Sucks to be you, Nick

So, what about it, Nicky? This one was just the cherry on the sundae, wasn't it? How many is this now, nine? Nine players from your squad arrested on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to assault to cocaine distribution in a year's time. This is some pickle you're in, Nicky. Miami looking not-so-bad now?

It's bad enough to be you already. You have to live down the rep of being a liar or being disloyal because you took the Bama job in the first place. You have to justify your ridiculous salary. You have to resurrect a dying program and restore it to glory. You have to deal with what is arguably the most demanding, impatient and sometimes delusional fanbase in all of college sports. It can't be fun a lot of days. And now you have to explain how you said you were going to reinstate discipline to the team and yet nine of your guys now have mug shots on record in Tuscaloosa County. In a year's time.

But while I have no sympathy for Jimmy Johns, I do have sympathy for you, Nicky. I feel bad you're expected to create something magic and perfect from Mike Shula's mixed bag of recruits who were accustomed to ice cream cone discipline for four years. I feel bad that by the time you are actually able to field a team entirely of your own recruits and who have been guided by your standards of discipline from the start, your fans will probably be calling for your head based on the bad behavior of these other thugs. I feel bad that you're expected to make Bama perfect again overnight when that isn't possible.

But I feel better when I see you kick these guys off the team, suspend them for games and dish out other punishment. It tells me you might really care about how the program runs. So we'll see.

Sucks to be you, Jimmy

He was Mr. Football in the state of Mississippi when the coaches came calling for him and Mike Shula pulled off an upset and recruited Jimmy Johns to Alabama. Now he'll go to prison for many years instead of going pro because he's a coke dealer. He even did a deal in the shadow of Bryant-Denny Stadium. That's enough to make even an Auburn fan cry blasphemy.

I don't get it. You're given free college, free food, free place to stay. You have access to an education that can take you anywhere you want to go, and you have a chance for a very lucrative career in the NFL. All you have to do is go to class, fulfill your obligation to the team and stay out of trouble. That's it. How many would give their proverbial left nut for that sort of deal? Four years, sometimes five, with very little responsibility and the world just waiting to open up for you. Now you're off the team, headed to prison and all that prospect is down the toilet. Way to go, dumbass. I have no sympathy.

Play Ball! (That Means Everybody)

"I believe there should be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter." -- Crash Davis, Bull Durham

Crash is one of my movie heroes and it's because the man was simple and straightforward. He cut through the bullshit. He played ball, and he understood that everything else was good because he got to make a living playing ball. And stupid things that screwed that up--like "turf toe" and designated hitters--needed to be cast aside in honor of purity and bliss.

I'm guessing Hank Steinbrenner is not a Crash fan. This week Hank lost a pitcher to an injury sustained while (gasp!) running bases. See, the Yankees are an American League team which use a designated hitter, but they were playing an interleague game in a National League park where pitchers are expected to play a whole game like everyone else. Hank was pissed, and issued this pissy little statement:

“My only message is simple. The National League needs to join the 21st century. They need to grow up and join the 21st century. I’ve got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He’s going to be out. I don’t like that, and it’s about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s.”

I hate to point out your stupidity, Hank, but what rule are you talking about? You mean the rule that authorized the use of a non-fielding player to do half the work of a non-batting pitcher? That rule was discussed since the early 1900s, sure, but didn't go into effect until 1973.

Yes, the DH is exciting. He swings a big bat. He makes a lot of home runs. Good for him. But what of the game? Essentially, you have two players who only work half the time. Two prima donnas who only do what they like best. Is that fair to the rest of the guys who play on both sides of the plate, running, batting, fielding? Why don't we really get into the 21st Century and carry this idea out to its natural conclusion. We can play 18 players a game with nine guys to do the fielding and nine big bats to do the hitting. Boy, wouldn't that be fun?

In baseball, everyone should play the whole game, and that means the pitcher too. Baseball is a team sport and everyone brings their particular skills to the field. Some are better batters, and some can break a batter's heart with an unhittable pitch or a diving, body-sacrificing catch. That's what makes it cool. I don't want baseball to be "in the 21st Century." I like the kind of baseball Babe Ruth played. The Babe was a first class pitcher and hitter. I have an idea he's smirking down on Hank about now.

Tiger

Walt Whitman wrote in
I Sing The Body Electric,

"But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side."

I'm not a big golf fan. I don't play it, and I have never understood the obsessive level of devotion to the game that so many men have. In fact, I got banned from the Browns forum this week for saying that golf was boring. How wrong was I? I was watching that incredible playoff round of the U.S. Open this week and, fan of the game or not, at some point you have to realize that you are witnessing greatness and appreciate it for what it is. It transcends sport; it is about being the best at what you do and how you got that way. It is amazing to watch people who are the best at what they do.

Preparing for a putt, Tiger made some small motion with his hand, and it was the elegance of his wrist that caught my eye and made me think of the Whitman. I began to notice the deliberateness of every motion. It was in his posture, his gait and stance. It was in his facial expression. And it isn't just that he is beautiful in a physical sense as an athlete. He is that, but all those things were the outward expression of a mental toughness and discipline that I so severely lack I cannot help but be drawn to it in fascination. The intensity. The concentration. The focus. It is one thing to be graced with great physical or intellectual ability. It is another thing to have the force of will and the discipline and drive to hone those gifts into perfection.

Tiger plays golf for a living. He might have been a surgeon or a musician or a painter or a poet, and he would have excelled at any of those things I feel certain. He's the expression of a well-made man. Dress does not hide people like that.

Cadillac Escalade

Nothing pisses me off like a Cadillac Escalade. Especially the pearl white.

It's not that I can't afford to drive one. I admire and respect the success of people who have worked hard enough to afford luxury items. It's the whole concept of the Escalade that bothers me.

An Escalade is just another SUV. A sport-utility vehicle. SUVs were, in theory, designed to pull loads, carry cargo, accommodate multiple persons and go off road. Who goes off road in their Caddi? Anyone? I didn't think so. And I have rarely seen a woman driver of an Escalade who I believed would ever load cargo.

A while back we went to dinner and there was an Escalade parked right at the front door, using two spaces. The driver did it intentionally, as the vehicle was parked directly on top of the line between the spaces. It wouldn't get bumped by the door of somebody's old Ford POS that way. This is my proof that people who drive an Escalade do not drive it because it is a performance SUV that can endure the punishment of rugged treatment. They drive it because it is a big, giant Cadillac and it demonstrates their carefree attitude toward the price of gas. I have never wanted to key a car so badly in my life.