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At the Intersection of Sports and Culture

Photo Credit for Header: Alex Foucre-Stimes

The U.S. Open: Tennis Made In New York City

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Tennis in New York City. A combination of glitz, glamour and grit. Where greatness does not shy away from the bright lights of the big city. From baseline to baseline, with flashbulbs flickering, the stars come out to watch the best compete in the final slam of the season, the year’s last chance to claim one of tennis’s most prestigious prizes.

In the City That Never Sleeps, players cannot afford to tire. This moment in the spotlight will not allow for old wounds to heal or fresh scars to mend. The U.S. Open is about persevering past the obstacles that accumulate over an exhausting season. Survival here requires not just skill but internal strength and fortitude in the face of a different kind of hardship, one unique to this proud city and its people.

This is a place where titles are overrated, and work is valued. If you’re willing to sweat. Willing to bleed willing to grind then this city will welcome you. It will adopt you as one of its own. Because if there’s one thing New York respects it’s the ability to overcome adversity. The desire to stand up and stare down a challenge. Admiration doesn’t come easy but it is a currency greater than any other commodity. It cannot be bought or sold. It must be earned.

Heads up. Feet forward fast. This city does not stop. It will not slow down. Not for past champions. Not for the future’s brightest stars. Not for the game’s all time greats. There is a pace to this place so rare to the rest of the world that it cannot be matched by Melbourne, Paris or London. One slip. One stumble. A single moment of self doubt and the city will pass you by.

Here it’s better to be brash and bold than timid and temperamental. Petulance is panned regardless of pedigree. This city cares not about what you’ve done in the past only what you’re willing to do in the present. There are no laurels to rest, no record books to regard. Win today, hero tomorrow. Until it’s time to go to work again.

Look around and you’re surrounded by history. By icons past and present. This is the city where stars are made, where fame is created. Where talent transcends. Be careful not to stare for too long because objects are closer than they appear. Success is poised for the taking for those capable of withstanding.

So embrace the moment. Soak in the scrutiny. Accept the adoration. But do not rest. Time to turn on the lights. For this is New York. The City That Never Sleeps.

Bethpage Black: Existing to Outlast

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Bethpage Black #4Take your Reds and Greens and Yellows too. It’s The Black we want. Membership dues need not apply. The course is open to all. Fireman. Financiers. Teachers too. The Black cares not what you do or who you are so long as you have the courage to step foot on one of golf’s ultimate exercises in futility. Your wits will be strained. Your legs fatigued. Your soul crushed. Punishing. Unrelenting. Unyielding. The Black will make you question a lot of things. About golf, and about yourself. Is your game good enough to survive 18? Is your heart strong enough to overcome a lover’s rebuke? Is your mind disciplined enough to stay the course, to endure the undulating ups and downs? The only way to find out, the only way to know if you’re up to the test is to play.

The Black knows your frustration. The Black hears your words. You are not the first to travel cross the threshold full of high hopes and desires only to have those dreams turn to a nightmare that you cannot escape, that you cannot avoid. The clubhouse is nowhere in sight. The 19th hole an oasis on the horizon. Your playing partners will offer words of encouragement but their support, their empathy, will fall on deaf ears. It’s just you and your thoughts.

The Black will speak to you. But are you willing to listen, are you patient enough to understand? Will you lay up on a par 4? Will you take iron instead of wood? Will you accept the reality that you are nothing more than a transient here on a brief stay and that the hills and trees that block your approach will remain long after your visit has expired. Those rocks. That heather. Reminders that the sports of golf is more nature than nurture. All the lessons in Long Island won’t help you solve the eternal, evolving mystery of The Black.

If you are one of the lucky few to cross that finish line, body and spirit still intact, take a second to look back down the hill, across the fairways and bunkers that fit together like pieces of a puzzle waiting to be solved. That view, that sense of accomplishment regardless of score is one of the greatest satisfactions the game has to offer. The Black knows this, The Black has seen it all before. It knows you’ll come back again, confident that the next time will be different. But the challenge remains. The challenge will not succumb. Bethpage Black exists to outlast.

 

Morning Musings: Becoming a Fan of the Barclays Premier League

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Becoming a Barclays Premier League soccer fan is a lot like attending a cocktail party with strangers. Sure all the names sound familiar but it is impossible to remember what anyone does or who came with who without asking a friend.

This is the primary challenge in adopting a new sport. The World Cup made soccer so appealing that sports fans like myself are looking for more exposure to the global game. The BPL offers the best option to newbies because of A) some familiarity with the teams at the top like Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool B) NBC Sports Network, which broadcasts and streams most games, is standard on most cable packages unlike beIN which carries La Liga and Serie A C) overall quality of play and competitive balance throughout the league.

In order to make room on the plate for another sport something has to give and the most likely casualty is football. Easier said than done, especially during the preseason when NFL games are as unwatchable as anything on tv. The real test will come during the Fall when the regular season begins and the choice between a morning Premier League match between Everton and Crystal Palace and an afternoon divisional matchup between Green Bay and Chicago becomes that much more difficult.

The good news is that soccer games come tidily package in palatable two hour blocks unlike the three plus hour slogfests in the NFL. If you think about it in these terms dropping a football game for a soccer match is like picking up an extra hour to your day. In an instant, your life has become more productive!

For now, the Premier League is the first choice on the “telly” and it’s fun becoming a new fan of an old sport. Check back after Labor Day however.

-JL

 

 

 

Hollywood Prepares For the Moneyball Sequel

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Dateline Los Angeles:

Casting has begun on Hollywood’s latest big budget sports drama tentatively titled Moneyball II: The Rise of the Small Market. The film follows in the footsteps of the wildly successful 2011 film Moneyball starring Brad Pitt as Oakland Athletics maverick general manager Billy Beane on a never ending quest to validate the erection of every SABRmetric loving baseball journalist.

No word yet as to whether or not Mr. Pitt will return to play Beane but industry sources continue to claim that the actor has grown increasingly disillusioned with the general manager’s un-small market like behavior during the 2014 baseball season including the team’s latest trade for pitcher Jon Lester. An acquaintance of Pitt said that upon hearing news of this latest move the actor said, “who do the A’s think they are, the Yankees?”

With Lester joining Jess Samardzija, Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir atop the Oakland rotation the A’s smell like favorites, that is if they can get past their division rivals the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Orange Country next to Disneyland.

Producers have indicated that if Pitt is unable to play Bill Beane in the Moneyball sequel that they will pursue Channing Tatum for the roll of the handsome general manager citing the actor’s strong chemistry with Jonah Hill. No word yet on the rest of the cast although it has been rumored that Zach Galifianakis is circling the role of grizzly, stalky A’s catcher Derek Norris.

Financing for the Moneyball sequel is in place however some movie studios would prefer that the Oakland A’s lose in the first or second round of the 2014 playoffs which would lend itself quite nicely to the third movie in the trilogy Moneyball III: The Death of FIP and WAR and All The Other Statistics That Most Non-Fantasy Playing Baseball Fans Have Ever Heard Of.

 

 

 

 

The Allegory of the Cave for the 21st Century

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To Plato, with Gratitude

Deep beneath the stadium lies a cave. In this cave stand tall compartments. Hanging in the compartments are various pieces of equipment. Belts. Pads. Helmets. Cleats. All the tools of the trade. Facing these compartments are players. These players have spent their entire lives in this cave and no very little of the world outside other than the muffled adulation from adoring fans. All that they know, all that they care to understand exists here, deep beneath the stadium.

Of course the players have each other. They call themselves a ‘brotherhood’ because to them, this is what family means. Their perception of how the world works, how the world operates, is formed from filtered conversations with one another as they sit and stare at the compartments in front of them. Since they rarely escape the confines of the cave they know very little of the outside world, the world that exists beyond the media rooms. Beyond the concessions stands and parking lots. Beyond the millions upon millions of admirers.

Assume that one of these players was to break free from the chains that bind them to their cave deep beneath the stadium. That player, exposed to life beyond the stadium walls for the first time would be traumatized as their bodies and minds adjust to the way the world works and thinks beyond the comfort of the cave. For the first time this player would encounter perspectives and preferences never heard or discussed before in the cave. At least not publicly. In the society beyond the cave people are accepting of differences. Not just because it’s convenient or because it’s fits the system but because it is moral, logical thing to do.

When this player returns to the cave deep beneath the stadium he visits each of the compartments and tells his fellow teammates about his experiences in the outside world and how people in normal society typically operate with understanding and compassion. He talks about how in the real world the term ‘brotherhood’ refers to all of humanity not just the players in the cave.

His fellow players would not believe him because they have never experienced life outside the walls of their cave therefore the world that is being described to them cannot be real. Acceptance is only an idea to them. an idea which is given plenty of lip service but in their sheltered reality is representative of a double standard. What is said publicly in front of the camera is quite different then what is acted on stage behind the closed doors of the cave.

When the player asks his leaders if they’d be interested in exposing the cave to a more diverse spectrum of ideas and interests the leader say ‘no’, too much of a distraction. They have serious jobs to do. Better to remain amongst the safety and protection of like minded souls. Yet to this player, this particular stance is hypocritical and prejudiced. How as a leader can you tolerate some ‘distractions’ and not others? Is is simply the difference between being a first round draft pick and the first openly gay player?

What these players and leaders fail to realize in their cave deep beneath the stadium is that change is inevitable and that eventually the barriers that keep them protected from the rest of society will fall down. Only then will they realize that acceptance is a real thing.