The timing of this is good. I was going to take a respite after having written my expectations yesterday for the debate tonight and had nothing to add about that. And there was nothing that struck me as being anywhere near as important and therefore somewhat distracting. So, I was looking for something frivolous. And this fit. As readers here have long-since figured out, I love the Chicago Cubs. Having said that, bear with me and don't go running off yet. The point here isn't about baseball, though it's part of the story, but only part. And it isn't all praise. Just some. The baseball part: on Sunday, the Cubs had a Cubs Hall of Fame presentation for two of their all-time great players, pitcher Kerry Wood (legendary on the team for having pitched one of the greatest games in major league history his rookie season -- a one-hit game with a still-record-tying 20 strikeouts) and third baseman Aramis Ramirez, who hit 368 home runs in his career. Okay, that's pretty much the baseball part. This is where we get into the point. The Cubs made a video to honor the two men, which played on the scoreboard at Wrigley Field, but they also posted it on their website this way -- Okay, without knowing anything about the Cubs, or even if you knew zero about Kerry Wood or Aramis Ramirez -- when you see that tweet above, and read it in full...take a guess, with no more clues, and who do you think "Justin Wood" is? While there is a reasonably good chance that you're right with your guess (well-done!), I won't give the answer yet, because for those who might still not be 100% sure, here below is the video itself. And trust me, there is actually a point to all this. And a non-baseball point it is. By the way, you don't have to watch the 2-1/2-minute video to keep playing the game, because I'll give some more hints from it below. But it's a very good video, filled with clues, and it's also fun to see how emotional Kerry Wood and Aramis Ramirez are while watching it -- narrated as it is by Justin Wood and Aramis Ramirez, Jr. Especially Kerry Wood, who clearly seems on the verge of bursting into tears at any given moment, with a clench, quivering jaw. Okay, if you did watch the video, you got a bunch of clues to the question at hand. If you didn't watch it, though, some of the clues are -- Justin Wood saying that "Wrigley Field was your office, but some days you took me to work." And also, as this is being said, there are pictures of Kerry Wood and a little boy. In addition, another clue: Justin Wood says that to Cubs fans, Kerry Wood's most famous strikeouts were his 20 in that one memorable game, but "For me, it's your last one." And as he says that, we see Kerry Wood strike out a batter, and then turn to walk off the field, as we hear the announcer say that that is Kerry Wood, who is retiring, leaving the field for the very last time -- and a little boy runs onto the field and hugs him. And one last clue if you haven't figured out a guess yet. Near the end of the video, Justin Wood says, "To Cubs fans, you were a hero. But to me, you were my dad." Okay, now, it's time to make a guess. No need to guess on who Aramis Ramirez, Jr. is, I'm sure you've got that one figured out. It's easy. The harder question is who do you think the other narrator is, Justin Wood? I'll give you a moment. Are you ready? Okay, he is -- Kerry Wood's son! Yes, really. It's true! I know that some of you (which is the polite way of saying "all") guessed -- "Kerry Wood's son" and think that this quiz game is stupid. And you're right on both couonts, but as I said, that's not the point. There is a totally separate point to it all. That's because, as much as I love the Cubs. And think the fans are wonderful and loyal and know and love baseball and stuck with the team for 108 years of futility -- -- it turns out that for a handful of the fans, that is the limit of their expertise, deep and abiding love of the team, and perhaps because they pour so much love on the Cubs, for other areas of their daily life away from baseball they have little room left for common sense and are unearthly stupid. Because, and I swear this is true, these few took to Twitter to not only ask who "Justin" was, but also slam the Cubs administration for not telling them. And the thing is, lunatic as that is, it's not just one of two who just screwed up, but almost close to a dozen or so!! Yes, really. To be clear, no, not everyone, thank goodness. And not even most, thank heavens. Most Cubs fans who posted weren't delusional, but sane and rational with an awareness of life outside the ballpark. And they loved the video tribute and were emotional and were joyous celebrating two of their all-time favorites. But that many people, maybe around 10, actually were that totally clueless. Honest. It explains much about problems in life caused by others. (Were some joking? It's possible, too, obviously. But when you see the breadth of them, and the phrasing of most, some people pissed off, some even posting graphic memes of annoyance, and that there's no real reason to make yourself look that stupid publicly, even for just a joke -- no, I think all of them were on the level.) And because even though I'm insisting it's true that people posting couldn't figure out who Justin Wood was, I feel this is so insane that proof is needed. So, here are just a couple screen shots of some of them. And also -- Yes, I know. Dear Lord. I only hope they aren't licensed to drive heavy machinery. (I also hope some were not Cubs fans at all, but just Twitter stragglers who'll comment on anything that scrolls by their feed. But it's not likely. Besides which, if Cubs hopes were effective, the team would have won a World Series a lot sooner than 108 years.) But for all that, this below was my favorite of them all. My favorite because the guy not only didn't have a clue, but he was so annoyed at the Cubs' website administrator for not explaining who this "Justin" person was that he took them to task. Yet what I like most about the exchange is that the Chicago Cubs official who handles the online account -- someone who I'm sure is told to be as absolutely polite and gracious to everyone who posts on the website, even St. Louis Cardinals fans -- was clearly so taken aback and aghast at the depth of monumental stupidity (forget all the brain-dead obvious clues, the first line says, "We call them heroes. They call them Dad") that even he couldn't help but be just a wee bit snarky in reply. So, for all of you readers here who correctly guessed that "Justin Wood" is, in fact, Kerry Wood's son -- Huge congratulations! You win our Chicago Cubs Fan of the Day Award!! It's why I always say that we have the finest readers on these pages in the entire Internet. And I appreciate you all.
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Since the NFL season starts next week, I thought this would be a good way to move into it. And so, live from Pittsburgh, on this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest contestant is former football coach and now broadcaster Bill Cowher. Very appropriate because he won the Super Bowl as Pittsburgh Steelers coach. He has a funny story about dealing with Steelers fan, and gives a brilliant example of how a coach can answer a question without answering, but explaining the narrative he wants to get across.
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts at the 18:30 mark. There is now an update on the U.S. Gymnastics challenge to the ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (yes, that's its name) that bumped Jordan Chiles from the Bronze medal. As you may recall, Romania had filed a challenge that the inquiry by the U.S. (which raised Chiles' point) happened four seconds too late, beyond the 1-minute required time limit. Then the other day, the U.S. said it had come into possession of video that showed their inquiry occurred after only 47 seconds...and another inquiry took place after 54 seconds. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, however, said that they won't even hear the appeal, despite the new evidence, stating that their rules don't allow it. Seriously, what kind of court doesn't allow appeals where there's new evidence??! There do not appear to be all that many steps left for U.S. Gymnastics, and given how the IOC and such things work, that makes additional efforts all the more uphill, however what seems likely is to appeal the case to the Swiss Federal Tribunal. Updates as they occur. Yes, it's true. The Olympics may be over, but the stories aren't. There's more! So, for all of those with OWS -- Olympic Withdrawal Syndrome -- (me) we have a way to help ease out of the condition.
You will recall the story I first wrote about on rumors of a challenge by Romania that U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles got a Bronze medal inappropriately because U.S. coaches were four seconds late in making their protest that got Chiles the added necessary points which moved her up from fifth place. And then later, after the challenge was made, it got approved by the sport's governing body, and the Romanian gymnast was moved back up to Bronze, with Chiles getting dropped out of the medals. Well, it turns out that new video has surfaced, which was previously unavailable to the U.S. coaches. And the new-discovered video apparently shows that the U.S. protest was well-within the 1-minute requirement. In fact, it shows that the U.S. protest was made at 44 seconds, and a second protest was filed at 51 seconds. So, it appears there there two protests made in the required time. At the moment, the story has no more than that, only noting that because of confidentiality rules the U.S. couldn’t say where the new video is from. So, it remains to be seen how the governing board will act. We spend most of the day watching the Olympics, so you don’t have to. And it’s come down to this. The last day of competition. And there were still a few major events left to finish. First though, to follow-up on something from a few days ago. That’s when I wrote about how there was a challenge from the Romania women’s gymnastic team about Team USA’s Jordan Chiles being raised up to a Bronze medal after a U.S. challenge over a judging mistake. A panel has ruled for Romania, saying that the challenge by the United States occurred four seconds too late, after the one-minute period allowed to make a challenge. The U.S. response has been how unfair this is that a gymnast should be penalized because of what was the judges’ error. Though the Romanian gymnast will now get a Bronze medal (despite the IOC acknowledging previously that there was a mistake and Jordan Chiles, in fact, did score higher), there is no word yet on whether Chiles will be able to also keep her Bronze medal. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but we’ll see… Which returns us to the final events. The women’s basketball Gold medal final was far more intense than I’m sure most watching expected. But U.S. women’s basketball has won 60 games in a row. And this team had won all its games by double digits. In fairness, the French team they played in the finals is very good and physical, and playing before a raucous home crowd. The result is that this game was a nail-biter, literally down to the last shot. The U.S. team was sloppy on offense, missing layups and missing more free throws than in previous games, with many turnovers. On defense, they let France get repeat offensive rebounds throughout. At halftime, the score was 25-25. The U.S. didn’t score for four minutes into the second half. At one point, France took a 10 point lead. The U.S. team came back, thanks in large part to Kaleah Cooper off the bench. The gam was tied with 3:45 left. Their lead was only one point with just over one minute left. With four seconds remaining, France needed a 3-point shot to tie the game – and they made the great shot…but the players foot was about two inches over the line, so it only counted for two points, as the buzzer sounded. And so the U.S. won the Gold medal 67-66. I meant to write this yesterday, but it slipped through the cracks. But excellent interviewing by NBC’s Lewis Johnson, talking with the U.S. 4x100m team that had had the disastrous baton pass. Lewis has been doing this job at the Olympics for years – it’s a fairly thankless task, getting comments from exhausted athletes right after their event, usually track and field. He’s very genial, though the interviews are usually pretty surface, in part because he’s not trying to dig deep at that emotional moment, in part because the athletes have no interest in going deep. But in this case, because of the total collapse of the run, he wouldn’t take, “It just didn’t happen,” as an answer. “Why didn’t it happen?” he asked pointedly. And again got, “It just didn’t happen.” All four teammates were there, including the runner who had trouble receiving the baton, but it was the runner supposed to pass the baton that Johnson focused on. They all probably figured Johnson would accept the non-answer and move on, but it was too much an evasion of a big problem. So, Johnson tried another tack, becoming more specific. “Did he leave early, or were you not able to catch up to him?” he asked. The runner tried it again, muttering a standard kind of “We didn’t get it done.” But still Johnson didn’t give up. “What went wrong?” Finally, the runner realized he had to say something. Because (whether he knew it or not) Johnson is a former athlete, even competing in track at two Olympic trials (as well as playing college football at the beloved Northwestern!), and this was too incompetent a race on the biggest audience stage to accept Generic Athlete Avoidance. So, the runner at last gave a sort of weak reply, something along the lines of how they practiced and all support each other, but at least Lewis Johnson – not giving up – got a reply. And made it clear that “It just didn’t happen” was not only obvious, but not an acceptable answer. Paris organizers had a fun event after the men’s Marathon – they created a “Marathon por Tout”, a marathon for all. The marathon route was left intact (since it would be run the next day for women) with the streets blocked off – and it was opened in Paris at night for anyone in the public who wanted to run. An estimated 20,000 people showed up. As for the women’s Marathon, temperatures were five degrees hotter than for men, which sounds small but is a big deal when you’re running 26 miles. So, there was a lot of hydrating. It was the same beautiful route through Paris out to the Versailles Palace on the outskirts of the city, where runners turned around and at about the 17 mile mark hit the crushing uphill climb. This was a 10-degree grade that went on for about 600 yards. Five runners were in the breakaway pack, later dropped to four runners with a couple miles to go, which always strikes me as so difficult – imagine running for 26 miles, only to lose out on the top three medals by just four seconds (as was the case here). Then it was just two fighting for the Gold – and watching Marathon runner sprint for the finish, the final 200 yards is always remarkable. The winner, Sifan Hassan, an Ethiopian-born runner representing the Netherlands, had a great Olympics – she also won Bronze medals in both the 5000k and 10,000k races. She won the Marathon with an Olympic record time of 2:22:55. This was the 40th anniversary of the first-ever women’s Marathon, held in Los Angeles. And I attended the start of that race, which was held early on a Sunday morning at the track of Santa Monica City College, complete with a special ceremony to honor the occasion. After which the runners left the stadium and took off on their 26-mile journey around the city. That's American Joan Benoit -- the ultimate Gold Medal-winner -- in the front and center, in gray, with her white hat on backwards, right above the man's head intruding into my shot. I then took off myself for my car and quickly drove towards the Pacific Ocean, parked and found a spot where I could see the women running past, along Ocean Ave. And again, that's Joan Benoit. She's much easier to spot here, because she surprised everyone by running so fast so early that she broke far away from the pack, everyone sure she'd burn herself out -- except that she didn't and maintained that massive lead and won the race with no one even near her. There she is again, right behind the lead vehicle in her white cap -- look down the road behind her, there's no one in sight. And wouldn't be for a while. Which takes us to the Closing Ceremonies. Beginning it out in the courtyard with an à capella choral version of "Under Paris Skies" is not what I would have expected. I think the standard expression is "What a bold choice." Once they entered the stadium, I was a bit confused for a while, but phew, I finally figured it out. It's a promotional ad for the upcoming movie, "Alien: Romulus." But what a joyful way to end the Games. A dystopian look at George Orwell's "1984" as performed by H.G. Wells' Morlocks. If George W. Bush was in the crowd at the Stade de France, he'd turn to Michelle Obama and say, "This is some weird sh*t." Let the Games continue in 2026. Then back here in Los Angeles in 2028. I'm starting to get my rest for that... On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, we're going to go Olympic themed -- because, of course. The guest contestant is Allyson Felix, retired seven-time Olympic Gold medalist in track and winner of 11 Olympic medals overall, from five Games (and 20 World Championships). This past July, ESPN ranked her #63 on their list of the 100 greatest athletes of the 21st century. Her conversation with guest host Karen Cheer (as fan girl and giggly as ever, though with more fun and interesting question than usual…) is lively and often funny, thanks to Felix’s charm, especially when talking about her unexpected start in track.
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:15 mark. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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