Starting Five

1. Triumph and Triomphe

The biggest sports stories on a mid-summer Sunday took place overseas. In Muirfield, Scotland, Phil Mickelson shot a final round 66 to win the British Open, his fifth major. Lefty won his first Claret Jug hard on the shores of the Firth of Forth, which is either a body of water or a Monty Python sketch (it also reminds us that people with a lisp cannot properly pronounce “lisp”, which just seems mean-spirited).

On the south side of Hadrian’s Wall, and then across the English Channel, Chris Froome 28, won the 100th staging of the Tour de France. Froome, who was born in Kenya and raised in South Africa but is technically British, led the Peloton through the Palace of Versailles — someone has a major mopping job to do this morning -and then the streets of Paris at sunset, which is a departure for the famed race.

Froome eagerly answered all PED questions and, in a reference to previous Tour champions whose victories have since been stripped (e.g., Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, Alberto Contador, etc.), promised, “This is one yellow jersey that will stand the test of time.” Or, the drug test of time. We’ll see.

Andrew Talansky of Banner Elk, N.C., finished 10th and was the top American finisher. He will probably never sit down for an interview with Oprah.

Mickelson won $1.4 million. Froome pocketed 450,000 Euros, which is about $550,000. He also did this, which is cool.

Next year’s British Open will be held in Liverpool, England (Fab Foursomes, anyone? Hello?). Next year’s Tour de France’s first three stages will also be held in England, commencing in Leeds.

2. Woofers and Tweeters

On Saturday night University of Florida linebacker Antonio Morrison was arrested for barking at a police dog. This led to a misdemeanor charge and an explosion on Twitter by college football scribes who are trying to survive the doldrums of July.

Greg Auman, a Florida alum and college football writer for the Tampa Bay Times –and faithful friend and reader — tweeted, “I heard they were moving (Morrison) to rover this fall.”

To which Spencer Hall, the genius behinds EDSBS and also a Florida alum, tweeted, “GODDAMNIT!” (presumably because Auman beat him to the punch line).

Then Andy Staples, a Sports Illustrated college football writer and yet another Florida alum (and former Gator player), also joined the conversation. At one point Auman tweeted to both of them, “(Florida coaching staff) will just keep him on a short leash from here on out.”

Florida has announced that Morrison will be suspended for at least two games and will be required to remain at least 20 yards away from UGA IX at all times during the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

3. Another Continent, Another Tour

As the 100th Tour de France was closing on Sunday in Paris, the 41st annual RAGBRAI was commencing in Council Bluffs, Iowa. RAGBRAI (an acronym for “Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa”, as in Des Moines Register) is exactly what the name promises. No one keeps score. Just a caravan of tens of thousands of cycling –and fun–enthusiasts pedaling their merry way across the Hawkeye State.

This year, for the first time in 16 years, RAGBRAI will stop in Des Moines along its 406-mile route. Bands play every night, and this year’s lineup is an ode to ’90s bands and includes Live, Everclear and Filter. Hey, wasn’t Pearl Jam just in Chicago last Friday night (ironically, the band’s forthcoming album is titled “Lightning Bolt”)? They should hop on for a night? Either them or noted cycling enthusiast Dave Matthews.

4. The Annotated “The Newsroom”

 

So this was an idea I hatched last year and still hope to do to its full effect. After each episode of The Newsroom I’d like to provide annotations so that all of us can catch/review/comment on Aaron Sorkin’s Sorkiness. To view any Sorkin show is to know that he loves to drop his favorite lines quickly, often while another character is talking over them. Sometimes he gives them to actors with thick British accents so that we deliberately miss them. Of course, Sorkin is the dude with the most expensive wrist watch who enjoys telling you what time it is a little too much. Still, for all the haterade showers he endures, I’ll happily watch. No, it’s not Mad Men or Breaking Bad, but The Newsroom is, at least for me, intensely enjoyable. So here are the annotations –and it’s hardly comprehensive — from the first two episodes of Season 2.
Season Premiere

1. “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

We see this on the screen before we see any character this season, as Will MacAvoy is being deposed. It’s a line from Shakespeare’s “Henry the Sixth” (which, we should note, is not the sixth in a series of Shakespearian plays about a guy named Henry)

2. Genoa

Sorkin feels compelled to educate us –here is where he is at his most infuriating –that Genoa is not only not Geneva (a city in Switzerland famous for its conventions), but that it is also a city in Italy, a type of salami and also a headsail on a boat. This will be continued in the second episode. In the context of The Newsroom, it is also the codename for an alleged US military black op.

3. “Otherwise, we’ll stay with Sandy”

This is Sorkin’s biggest clue to us, the viewers, that the deposition is taking place last October, while the events that are being discussed in the deposition occurred one year earlier.

4. “She looks like the girl with the dragon tattoo.”

ACN lawyer lady –played by Marcia Gay Harden — notes Margaret Jordan’s spiked ‘do and makes a reference to Stieg Larsson’s Swedish heroine, which would have a higher Q rating back in October of 2012 than it does now.

5. “At Benihana with my kids”

People still dine at Benihana? Really?

6. “7 a.m. waking up in the morning/Gotta be fresh” and “Partying partying yeah!/Partying partying woo!”

This is my favorite Sorkin pop culture reference-drop of the season thus far. As Will bides his time at the anchor desk during a commercial break (oblivious to the fact that things have gone FUBAR in the control room), he is singing Rebecca Black’s annoyingly infectious “Friday.” Again, this would have been big in August of 2011. The song and the artist are never mentioned by name.

7. “Of Thee I Sing”

MacAvoy commands Sorority Girl, now his intern as well as his pet project, to return in five minutes with the five Broadway shows that have won Pulitzers. She only has an opportunity to name this one before he cuts her off. I’m sure it’s hardly a coincidence that the show, a George and Ira Gershwin musical, was a lampoon of American politics.

8. “Cats and kittens, grab your mittens…”

This entire scene, in which Will and McKenzie do the Harry-and-Sally after-midnight-in-Manhattan phone banter thing, is an ode to overnight FM radio in general and deceased WNEW-FM deejay Alison Steele in particular. Steele, who died of stomach cancer in 1995 at age 58, was a pioneering overnight deejay in NYC whose on-air sobriquet was “The Nightbird.”  The song is “Into the Mystic” by Van Morrison, off his 1970 album “Moondance”, which does not have a single bad song.

9. “Ben Franklin. Nailed it.”

Don, who we all hated at the launch of the series but who grows cooler with each episode, has some fun at the expense of American education when Sloane Sabbith notes that 75 % of Oklahoma students don’t know who the first U.S. president was. Of course it was Alexander Hamilton.

10. Roger Daltrey/You Better, You Better, You Bet/Pete Townshend

“Know British rock” versus “No British rock.” Another –for some–infuriating Sorkinism in which he uses a pop culture staple as a theme for a scene. Here, it’s The Who’s “You Better, You Better, You Bet” off 1981’s “Face Dances”, their final solid album. Will uses the theme of the song — an unquenchable thirst for love — to express his relationship with his audience, while failing to appreciate that it also defines his and Mac’s relationship.

Say what you will about Daltrey, but the opening of this song is one of the most identifiable in ’80s rock. Townshend, who wrote the song, is a genius when it comes to lyrics and riffs. Duh. It was during this same period when Townshend, for a solo album, wrote “Let My Love Open The Door” which, if The Who had recorded it, would belong on their Greatest Hits album.

11. “Our ‘Pentagon Papers'”

Classified documents that the New York Times published in 1971 that showed beyond a doubt that the Lyndon Johnson administration had systematically lied to the American public about Vietnam.

You know what? This went a little long. I’ll do Episode 2 tomorrow. Stay tuned.

5. Summer Stunt Deaths (Continued):

A woman in Arlington, Texas, falls to her death from a roller coaster. Rosy Esparza falls to her death while riding the Texas Giant at Six Flags over Texas and now there’s a report that she may have asked an attendant if her bar was secure before leaving the station. That’s a massive lawsuit you smell.

 

Reserves

–Just a note that Matt Harvey of the Mets beat Cliff Lee of the Phillies yesterday. As @stumptherob noted on Twitter, that’s “two-thirds of an assassination.” (Lee, Harvey)

–That reviled Rolling Stone cover boy turns 20 today. No, not Bieber. Recommended reading: Boston native, RS reporter and near-Chechen terror victim Matt Taibbi’s blog on the controversial cover.