by John Walters
Tweet Me Right
It’s been that kind of summer at the Cookoutateria…
Starting Five
As Luck Would Have It
We’ve been ginormous fans of Andrew Luck ever since he was shredding Notre Dame and we were covering the Irish for NBC/Fanhouse when he was back at Stanford. The reason? He has Hall of Fame passing talent inside the mind of a nerd. Sure, he was a brilliant passer on the Farm and there was that time a USC defender scooped up a fumble only to have Luck bodyslam him into the turf.
But Andrew Luck also loved talking about books and 19th century economics, etc. He’s a Renaissance man and that’s why Saturday night’s retirement, some 19 days before his 30th birthday, did not exactly shock us. Whereas his predecessor, Peyton Manning, also battled painful injuries for years only to be ousted (for Luck) and then play in two more Super Bowls as the quarterback for the Denver Broncos, Luck wanted none of that. And good for him.
What aroused our intrigue most about this was Adam Schefter‘s tweet. We’ve known Schefter—should say, “We knew”—since the mid-Nineties. Adam is bright but he is equally ambitious. Always has been. When we were covering the AFC West for SI and he was a reporter in Denver he was gracious about being our Uber driver/unofficial city escort. What I remember from our rides is that the way he speaks doing a 2-minute hit on SportsCenter is exactly the way he speaks during a Sportswriters In Cars Getting Coffee talk. He never turns off.
And that is a large reason why Schefter has ascended to having NFL Woj status. He’s earned it. But still, there was a part of me that wondered if he had to send out that tweet, had to file that story, exactly when he did. Granted, Luck did not have a Tom Brady or even Drew Brees career. Still, knowng that the moment you hit “Tweet” that you’re going to rob Luck of the chance to say goodbye to his teammates on his own terms, that you’re going to expose him, as he stands on the sideline during an NFL preseason game, to angry reactions from the Lucas Oil Stadium crowd…
Maybe Schefter believed another reporter was hot on his heels. Judging from the press box reaction to the news in this wonderful Chicago Tribune piece, I’d suggest nobody was. I get it. An intrepid reporter must be agnostic about such reverberations. Schefter had the story and as soon as he had it, he needed to go with it. And yet…who was the Colts insider who told somebody who told somebody else who told Schefter? And what if Schefter had told the Colts’ PR guy that Luck needed to tell his teammates immediately after the game because he was sending out the tweet 10 minutes after the game ended? Would that have helped? I don’t know.
It just felt somewhat wrong to me that Adam Schefter and Twitter dictated the closing scene of Andrew Luck’s NFL career. Particularly because, as everyone who has ever dealt with Luck will tell you, he’s one of the nicest and best athletes they’ve ever come across.
Too Little, Too Tate*
*The judges will not accept “Arizona Sinks In Hawaii—Again”
Week Zero of the college football season ended sometime around 2 a.m. and we just did not have the energy to stay awake for the final play of the season’s first episode of Pac-12 After Dark. The longest rush play from scrimmage was Khalil Tate’s 31-yard scamper on the game’s final play and with Arizona trailing Hawaii by a touchdown. The problem was that the play began from the Hawaii 32-yard line. So, yes, Tate fell one yard shy of being this week’s hero on this Week Zero.
Yes, Tate was stopped one yard shy of pay dirt in Honolulu on the game’s ultimate play. It’s worth noting that Tate, who had a brilliant breakout season under former coach Rich Rodriguez in 2017 in which he rushed for 1,411 yards in only eight starts, rushed for only 224 yards all season last year, Kevin Sumlin’s first in Tucson (by comparison Tate gained 327 yards rushing in his first real game for the Cats when he took over for injured Brandon Dawkins early in the game at Boulder). The difference? Head coach Kevin Sumlin. It appears that Sumlin finally realized you shouldn’t use a Maserati to haul firewood and let Tate do, at least a little, what he does best in the season opener. If only he’d realized that before the game’s final play.
Worth noting: Hawaii receiver Cedric Byrd had 14 catches for 224 yards and 4 touchdowns and has a HUUUUUUUGE head start on the rest of the field for the Biletnikoff Award.
What’s Black And White…
The Yankees and Dodgers, with nearly 250 Major League seasons (and 33 World Series championships) between them, play in the regular season once every three years. And not in the postseason since 1981. They once shared a city and they still share the title of (along with the St. Louis Cardinals) most iconic uniforms in baseball, unis that go back more than 80 years.
So when the two met in Chavez Ravine this weekend, which happened to overlap with MLB Players Weekend, which is just an excuse by MLB to put new merchandise on the shelves and at the mlb.com store, perhaps Commissioner Manfred should’ve given them a four-pitch pass. Or at the very least limited it to one evening.
Every team in baseball was compelled to adopt the Stormtroopers vs. Darth Vader color schemes (white home, black visitor). We get the idea of changing it up for a series, but these were just horrible looks. The one redeeming aspect, for us, is that Dodger pinch-hitter Jedd Gyorko chose “Jerk-Store” as his nickname and then came to bat on Friday night with Larry David in the stands.
Meanwhile, in actual baseball news, Aaron Judge‘s power outage appears to be over, as he has smoked home runs in each of his past three games and in four of the last six. Before that he’d only hit one in the past two or three weeks. The Yanks (85-47) are tied with Houston for the best record in the AL while the Dodgers (85-46) have the best in the NL.
Trade Wars/Tirade Wars (Cont.)
Above, that was Friday in the latest back-and-forth between Trump and the American investor, a result of his tariff war with China. And here, below, is today, after Trump makes mollifying comments about possibly reaching a deal. Remember, the tariffs are not even due to begin until Sunday, September 1st.
As an investor, you may want to hold onto Linus’ blanket…
Mushroom Cloud Vs. Hurricane
Some ideas are so crazy that they just might work (e.g. the Trojan Horse or having Bill Walton broadcast baseball). Others? Just plain nutso. The website Axios is reporting that our 45th president has floated the idea of nuking hurricanes in order to disrupt them, an idea that only Slim Pickens could be in favor of.
This, of course, would allow us to divert even more money to military expenditures, one assumes. And perhaps we’d attack smaller tropical storms with conventional weapons? You might even be able to take out an afternoon thundershower with a Howitzer if you aim just right.
Music 101
Everybody’s Talkin’
Pick your preferred 1969 ill-fated buddy movie film song: B.J. Thomas’ “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or this gem from Harry Nilsson for Midnight Cowboy. This one, which was originally written and recorded by Fred Neil two years earlier, won a Grammy Award. Thomas’ tune won the Oscar.
The idea of “nuking a hurricane” is not new; it’s been a plot, er, “device” in several Syfy channel movies, including at least one of the Sharknados I think. 🙂
Except for the Pan American Games & some NSWL, I haven’t watched a lot of ESPN the past couple months. I did click over Saturday night to check the score of the FL-Miami game & on the crawl I did see “Andrew Luck” up ahead. I didn’t stay to see what it said but assumed it was bad news about whatever foot injury he was dealing with. When I did finally click over again, hours later, I was shocked to see what it was really about. I feel sad for him. I couldn’t bring myself to listen to all the talking/tsk-tsking heads on ESPN so I don’t know – is his injury so bad that he would not have been able to play for half the season? If I was a Colts fan, I guess I’d be pretty livid that unless he was leaving the field on a stretcher with another season-ending injury, NOW would NOT be a good time to announce one’s retirement. Right before the season? You really don’t have a problem with that, jdubs? On one hand, Luck always seemed SO smart that it surprised me he chose such a violent profession for his early adult years. From things heard this morning, he seems just completely beat down psychologically & emotionally AND once again, physically, & reached his breaking-up point with the cause of all his pain : football. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for someone in that much distress. However, I would have advised him to WAIT until the end of the season or his reputation & legacy with fans would not recover.
So, disregarding your personal opinion of the man, how would you judge his pro-football career? A success or failure? And the fact that to make a place for Luck, the Colts basically FIRED the best player of its history (while in Indiana) who then went on to take his new team to not one but two Super Bowls (& won one) while the Colts have mostly been mediocre at best? I certainly don’t blame Luck for how bad the TEAM played during many of those years, but sports & sports legacy is largely determined by win-lose numbers. How can Luck’s NFL legacy be anything other than “what could have been”? (Also, if the Colts had spent the money on a decent offensive line, MAYBE Luck wouldn’t have gotten so beat up during some of those years).
About the “trade war” – the narcissistic sociopath currently occupying the Oval Office is the WORST of all possible picks to negotiate ANYTHING with the Chinese. They are all about “face”. He will crow/lie about even the smallest item beneficial to us which will make the Chinese immediately withdraw it! Bullying & “trump”eting about how smart “we” are versus our opponent will NEVER lead to success with the Chinese. That he is too stupid to see this is but reason #1009 why he is UNFIT for that office!
The idiot is singlehandedly DESTROYING the world’s economy!
And I know you say you “don’t buy anything” so increased prices won’t mean much to you, but YOUR PATRONS at the restaurants will have LESS MONEY to, you know, spend on frivolous things such as eating & drinking out at a markup of 100-300%.
Susie B
Not ignoring you, just working a long day (but other times I AM ignoring you 🙂)