by John Walters
Starting Five
Goodell: If you want me to pronounce your name correctly, be here in person when I call it.
1. Marcus Mariato?
You have very few responsibilities as commish, Roger Goodell. Number one, find a way to make potentially embarrassing scandals disappear by disappearing yourself after the Super Bowl. Number two, never mention the letters “C,” “T”, and “E” in that order. And number three, on the opening night of the NFL draft, be able to pronounce the names of at least the top five picks correctly.
Instead, we got “Marcus Mariato.” The Titans thought they were drafting a Hawaiian, but it turns out they were drafting a paisan.
p.s. My high school friends refer to me as “Walker” because Fr. Camille Prat called out my name as “Walker” on the first day of class and I didn’t correct him, so he called me “Walker” for the entire semester.
2. The Bucks Flop Here
And Dunleavy buried the three….
In three of the four quarters in Game 6 between the Bulls and Bucks, Chicago outscored Milwaukee by at least 14 points. The final: 120-66, a 54-point smashing that included the above play in which the Bucks’ Giannis Don’t-Ask-Me-To-Spell-His-Last-Name showed great closing speed in knocking Mike Dunleavy out of bounds. To be fair to Giannis, Dunleavy shoved him down at the other end of the court at the start of this play.
It wasn’t the worst playoff loss in NBA history — Minneapolis once beat St. Louis 133-75 — but that was in 1956 and the visiting team was the loser (no one one the Lakers had more than 19, by the way). As far as I know, that was the worst loss by the home team in NBA playoff history.
3. Another Draft (Item), Bartender!
Cleveland, Brown.
I think I saw an ESPN article touting the “Impact Players” who still remained after Round 1. Just for the record:
Tom Brady…..6th round
Richard Sherman….5th round
Antonio Brown….6th round (led NFL in receptions last year)
Julian Edelman….7th round (9 catches in Super Bowl XLIX, including game-winning TD)
Funny, Jameis. But will the No. 1 overall pick be this draft’s deadliest catch?
And already this photo has been deleted. So there’s your first “Famous Jameis” moment with the Bucs. No. 2: He referred to the city of “Tampa Bay.” We’re working on it.
4. Midnight Special
Seven of the past bouts in Las Vegas involving Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather have started after midnight EST (or EDT, I can never remember). Only one has started before 11:40 p.m. Game 7 of the Spurs-Clippers will tip off at 8 p.m. ET. And the Kentucky Derby post-time, where favorite American Pharaoh will start from the 17th position, from where no horse (or squirrel) has ever won, is 6:34 p.m.
Quickly: American Pharaoh: “Horse or Bradley Cooper film?”
Adjust your imbibing accordingly.
5. Whelp, Yelp!
If you’ve worked at a restaurant in the past five years (raises hand….raises both), then you probably loathe Yelp! When I served (my country) at the steakateria, our manager, Scott, would read Yelp! reviews at pre-shift nearly daily.
Anyway, yesterday was a good day for people who still believe we should make things as opposed to “services.” Both Yelp! (YELP) and LinkedIn (LNKD) got killed on earnings reports, each losing more than 20% of their stock value. Here, here! And….give ’em hell, Elon Musk! We need more people like you.
Just a note that in today’s TBL Round-Up, Mike Cardillo gives the Florida Sun-Sentinel props for using the term FloriDUH. Mr. Cardillo must not be a reader of MH (hurt feelings). We’ve been using that term for nearly three years.
Music 101
Black Star
Blame it on the black star/Blame it on the falling sky/Blame it on the satellite that beams me home
Before playlists, there were albums. Bands wrote 8 to 14 songs with the idea that you’d put the disc into the player and be done for the next 45 minutes to an hour. One of my favorite of the post-vinyl era is The Bends by Radiohead (I know: the cool kids will cite Kid A or OK Computer) (Really: click that last link). This song is not the most celebrated (Fake Plastic Trees, High ‘n Dry), but I absolutely love it.
So mean to the Sunshine State. As a writer of all things funny, why bite the tattooed, sunburned hand that feeds you so consistently?
Not from here by any means, but I’ve now lived here for 26 of my years, so gotta defend it in a common-law kind of way. It’s batshit crazy, absolutely. Lots of states are. I just think the reporters here are better at finding the crazy.
WHAT the heck happened?! HOW does a playoff team lose by 54 (FIFTY-FOUR!) points on its HOME FLOOR?!! Seriously, I don’t know as I was too busy flipping back & forth between Grey’s Anatomy (& testing myself to see if I could keep from cursing Shonda Rhimes every 10 minutes. I failed) & the Draft (which, honestly, was a mistake as it almost put me to sleep ‘every 10 minutes’.) Was the entire Bucks starting line-up “KOed” (my new nickname for when players RECKLESSLY if not, ahem, “intentionally” DISLOCATE their opponents’ SHOULDERS) by new Bulls team mascot Bushwacker? Did losing & being embarrassed on their home floor by the “just happy to be there” Bucks AWAKEN the KRAKEN disguised in red? Nooooooooooooo.
You know how Simmons hates “Bernard Karmell Pollard” with the intensity of an white-hot exploding supernova? Well, if the Cavs don’t somehow win the championship THIS SEASON, Olynyk is MY BKP! He actually replaces the NBA player that had been at the top of my “shit list” (sorry) for the past year (since he broke Sweet Pea’s nose), yep, Ibaka & you know what happened to HIM this past season. Be afraid, KO, be afraid!
While I luckily have never invested in YELP or LNKD, I did start dipping my toe into SSYS a few months ago. And let’s just say over the past 2 days the new nickname for SSYS is BUCKS in that it’s been BUSHWACKED.