by John Walters

Poll tergeist

You know the Orange one is aware of this (one report has it 55 to 41) and all I’ll guarantee is that he’s not going into an election in November down double-digits. He’ll halt the election and cite some obscure Congressional act from 1695 (I know) or he’ll drop out claiming illness or that the lame stream media hasn’t been fair to him.

R.I.P. Wes Unseld

Former Baltimore Bullets/Washington Bullets big man Wes Unseld died last week. He was 74. I met Wes a couple of times, as he was a friend of a friend. This was a very decent man, and a large one.

Item: In his rookie season, 1968-69, Unseld was named NBA MVP after averaging 18 rebounds and 14 points per game. Credit this in part to Wilt and Russell declining and Kareem still being at UCLA, but still. That’s incredible.

Those early ’70s Bullets were one of the best teams to not make the NBA Finals: Unseld and Elvin Hayes were future Hall of Famers with a solid back court of Dave Bing and Phil Chenier plus the poor man’s Dave Debusschere in Mike Riordan. If only they hadn’t had to deal with superior Celtics and Knicks squads in the Atlantic Division.

The Bullets would make two NBA Finals at the end of the decade with Unseld, winning one.

Unseld, “only” 6’7″, finished 6th all-time in rebounds per game at 13.99. He was a LOAD. Not tall but wide.

Finally, Unseld was nearly the first black player at Kentucky in the mid-Sixties, but the Louisville native could smell just how racist Adolph Rupp was and how he was only Rooney Rule-ing him in terms of recruiting him. Unseld chose Louisville, in his hometown. Funny, cuz body-proportion-wise and a little bit facially, he was like an even larger version of homeboy Cassius Clay.

R.I.P., Chris Dufresne

Only heard last week that former Los Angeles Times sportswriter Chris Dufresne passed away in late May. He was one of the good guys.

In college and high school my local paper would occasionally reprint a funny column from one of two funny and sharp LA Times sportswriters and I’d search the byline and it was always either Scott Ostler and Chris Dufresne. Years later I’d see Dufresne in college football press boxes and as I was often, in those early days, Austin Murphy’s water carrier, I’d be introduced to Dufresne and others (everybody liked Austin; why wouldn’t they?).

Chris was always great to me. And, like Austin, he was one of those dudes everyone liked. He’ll be missed.

Cotton Clubbed

This scribe’s knee-jerk reaction upon hearing that New York Times editorial page editor James Bennett had resigned over last week’s Tom Cotton Op-ed was, Uh-oh, Cancel Culture has gone too far again. I agreed with Jeff Greenfield, who tweeted something like, If you only want opinions that bolster your own, you don’t want an Op-Ed page, you want a My-Ed page.”

In other words, Fox News for the Libs.

Then I read Cotton’s editorial. Wow. Have you?

One example up top. Cotton claims that looters in NYC were “smashing and emptying hundreds of businesses.” Is that true? Hundreds? I honestly don’t know. Sounds like a reach, but like I said, I don’t know.

A fallacious argument that Cotton makes is that “elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic.” That’s false. I’m an elite (by virtue of the fact that I can differentiate between their, there and they’re … most of the time) and I feel comfy saying most of us don’t excuse the looting but we also know that the military wouldn’t be going in and asking, “Oh, you’re only a protester? March on, brother.”

Anyway, read the Op-Ed. I’m all for divergent opinions being on the Op-Ed page and, bottom line, I support the NYT running it. I think the Radical Left’s reasoning that Cotton’s piece went far beyond the norms of democratic decency is just a rationalization for, “We vehemently disagree.” So go ahead and disagree. Write a counterpoint. But this entire intolerance of divergent views is exactly how we got to 2016 in the first place. Bad omen.

Starship Trooper

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk (whose mom is a hot septuagenarian, but we digress) has told his employees that this conraption, the Starship Rocket, is now the latter company’s top priority. We fully imagine that Musk believes he and a wife or two are planning to be the only beings to escape planet Earth once the shooting starts and his plan is to answer David Bowie’s age-old question in the affirmative a few years from now (“Sailors, fighting on the dance floor/Oh boy, look at those cavemen go…”)

Meanwhile, remember not even six months ago when we tweeted about how you should keep an eye on where Tesla stock would be six months from now? Well, in mid-January shares were selling still for below $500 and this morning they’re well above $900. Cramer believes it’s possible they eclipse $1,000 this week—and that’s after Musk said the shares were too high a month or two ago. Stay tuned.

by John Walters

And these children that you spit on

As they try to change their worlds

Are immune to your consultations

They’re quite aware of what they’re going through

On Friday NFL commissioner Roger Goodell took the first step: he admitted the NFL was wrong—the very word he used—in not listening to its players a few years back when they voiced their concerns, peacefully, about systemic police brutality against black men.

It took Drew Brees one day. It took Roger Goodell and the NFL a few years.

This morning, June 6th, I received a text from a good an old friend. It read simply: “Utah Omaha Juno Sword Gold.” The five beaches/attack points of the Normandy invasion. I replied, and I sincerely mean this, “America’s finest day.”

When Brees initially posted the other day that kneeling during the anthem was disrespecting the flag and the soldiers who died on days such as this, I disagreed (but did not tweet it; I’m better off voicing my thoughts here). The best part about the United States of America is you are free to not think in lockstep with everyone else as long as you obey the laws. The very act of civil disobedience is the most patriotic thing that you can do, or don’t you know how this country originated?

To kneel during the anthem is not to disrespect the soldiers who gave their lives. It’s to remind Americans that we can and should do better. I’ve often wondered why people are more upset that someone is kneeling during the national anthem than they are with innocent men being murdered by police.

Two more points:

1. Had a discussion with someone the other day who wondered why someone had to bring their personal issues into a football game. I asked him why I had to watch players wearing pink cleats and wristbands during the month of October. The implicit reasoning is that everyone’s against cancer so it is not political. So everyone isn’t against police brutality?
2. Before this decade, or even half-decade, or maybe even year is out, an enlightened and somewhat reformed NFL will finally honor Colin Kaepernick. Maybe someone will hire him as a backup quarterback (why not the Minnesota Vikings?). Roger Goodell will mention him by name. Maybe the league will even name an award after him. One way or another, the league will acknowledge how wrong it was to blackball him and that it completely mishandled his situation. Kaepernick never needed to be vindicated, as far as many of us are concerned. But the NFL will vindicate his courage. Some day.

Kap will be remembered in the same breath with Rosa Parks and the marchers at the Selma bridge and the young men at the lunch counter in one of the Carolinas. Yes he will.

by John Walters

The Market Doesn’t Care

Three stocks in just the past month:

1. Boeing (BA): The Seattle-based manufacturer that specializes in planes that don’t fly saw its stock soar from $118 on May 15 to $215 this morning. What particular good news has there been to explain this? And does this mean that for all the “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow-dry my hair down” talk from Trump, that Boeing and China are about to resume a beautiful friendship? That’s a 40-ish% rise in three weeks for a major Dow component minus any explicitly good news.
2. American Airlines (AAL): Remember me telling you about the conversation I had with an AA pilot last summer who said, “You know why American is the 12th-rated domestic carrier? Because there aren’t 13 domestic airlines.” Well, AA stock has ascended from $9 on May 15 to $19 this morning. That’s a more than 100% pop. Again, are more people already flying? No. Are fewer people dying from Covid-19? No. Is the unemployment rate anywhere close to what it was in January? No.
3. TVIX . An index fund that measures market volatility. In other words, when sh*t gets cray cray, TVIX soars. This little fund went from $44 on January 10 to $1,000 on March 18. I mean, if you had strapped on in the early part of the year you already own your own island somewhere. In the past two weeks, though, it has gone from $237 to $109. Which would indicate all’s quiet on the western front. But it isn’t. So what gives?

Here’s a little article from The New York Times that explains it partially. But let me dumb it down so that folk like me can understand it better:

A) The stock market isn’t a reflection of the economy; it’s a reflection of how the top 1 to 10% are doing. And, oh by the way, America’s billionaires have seen their own portfolios jump 19% since mid-March.

B) The Fed has made borrowing money so cheap —they could have used that stimulus money to help Average Joe and Jane but this is what they used if for—that companies can afford to do things like take extremely low interest loans or even buy back their stock, creating artificial scarcity. It’s like when you ask how come your neighbors are unemployed and always drunk but have an in-ground pool and then you come to find out one of their parents invented Liquid Paper.

One imagines a back-channel conversation between Steven Mnuchin and/or Larry Kudlow with the titans of banking and manufacturing in which he says, “Do you see what we’re doing with these trillion-dollar stimulus packages? They’re for you, not for Joe Q. Public. Dig it: we will NOT let you fail.”

Remember when only last September the Orange One scribbled, “No quid pro quo,” which was proof that there was one? Well, here it is all over again. We’ll scratch your back and come this fall, you scratch ours.

C) It’s the uber-wealthy who determine the direction of the stock market, not us home gamers who DVR “Mad Money.” And it is OVERWHELMINGLY in their financial interest for Orange Buffoon to remain president. And there’s no indicator that will better offset his unpardonable speech and behavior than a healthy stock market. They can sell that to red baseball cap MAGA even if those folks are too stupid to understand they’re not actually the beneficiaries.

D) To the ultra-rich, the virus is not a plague but a boon. Older people and black folk dying? This is like a Hail Mary pass to their own portfolios (easing up on SS money and Medi-Care, even if it’s just a state of mind, plus it allows them to drop size of work force under guise of virus-related reasons). So the four-digit daily mortality numbers don’t scare them one bit. As long as these two demos dominate the morgue lists, they’re actually in favor of it. Remember, “There are more important things than life.”

It’s a Tall World, After All

The NBA will return at the end of July, exclusively at the Disney World sports complex in Orlando, Florida. Giving entirely new meaning to Epcot Center. Only the top 22 teams are invited. Sorry, Knicks. They’re planning on having playoffs after that and then maybe two days off before next season begins?

Anatomy Of A Murder

If you’re sheltering in place at all tomorrow (Saturday), TCM has a hidden classic on at 3 p.m. EDT. Anatomy Of A Murder, from 1959, starring Jimmy Stewart, George C. Scott and Lee Remick, is fantastic. I’d never even heard of it two years ago when I happened upon it one afternoon (as I’m wont to do with TCM) an it was gripping and pretty racy for the Eisenhower era.

Remick is a dish and Trouble with a capital “T,” Stewart is excellent as the defense attorney who begins to wonder if he’s actually arguing on the side of justice, and Scott is formidable and that jet-black hair is awesome. Long before Patton, Scott established himself in both this and The Hustler. He’s never going to be the guy you root for, but he’s always charismatic.

Trust us. You’ll love this one. It was nominated for SEVEN Academy Awards, but earned zilch. Kind of mirrors the way one character felt at the end of the film.

I’ve got to take the next few days away for another project and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to devote time to the site. Maybe in a week or so. For now, here’s the story that ran on SI.com on Tuesday that took me away a few weeks back.

All thanks to Adam Duerson, my old and good friend at Sports Illustrated, whose idea this story was. And I am forever grateful that he entrusted it to me.

When I was a boy, once I realized I wasn’t going to become the heir to Walt Frazier, all I ever really wanted to do was write for Sports Illustrated. More than that, to deserve to write for Sports Illustrated. This is probably as close as I’ve ever come. More than anyone else, I owe a huge debt to Adam and to former SI editor Bob Roe, who hired me at Newsweek and retrained me to write without worrying. And also to Stewart Mandel and Dan Uthman at The Athletic, who threw me a line when I was going under for the final time.

All four of those guys know what a colossal pain in the ass I am. And still they work with me.

I understand why people chase a fat paycheck, I do; this was just always my ultimate goal.

by John Walters

Disperse Thy Neighbor*

*The judges will also accept “Bible Beltway”

Via my friend Andre (with a few editorial touches):

“Many people are saying this is a good book. I call it a great book, they call it a good book. But I call it great, maybe the greatest book ever. It’s the story of Jesus, but he wasn’t Mexican. He did a lot of great things for our country. A real patriot. I’ve read the book. Maybe not all of it, but probably more than anyone else has ever read.”

How many times during this presidency have you thought to yourself, I can’t even? And then it happens again. On the first day of June the president has his peeps tear gas and rubber-bullet a crowd peacefully assembling across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park so that he can stroll through the park and take this photo-op.

This right after he told America’s governors that they need to dominate protesters and threatened to turn the U.S. military on them (but who will be left to guard THE WALL???).

What a putz. Of course it’s all a part of the President’s and Jared’s and Stephen’s new program, or is that pogrom (in their case, what’s the difference), which we shall lovingly refer to as…

White, Hate American Summer!

Ah, yes. The temperatures are rising, the tempers are rising, millions more out of work than usual (why don’t they just watch CNBC and pivot to stay-at-home stocks?) and, oh yeah, the NBA Finals should be commencing right about now.

Can’t start a fire/Can’t start a fire without a spark/This gun’s for hire/Even if we’re just gassin’ em in the park…

It’s going to get uglier. We all know this, right? Even Richard Nixon felt bad about Kent State.

The Void

Writing in Sports Illustrated in 1962, the brilliant Robert H. Boyle cited another brilliant (albeit cynical, but we like it) mind in that of Albert Parry. Seems that Parry, writing in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, thought that sport might have a more sinister purpose than simply entertaining us.

“The wide interest of Anglo-Saxon masses in horse racing, football, baseball and similar sports tends to allay social unrest and lessens the possibility of political uprisings” Parry wrote, likely long before African-Americans were thought to matter in American life. He added that sports are a tool with which “the masses are to be kept in check, awed or distracted.”

Damn straight, A.P.

While we completely endorse what protesters, non-looting protesters, are doing nationwide, and while it is axiomatic that you need not be black to stand with the protesters, we do wonder if these demonstrations would be as widespread if baseball season were in full swing. And if LeBron and the Lakers were squaring off versus Giannis and the Bucks in the NBA Finals this week. Because that’s what shoulda been happening.

You wanna see large masses of humans gathering at night in early June of 2019? Go visit the outside of the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Just wondering what role the sports vacuum is playing in what’s happening right now.

By the way, today is the 31st anniversary of the Tianenmen Square uprising in Beijing. I wonder how that turned out.

Rock ‘n Roll Circus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQHqEpT9RJQ

You know how you know you’re a good band in 1969? John Lennon is in the crowd cheering. Here are the Rolling Stones in their lip-swagger Mick Jagger prime performing “Sympathy For The Devil.” Today is Charlie Watts’ 79th birthday, by the way.

The story behind this gig, which was filmed on December 11, 1968 but not released until 1996, is pretty fab. Mick and Pete Townshend envisioned an intimate festival of supergroups that would include the Stones, The Who, Jethro Tull and John Lennon. Led Zeppelin was considered, but were dropped (they weren’t yet Led Zep in ’68).

Anyway, the film was never released (at least not for 18 years). Some say the Stones were not thrilled with their performance, as they were exhausted (and high as kites). Others say The Who completely upstaged them, which got Mick to thinking the film shouldn’t be released. Maybe both.

Brian Jones would drown 7 months later.

Sports Year 1902

For the first time in recorded history, the year starts off right: with the Rose Bowl, making its debut on January 1. The otherwise sublime event was ruined by the Michigan Skunkbears trouncing the Stanford Indians 49-0.

Michigan finished 11-0 and won the national championship. Stanford literally quit after the third quarter (not surprised). So awful was the taste in everyone’s mouths that it would be another 13 years before the game was staged again.

****

On April 5, in a soccer match between England and Scotland in Glasgow’s Ibrox Park, an upper scaffold holding fans collapses. Dozens of people fall dozens of feet onto the cement ground beneath.

Two people die at the scene and 23 more will die from injuries sustained. After a brief respite, officials decide to continue the match in front of the 68,000 fans, fearing a cancellation will lead to more hysteria and death. Sadly, they were probably correct.

Twenty-five people die. The match ended in a 1-1 draw.

Sixty-nine years later, in 1971, this same park (now Stadium) will be the site of a crowd crush that kills 66, the worst soccer death toll until Hillsborough in 1989.