KRAC Blog

Amby Burfoot on the Fifth Avenue Mile. I ran it once, years ago. Donald Trump was the sponsor and he was there, with his funny hair and all. It was fun-- a straightaway mile, with an Elite heat after ours (EGA ran a kids heat) so that you could watch world class runners on the same course you'd been on. Burfoot mentions that he thinks the event belongs on any runner's "life list", which has got me thinking about what else might be on mine. The New York Marathon, I suppose. Sooner or later. Boston, certainly, if I manage to live long enough to see my qualifying time come back far enough....

I hate the Red Sox, and the Colorado Rockies are religious nuts. This means that the World Series has two teams that I am actively rooting against-- can't think of the last time that happened to me. CLA's rugby team went winless, England fell to South Africa, and the Bills are in disarray. It falls to the Hoosiers to rescue my autumn. As EGA has observed, saying you "bleed Crimson and Cream" sounds like you belong on an episode of "House", but Indiana has kept things interesting this season. Of course, it helps that this is an interesting college football season. Head coach Bill Lynch takes his team to Wisconsin this Saturday, a game that might even be televised somewhere I can see it. They lost a close one to Penn State last week, but the Badgers are ranked 25th in the nation right now, and are probably the toughest team the sons of James Whitcomb Riley have faced. It gets better after that: Ball State, Northwestern and Perdue. They probably need two more wins to get to a bowl game, but if I hold my head just right,and squint a little, I can see two more wins in that schedule.

As the Joe Torre story was unfolding it occurred to me that the best ending was probably for Torre to say, "Screw you guys, I'm out of here". It doesn't appear that this is quite what happened, and that's too bad. Now we'll never know, really, although there is a fair amount of speculation along the "Did he jump or was he pushed?" line developing. I agree with King Kaufman-- Torre's talent isn't necessarily that he is a great manager, it is that he is a great at managing for George Steinbrenner. Who else might have that skill? Joe Girardi couldn't get along with his owner in Florida, so why should anyone expect that he would be better at getting along with the most difficult owner in sports. Tony LaRussa? Oh, please-- LaRussa is the embodiment of the sort of manager that couldn't stick in New York. I happen to really like Bobby V, but I think it would take him two or three seasons to get the team he would want playing the way he wants it to. And I really doubt that Donnie Baseball has the chops.

What I think is really interesting is that Steinbrenner may not be the one that calls the shot. The old man is fading from the scene, which means that his sons are going to be running things. Like a Shakespearian tragedy, I think we are going to see that Hank Steinbrenner will come raging in, mistakenly thinking that the problems with the team came about because his father got soft-- and then he'll invade Iraq or something.

Things That Look Unbeatable: (1) The Colorado Rockies. Talk about pedal to the metal. It has been about a month since they lost a game. The most intriguing question is what effect playing in Coors Field will have on the ultimate winner of the AL pennant. If I were more enterprising I would look up what members of the BoSox and the Tribe have played there, and their records, but actually I'm not so sure that would be a very good predictor. It's not how well the hitters will hit; it is more what pitchers will get hit the hardest.
(2)The New England Patriots. Man, when they need to go to another gear, they just shift into it, don't they? I came in as the third quarter was getting under way, and was surprised that a team the Bills almost beat was doing so well. That was the highpoint of the game for America's Team, which was playing a Pats team that is in the kind of zone you rarely ever see, in any sport. (And by the way, let me just say that this Bills team might be a classic example of "You are never as bad as you look when you are losing..." Jerry Sullivan has decided to create a quarterback controversy, as is his prerogative as a guy with a column, but I'm not seeing that the QB is making that much of a difference so far. These Bills are losing close games to good teams, and a reasonable case could be made that at least two of those losses have been the result of coaching decisions rather than failures of execution by the players.)
(3)Hillary Clinton. Arguably the only Democrat that might lose if she gets the nomination, I have to admit that (a) I have a hard time seeing her screw up the nomination; and (b)I have a hard time seeing her losing to any Republican right now. The interesting thing about our junior Senator is that everybody already knows everything there is to know. The mistakes, the gaffes-- they are all already out there, and she is the member of the family least likely to find a new way of screwing up. Ol' Bill might, but even a bimbo explosion probably wouldn't hurt her. It would just be ol' Bill being Bill for the people who are already going to vote for her. Everybody else is engaged in a high-wire act, but for Hillary, this is old stuff.

I estimate that I'd have been a couple of miles from whatever it is they call the park where the White Sox play if they'd called the Chicago Marathon our year-- just about at the point where Captain X took off, just outside of Chinatown. That was a tough stretch, but I knew by then I was finishing.

The various news accounts are interesting, in that there seems to be some attempt to blame the runners-- for not being properly prepared, for not knowing their limits. (See, for example, this piece and its Comments thread.) That seems like bullshit to me-- but it also seems odd that the best organized event I've ever seen could have experienced such a catastrophic failure. I am particularly puzzled by the way the organizers pulled the plug: helicopters, cops with bullhorns, but no sag wagons? Did they even have a plan in place before they made the decision?

The weather conditions sound similar to what Jim and I went through in LA-- clear, 80s--, and the fact that people must have trained for it through the long, hot summer makes me wonder what was going on. LA caught me flat because I wasn't acclimated-- I trained through the Buffalo winter. It was as close as I have ever come to dropping out, but I made it through by taking on water at every opportunity, and finished without dying or going to the ER. It would be a shame to see the largest open marathon in the world start imposing qualifying times-- if you are only going to do one, doing Chicago would be what I'd recommend, for the spectacle, for the crowd support, and, until now, for the organization. I'm sure the Flying Pig in Cincinnati is great fun, but since 04 I have felt a connection to Chicago that is unlike my relationship to any other city. I felt the love out on the course, and I am wondering what could have happened this year. Did they just panic?

Indiana is 5-1, and 2-1 in the Big Ten. They are a game away from being Bowl eligible for the first time since 1994. So far they are the only team I like this year that isn't breaking my heart, so I am reluctant to be too vocal in my support. Still, the Hosiers are going to East Lansing next week, and Michigan State has just dropped two in a row.

Al Oerter was my home-town Olympian. The NYTimes obit says he was from West Islip, and went to Sewanhaka High School, but we knew him as a Bay Shore boy. The story is told that he showed up at a Bay Shore High practice once-- this would have been in the 70's-- and let it rip with a discus that wasn't found until a homeowner a block away came upon it when he was raking leaves the following fall. Field events and sprints are both now so throughly pervaded by performance enhancing drugs that they almost seem like professional wrestling, but Oerter was the real deal. I never met him, but I know a lot of people who knew him, and his reputation was that he was-- another old fashioned notion-- a true gentleman.

I concur with King Kaufman's breakdown of the MLB playoffs, with one reservation. I'd say the Tribe has better pitching, but as Kaufman points out (I hadn't known this)the Yankees fell four runs shy of averaging six per game this season. (Emphasis supplied, as we say in the law biz.) Of course, if A-Rod goes cold, who knows?

There is nobody left in the NL that I can stand, with the possible exception of Lou Pinella's Cubs. The Cubs and their fans are what fans of the Red Sox think they are-- scruffy, lovable losers-- without the literary pretention. John Updike didn't write a love poem about Ernie Banks' last at bat, but we have Steve Goodman's "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" and Lee Elia's Rant.

Oh, and the Hoosiers pulled off a win last week against Iowa after losing the week before to the surprisingly hot Illini. If I could find a bar that had the Indiana game on every week, I might be in trouble, but as it is I am limited to the agate print in the Sunday paper. Minnesota this week, in Bloomington, then on the road to Michigan State.

It must have been amazing to have been at Shea yesterday. Saturday afternoon the day before John Maine had taken the team as close as it has ever been to a no-hitter, 8 2/3 innings over the course of a 13-0 pasting of the Marlins. "We weren't going to lose today," he said. No, that would be to easy. Instead, Tom Glavin, the poor bastard, took the mound Sunday and proceeded to give up seven earned runs over 2/3rds of the first inning. It is hard to think of anything in sports that might have been as painful to watch. Oh wait-- watching the remaining 8 1/3 innings would have to be right there. And come to think of it, the Mets' September is on the list, too.

Tribe takes on the Yanks. Does the scotch go to the backer of the team that wins the series, or to the Jim on the grounds that the Indians finished with the better record?