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At the Intersection of Sports and Culture

Photo Credit for Header: Alex Foucre-Stimes

A Too Real Not To Be Real Conversation Between Ralph and a Football Coach

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“Drop and give me ten!” yells the misanthropic football coach with tobacco juice dribbling down the side of his mouth like a rabid dog.

“No, no I don’t believe I will,” replies Ralph the team’s requisite conscientious objector.

“What do you mean?” asks the increasingly befuddled coach who on the surface appears about as comfortable wrestling with logic as he would a greased pig at the county fair.

“It’s too hot for unnecessary and purely punitive calisthenics,” begins the sturdy as ever school boy. “If I were to continue exerting myself in these conditions I simply do not believe that my body would be able to regulate its core temperature satisfactorily enough as to avoid such cataclysmic health events like heat stroke or a heart attack.” [Read more…]

Republicans Ride Rust Belt To Ruin

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Cleveland calling. Time for these Republican wing nuts to lace up the wing tips and debate the issues that matter most. Unfortunately for the future of our country, and those of us who long for a reasonable choice come 2016, Thursday’s script has already been written as the 10 candidates will likely consume most of the airspace with jingoistic jargon and disengaging populist policies in the hopes of appealing to a wide swath of undecided primary voters when in reality their xenophobic musings will reach only the very narrow fringes of American society.

So then, why not address the audience in Cleveland about something that really matters to them? Like sports. And if it’s Rust Belt rage these politicians hope to channel then they would be wise to direct some of that vitriol across the Great Lakes at Canada and those fine, friendly folks from Ontario because, in case you haven’t noticed, Toronto has been stockpiling American athletic assets faster than Tehran can get their hands on weapons grade plutonium.

Years ago, the Buffalo Bills flirted with a permanent relocation to Toronto until realizing that their fan base was unwilling to take the plunge across Niagara Falls. Now this summer tensions have really ratcheted up with our neighbors to the north as Detroit especially has been purged of star players and coaches like David Price to the Blue Jays and Mike Babcock to the Maple Leafs leaving behind a massive void of talent and respectability. Who’s next, LeBron James? Forget about the Russians, maybe it’s the Raptors that the Rust Belt really needs to be worrying about because those jurassic era dinosaurs are coming on fiercer than a Drake diss track.

Winter is coming and unless Donald Trump has a plan to build more towers along the shores of Lake Erie it won’t be long before these white walkers can wrap their icy fingers around all of America’s most beloved all-stars.

 

 

 

 

 

We Are Wilmer

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We are happy. We are sad.

We are good. We are bad.

We are smiles. We are sorrow.

We are today. We are tomorrow.

We are hits. We are outs.

We are wins. We are doubts.

We are friends. We are foes.

We are joy. We are woes.

We are bought. We are sold.

We are young. We are old.

We are players. We are fan.

We are people. He is the man.

I am Wilmer. You are Wilmer.

We, are Wilmer.

 

Dugouts Of Despair

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The needle laid indiscriminately between sharp blades of green grass. The summer scorch days away from turning the lush diamond into a hardened slab of dirt and dust.

The boy had previously been instructed by his coaches not to lay a finger or mitt on these discarded syringes yet by this point of the little league season he and his teammates had stumbled across so many of these “spikes” as they were known throughout this small New England town that they all might as well have been named honorary medical personnel.

The boy waved his arms in the air and the umpires brought the game to a stop so that the authority figures could assess the situation, a process which the boy found comical given that it was these drug addicted adults leaving needles strewn about the baseball field as if they were fertilizer.

Sadly though, more and more kids, some only a few years older than the boy, had begun experimenting with drugs. A slippery slope with a sad ending. For most, young and old, it starts with a simple pain. Either physical or emotional the remedy is usually the same. A pill a day will dull your senses just long enough for the problem to metastasize and turn into a cancerous lump of heartbreak and despair. Soon one pill’s not enough. Or two. Or three. And when the bottle dries up and the doctor gets suspiscious, that’s when the real hunger sets in.

The dope starts in cities like New York, Boston and Montreal before making its way up and down the interstates and thoroughfares of New England until finally mainlining on main street, threatening to change the chemical makeup of one of America’s most historic regions. Heroin, the new opiate of the masses has no care or concern for personal finances or social well being. The drugs are cheap and readily available. Rich and poor. Educated and self made. Addiction doesn’t discriminate.

Nowadays, junkies were trading train tunnels for baseball dugouts and the results extended well beyond the box score. The boy stepped away from the needle while his coach called the police. Authorities had done their best to keep things on lockdown but there were too many broken links in the chain to keep them all out. Some, were former players themselves who only years earlier were the ones hitting home runs and making memories. Unfortunately the passing of time had left too many former all-stars feeling alone, unwelcome. The only comfort and solitude to be found in a syringe.

As the police cleared the scene the baseball field was deemed ready for play the boy resumed his position in the outfield. Head held high. Future uncertain. For how long would it be until the drugs made their way into his home. From glove to glove box, bat to basement. Nothing was sacred. Not even the sports we play.