is like a slug to the chest. The story has such power because of its immediacy, so to stretch it into a two-hour movie (but add little that isn't actually in the book) makes for a slow slog. The movie feels like driving through Wyoming, and that's not a compliment by any stretch. I still found it to be a good film, but it was just too slow in spots. HOWEVAH (said in the voice of the intolerable Screamin' A. Smith) Brokeback is so much better than Crash that there is no comparison. CRASH IS WACK! (also, in SAS voice). I hope my feelings aren't misconstrued. I think I'm being clear about my dislike of Crash.
Blog-a-rhythm - Ryan Adams "Cold Roses." I especially enjoy Dance All Night on Disc 2.