Father's Day...

It's been a long weekend watching the US Open. My poor husband, and his only love: golf. He's been trying to watch as much as he can and just as soon as it seems to get interesting, the rain starts falling too hard or the lightening starts.

I tried, just the other day, to tell a friend that golfers weren't whimps. The only other sport that plays in the rain is football. And even football games can get called for lightening. Golfers play until the golf course gets unplayable, and it's not them that makes the decision. My hubby is a father. He wants to start playing golf with his kids. I wish that they would. That drama is for another story in another place.

---

My Dad is a man who loves his baseball. In particular, he loves the history of the sport and loves the history of his favorite team: the St. Louis Cardinals. He's now rooting for the local, Evansville Otters. They're not having the best of years, but that's okay, he's still rooting for the team.

Next week, not for Father's Day but for his birthday, we're heading to St. Louis, for a Friday and Sunday watching the Cardinals. Saturday is reserved for the Hill, the Zoo and hopefully the Botanical Garden. It'll be a lot of walking for my parents, so I doubt we'll make it to see everything. It'll be a Saturday, which means that the travel around will be a little more 'stilted'.

But we're going to be spending quality time in some of the most expensive seats watching Albert and company hopefully beat an American league team. The Cardinals have had decent luck and decent playing against the AL Central (7-4 this year, thus far) and playing against Minnesota next week. Happy Early Birthday to my Dad. And Happy Father's Day to my Husband and my Dad. And last, but definitely not least, Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there.

Plaxico - PreTried

I will be the first to say I don't like the Plaxico Burress of the media. I just don't like the over-active arrogance that I see, and I don't like what he seems to stand for: athletes who are so 'good' that they are better than the rest of us.

They aren't. But that's another story for another day.

But Plaxico Burress is a man who has been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion before we really know the whole truth. We know he had a gunshot wound to the leg. We know that there was a gun involved. Everything beyond that is basically conjecture.

We apparently know that he had a permit to carry a gun in Florida that expired. In some places that I have read, apparently gun laws in New York are so strict that they don't recognize other states' laws (what, no multi-state compact?). So, we can probably say that this is ignorance of the law (if we are pre-trying and pre-convicting) is probably Mr. Burress' worst offense (outside of the discharge of the weapon).

What really gets me about all this is that Plaxico Burress shot himself in the leg the same week ESPN the Magazine comes out with the story of the NFL after the home invasion killing of Sean Taylor. These guys are walking contradictions: they are the biggest, baddest athletes we have in this country and they're scared beyond belief. Many NFL athletes of the 'good old days' were playboys and I'm sure that there are some today.

They have the money to do anything but be anonymous. Any other young man would be expected to go out on a Friday or Saturday night. These guys, they have a job that makes them play on Sunday, so Friday should be their night. So, are they not supposed to be social? Are they not supposed to be 'out there' to meet people?

That's my question for the people ready to castigate Burress and his teammates for being out and about. The only thing is the ridiculous law that they are hammering him for, even if he was the only one who got hurt. I was listening to Mike and Mike the other morning and Jack Ford said something that was interesting, that Plaxico Burress is being, essentially punished for his fame.

And I have issue with that.

My Thoughts on Barack Obama's Thoughts on the Playoff

(or the lack of a playoff, as it were).

As it turns out, even though I have friends and family who did not vote for Barack Obama, they heartily agree with what he said on "Mike and Mike in the Morning" a few weeks ago. "I would have my attorney general investigate possibly a college football playoff system via executive order". That's what he said.

It's a shame, an absolute shame, that the college football post season cannot get anything better than a bunch of computers and a few humans (who didn't play or coach any of the games) decide who the national champion should be.

It's broken. It needs to be fixed.

Since the bowls can't go back to the way they were (and fix the national championship problem) then there should be another option. The sweet sixteen plays the first week of January. This is the top 16 teams in the country playing in eight games, weighted so that the better team plays at home. Then, the following week, the 'elite eight' plays in the bowl games, with the final four playing (and rotating) through the four bowl sites and the national championship being played the third week in January.

I think this would make it much better and not depreciate the value of the bowls.

Of course, in an effort to fix it, it got broken in the first place. Who knows what's actually right?

Olympic Greatness and Other Olympic Thoughts

The Olympics are upon us. And for someone who loves sports, this is a time when I watch more television than I normally do. And that's saying a lot.


I watched all of Michael Phelps' races. I observed history in the making. I am happy to say this because I was not even two years old when Mark Spitz won in Munich, and while I believe we watched a good portion of his swimming back then (we were in the same time zone as Munich) I don't remember a bit of it.


I loved watching him, all of what he did and was very proud of the good sportsman he is.


I love the stories of the Olympics. I love the Olympics because countries that have no hope anywhere else have hope in the Olympics. They have joy because they finished. I have been the person who cheers for the German 33 year-old woman in the vault. I'm the one who cheers for the Namibian because, well, Namibia hasn't won many medals. And they didn't this time. But I still see them and root for them once in a while. I feel for the people from the countries where there is so much pressure that they don't feel the thrill of competition.

I love the good of the Olympics. I don't like the bad at all. And that's just something to think about.

And all ESPN can really chatter on about is football preseason. Just another cent or two of my thoughts...

Going Back to School

This relates to my blog.

I'm going back to school for my Master's degree. We see what my undergrad (and my lack of tenaciousness) has gotten for me. I've finally decided I would grow up and become a college professor. But in the process, I have decided to combine my love of sports and my love of politics and make the world a better place in the process.

Okay, maybe not 'make the world a better place', but I will try to make the ideas, with which I agree, a little more prevelent in American and, possibly, international thought.

If you have ever heard of PeacePlayers International, then you might get where I am going with this. But you may not.

As I have said plenty of times in my life, I am extremely passionate about sports. I have favorite teams, but I almost always think about the betterment of the sport than about my own team. But I don't think this is about professional sports. I say that because I'm still formulating my own thoughts on the subject.

I am pretty sure I will stick with just using sport as a way to resolve conflicts (long term, of course). I believe that sometimes it's a relatively inexpensive way to work towards peace without even knowing it. And that's just something we should think about.

Of course, many people are not focused on international relations. A lot of people don't see that what happens there (outside the US) does affect us here.

That's simply what I am interested in: peace-making through sports.