TL's Sunday Sports Notes | Nov 10
TL's Sunday Sports Notes | Nov 10
While We're Young (Ideas) | Is Sports the Ultimate Escape from Reality?
By TERRY LYONS, Editor-in-Chief of Digital Sports Desk
BOSTON - On Wednesday night, it took some inner strength to push my human motor to commute to Boston’s TD Garden to take in the Golden State Warriors vs. the Boston Celtics basketball game. The night before was spent gazing at a TV screen, aghast at the one-sided results pouring in, not just at the top of the ticket but in Senate contests as well. Tuesday night to the early morning hours Wednesday was not a pleasant experience for half of the USA, but the sun rose brightly this past Wednesday morning and it set by 4:30pm, three hours before the Warriors and Celtics would tip-off their NBA game.
After a quick bite with family members at a North End pizza joint, it was time to enter Boston Garden with 19,155 best friends to take-in the game between the 2022 NBA Finalists. It was time to escape from the realities of life and disappear into an amazing place, a place many of us retreat to every day or night - we concentrate 100% of our energy and focus into a sporting event whether it be on TV or, ideally, in person.
Earlier this Fall, a great escape into an NFL Sunday was sometimes interrupted by endless commercial spots for New Hampshire’s gubernatorial race.
Blah. We were served up with unwanted and uncalled for stress, thrust upon us weekend after weekend during our sports get-a-way here in the Commonwealth. But, for an NFL Sunday, we have the solution! The NFL RedZone, with seven hours of commercial free action.
Away from the never-ending world of politics, escaping into sports is a really good thing. Whether its children playing in the backyard or participating in organized teams sports, the experience allows for teaching moments, lifetime lessons and important building of lifetime bonds with friends and the sports they play. Kids can escape and forget their problems in a second. Sometimes, adults need a little more time.
The Boston College vs Syracuse football game offered an escape pattern, without a cloud in the dark blue sky. A brisk breeze combined with bright sunshine at Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill and a crowd was entertained by a great ACC rivalry game, as the home team won 37-31. Some fans left the stadium with some tint, as the sun beat down upon their faces, the kind of sun Led Zeppelin sang of in Kashmir.
It was a great place to escape from life’s bummers.
Think about it. Great competition for the players, combined with tailgating, cheering and revelry for the fans, some 44,500 strong. That’s a pretty good way to forget your troubles for a couple hours.
Surely, the Alabama at LSU game in Baton Rouge provided ESPN GameDay analyst Kirk Herbstreit with a couple hours of distraction and enjoyment Saturday, just a few days after his loyal dog, Ben, passed away after battling cancer. Herbstreit updated college football fans on November 4, but things took a turn and Ben headed for his short walk to Dog Heaven.
Thousands of tributes came in on social media - totaling some 150,000+ by night time - and ESPN paid tribute to Ben, who earned star status with fans and Kirk’s colleagues as he traveled to games, no matter where the week-by-week GameDay schedule destination led them. There has been no better example of the bond between man and dog displayed weekly over the years by the monument of a man and his companion.
“Our love of football is what unites us every weekend,” said Herbstreit in his on air eulogy to his departed dog. “What I experienced with Ben was just that, and so much more.”
Here’s the ESPN memorial feature for Ben - not a dry eye in the house. Click HERE
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: In their third FIBA 3x3 Men’s World Tour competition in as many weeks, Team Miami secured their fifth FIBA 3x3 World Tour title of 2024 with a tournament victory at the Neom Masters in Neom, Saudi Arabia. For the USA contingent, Dylan Travis, James Parrott, Mitch Hahn and Trey Bardsley. Parrott, Miami’s versatile 6-foot-4 slasher, earned MVP honors for the second time in his 3x3 career. … In case you haven’t heard of Neom, it’s a brand news, state of the art tech center community being built in the desert of Saudi Arabia. … Indoor sports can play a major role in the new tech townand competitive 3x3 is a nice start. The FIBA-sanctioned tournament is among the attractions for the Neom Beach Games of 2024. … In addition to the LIV Golf Tour, Saudi Arabia has been attracting other world sports, such as Formula 1 racing, boxing, mixed martial arts and a list of others all in queue as facilities are being constructed.
TIDBITS: Two days after election day, a day after the fans of Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics gave an opposing coach a piece of their minds for USA Basketball Olympic Games snubs gone by, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr was asked about his viewpoint on the result of the Presidential election.
Kerr: “I believe in democracy. I think the American people have spoken and voted for Donald Trump. I want him to do well the next four years. I want our country to do well.”
Kerr (added, sarcastically): “I'm just thankful there wasn't any voting fraud this time. Last time, all those illegal immigrants who crashed the border, raped and murdered people and then voted six times, that was unfortunate. But thankfully, this time everything was clean. It's great that every election has been really valid except for that last one four years ago. Twinkle in my eye as I say that, in case you didn't see it.”
We’ve featured a few Jack McCallum-like “Sign of the Apocalypse” news items, but this week, how about a new subsection in the column?
YOU CAN’T MAKE IT UP: On Friday afternoon, a charter airline pilot flying the Auburn Tigers to a game at Houston (game scheduled Saturday night, 9:30pm CT) had to turn around and return to the airport of origination as a fight broke out on board between two Auburn players. Auburn took a second flight to Texas and arrived in Houston at 1:00am. … Reports are sketchy, at best, but some are attempting to downplay the incident, tagging it as horseplay. Note to Auburn: Do not let your horses play in a metal tube at 30,000 feet with jet fuel flowing to jet engines fully operational. It might not end well.
This section of the column has become quite popular with readers. Feedback on the music segments of this weekly missive often outnumber the notes on sports. That’s good and I’ve been weaving some music and entertainment into the sports themes.
PARTING WORDS & MUSIC: This year, there was a country-wide focus on “The Economy” being the key issue which probably decided the 2024 election. No argument here, but isn’t “The Economy” always an issue? … Never the economist myself, nor the mathematician, but a citizen with a pretty keen sense of history, current events in this world, and a grasp on human nature, it seems there’s a basic human need to gripe. To complain. To point the finger in another direction because the problem can’t possibly be found in the mirror. There’s been a LOT of finger-pointing by the inner circles of the DNC this past week.
Maybe it’s all because of the circumstances. Multiple wars? A global pandemic? Congress in a knot because of the USA’s famed balance of power and a system of checks and balances? Sadly, sometimes, it’s all of the above and some.
I thought of the Great Depression and what the people endured from 1929 to 1939, but then focused on more recent days. Days I can relate to first hand. I thought back to the ‘80s.
A guy with a guitar created a double album and many of the songs were about tough times. In 1984, the guy with the guitar, together with his friends with keyboards, other guitars, and a really great sax player, all sang about “My Hometown,” a song of absolute despair. Racial crisis. Violence. Guns. Vacant stores. It all stemmed from inflation, unemployment and the inevitable family strife coming from such dire circumstances. It all ran within a song of 4:33 which closed-out Side Two of the album, leaving you alone, pondering the future and just how things might be in the next week or three. While the words reflected experiences of the 1960s, the song rang true in the 1980s, too.
In recent times, inflation became the key issue of the 2024 Presidential election. Coming out from the devastation of the global pandemic, inflation registered at 7.0% but, by the time President Joe Biden took office, it had leveled off to 6.5%. Supply chains were busted-up, gasoline prices spiked as the greedy oil companies had to make up profits after more than a year of cars sitting on driveways, getting three months per gallon.
Inflation was brought under control, lowering to 3.4% and then, in 2024, a reasonable 2.4%, similar to the numbers of 2016-2020. Still, household items seem so expensive.
But a look back to the 1980s tells of a more dire situation.
In January 1980, as President Ronald Reagan took office, inflation was clocked at 13.91% while unemployment charted at 6.3%. The memories are vivid as the world faced a recession and college graduates, like me, were entering a pretty tough job market.
By April, inflation rose to 14.76% and there was a crisis hitting the U.S. automakers who were being outdone by Japanese cars made much more affordably and reliably, because of the design and assembly mechanisms.
By December, the National Basketball Association, namely Matt Winick and then the late David Stern, threw me a life raft. But that’s another story for another day.
Instead, let’s give Reagan, the Fed and the perseverance of the American public credit, as by 1987, the inflation (3.65%) and unemployment rates improved mightily.
But, harkening back to the ‘80s and the point of this missive, our song writer, Bruce Springsteen, penned an epic for-side, double album in 1979-80 that took him 18 months to complete. It was released on October 17, 1980 and it would soon reach Billboard No. 1 for albums, the first time Springsteen reached that pinnacle in his blossoming career.
Springsteen and the E Street Band toured for 140 shows, one of them staged at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum on December 31, 1980 - through Midnight - to January 1, 1981. It is known as one of, if not the single best show performed by the band. And, guess what?
I was there.
Four hours, 38 songs ranging from Christmas tunes to the “Midnight Hour,” a Wilson Pickett cover. “Auld Lang Syne” led to fan-fave “Rosalita,” and the roof of the Coliseum began to budge. A nine-song encore did the rest, ranging from a Bruce/E-Street fave, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” to “Jungleland,” “Born to Run,” and the “Detroit Medley,” creating mayhem before “Twist and Shout,” (The Beatles’ cover) and concert final bookend, “Raise Your Hand,’ (Eddie Floyd) brought the night to a close.
Whew.
Why do I write about this in such detail?
One song carries the day, the title song, “The River.”
Forty four years ago, Springsteen was writing about tough times and “The Economy,” and just as this song stood up in 1980-81, it still stands up today as we complain about rising costs, expensive gasoline and clothes and groceries, and everything else. In 1976 a gallon of gas was .59 cents but by ‘96 it had doubled. In 1980, we cleared a gasoline milestone as the average price of gas first went over $1 a gallon that year, when it went from $0.86 per gallon to $1.19 per gallon. (Source: Credit).
“I got a job working construction
For the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain't been much work
On account of the economy.”
The problem I have this week, we’ve got a guy who has bankrupted airlines, casinos, Universities, vodka companies, steaks and steak knives, magazines, real estate deals, football teams and pro football leagues, a winery, a cologne company, and his own charitable foundation now promising the people of the United States he will “fix everything.”
Guess what? He was elected. In terms of the general election, he kicked ass, with bright red blotches - pockets of support - through every State in the Union. It’ll probably be a 312-to-226 beat down in the electoral college when all the votes are counted, (legally, this time, according to 2020 election deniers).
But, I’ve seen this act before, dating back to the mid-1970s. This weekend, I thought back to those rough, tough days in New York City. Today, I truly wonder as I had a dream for better days ahead, but …
“Now those memories come back to haunt me
They haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true?
Or is it something worse?
Here’s a very special version of the song, something I’m sure you’ve come to expect.
And, a recording of the December 31, 1980 Nassau Coliseum version:
And, lastly, a live video recording of The River from that 1980 tour, captured from Tempe, Arizona. It’s amazing:
While We’re Young (Ideas) is a weekly (every weekend) collection of Sports Notes and News written by Terry Lyons. The posting of each notebook harkens back to the days when you’d walk over to the city newsstand on Saturday night around 10pm to pick-up a copy of the Sunday papers. Inside, just waiting, was a sports-filled compilation of interesting notes, quotes and quips in a column that always sold a few newspapers.
TL’s Sunday Sports Notes is brought to you by Digital Sports Desk.
-TL-