Showing posts with label Football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Football. Show all posts
Friday, March 27, 2015
Reel Reviews
Draft Day -- So it's come to this: the NFL is now producing propaganda films like some 1930s dictatorship. One wonders if there is as much veracity in this exhibition as one might have found in, say, the movie within a movie in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Either way, the Sabols are either spinning in their graves, or dancing in Hell, depending. Much of this movie comes across as Stupid with a capital S, though I must grudgingly admit that there's enough entertainment here to keep the viewer engaged. This is the kind of role Kevin Costner is good at, though everyone else in the cast is basically a cardboard cutout. Watch it if you really dig sports movies; just don't let yourself fall too far under the spell of "the shield."
Monday, January 21, 2013
Right About The Big Things
I like to say that I'm always right. No one ever believes me, but I'm always right. Of course, I'm not right about every detail of what passes in this world, but I get the big picture right a lot of the time.
Witness this post, from almost two years ago. I was spot on when I called the selection of Colin Kaepernick the turning point for the 49ers' future. As it turns out, it wasn't quite a direct line from that day to the Super Bowl, but the team did eventually get there. For the record, despite that post, I was not an advocate for replacing Alex Smith with the kid halfway through this season; I figured it was better to stick with Smith for the present, then hand the keys over to Kaepernick for next season. But I was wrong about that; Harbaugh made the right call.
And, as it turned out, I was right about the heart of the matter: the 49ers have returned to glory, as they say, and Kaepernick is a huge part of that. So please, listen to me once in a while when I tell you something.
Witness this post, from almost two years ago. I was spot on when I called the selection of Colin Kaepernick the turning point for the 49ers' future. As it turns out, it wasn't quite a direct line from that day to the Super Bowl, but the team did eventually get there. For the record, despite that post, I was not an advocate for replacing Alex Smith with the kid halfway through this season; I figured it was better to stick with Smith for the present, then hand the keys over to Kaepernick for next season. But I was wrong about that; Harbaugh made the right call.
And, as it turned out, I was right about the heart of the matter: the 49ers have returned to glory, as they say, and Kaepernick is a huge part of that. So please, listen to me once in a while when I tell you something.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Pigskin Flux Capacitor
I've often ruminated on why I hate sports. Occasionally, I've even put those thoughts into print. But I also have ideas about why I love sports, too.
Most notably, I've often thought that sports are perhaps the only source of tangible, objective reality we have available to us. Everything else is so subjective, so wrapped up opinion and perspective: music is good or bad, according to your taste; food is delicious or awful, depending upon what you like; even history and its facts are subject to interpretation. As noted many times before, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. We live in a universe built on quicksand.
Not so with sports. Sure, there are points of disagreement, especially when discussing all-time greats. But for the most part, sports present us with a simple, objective reality upon which we can all agree. One team or competitor wins, the other loses. A game that ends 6-3 is a game that ends 6-3. Not much argument there. In a world of shifting sands of perspective, the sports fan can read the final score and stand steadfastly anchored on solid ground. Sports, in this way, can be a reliable and comforting antidote to all of life's other uncertainties.
So much for that. Yesterday, a fresh, brand new idea--another reason to love sports--popped into my mind, courtesy of the San Francisco 49ers.
Yesterday's dazzling win by the Niners over the Saints has stirred up a feeling that has not been seen around the Bay Area in a very long time. Many folks have drawn comparisons to 2002, the last season when the 49ers made it to the playoffs. The game-winning throw and catch by Alex Smith and Vernon Davis brought back many memories of a similar playoff-winning TD in 1999.
But for me, this run by the 49ers is reminiscent of their original Super Bowl team in the 1981 season. Like the 2011 model, Bill Walsh's first championship team came out of nowhere, after several years of abysmal failure. They too sported a 13-3 season record, yet went into the postseason as decided underdogs against traditional playoff heavyweights like the Cowboys, whom they beat in the conference title game. If the current edition of the Niners makes it to the Super Bowl, they will have dispatched not one but two recent champs to get there.
But even if they lose on Sunday, the 49ers will have accomplished something that has solidified in my mind another reason to love sports: time travel.
The only real form of time travel we have available to us is memory. The only way we can go back to yesterday--or yesteryear--in any sense is through our memories of those past times. And, as noted above, the 49ers' victory has proved that sports can provide a powerful vehicle for evoking those memories.
Maybe not as powerful as Doc Brown's suped-up Delorean in Back To The Future, but at least as powerful as any of the other sources of memory recall we can experience. Art can stir up those memories of the past and bring one a sense of days gone by. Food can do it too. Music may be the most powerful vehicle for evoking that sense of past times and places. And now, I can attest from these past 30 or so hours, sports can perform that same magic as well. The memory of what it was like when I was a kid, when Montana threw that ball to Clark, has been surprisingly strong this weekend. And someday, someone who is a kid today will be able to travel back to this time, when athletes not yet born will make a play with an uncanny resemblance to what Davis and Smith hath wrought on Saturday.
Small wonder then, given its power to evoke such feelings in its adherents, that sports can continue to thrive the way it does, even in the face of all that is so desperately wrong within its purview. Today it may be just a game, but in thirty years today's game, tied to another game in the future, will be a connection to our lost youth, and a window into a lost world.
Most notably, I've often thought that sports are perhaps the only source of tangible, objective reality we have available to us. Everything else is so subjective, so wrapped up opinion and perspective: music is good or bad, according to your taste; food is delicious or awful, depending upon what you like; even history and its facts are subject to interpretation. As noted many times before, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. We live in a universe built on quicksand.
Not so with sports. Sure, there are points of disagreement, especially when discussing all-time greats. But for the most part, sports present us with a simple, objective reality upon which we can all agree. One team or competitor wins, the other loses. A game that ends 6-3 is a game that ends 6-3. Not much argument there. In a world of shifting sands of perspective, the sports fan can read the final score and stand steadfastly anchored on solid ground. Sports, in this way, can be a reliable and comforting antidote to all of life's other uncertainties.
So much for that. Yesterday, a fresh, brand new idea--another reason to love sports--popped into my mind, courtesy of the San Francisco 49ers.
 |
| Time-travellers Vernon Davis and Jim Harbaugh Photo courtesy oregonlive.com |
But for me, this run by the 49ers is reminiscent of their original Super Bowl team in the 1981 season. Like the 2011 model, Bill Walsh's first championship team came out of nowhere, after several years of abysmal failure. They too sported a 13-3 season record, yet went into the postseason as decided underdogs against traditional playoff heavyweights like the Cowboys, whom they beat in the conference title game. If the current edition of the Niners makes it to the Super Bowl, they will have dispatched not one but two recent champs to get there.
But even if they lose on Sunday, the 49ers will have accomplished something that has solidified in my mind another reason to love sports: time travel.
The only real form of time travel we have available to us is memory. The only way we can go back to yesterday--or yesteryear--in any sense is through our memories of those past times. And, as noted above, the 49ers' victory has proved that sports can provide a powerful vehicle for evoking those memories.
Maybe not as powerful as Doc Brown's suped-up Delorean in Back To The Future, but at least as powerful as any of the other sources of memory recall we can experience. Art can stir up those memories of the past and bring one a sense of days gone by. Food can do it too. Music may be the most powerful vehicle for evoking that sense of past times and places. And now, I can attest from these past 30 or so hours, sports can perform that same magic as well. The memory of what it was like when I was a kid, when Montana threw that ball to Clark, has been surprisingly strong this weekend. And someday, someone who is a kid today will be able to travel back to this time, when athletes not yet born will make a play with an uncanny resemblance to what Davis and Smith hath wrought on Saturday.
Small wonder then, given its power to evoke such feelings in its adherents, that sports can continue to thrive the way it does, even in the face of all that is so desperately wrong within its purview. Today it may be just a game, but in thirty years today's game, tied to another game in the future, will be a connection to our lost youth, and a window into a lost world.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Psychic Ability
I've been thumping this drum for about a week and a half now, so I figured I'd cowboy up (pun intended) and set it down with a date and time stamp so everyone will be wildly impressed when I prove right: I think the Eagles are going to win the NFC East. I see them winning their last two games, the Cowboys losing their last two games, and the Jets putting the Giants out of our misery this coming Saturday. A long shot, I know, but I think it's more probable than some might imagine, and I want to get out in front of it. So there--I set my prediction down in black and white (or whatever colors you monitor is showing right now). We'll see how it goes...
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Sound Advice
I'm not much of a college football fan. I'll take the pros over college any day. But every once in a while, when there's a really good local team playing, or there's a game that draws my interest, I'll give it a look. Or, alternately, when I've got absolutely nothing else going on and need to kill some time, I'll settle for whatever college game ESPN is showing that night.
This, unfortunately, has some consequences. Like for instance, the convergence of my ears and the verbal stylings of Lou Holtz. Holtz does studio duty for ESPN during their halftime shows, and occasionally makes his way into the broadcast booth for actual game play, as with this past Wednesday night's game between Pitt and Connecticut. I've now had several opportunities to get a taste of Holtz in his ESPN gig, and I'm just a little baffled by what I'm hearing.
You see, the man apparently has a little problem with his dentures, or a missing tooth, or...something--it's difficult to say what's the source of the trouble. Somehow, someway, no one at "the worldwide leader" has noticed this, but Coach Holtz has something of a speech impediment. Sort of like China has a Great Wall. And this is a problem for the viewers, especially the casual viewers like me. Because it's more than a little distracting when you're hearing analysis of a team's blitz package coming from Sylvester from the old Looney Tunes cartoons. It's bad enough when you're hearing him coming through your TV speakers; imagine what it's like for me, someone who does most of his television viewing with headphones on. (Noisy neighbors; long story; don't ask.)
Once upon a time, to get on TV, you had to have a certain combination of qualities. Looks helped; many a radio star saw his career go down the drain when television first arrived. Knowing what you're talking about (for analytical positions) helped a lot, too. But you also needed to sound good--like you weren't drowning the mic in spit. It's an aural medium as well as a visual one, and something as off-putting as a profound lisp should be a no-go when it comes to a major speaking role on a national television network.
Now, I don't want to be overly harsh here. By all accounts Coach Holtz is a fine man, much accomplished in his field and worthy of respect. And I have little doubt that his impediment is the product of his well-advanced age; he can't do much about it. But it's tough to listen to him for more than a few minutes without diving for the remote control. I get that ESPN values his insight into college football, but please--can't he just dole out his wisdom through a column in ESPN The Magazine? Our ears will thank you for it.
| Coach Lou Holtz (aural representation only) (Google Images) |
You see, the man apparently has a little problem with his dentures, or a missing tooth, or...something--it's difficult to say what's the source of the trouble. Somehow, someway, no one at "the worldwide leader" has noticed this, but Coach Holtz has something of a speech impediment. Sort of like China has a Great Wall. And this is a problem for the viewers, especially the casual viewers like me. Because it's more than a little distracting when you're hearing analysis of a team's blitz package coming from Sylvester from the old Looney Tunes cartoons. It's bad enough when you're hearing him coming through your TV speakers; imagine what it's like for me, someone who does most of his television viewing with headphones on. (Noisy neighbors; long story; don't ask.)
Once upon a time, to get on TV, you had to have a certain combination of qualities. Looks helped; many a radio star saw his career go down the drain when television first arrived. Knowing what you're talking about (for analytical positions) helped a lot, too. But you also needed to sound good--like you weren't drowning the mic in spit. It's an aural medium as well as a visual one, and something as off-putting as a profound lisp should be a no-go when it comes to a major speaking role on a national television network.
Now, I don't want to be overly harsh here. By all accounts Coach Holtz is a fine man, much accomplished in his field and worthy of respect. And I have little doubt that his impediment is the product of his well-advanced age; he can't do much about it. But it's tough to listen to him for more than a few minutes without diving for the remote control. I get that ESPN values his insight into college football, but please--can't he just dole out his wisdom through a column in ESPN The Magazine? Our ears will thank you for it.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Publication Note
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| malchats media |
Saturday, April 30, 2011
The Revival Begins?
I had an interesting moment yesterday. I was in the car, heading towards the freeway and listening to sports talk radio. Just then the host--the inimitable Damon Bruce--broke in on taking calls to tell his listeners that the 49ers were "on the clock" in the NFL draft's second round. Bruce made a few speculating comments about whom the 49ers might pick. I, alone in my car, spoke up to no one in particular, "What about that kid from Nevada? The quarterback...Kaepernick."
The words were hardly out of my mouth when the station broke in with a live feed from the draft. Former 49er Dwight Clark--he of "The Catch"--came to the podium and announced the 49ers' selection: none other than quarterback Colin Kaepernick out of Nevada.
That moment held a lot of "cool factor." The coincidental timing, my prediction being spot on, the fact that Bruce had not mentioned Kaepernick himself in his speculation...that all made for a fine moment. But there may be a bigger, long-term impact in that moment that bodes well for long-suffering 49er fans, because I think the team made a great choice.
I'm not a big college football fan, though I have indulged in the occasional game or two recently, whenever I had nothing else to watch or a particular match-up intrigued me. Last season's Boise State vs. Nevada game was just such an occasion, and I watched the whole game. I saw an overtime thriller for my troubles, one of the most exciting college football games I've ever seen, and Kaepernick was a big part of the hubbub.
The kid showed a huge upside in that game. And the fact that the 49ers, who have been bedeviled by quarterback play ranging from wildly inconsistent to downright awful in recent years, were able to draft Kaepernick may mean the end of their problems and the beginning of much brighter days ahead. I'm reminded of the mid-'80s, when the Philadelphia Eagles drafted Randall Cunningham out of UNLV in the second round--another mobile, strong-armed quarterback out of the Silver State, who quickly came into the game and set the Eagles on a course for the playoffs for years to come.
So mark it here and now: I predict that the 49ers have finally turned the corner with the selection of Kaepernick. Alex Smith will probably start the season under center for San Francisco again, to the groans of many in the Bay Area, but by mid-season those days will be past. And a once proud franchise will start making the push back to respectability--and beyond--by the end of the 2011 season.
(And yes--there will be a season. Don't get hysterical about the lockout; there's too much money at stake for everyone to see it all go down the drain.)
The words were hardly out of my mouth when the station broke in with a live feed from the draft. Former 49er Dwight Clark--he of "The Catch"--came to the podium and announced the 49ers' selection: none other than quarterback Colin Kaepernick out of Nevada.
That moment held a lot of "cool factor." The coincidental timing, my prediction being spot on, the fact that Bruce had not mentioned Kaepernick himself in his speculation...that all made for a fine moment. But there may be a bigger, long-term impact in that moment that bodes well for long-suffering 49er fans, because I think the team made a great choice.
I'm not a big college football fan, though I have indulged in the occasional game or two recently, whenever I had nothing else to watch or a particular match-up intrigued me. Last season's Boise State vs. Nevada game was just such an occasion, and I watched the whole game. I saw an overtime thriller for my troubles, one of the most exciting college football games I've ever seen, and Kaepernick was a big part of the hubbub.
The kid showed a huge upside in that game. And the fact that the 49ers, who have been bedeviled by quarterback play ranging from wildly inconsistent to downright awful in recent years, were able to draft Kaepernick may mean the end of their problems and the beginning of much brighter days ahead. I'm reminded of the mid-'80s, when the Philadelphia Eagles drafted Randall Cunningham out of UNLV in the second round--another mobile, strong-armed quarterback out of the Silver State, who quickly came into the game and set the Eagles on a course for the playoffs for years to come.
So mark it here and now: I predict that the 49ers have finally turned the corner with the selection of Kaepernick. Alex Smith will probably start the season under center for San Francisco again, to the groans of many in the Bay Area, but by mid-season those days will be past. And a once proud franchise will start making the push back to respectability--and beyond--by the end of the 2011 season.
(And yes--there will be a season. Don't get hysterical about the lockout; there's too much money at stake for everyone to see it all go down the drain.)
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