What’s On My Mind Today?
No Need To Be An A***hole
This year’s induction ceremony was held for the Naismith Hall Of Fame last weekend. As expected, the evening was filled with emotional high points, as many of the inductees often struggled to hold back tears. It was also a loooooooong ceremony; there were 11 individuals and 1 team inducted. That adds up. Has this Hall grown too inclusive, and if so, what can be done about it?
By definition, for Naismith induction classes will always be large. It’s not the NBA Hall, it encompasses the entire scope of basketball. The institution also covers the college game, the women’s game, the international game, even the high school game. There is also the question surrounding every hall of fame. It needs to be exclusive enough to make the honor special, but how exclusive is too exclusive? How to avoid being excessively cruel when it comes to deciding who to leave out?
Of this year’s 12 inductees, 6 were - pardon the pun - easy slam dunk choices. Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade were NBA 75 selections; Pau Gasol could have easily made the list as well; Tony Parker is a multi-championship winning point guard with an NBA Finals MVP award; Gregg Popovich is the winningest coach in NBA history; and Becky Hammon made the WNBA 25th anniversary team. The other 6 can be questioned. I won’t pick apart each one, but is it necessary to honor junior college or Division III coaches? Gene Keady may have won a lot of games, but how are his credentials better than those of say, Lou Henson? At least Henson coached in 2 Final Fours. (BTW, in no way am I advocating for Hanson’s election.) On the bright side, no referees made it in this year.
The problem is that once you’ve lowered the bar it’s too unfair to raise it back up. Choose your own close the barn door or squeeze the toothpaste back in the tube metaphor. It is what is. But last week I once again heard the “solution” that pops up every once in a while. It comes from people who are either viciously mean spirited, or who don’t really think things through.
It’s the old one in, one out argument. In other words, membership of any Hall should be limited to a set number. If a new member is selected, fine. That means you need to kick one out to make room. That is a solution in search of a problem, and one that is unnecessarily cruel. The process is already gut wrenching for any candidate. No need to make it worse.
Let’s take this same argument and apply it to the Baseball Hall. Years ago Graham Womack had a recurring feature in the Sporting News in which he interviewed players who aged off of the writers’ ballot and whose fates were now in the hands of various veteran’s committees. It was sad to read how bitter many of them were about it all. Now, if you say that Luis Tiant for example is not deserving and that if he’s angry about it that’s just the reality, that’s fine. But I can’t get behind doubling down on the brutality by telling a man who’s already a member that he now needs to turn in his keys and that his autograph fees are suddenly significantly lower.
Whenever the members of a new Hall class are announced, I always love the video clips that show them receiving their congratulatory phone calls. That’s such a feel good moment. Who wants to be the person whose job it is to make the other phone call? “I’ll let Willie Mays Hayes known he’s been elected. Let’s find an intern to call Tanner Boyle to give him the bad news.” Now, apply this to a real world scenario. Hayes will need to spend time on his press tour apologizing to Boyle. Boyle will go on a press tour of his own, blasting the Hall and the process. On induction weekend, at least a couple of the returning Hall of Famers will be old teammates of Boyle’s. They will stare daggers at Hayes’ back throughout his entire speech. Fans of Boyle’s old teams will turn the event into The Weekend Of Deep Resentment. Does anybody really want that? Of course not, Hall weekend is a perfect celebration of what we love about the game. Don’t turn it into a negative.
Recommended Read
I so loved this piece that Margaret Sullivan wrote in The Guardian last week. It ostensibly concerned the death of Robbie Robertson, but it could apply to any deceased musician. She so perfectly articulates why the passing of a great musician feels so different than it does for other famous people.
Great music hits a person more viscerally than any other art form does. Music provides the soundtrack of our lives; it connects us to so many of our highs and lows. Hearing a beloved song stirs up memories of specific times of our lives. Yes, a movie can remind us of a first love, or of an emotional catharsis the film provided, but we understand that we’re watching an actor. It’s not quite the same thing. A musician provides a more personal connection; they make it appear as if they’re right there with us to share the moment.
I believe that’s why the number of celebrity deaths in 2016 affected so many of us on a personal level. With each new passing, social media feeds were filled with people screaming “enough!” Killjoys noted that there was nothing unusual about the number of famous people dying that year, but here’s why I think so many of us reacted the way we did that year. David Bowie died in early January. Not only was it a shock because he had kept secret how ill he was, but Bowie seemed like he was not of this earth. How could HE die? That started the year off on a bum note, and we were also slowly coming to grip with the reality that this entire generation of 1960s rockers were starting to reach their 70s and 80s. It stood to reason that they would begin to succumb to age-related illnesses. That didn’t compute; rock stars are supposed to remain forever young. If David Bowie could grow old and die, what does that say about the rest of us? Watching a famous actor age doesn’t hit quite as hard.
The Worst Kind Of Cartoon Villainy
There is little doubt in my mind that a large percentage of the most ostentatious “Christians” are absolute phonies. There is no way that an allegedly religious person would treat the downtrodden so miserably if he actually thought that someday he would meet and be judged by his maker.
It’s almost as if this crowd has watched a lot of James Bond movies and chose to identify with Blofeld. Is there any real difference between the sharks with laser beams that were Dr. Evil’s long running request and the circular saws that Greg Abbott had placed between buoys in the Rio Grande? That guy is a friggin’ monster. He and his ilk are dehumanizing desperate people.
In the post Moral Majority era of American politics there has been a running competition among candidates to claim who is the most Christian person in the field, yet they so consistently act decidedly un-Christlike, or resort to selective interpretation of the Bible. There’s a lot of recitation of the line about the abomination of lying with another man, yet they all ignore the line about how it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom. It’s almost as if these folks didn’t do the actual reading. At their core Christ’s teachings sure sound woke to me.
One More Indictment And He Gets A Free Sub
As many have pointed out, The Former Guy has now been indicted in every NL East city except for Philadelphia, the home of Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Not sure if any of the shenanigans the campaign pulled in Arizona warrant indictment, but if so he can also get a head start on achieving the Steve Miller Band Rock ‘N Me Indictment Tour. On second thought, that might be tougher than it sounds; I don’t believe his crimes extended all the way to Tacoma.
Kidding aside, this one is potentially the most serious one yet. With a total of 19 alleged conspirators, there are so many people with every incentive to flip. I don’t want to risk hitting John Oliver’s old “We Got Him!” button and get my hopes up too much, but this time he might be truly f***ed. That fateful escalator ride gets more consequential with each day. He had gotten away with a life of crime his entire life, had he never become President he would have never had to pay for his misdeeds. There’s an Icarus type lesson to be found somewhere in that.
These two elements stand out the most for me. Georgia officials have said that for this case there will be a standard booking. We’re gonna get a mug shot! We’re gonna learn his actual weight! And in the most ironic development since Jim Fixx died of a heart attack while jogging (you bet I’m aging myself with that reference) Rudy Giuliani has been indicted on a RICO charge. Delicious!
Good Night And Good Luck
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