Greatest Song Evah 5/19/23

Ooh-La-La

This song is a bit of an outlier in The Face’s’ discography, with Ron Wood handling lead vocals rather than Rod Stewart or even Ronnie Lane. In addition the track avoids the boozy feel for which they’re best known. It settles into a quiet tone with a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia.

The “I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger” line expresses such a universal emotion. When you combine that with the old timey feeling conveyed by the instrumentation you’ve created something special. It’s worth noting that there is somewhat of an angry tinge to the emotions expressed in the song. Grandpa isn’t bestowing to his grandson wisdom accumulated throughout a long life; he’s warning about a specific type of woman. As the narrator sings in the opening lines he thought granddad was a bitter man; the song proves that he was to a large extent.

Ultimately, the beauty of the melody is what makes this such a perfect song. Wood may not have been the greatest vocalist, but he sells the feeling behind this one so well. His reading of the “ooh la la” chorus as the song fades is ideal.

FAFO Ron

The Ron DeSantis/Disney fight has been bizarre and pointless. This has taken unwarranted spite to a whole new level, and it’s always seemed difficult to try to figure out what could possibly be his end game. His default mode is to be a bully, but it’s senseless to pick a fight with one of the world’s largest corporations, especially one that it the largest economic force and job provider of the state that he governs.

And now he is paying a price for his nonsense. Disney is cancelling plans to build a new campus in Lake Nona. The intention was to spend more than $1 billion and to relocate more than 2000 employees into Florida, but no more. I hope it was worth it, Ron. You’ve successfully owned libs at quite a cost. In the first Presidential debate Trump will eviscerate him on this issue.

Some Serious Spring Cleaning

For reasons I don’t need to get into, I have had to move a large amount of boxes out of a place where I had been storing them. The boxes contain a massive comic book collection along with a wide variety of old magazines. It’s quite a process to go through them to see what’s worth keeping, what’s worth trying to sell, and what goes right into recycling, but digging into these boxes has brought back a lot of wonderful memories (using 20/20 hindsight this would have been an ideal Pandemic Project.)

In order for it not to be too overwhelming I’ve been going at a pace of opening one random box per day and seeing which treasures it contains. I’ve got a mental checklist of things that I’m reasonably certain I had saved and are hopefully still in good condition. So far I’ve made some nice finds, including a big one from earlier this week.

I opened up a box that holds Mets Yearbooks going back as far as 1971! This includes some seasons in which they also published a revised edition in the second half of the season. Even better, interspersed in that pile were scorecards from a handful of old games. Now here is a chance to Remember Some Guys. Here’s one from a Mets/Padres game I attended in May 1976. The pitching matchup was Tom Seaver vs. Brent Strom. Not a surprise that the final result was a 2-hit shutout with a 4-0 score. The surprise is that it was Strom pitching the shutout!

Just look at some of those names. Tito Fuentes! Doug “The Red Rooster” Rader! Enzo Hernandez on the bench! Not sure why I crossed out the names of Willie McCovey & Dave Winfield. My favorite part is that I was nerdy enough to calculate each player’s batting average after the game. Who knows what other wonders I may find as I continue to dig through those boxes.

It’s OK To Enjoy The Game

I’ve mentioned this before in my periodical complaints about John Smoltz but one of my big broadcasting pet peeves applies to other sports as well. I realize that a big part of Jeff Van Gundy’s shtick is to act like a curmudgeon, but it gets exhausting after a while. He rarely stops complaining over the course of a game. Just once I’d love to be able to watch a game without having to listen to the analyst spend half the game telling me how terrible the product is.

I’m Shocked… Shocked!

With the increasing embrace of gambling in professional sports this all seems inevitable. In the past several weeks we have seen 5 NFL players receive lengthy suspensions due to gambling activity, the University of Alabama firing its baseball coach following a discovery of some suspicious bets, and gambling investigations of multiple players at both Iowa and Iowa State.

Anyone who has watched any televised sports in the past couple of years can easily see how gambling related content has seeped its way into the games we watch. It would be one thing if it was limited to pregame shows; one can easily avoid that. It’s another thing entirely when broadcasters have to interrupt the game to promote Draft Kings and its ilk by hyping prop bets of all types. We’ve come a long way from the days when networks would avoid any reference to point spreads as if they were the plague; Al Michaels always got a kick out of obliquely referring to the betting lines when there would be a seemingly meaningless score at the end of a blowout game. “There are a lot of people interested in that field goal!”

What I find most disturbing is when broadcasters are asked to give out tips. It’s true that they’re on camera in the first place due to their expertise; but I believe they shouldn’t be responsible for the financial fate of their audience. Fun side bets are one thing; problem gamblers are another. One of my early jobs was working for SportsPhone. I wasn’t working for the familiar 976 line that sent out updates; I worked on the live 900 number. Ideally it would have worked as a sports talk radio type of atmosphere with a group discussion rather than a one-on-one talk between caller and host. But in reality it was mostly a service for gamblers. I would get too many calls from people asking me what would be the best bet from that night’s slate of games. Really, you’re asking me that? You don’t know who the hell I am and what level of knowledge I have, yet you’re trusting your money with me? One call I’ll never forget is one time a guy called me asking the score of the Yankees game, and they were losing something like 5-0 in the second inning. He started yelling “damn, damn!” when I told him that. The only thing I could think of to console him was to point out that there was still a lot of game left. He then told me I didn’t understand and he described the complex parlay he had placed based on the early score & my eyes started to roll. Keep in mind this was more than thirty years ago, I can’t imagine the types of bets the modern equivalent of that caller makes now that sports gambling is much more above ground.

I’m not saying this to moralize against gambling; if laying down a few bucks makes watching a game more exciting who am I to judge? I just worry when people sink too deeply into that quicksand that the enjoyment comes more from the thrill of the bet rather than from the thrill of the event, particularly if someone bets more than they can afford to lose. The concern is that by accepting the big checks from gambling orgs that the leagues and networks are enabling this too much.

It should be worth noting that the Alabama and Iowa situations are not the huge scandals that they may seem to be. The sports books noticed activity that seemed fishy and took immediate action; the system worked exactly as it was intended to.

Indy

Qualifying for the Indy 500 takes place this weekend. It’s far from the big deal that it used to be. This year 34 drivers are competing for the 33 available slots. In some recent years there have been exactly 33 entrants, so the qualifying only determined starting positions without any bumping. That’s quite a change from the glory days of the event.

For years there would be 4 full days of qualifying, and ABC’s Wide World Of Sports would devote the bulk of its time covering it, although the majority of the drama took place on the first Saturday (Pole Day) and the second Sunday (Bump Day.) And there used to be a LOT of hopefuls fighting for those precious 33 spots. There were often as many as 50 drivers vying for a spot in the field. There were no reserved spots either, only the fastest 33 would make the field. If you’re a past champion, but you ran too slowly, you’re out of the race. The specs for the cars were not as stringent as they are now, so there was a wide range of car quality. For years veteran racer Jim Hurtubise would show up with an old school front engine roadster. Its max speed was a good 10-15 MPH slower than any of the other cars, so he had zero chance of qualifying but he took his laps nonetheless. You could see drivers lined up in the queue seething as he wasted precious track time at their expense.

Little such drama in the current era. Honda & Chevy only supply a limited number of engines, so even if there were more drivers wishing to take a shot at qualifying there’s no car available to do so. Good luck to the 34 men & women putting their pedals to the medal this weekend, and sorry to whomever winds up as driver #34.

Good Night And Good Luck

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