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| Oh, get out of there, cat |
OKAY, so welcome to the first ever Hate Mail edition of In Play Lose. Feel free to submit any comments or questions that you have to inplaylose@gmail.com. The Lose has been, well, in need of a spark here, and I appreciate all of the comments and questions that I received.
But before we begin, we need to properly prepare:
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OK...I have a question about those ’mazin lovable losers from Queens. At one point could the argument be made that a team with an extraordinarily high amount of injured pitchers (like all of them) could be blamed on the pitching coach/staff? It seems like every pitcher that gets near the rotting guts of Shea Stadium ends up on the shelf for extended periods of time. WTF?
– To Shea! To Shea!
Obviously, insanely bad injury luck happens sometimes. I certainly understand this season, as both of my teams were cursed. The Giants had every member of their opening day lineup, their #1 and #2 starters, their closer, and their two best prospects all land on the DL. The Mariners, meanwhile, used 61 players and used so many pitchers that their pitching coach couldn’t remember them all. These things happen sometimes, and often it translates to a lost season.
And the Mets injury woes this season were ridiculous. Christ, they had two guys get injured swinging a bat, one of whom blew out his shoulder and the other of which hit himself in the face with a batted ball. Those are the sort of freaky things which make you feel like you’re cursed. That said, this seems to happen far too often to the Mets, who seem like a walking MASH unit every season. And from the entire drama over Matt Harvey’s arm trouble a few years ago, to Noah Syndergaard refusing to take an MRI earlier in the season, the sense you get is that there is a lack of faith in the Mets training staff. When you have so many injuries every single year, you have to start looking at how you’re doing things related to training and injury prevention. When this stuff happens so regularly, it stops being random luck and starts being a damning indictment. I’ve mentioned this before in regards to the New Orleans Pelicans, who can’t stop getting guys hurt. It kills your organization after a while.
Here’s a question from Atlanta about the NCAA:
You don’t like the NCAA much. How would you reform it?
Pay the players. Plain and simple. The argument put forth is that if you do that, there would be some universities who could no longer afford their athletic programs. Okay, and the problem with that is what exactly? Pay the players. Hell, let the shoe companies and the boosters pay the players. Just stop it with this bogus nonsense about amateurism and that they are there to be student athletes. They aren’t. The football and basketball coach, in general, doesn’t give a shit about anyone who can’t help them win. Pay the players, declare them to be employees of the school’s marketing department or whatnot, but stop it with this bogus ideal of the student athlete which doesn’t exist and, quite honestly, has never existed.
And I say this as someone who grew up around a large university where major college athletics played a significant role in the culture of the school and the community. I have, in fact, seen the value of this, in that there are, in fact, quite a few kids who are afforded the chance to attend an outstanding university and receive a quality education and they go about making the most of that opportunity. I don’t have any issue with schools giving scholarships for athletes – they do it for musicians, they do it for dramatists, they do it for engineers, they do it for kids from all walks of life. But to make these kids indentured servants to the university is truly appalling.
And fire all the coaches, while we’re at it, particularly in college basketball. Fire them all. They aren’t educators, they aren’t teachers, they are control freaks who care about kids only so long as the kids are in their presence. “Four years pass and you’re gone, kid, so do as I say because I’m here forever.” Fire all of them.
The short answer is that I don’t think you can earnestly reform it without paying players. Until that happens, it’s garbage.
Someone doesn’t like my work:
LOL you suck at everything what have you ever done?
I scored 61 in a basketball game once. I once hit two home runs in an inning. (But the game got rained out, so the game didn’t count.) I was 57-not out when I played cricket. I had 35 saves in a soccer game, which was a state record, including taking one square in the face which left me with a black eye for the prom. I’ve had my moments here and there. But yeah, I suck. Who gives a shit? What did you ever do? Probably nothing. And one thing I don’t do is waste my time trolling people, because people I’ve known in my life who do that sort of thing are generally useless people with meaningless lives – people such as yourself, in fact. So get stuffed.
This is a good question from Sacramento, California:
How difficult has it been for you to adjust to writing about stuff (Warriors) that is good?
I look at the Golden State Warriors as being a transcendent sort of force which, when this run is over (and it will happen at some point) will have changed the sport of basketball. When that sort of thing occurs, you really should sit back and enjoy it. Having said that, of course, the Warriors blew a championship in 2016. They are human. Not writing about that at the time was a big whiff on my part – although, as it turned out, it merely set the stage for what we have now, since they went out and signed KD and now they are just ridiculous, and will be ridiculous for years to come.
This stuff is still, ultimately, fragile and fleeting. The Chicago Bulls were the greatest thing I’ve ever seen on a basketball court 20 years ago, and while you could, in the abstract, foresee a time without Jordan and Pippen and whatnot, the idea that the Bulls would one day become one of the most hopeless and colossal messes in the NBA seemed unthinkable – and yet here we are in 2017 with a Bulls team that might not win 20 games. One of the reasons why I’ve sort of chosen to truly embrace the goodness that is the Golden State Warriors is because goddamn, this team was just godawful for the better part of 40 years. That’s some serious misery. As a resident of this community, I feel as if it would be emotionally and intellectually dishonest of me not to embrace that success. It does, in the end, help me to better understand failure. You need stuff that sucks to have stuff that’s cool, and vice versa.
General question from Victoria, B.C., O Canada!:
What sports don’t you like?
On principle, I can at least appreciate pretty much anything that’s done well. That doesn’t mean I like watching it, however. I only like watching golf to see people mess up and hit the ball into the trees or the lake. Tennis doesn’t do much for me, either. In general, I am opposed to any sport that has judges, since judges have proven, over time, to be biased and corruptible and, quite often, biased and corrupt. I work in auto racing, and while I love the machines and how they’ve come to be over time – which is fascinating and nutty and full of colorful characters with lunatic ideas – I find that the actual races don’t do much to hold my short attention span. Blood sports don’t interest me at all. Nothing annoys me more than having my social media timelines filled up with UFC. Blech.
But there’s lots of stuff I like. I love basketball and soccer the most. I always could watch football so long as I viewed the players as chess pieces, but when I actually think of them as human beings getting their brains scrambled, it doesn’t appeal to me much. I’ve sort of fallen out of love with hockey but could be persuaded to come back. Same with baseball – the “three true outcomes” style of play is boring to me, since seeing 4% of plays result in home runs instead of 3% doesn’t change the fact that 21% of the time guys strike out and 10% of the time they walk, which are the two dullest plays in the game. But the game is cyclical and will shift in time. I love rugby, I have spent a day downing a case of beer at a cricket match and seeing the appeal. The Olympics are amazing if you can ignore all of the political sideshows: I’ll watch a million hours of that every few years.
Sorry, Cleveland:
Please tell me the Browns have hope.
The Browns have hope.
I don’t actually believe that, but you wanted me to tell you that, so there you go.
Good timing for this question from Los Angeles about USA FC, who smacked down Panama 4:0 on Friday night:
You hated Klinsmann. Is this team any better?
Yes, it is. USA FC is actually now in a fascinating place, in my opinion, a place which it has never been in before, and a place in which literally no one involved – players, coaches, etc. – know what to do: that place being that literally every single time that USA FC lines up for a match against a CONCACAF opponent – and, to be honest, against quite a few nations from elsewhere on the earth as well – the U.S. has the best player on the pitch, because Christian Pulisic is the real deal. He is that good, and barring injury, he is going to be that good and even better for the next 10 years. I’ve read and heard a number of people who cover the German game speaking of how Borussia Dortmund staffers snickered about Barcelona spending €105 million on Ousmane Dembélé, because Barca was buying the wrong player. Pulisic’s potential is literally sky-is-the-limit type stuff. He’s the best player in this entire region and he’s 19 fricking years old.
And when you have the best player on the pitch in every single game, you have to coach and play appropriately. You have to line him up against the other team’s worst guy and let him turn the poor sod into BBQ chicken. You have to get him the ball all the time. You have to counter the inevitable physical play, because the guy will get all the attention and will be kicked and tripped constantly. (Which is what happened during that disastrous Costa Rica-Honduras two-step recently, where Pulisic had five guys around him kicking at him the whole time.) If that means you need a hard man and an enforcer out there, sobeit. If that means using him as a creative decoy sometimes, sobeit. (Which is how Argentina got the final of the last World Cup when Messi could barely move.) You have to think and play the game differently. It’s a nice problem to have.
Arena has no idea what to do in this case. The U.S. has always been tenacious, resourceful, and mentally tough – good traits, but those you need in lieu of talent. Now the U.S. has a wünderkind talent and how they figure out how to use him going forward will determine how good this team can be. It’s a star’s game, in the end, much like basketball. If you’ve got one guy who is that much better than everyone else, everything you do has to be based on him. This requires a total shift in American footballing mindset. It may take a while.
Klinsmann was well on his way to messing that up as well when he was fired, which I approved of. I’ve been, on balance, somewhat meh about USA FC – in part because I continue to be amazed at the fact that there are 300,000,000 people in this nation and yet we have 67-year-old DeMarcus Beasley playing left back – but I’m well over Klinsmann’s random back threes and blaming every single person in American soccer other than himself for his poor results. Qualifying through The Hex has been a mess, but in general, I think they’re going the right direction, albeit in fits and starts. I have no earthly idea who replaces Arena in a couple years, however.
Here’s a comment from a loyal reader in Cape Verde:
Hello I come from Cape Verde and my English is bad. I read your work in order to get better at it.
This is probably the greatest compliment that I have ever received. I would add, however, that the idea someone is using what I write to learn English is somewhat terrifying. I’m not sure that I can handle that responsibility. But thanks for reading. And as bad as you might think your English is, I can assure you that my Portuguese is far, far worse.
I got two emails from Africa on the same day:
I live in Niger. Why no more African football on the blog? More African football, please.
I’ve been disappointed with CAF qualifying for the World Cup. There have been some surprises – no Cameroon, Algeria, and likely no Ghana in the World Cup – and there has been, of course, the obligatory lunacy, but the quality of play has been wanting. I think there are more good teams in Africa but fewer great ones. It seems like they’re in sort of a transition phase at the moment, with stars aging out and younger talent not yet fully establishing itself.
And I’m a little bummed that two of my favorite teams – my beloved Blue Sharks and also Les Étalons from Burkina Faso – got stuck in the same qualifying group, and may both wind up getting screwed because of that South Africa-Senegal game having to be replayed. Still love the African game, but I don’t really feel like any of these teams are going to do very well in Russia next summer. The Super Eagles have been terrific in qualifying and the best of the bunch, but trouble always seems to find them come World Cup time.
Question from Spain, which is cool. Go España:
Basketball! Who will win the East this year?
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| The In Play Lose NBA Eastern Conference preview |
Honestly, I don’t think it matters much, since the East is hot garbage. Either Cleveland or Boston. I’m not enamored with either at the moment.
Okay, this one is right up my alley:
What’s the worst loss you have ever personally suffered in a game?
I remember a 3rd grade basketball game where we lost 26:0 and I think I might – might – have been the only kid on the team who didn’t cry after the game. I was on the worst softball team in the history of the city of San Francisco, we were 0-10 and our closest game all season was 16:8 – a game in which we were down 16 runs going into the last inning and somehow scored eight to make the beer taste better afterwards. We lost a game 30:0 that season as well, if I remember correctly. My team getting no-hit in baseball was not cool. I gave up eight goals in a soccer game once. That wasn’t fun. What was even more annoying than that was twice losing 1:0 when we scored upon ourselves. I lost a scrabble game by 428 once, which seemed like a lot until my wife lost a game by 550. (And by scrabble schlub standards, we’re both pretty bad ass. Bad games happen sometimes.) The women’s basketball team I was coaching lost by 93, which made me mad because they ran the score up on us and I told the opposing coach after the game that if he’d done that cheapass cherry-picking shit in the U.S., some of his players would’ve wound up getting hurt. He didn’t care for that.
I can guess what state this question comes from:
How long are you going to be butthurt about Sonics moving to OKC?
How long are you going to be butthurt about the fact that Kevin Durant got a better job? Have fun this season watching two of the most self-absorbed players in the NBA drive Paul George all the way to Los Angeles.
On a related note, a comment from loyal reader Mr. Williams, of the law firm of Williams Morgan + Williams, in San Leandro, California:
Long live the SuperSonics! David Stern and Clay Bubba Whatever can rot in OKC. But don't forget Roger Goodell (spit!) and Über Liar Stan Kroenke. Ripping another team out of my hometown STL. Fuck them and Fuck the NFL! Long live the St. Louis Rams and The Greatest Show on Turf!! And the SuperSonics! Kevin Durant looks fantastic in a Dubs jersey, BTW.
I do revel in the irony that the NFL dangled the idea of moving franchises to L.A. for 20 years, using that in order to extort stadia in places like Minneapolis using public money, and then when they finally did move franchises to Los Angeles, they completely assed it up. After 20 years, L.A. cares less about random football teams and more about football teams that are actually run by someone who a) knows what they are doing; and b) isn’t a douchebag. Neither Kroenke nor Spanos fits either of those qualifications.
And one more along those lines from Tacoma, Washington:
When do you think Seattle gets an NBA team back.
Best guess would be X = Y + 2, where X = year Seattle has a team and Y = year Anthony Davis leaves the New Orleans Pelicans, at which point that franchise is as dead as a doornail.
My attempts to locate the source of this question have proven unsuccessful:
Why are you bad at scrabble?
Well, for starters, my world knowledge sucks. I rack manage pretty well, but my board vision isn’t terribly good. I tend to space out too much and let phonies go. I get wound up far too tightly before tournaments, to the point where I feel sick and get migraine headaches. I take tough losses so badly that it tends to adversely affect me for 2-3 games afterwards. Oh yeah, and my end game sucks, too. I win some games here and there because I am lucky, and because I’m usually playing against people who are completely deranged. Other than that, I’m awesome.
And then there’s this from Dublin:
Why didn’t you run away with one of the Irish girls? (A reference to this.)
I’ve been asking myself that question for 27 years now.
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Thanks for the questions and the comments and we’ll do it again sometime in the future. I thought I’d close with some Tom Petty, who died at age 66 last week. A true working musician, a musician’s musician who was interested in craft above all else, didn’t give a shit what people thought, and who was truly among the great modern storytellers with his songs. I always admired his work, even if I didn’t always like it. But I usually did like it. I thought he was terrific.
