Greg: I’m glad that Coach Tressel, when he isn’t violating NCAA rules, is having Ohio State players wear camo helmets. It’s a nice gesture.

Here’s how we honor the military at Michigan Stadium. This first clip is from the last December’s “Big Chill,” the Michigan-MSU hockey game that had more fans in attendance than any other hockey game ever played.

And here’s how Michigan rededicated the Big House last September:

…had a tournament and it played out like the basketball tournament this year? The Wall Street Journal illustrates it today:

Anyone care to explain this beer-pricing anomaly at Nats Park?  Twelve-ounce cans of domestic swill, such as Miller Lite, purchased from patrolling vendors will set you back $8.50, whereas a 16-ounce can of Heineken is only $9. Moreover, anyone caring to leave their seat to purchase a 12-ounce draft Stella on the concourse only has to pay $8. (Moreover, the cart near Section 116 selling the Stella is only five or six steps from the men’s room, ensuring that one has ample room in the system for the new suds!)

Oh, and here’s another head-scratcher: Pete Rose’s choice of Opening Day outerwear.

Let’s get this blog off on the “right” foot, so to speak.

Here’s how they wear camo colors at Ohio State:

[Head football coach] Tressel so respects the military that the Buckeyes will wear camouflaged football helmets during spring practice.

And here’s an example from Michigan:

Case closed.

AL East: Red Sox, AL Central: Tigers, AL West: A’s, AL Wildcard: Yankees.

NL East: Braves, NL Central: Reds, NL West: Dodgers, NL Wildcard: Phillies

AL Pennant: Red Sox

NL Pennant: Phillies

World Series: Phillies over Red Sox.

What kind of dingbat puts out a football book at the start of baseball season?

Probably the kind of dingbat who is a lifelong Detroit Lions fan. But that’s a subject for another time.

My next book, The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football, will publish on April 12. I’ll have much more to say about it soon. In the meantime, you can pre-order it.

During the Stanley Cup Finals, can we rename this blog “Right Wing”?

Ed, your easy eloquence on matters sporting put me in mind of the SNL classic “George F. Will’s Sports Machine,” with Dana Carvey as the legendary Will, here hosting a baseball quiz show; Corbin Bernsen as costestant Mike Schmidt, Jon Lovitz as contestant Tommy LaSorda, and Kevin Nealon as Sam Donaldson, the fictional show’s announcer. Due to lousy copyright laws, I can’t get the video, but here’s a flavor:

Sam Donaldson Voice-over: It’s “George F. Will’s Sports Machine”, the sports trivia show for the real fan. And now, here’s your quizmaster, syndicated columnist, George F. Will.

[ cut to game studio, with an audience of die-hard sports fans cheering, as George F Will enters ]

George F. Will: Good evening. “Sports, say the ancient Greeks, is morally serious because mankind’s noblest aim, is the loving contemplation of worthy things.” That’s an excerpt from my new book on baseball entitled.. [ holds up book ] “Men at Work”, and I’d say it’s particularly a propos in light of today’s Expo-Padre game. [ audience issues a blank, sluggish stare ] Joining me today are two gentlemen who would no doubt agree. First, former slugger for the Philadelphia Phillies, Mike Schmidt. Good day, Mike. Tell us, what do you miss most since retiring from baseball last year?

Mike Schmidt: Well, George, I guess I miss going to the ballpark every day.

George F. Will: Ah yes, ballparks. In humanity there exists a vestigial memory of an enclosed green space as a place of freedom or play.

Mike Schmidt: [ confused ] Yeah. I guess.

George F. Will: Excellent. Competing with Mr. Schmidt today is skillful practitioner of the managerial arts – from the Dodgers, Tommy Lasorda. Salutations, Tommy.

Tommy Lasorda: [ slaps his stomach ] Good to see you, George. I’m ready to play!

George F. Will: Well, the manager’s role is one of both hector and helper, naysayer and nexus. Around his circumference lies the full measure of the game.

Tommy Lasorda: I.. uh.. well, I’m ready to play!

George F. Will: Very well. Let us engage the sports machine. Gentlemen, as always, the questions will focus exclusively on baseball, the only game that transcends the boundary between fury and repose. All right, hands on buzzers. [ he hits several buttons on the machine, which spits out a quiz card that George reads ] “The precarious balance between infield and outfield suggests a perfect symmetry. For $50, identify the effect of that symmetry.”

[ the contestants stare cluelessly, as the buzzer sounds ]

George F. Will: Sorry. The answer is: “The exhilarating tension between being and becoming.” Being and becoming. Next question: [ hits several buttons, dispensing another card ] “In 1954, Willie Mays, in an emphatic stroke of Byzantine whimsy, made his over-the-shoulder catch off of Vic Wertz. What was it not unlike?” [ no answers ] Take it? Anyone?

Mike Schmidt: The.. uh.. the catch in Cincinnati that.. [ buzzer sounds ]

George F. Will: Sorry. “It was not unlike watching Atlantis rise again from the sea, the bones of its kings new-covered with flesh.” [ audience members stare blankly in awe ] Well, gentlemen, no score as of yet, but the night is young. Perhaps what you gentlemen need is a little incentive, so here to tell you about today’s prizes is our own Sam Donaldson.

Sam Donaldson: Thank you, George. Thank you. Today’s winner will receive a copy of Roget’s Expanded Thesaurus. [ holds up book, singing ] “Buy me a Roget’s and crackerjacks, I don’t care if I never come back. And they’ll also receive.. [ holds prize up ] ..Chocowhip, chocolate-flavored whip topping. It’s sweet and fluffy. Mmmm, Chocowhip!

George F. Will: Sam, isn’t it somewhat of a given that a whip topping would be sweet and fluffy?

Sam Donaldson: Oh, come off it, George! You can’t see the forest for the trees!

George F. Will: We’ll continue this spirited discussion later. As for now, it’s time we moved on to the Big Board. And the categories are: “Baseball as Narrative”, “Aristotle and Comiskey”, “Joyce Carol Oates”, “Left Field: Myth or Monopeia?”, “Pitch Patch Potch”, “Dulce et Decorum Est”, and “Pot Luck”. Mike, choose a category.

Mike Schmidt: [ contemplating ] Uh.. “Pot Luck”.

And so on.

UPDATE: Great work, commentors.

Though I actually think this one reads better than it plays. Despite all Dana Carvey’s talents, the SNL audience don’t seem to be in on the joke.

Rich, as an alumnus of the George Washington University (Hail to the Buff and Blue!), I can tell you we have a long tradition of accentuating the positive when it comes to our athletics.

When I was there, it was common to see t-shirts that read: “GW Football: Undefeated Since 1967.”

Of course, we hadn’t fielded a team since 1966. . .

You won’t see many cricket items in this blog, but yesterday’s India-Pakistan match, which India took by the narrow margin of 29 runs on its home pitch at Mohali (there, don’t I sound like I know what I’m talking about?), had geopolitical ramifications, as these two fierce rivals (in sport and everything else) completed the event peacefully and amicably, with the two nations’ prime ministers watching the action together. Predictably enough, the Obama administration has released a statement praising the match as a diplomatic breakthrough; soon, presumably, we can expect the president (who must be quietly mourning the loss by his beloved Pockystahn) to announce a global sports initiative aimed at building world peace through hitting, kicking, and throwing balls.

That idea would not be entirely crazy, at least to those old enough to remember Richard Nixon’s “ping-pong diplomacy.” Yet sports can also inflame tensions, sometimes even to the point of military conflict, as in the 1969 “Soccer War” between El Salvador and Honduras. Of course, in that part of the world, countries used to fight over just about anything — including bat droppings. Still, as Right Field readers will understand, a sporting event is a good place for any sort of discussion: You sit side by side without having to stare each other in the face, and whenever you don’t feel like talking, you just look at what’s happening on the field. If Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis had just sat down at a baseball game together, that whole Civil War thing might have been avoided . . .

A UVa pitcher threw a perfect game against GW the other day. Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post notes:  

Now, when you’re in the sports information business, you generally highlight the exploits of your own team, not your opponents. With very, very, very rare exceptions. I’d say the eighth Division I perfect game in the last half-century might be one of those rare exceptions.

But nope, I’d be wrong. Because here is the George Washington write-up of the game:

“The George Washington baseball team held No. 1 Virginia to just two runs on Tuesday evening at Davenport Field but were unable to compliment the strong pitching performance at the plate, falling 2-0.

GW (7-18) pitchers Tommy Gately, Kenny O’Brien and Craig Lejeune combined to hold Virginia (25-2) to just two runs on six hits. The top-ranked Cavaliers entered the game batting .297 as a team and averaging over seven runs per contest.”

Hmmm. Ok. Tell me more.

“Gately got the start for GW and pitched three innings, allowing just three hits and two earned runs with one strikeout. He worked his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the third by inducing two pop outs.

Both Virginia runs were scored in the bottom of the fourth inning after Gately exited the game. Ryan Levine led off the frame with a single and Kenny Swab followed with a walk to put two on with no outs.”

Gotcha. How about the Cavaliers? Did they do anything interesting?

“Virginia would score their first run after Reed Gragnini reached on a fielders choice. Another run would score via a balk but O’Brien escaped the inning without any further damage and allowed just two hits over the next three innings.”

Oh. Ok. And, uh, nothing else noteworthy? Wait, what’s this is the seventh paragraph?

“The two runs were all the Cavaliers would need as starting pitcher Will Roberts was perfect on the mound, striking out 10 batters en route to the eighth nine-inning perfect game in NCAA Division I (since 1957) history and the first since 2002.”

Talk to me tomorrow…

In this age of light-bulb outlaws and school-lunch police, there’s nothing too insignificant for the nanny state to concern itself with. That’s a lesson that John and Melissa McCafferty learned all too well on the morning of March 25, when construction workers accompanied by several state troopers abruptly showed up at their home in Claymont and pulled out the permanent basketball hoop that had been there for decades. A video of the event has since gone viral on the Internet. In an interview with National Review Online, John McCafferty spoke in greater depth about this latest nanny-state affront to personal freedom.

“When I bought my house in 2005, the basketball pole was here. It kind of rusted and the backboard was all messed up, but it was the first thing I fixed when I moved in, because I thought to myself, ‘That’s just the same kind of thing I had when I was a kid growing up.’” McCafferty left basketballs on the side of the street so that neighborhood children could play at any time.

So when McCafferty and several other residents received a letter from DelDOT in September telling them that their hoops were in violation of the state’s Clear Zone law, which prohibits obstructions within seven feet of the pavement’s edge in residential areas, McCafferty was puzzled. “One anonymous person filed a complaint with DelDOT. That’s fine, but I wish he would’ve come up to me and told me there was a problem. I’ve never had police here, never had a neighbor complain.”

A legal dispute ensued after McCafferty wrote to his state representatives, who in turn wrote to the head of DelDOT questioning the legal basis for the hoop’s removal. First, they argued, the law in question gave the state discretion to act, but no mandate, and, more important, the law was enacted in 1997–98 and contained no language that would give it retroactive effect; thus, the hoops in question were “grandfathered” in. Despite this ongoing legal battle, the family received another letter in December repeating the same charges and threats of removal. McCafferty once again contacted his state reps, and the dispute continued quietly.

#more#

That all changed on March 18th, when a new head of DelDOT took office. One week later, a construction crew and state troopers were dispatched to remove the hoops. So when Melissa McCafferty saw neighboring poles being uprooted and placed in the back of a giant truck as she drove onto her street, she immediately pulled in front of her own hoop and climbed atop it in protest. She succeeded in stopping the removal after a news photographer showed up, but the victory was short-lived. The construction crew returned a few hours later with more police officers and told Mrs. McCafferty that if she went back on top of the pole, she would be arrested for disorderly conduct, or worse. This second altercation was the one captured on video, and it ended with the hoop’s removal by DelDOT.

“The cop in the hoodie [as seen in the video] made it known she had a gun, and put her hand to her hip several times. We were in fear for our lives. Here I’ve got five, six state troopers and armored construction workers against my wife, my 17-year-old son, and myself”, noted McCafferty.

And when it comes to intimidation and remarkably uncivil behavior by DelDOT and crew, that’s only the beginning. “At some point in the video you hear them say ‘you can’t taunt them [the construction crew],’” remarked McCafferty. “Well, keep in mind that this [video] is the second time they tried to remove it. During the first episode, pretty much all the construction workers kept calling my wife—” Here McCafferty listed a string of colorful obscenities and noted that when he shouted back, he was warned against taunting. “I’m sorry, that’s my wife, and I will defend her honor until the death. That’s why I married her, that’s why I love her.”

All of this makes you wonder — how should one respond to this travesty? The answer lies in paraphrasing WFB: “I would rather be governed by the first 200 names in the Claymont phone book than the entirety of the Delaware Department of Transportation.”

Martin Prado grounds out to the pitcher in his first at-bat? My fantasy season is over! Mark Teixeira drills a three-run shot to the upper deck in right? My fantasy season is saved!

Welcome to the next six months of my life.

Predictions:

American League

East: Red Sox

Central: Twins

West: Athletics

Wildcard: Yankees

But it’ll be close. The addition of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford won’t fully offset disappointing years from Youk, Ortiz, Scutaro, and Mike Cameron — who put up a lousy .729 OPS in 48 games last year. The Sox rotation could be studly if Lackey and Beckett return to pre-2010 form; or they could be the 2008 Padres starting five — a motley of over-the-hill aces, injury cases and Cinderellas who turned into pumpkins.

National League

. . . What the hell is a “National League”?

Okay, fine.

East: Phillies

Central: Brewers

West: Giants

Wildcard: Rockies

Game on, gentlemen.

Livan to Prado (steeeerike one):

The Patriots are looking good this year, as they’ll undoubtedly pick up a good outside linebacker in this year’s draft — a Clay Matthews type. If they’re able to rush the passer consistently and their secondary holds up as expected, their chances for another Super Bowl title this year will be good.

I’m shocked, Ed. Then again, I’ve got my Mets finishing fourth.

AL
Red Sox
White Sox
Rangers
WC Rays

ALDS: White Sox over Rays; Red Sox over Rangers
ALCS: White Sox over Red Sox

NL
Phillies
Cardinals
Giants
WC Dodgers

NLDS: Phillies over Dodgers, Giants over Cardinals
NLCS: Phillies over Giants

World Series: White Sox over Phillies (in a sweep)

And the city of Milwaukee after visiting a high-school buddy of mine there some years back.

American League:
East – Red Sox
Central – Twins
West – Athletics
Wild Card – Yankees

National League:
East – Phillies
Central – Brewers
West – Rockies
Wild Card – Giants

World Series: Red Sox beat Phillies

Another season of the America’s pasttime is upon us, so let’s get our predictions on the record . . .

American League:
East – Red Sox
Central – Twins
West – Rangers
Wild Card – Yankees

The Bombers will mess with Texas to win the A.L. pennant.

National League:
East – Phillies
Central – Brewers
West – Dodgers
Wild Card – Giants

The Brew Crew will upset the Phillies for the N.L. crown.

And then suffer a long hangover after losing the Series in six to the Yankees.

 

The facts of life are conservative, and in no sphere is that truism more manifest than in the world of sport.

In the games we play, the same rules are meant to apply to all — and we are outraged at the injustice when they are not. There are winners and losers, and we don’t agonize over the self-esteem of those who do not prevail: we expect them to learn from defeat and improve. Sports train the body and mind, and channel what might otherwise be destructive energies toward an affirming purpose. Athletes acknowledge their limitations and, in general, play within them: the slap hitter does not swing for the fences, the lumbering power forward does not lead the break. But, while man is not perfectible, the sports fan knows that he is — in fleeting moments, on any given Sunday — capable of perfection. Thus sports have the capacity not only to entertain, but to inspire.

In celebration of the power of sports to uplift the culture — and mindful, too, of their equal power to debase it — we bring you these brief chronicles of our sporting times.

Play ball!