June 2010 Archives

When I was a kid I was cut from by school softball team.  The coach told all of us.."on a ground ball, down on one knee to block it incase you miss it.  If you don't do it my way you don't make the team".  First day of practice, figuring the one knee thing was for sissies,  I put the gloved between my legs and the ball found my 5 hole.  End of practice, I was cut.

I was also cut from a school soccer team.  I figured I was a slam dunk to make it.  I never told my dad I didn't cut the cut.  Maybe I  should have.  2 sets of  parents are suing The Greater Toronto Hockey League after their kids were bounced from a midget junior A team back in April.  One of the parents claims that by being cut it caused "irreprable psychological damage"  to the kids self esteem.  It also charges that the conduct of the defendants destroyed the dignity of the boy who gave the team nothing but his best efforts.

Now, I'm not going to argue that I gave my softball coach my best effort.  He said do it his way.  I did it my way.  He was right,  I desrved to be turffed.  But dammit I gave my best effort to make that soccer team and they cut me.  Was I psychologically scarred?  Yea, for a couple of hours,  Did the episode destroy my dignity?  Well I went to all the home games to cheer on my buddies.   'Course it wasn't too many years later I came to grips with the fact that I could talk about sports a lot better than I could play them. 

Being cut can have a big impact on a kid.  Michael Jordan was cut from his highschool baskietball team.  Did it effect him?  Sure it did.  He didn't just make himself better he made himself the best ever.   Remember Steve Thomas.  He played for the Maple Leafs a few years back. He was never drafted by a pro team.  He ended up playing 20 years in the pros.

Neither one of them threatened law suits.  Neither one them complained about losing their dignity.  You want to talk about losing dignity.  There was a picture in the papers from the NHL draft last weekend. The kid is sitting in the stands in L-A with his family.  The draft is over.  He has his head burried in his hands.  He wasn't taken.  His dreams were shattered  There was no talk of law suits. 

Auto workers, workers in any industry, losing their jobs.  That's psychological damage, emotional distress and lost dignity and it's worth a hell of a lot more than the 25 thousand dollars in damages the parents are looking for because their kids weren't the puck prodigies they thought they were. 

I lose my dignity when I watch Jerry Springer.  Sue him!  David Spade moves distress me.  Sue him!  God if I had 25 grand for every woman who caused me psychological damage when they told me to take a hike I would be independantly wealthy.  Did I lose my dignity? Yes.  Did I sue?  No.  Did I stop trying?  I did not.   And that's the point. That's what Steve Thomas and Michael Jordan did.  They went home, shook it off, reloaded and made themselve better.

That's the lesson these kids should be learning.  Maybe they're not good enough.  Maybe hockey isn't their future.  That's okay.  They'll get over it.  They'll move on.  But you start teaching kids that every time they're rejected  by the love of their life, every time the boss makes them feel like crap because they screwed up, every time they forget to super size your fries, you sue, what kind of problems are you sending out into the real world? 

Psychological damage?  Emotional distress?  Destruction of dignity?   You think that's how the kids feel or is it how the parents feel?

I am as pissed as any of you about that's happening in down town Toronto.  Thugs, not protesters, thugs taking over the streets.  Smashing, looting, rioting.  But come on, the people who thought the G/20 in the gut of the city was a good idea must have seen this coming.

You don't spend a billion dollars on security unless you have an inkling there might be a blip or 2 along the way.  We've had more than a blip.  And it's not like there isn't precedence for this.  Everytime you have a public gathering of world leaders it happens.  This kind of protest has a long history.

I don't think any of us has a problem with legitamate protest.  Pick your cause, make your signs, choose your song and go out and chant one of the the Gipper.  But the moment you cover your face and toss a brick through a Starbuck's window all guarantees are off the board.  You have committed a criminal  act and you should be treated like a criminal.

'Course none of this had to happen. When you put 20 of the world's most powerful leaders in the same place at the same time you don't have to send out rspv cards.  You know who's going to show up. 

Now, I'm along way from being the first to mention that there are much betters ways to stage these things.  With the technology we have today you could no doubt hologram all 20 of the elected elite into one place.  You wouldn't have that human touch but you also wouldn't paralize the core of Canada's biggest city.

Even better, make it remote. Why not take the G/20 to Manitoulin Island.  For a week, if you don't live there, you don't go there.  Accomadations?  Take the billion you spent on security and build resort.  Once it's done turn the place over to the province and keep the prices reasonable so the folks who forked out their tax dollars can afford to take their kids to it for a week in the summer.

The worst protest and the most bitching you'd get would come from reporters barking about the black flies.  No need for a fake lake. Georgian Bay is right there.  No need for cops in riot gear. No need to turn the entertainment district into a playground for faux revolutionaries and wanna be anarchists.  No need for business and restaurant owners to shut down or see their weekend take vanish.  By the way, are the deep thinkers who figured the G/20 was a stroke of genius to peddle Toronto to rest of the world going to reimburse these people for their lost income.

I realize that each one of us has the right to travel though any part of the city at any time of day we choose.  But each one of us also knows there are certain areas best to avoid at 3 in the morning.  We shouldn't have to but we're smart enough not to chance it.  The organizers of the G/20 have turned the core of the city into one of those areas that no one wants to hang out in.  Forget 3 am.  We're avoiding it 6 pm.  Not too many folks coming in from the 'burbs" to do a walking tour of Queen St. West. this weekend.

Take this to a more remote area and maybe you don't get the violence.  I assume that most of the members of the "Black Bloc" responsible for a good chunk of the damage so far would figure they were selling out of they had a drivers license or owned a car.  What do you think the chances are of anyone picking up a balaclava bedecked dissident thumbing a ride up the 400 to get the ferry at Tobermorey. 

Even the protesters are protesting.  I have a friend who's heavily involved in the labour movement.  He was heading to the city on Saturday to be a part of the demonstrations.  He didn't go.  He didn't want his cause to be identified with the violence.

I'm still convinced that this is a glorified photo op.  It's not worth the cost.  It's not worth the damage.  It's not worth the embarassment.  2 world class events.  The Vancouver Winter Games and the Toronto G/20 summit.  I don't know anyone who's had a bad thing to say about the Vancouver Olympics. I don't know anyone, so far anyway, who's had anything good to say about the G/20.

Le't see, this week we've had an earth quake in the Ottawa area.  A tornado ripping up Midland.  Red alert thunder storms in Parry Sound.  If we get word of a plague of locusts heading south from North Bay that would pretty well put a ring Huntsville.  Huntsville, site of the G/8. Armaggedon?

Quite honestly the G/8 and the G/20 have had no impact on me.  Fortunately I live out of the sightlines of both gatherings and I have a stash of backroads that can get me north or south without driving the 400.  But this entire financial function bothers the hell out of me. 

Top end is money.  The money spent.  One billion dollars on security.  For what?  For what is really a photo-op for 20 world leaders.  So the little guys like Steven Harper can get tagged in a photo with the potent potentates he gets to hang out with for a week.  But if this thing is worth a billion dollars for security what the hell is the total ticket? 

We know all about the indoor fake lake down at the convention center that came in at 57 thousand dollars.  It's supposed to give the media menagerie the flavour of Muskoka complete with Muskoka chairs and canoes. God, for 57 grand they could have loaded the entire press posse on buses and drove them to Muskoka.  Include stops at the Cookstown Outlet Mall, a little craps at Casino Rama, the obligatory pit stop at Webers for an uber burger, duck into Bracebridge to pick up a souvineer elf hat (complete with pointy ears).  And if you really want show them what a trip to Muskoka is all about take them on a Friday afternoon of a long weekend.

It's the money that drives me crazy.  Few years ago the media was making a fuss about the Ontario government blowing 250 thosuand on something...I can't remember what. I heard a radio talk show host defend the politicians saying.."It's just a quarter of a million dollars, a drop in the bucket". The arrogance!  Tell that to somebody making 50 grand a year.  They'd have to work 5 years to cut that kind of cash and that's before tax.

You're in a hospital emergency waiting room over the next week. It's coming up to hour 5 and you still haven't seen a doctor. Top of mind? That billion dollars they spent on security for the G/20, worth every penny.  And if I have to wait another 5 hours...well it's just the price I have to pay for having a fake lake. 

We have politicans who don't want us get a glimpse of their expenses.  Here's how I feel about politicians.  If you're in a limousine or flying first class or staying in a 5 star hotel on the tax payer's dime and there's a single mother whose unemployment insurance has run out and she's feeding her kids with foodbank donations,,,YOU ARE NOT DOING YOUR  JOB!!!!   You were elected to serve the public not to dabble with the rabble's money.  And never forget it is OUR money.

Now I know that one of the ideas of holding the G/20-G/8 is to show yourself off to the rest of the  world. "Hey look Henri there's down town Toronto.  Looks like an armed camp. Call the travel agent. Cancel the Greek Isles, that's where I want to spend our vacation".  

This is what I remember from past G/20's. Protests and confrontations with police.  'Cmon. If you're a film crew from Indonesia and you've got a choice between beaming back shots of beaming politicians glad handing each other or a bunch of anarchy advocates going eyeball to eyeball with police what are you going to send back first.  Digit to digt to see who's going figit beats politicians any time, unless of course you have shots of Silvio Berlusconi hitting on Angela Merkel.  It could happen.

And a couple of things to the protestors.  First there was a picture in the paper the other day of a protestor with a mohawk which actually looked pretty cool.   But he was hiding his face with a bandana.  You want to protest, knock yourself out.  But if you're there to promote what you believe in what's the deal with hiding your face. Hiding your face means you have something to hide. Hiding your face means you're a coward. 

And funny how the anarchists will meet in a park to plot out the day's agenda. If you're having a meeting to figure out what you're going to do, that means a discussion.  It means a majority has to agree. It means you have to vote.  A vote needs rules.  Rules lead to laws.  That's not anarchy that's democracy.  You lost. Go home.  Even better go up to Huntsviille and wait for the locusts.

Angela James and Cammi Granato elbowed their way into the Hockey Hall of Fame today.  About time?  Yea, it's about time. It's over due.  I've been reading some of comments on sports web sites and it amazes that there are people (guys) who don't think the two belong with the men. Especially when they take the spots of more deserving men.

First off, James and Granato didn't keep anyone out of the Hall of Fame.  They made it in a seperate category.  Builders, male players and female players.  So Joey Nieuwendyk wasn't bumped by James and Dougie Gilmour's spot wasn't sacrificed for Granato.  Nieuweundyk and Gilmour simply didn't cut it with voters.

Yea, I know, women's hockey isn't played on the same level as men's.  Not as big, not as strong, not as fast.  But James and Granato weren't and shouldn't be measured by that standard.  They were the best female players in the world who are eligable for Hall of Fame.  They deserve to be in,  It's not the NHL Hall of Fame or the Men's Hockey Hall of Fame.  It's the Hockey Hall of Fame. 

Another bit of controversey with Dino Cicarelli getting in. He's been over looked for years. Hey, they guy scored more thaqn 600 career goals. He belongs. 

To me the argument about who does and doesn't get in is silly.  It's silly because of one name.  Harold Ballard is in the builder's category.  Harold did a lot of things as owner of the Maple Leafs.  What he didn't do was build anything.  Harold took one of the most storied franchies in all of sport and turned it into a standing joke.  A team players refused to be drafted by or traded to.  He alienated a generation of fans.  He embarassed a generation of fans.

Harold saw himself as the consumate business man.  After he passed away and Cliff Fletcher was brought in to run the hockey operations and one of the first  things Fletcher did was raise ticket prices.  Fletcher knew that Maple Leaf tickets were some of the most under priced in all of professional sports.  That never sunk in with Harold who also thought he knew more about the game than anyone else did.  We saw the results.

 The other day Robbie Alomar was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.  He's not Canadian.  But he played the game in Canada and he helped grow the game here.  That's one of the arguments against James and Granato going in as players.  They helped grow the women's game in North America so put them in the builder's category not the player's.  I'd put them in both.  They deserve to be in as players and they did a hell of a lot more for hockey than Harold Ballard ever did.

Never got along with my father when I was a kid.  It wasn't that we weren't on the same page, we weren't even reading the same book.  I never  thought he understood me.  When I got older I realiazed he understood me all too well.  He saw me making some of the same mistakes he made when he was a kid.

We came from different worlds.  He was one of 11 kids who grew up on a farm outside of Mitchell, Ontario during the depression.  He lied about his age, joined the army a year before he was elidgable and was shipped off to North Africa.  He spent 4 years fighting in WW II but rarely talks about it.  The one story he loves to tell was the time he and his unit stumbled across a fully stocked wine cellar in Italy and decided they'd take the weekend off.

He hated war.  All war.  I dressed up as a soldier for Halloween one year.  All he said was was "what the hell do you want to go out like that for".  He was back in Canada by the time he was 21. By that age he had experienced more, growing up and in the army than I have in my lifetime. 

He wouldn't tell me this but when he got back he spent 2 years making a living shooting pool and playing poker.  My brother and I didn't find out how adept he was at  those 2 activities until we were in our teens.  We thought we were hot.  He was hotter.  He cleaned us out at the kitchen table and the pool table.  To us, dad's weren't supposed to know how to do things like that.  Our youth may be misbegotten but his wasn't supposed to be. 

He spent his adult life working shift work in a factory.  When I was still a baby he crippled his arm in a machine at a paper mill.  He had the hand set in a hook fashion so he'd be able to steer a car. He never complained about it.  Never felt sorry for himself.  All he ever said about it was..."I spent 4 years dodging bullets in the war and came home without a scratch.  2 years at the paper mill and this damn thing has to happen."

I guess we're all a product of our times.  He had enough money put away to pay off his mortage.  The bank manager tried to explain to him that the interest rate on the mortage was 3%. He could take the money, invest it and actually make more on the interest he would earn.  Nope.  He wanted to be debt free. He remembered too many people losing their homes during the depression. It would never happen to him. He wont use his debit card. He hates using his credit card.  He'll go to back and withdraw the money rather than let the bank ding him for interest or service charges. 

When he retired he and my mom bought an RV and vanished.  They'd go for 3 or 4 months at a time travelling around North America.  From Louisiana to Alaska.  He was never happier. 

He will rarely answer the phone.  When he does the conversation goes like this:  Me:  "Pop, it's Rick".  Him:  "Yea?"  Me:  "How you doing?"  Him:  "Okay, here's your mom".  That's the longest phone conversation I've ever had with him. 

Over the past couple of years my dad has had some health problems.  It truly bothers me to see this man who would never ask anyone for help become as fragile as he is.  He didn't lose his stubborness but now he'll ask for help.  I know it bothers him.  It bothers me too,

He was never rich, never famous.  Never made a big deal about what how my brother and I turned out.  He never talked much about my job in radio but my mother told he he would be up at 5:30 every morning at the kitchen table with the radio on listening. 

When I was 20 I swore I would never become the person my father was.  Now I wish I could  be half the person he is.  Quite simply, he is a good man and I love him for that.  Happy Father's Day Pops.    

Finally had my hernia operation.  My little navel node protrusion is gone.  Now this is the first time in my adult life I've had a general anisthetic.  It was one of the oddest things that's ever happened to me.  They started giving me gas and told me I'd be out in a few seconds.  I waited and waited and waited some more.  I was starring at the wall and all of a sudden I saw this:

                    I

- - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - -                

                    I    

Never seen it before.  Had no idea what it was.  Looked at the nurse and said "when are we going to get this started?"  She said "we're done, it's over".  I thought....can't be!  But she was right, it was over.

I had no recollection of going under or waking up.  Scared the hell out of me.  Felt like I was in one of those X Files scenes where Scully comes to and is missing a couple of hours.  Muldar springs into action to track down the missing buck 20 all the while telling us "the truth is out there". But I couldn't find it.  I didn't have Muldur to unravel the mystery,  My novel navel was gone but so was the time.

Now I may have mentioned before that I live in a multi cat household.  I sit down and it's like Justin Bieber wading into a roomfull of preteen micro misseys. Once I got home I sat down and put my feet up. One of my cats tips the toledos at 19 pounds and you don't want 19 pounds of affection flopping on your folds a couple of hours after you've been sutured.  But she did.  19 pounds of tabby torment.  I screamed, she screamed,  we both bolted  to seperate corners for the evening.

I was still a little confused about where the time went in the OR.  I hadn't looked at the finished product yet.  So I went into the washroom. Took a deep, painful breath and stripped to my hips.  Yep they'd brought closure to my exposure.  They had also shaved my stomach which must have taken atleast an hour.  As I looked over my pruned paunch it reminded me of a Cyclops.  Freshly shaven face, one eye in the middle, although this cy guy  looked like he had a patch over his baby blue with the bandages. 

The lost time was still a concern.  What exactly were they doing while I was under their influence. You don't think they made fun of my manhood do you?  I decided to drop my drawers on the off chance they took pity on my ditty and snuck in a penile enhancement.  Nope.  No lost time there, just lost hope.   

I loaded up on Advil, crawled up the stairs and went to bed.  About a half hour in another one of my overly friendly felines figure he wanted to say good night to Ricky. He jumped on the bed and you know where he landed.  Third eye blind.  I closed my eyes, started dozing off but all I could see was:

                    I    

- - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - -

                    I

What the hell is that?

When England's keeper Robert Green gaffed on that goal against the US at the World Cup I wrote it off as just that.  A gaffe.  His brain passed gas. Ka-ka happens and unfortunately it happened to Green on one of the biggest world stages in sport. 

That's one of the problems with soccer.  There's so little scoring when you muff it, it's a disaster,  Compare that with hockey.  A goaltender can miss a softie  through the 5 hole but in a 6-3 game, win or lose, we'll give him a pass.  Rajon Rondo goes up and over Pao Gasol in the second quarter of the NBA finals and embarasses the big Frencheman. 60 baskets later it's forgotten.  The third inning 2 run homer served up by Roy Halladay.  Forget it. 

Over the weekend if was revealed that Green's real concern was that he was spurned by his main squeeze,  He was suffering from affection rejection by lingerie model Elizabeth Minett who hails from Guelph Ontario which, if you connect the dots in a round about way, means Canada had hand in Green's bad hands against the Americans.  He wasn't focused.  His thoughts were with his gotchie gal instead of the ball. 

Now, I don't know if that was the case.  But I heard someone talking about it on the radio and the point was made that high end athletes are able to bury their emotions, block out their personal demons, man up and play their game.  So Green's muff heard round the world could not possibly have had anything  to do with his ruptured relationship with Miss Minett.  

There are athletes who are assassins.  Air Jordan and Kobe Bryant come to mind.  But we're not all made of that kind of metle. I remember a Blue Jay executive asking me what I thought was wrong with one of his high end hitters.  His average had plunged 30 points from the year before.  I looked at  him and said, "he got married and had a kid".  The exec pointed a finger at me and said "bingo".  The player's mind wasn't on the game.  it was on the bride and the babe. 

I recall a another athlete who spent entire games looking into the stands  for his girlfriend.  On the nights she showed up he was fine. On the nights she didn't he was crappy.  Word was he was worried that she was trying to score while he wasn't. 

I am convinced that dealin' with Elin has taken more off Tiger Wood's game than his absence from the course.  There was a time I would have had him in the Jordan/Kobe category.  That triggerman mentality has deserted him. 'Course with a half billion dollars riding on the settlement I'd be thinking fortune instead of fairway every minute of the day. 

I've managed to take personal problems and bury them while I'm working.  But not always.  And while I was on  the air my mind was wandering to places I didn't want it to go.  I couldn't stop it. Happens to all of us.  Death in the family, sick kids, financial problems, job security and yes even being dumped by the love of your life.  You're trying to win back soccer superiority for the birth place of the game but you can't shake off thoughts of your former panty paramour.   

Most of us don't work under that kind of pressure. Most of us don't have to expose ourselves to hundreds of millions of people watching our every action and reaction.  England's keeper says he let his country down.  And yes, he did. But if it was a creation of his infatuation that was making Green blue, I think most of us can understand.

William Menzies is a f/b friend of mine.  He's a 15 year old highschool student.  The other day he put a post on his f/b wall about his teacher who said that William's generation does nothing but whine and blame everyone else for their mistakes.  The teacher is right.  Then again so was the teacher's teacher and the teacher's teacher's teacher.  I'll bet they all thought the same thing about the generation of kids they had to teach.

15 is the perfect age to bitch about things.  Too young to be taken seriously as an adult. Too old to get the wide berth you give to a micro-moppet.  15 year olds have become pubescent adolescents and they don't like it.  I whined when I was 15.  My kids whined when they were 15.  Their kids will whine when they're 15.  It's a powerless age. No matter how right you are you're wrong so you may as well tilt the guilt at someone else.

How many times have we taken our tykes to task for some snafu they've commited and we're thinking to ourselves...jeez I did the same thing when I was their age?  I did it countless times.

And you know what?  We take our bitching into adulthood and aim it at our jobs, our co-workers and our bosses.  I have never met anyone who doesn't, at some point, think they're wiser than their supervisor.  Bosses don't get it, they wont listen to me, they shouldn't be in management, they have no people skills. It can't be me so there has to be something awry with the big guy. 

And then we have that one workmate who spends all day moaning and groaning, whining and wailing about every aspect of their job.  What we do?  We go for a drink after work and bitch about the bitcher's bitching. It's the itch to bitch.

I really think we're hardwired to bitch and whine.  It shifts the blame away from you.  It's always someone elses fault.  The boss is an idiot.  Guess what?  Make you the boss and you'll be just as big an idiot in no time although you'll never realize it. 

When I was 15 it was always my brother's fault.  He was older.  He should have known better.  If I Had to stay in and catch up on my homework?  My parents fault.  Failed math again.  Had a lousey teacher.  We learn to point the faux pas finger at someone else at an early age.

I think it's generational too.  My parents thought I spent too much time watching tv.  I thought my kids spent too much time playing video games.  I still watch too much tv and they still spend too much time playing video games.  80 thousand year's ago I'll bet little Neddy Neanderthal was rubbing a couple of sticks together. He was 30 seconds away from discovering fire. His father came out of the cave and said....you spend too much time playing with those sticks kid. Put them down now and don't start whining! I famished we're going hunting for a mamouth which they would eat very rare for another night. 

Yes, William's teacher is right.  William's generation whines and blames everyone else for it's mistakes.  Finally, lunch time, a chance for the teachers to head for  the staff lounge where they will bitch to each other about all the  whiney asses in their classes  and blame the kids for the lousey day they're having.

An add to the previous post about John Wooden.  As I mentioned if he had been able to use Lew Alcindor (Kareen Abdul Jabbar) during the 65/66 season Wooden and UCLA probably would have won 10 straight titles.  But even though that didn't happen it worked out.  It was like fate played a roll.

In the '66 Championship game power house Kentucky, the overwhelming favourite, was up against Texas Western (now UTEP).  The master Adolph Rupp coaching against upstart Don Haskins.  Haskins started 5 black players for the first time ever in a championship game.  Rupp had an all white starting 5 and an all white team which included Pat Riley.

It may not have been the best title game ever, but it was the most dramatic and I think it was probably the most important.  Texas Western beat Kentucky.  It changed the way American Universities, especailly in the south, recruited.  That game opened a lot of doors for black players that other wise would have been slammed shut.  There's a movie out about it called "Glory Road".  It's worth watching. 

John Wooden didn't fail often.  But this one time his failure and Texas Western's success had  a huge impact on the game.

Small story in the newspaper the other day about Sony developing Twitter for cats.  You put a collar on your cat equipped with a camera, an acceleration sensor and a GPS monitor.  All the hardware lets you know if you're little fur ball is snoozing, munching or looking for trouble to get into.  It can also tweet.  It sends you a post on twitter.  Right now it's limited to 11 phrases with deep feline philosophies like "This tastes good"  while they're chowing down or "meals taste better after a walk".

Now, I realize that cats have the brains the size of a walnut so none of them are going to be rubbing shoulders with the profs in the physics department at the U of T.  Rubbing their legs maybe but not their shoulders.  But I think cats are a touch more arcane with their brain than  "this tastes good".

I do have a bit of experience with cats.  The most obvious thing they do is sleep.  They sleep between 16 and 18 hours a day.  It's in their DNA.  Rest up for the hunt.  'Course now that there's grub in the tub 24/7 there is no last repast so some of my guys are stretching their naps to 23 hours per. Cats also have attitude.  So "meals taste better after a walk" isn't likely to make its way through cyber space to a twitter.

What worries me is that they end up with their own twitters and start tweeting back and forth with each other. (Dream sequence music here). 

Simon:  I got a quibble with the kibble.  Same crap every day.  Can't Big Rickey change it up once in while. 

Jessie: Who's turn to hairball?

Bad Boy-Bad Boy:  I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it!

Maynard:  Yea, that's all you longhairs ever do.

Shadow:  Look out the window, what the hell is that?

Roxy:  OMG now Rickey has 2 dogs.  Damn dogs.

Sally:  You know we have to kill the dogs.

The O-C:  Or at least give them fleas.

Izzy:  Hey guys, better hide, Rickey's got that vroom vroom thing out again.

Kramer:  It's called a vacuum.  It only hurts if he sucks in your tail. 

The Bear:  Anyone try out the new corn kitty litter?  Hurts my butt.

Jake:  Hey, Rickey's got that cage thing again.  Run.

Emily:  He's got Junior.  He's taking him out the door. 

Callie:  Did Rickey say cuter or neuter.

Chic-lit:  Hey, is Junior a boy or a girl? 

Leon:  It wont matter by the time he comes back.

Simon:  Yea he took me and I can't remember if I'm a him or a her anymore.  I think I'm a shim.

The Bear:  You know what?  I'm going to jump back in the litter box and send Big Rickey a Kitty Litter Twitter.

Jake:  Do it Bear, that'll give him the scoop on the poop.

Leon:  Hey, what do you guys know about a thing called facebook?

John Wooden has passed away at the age of 99. He was the coach of the UCLA Bruins when I was kid.  My friends and I idolized him as much as we idolized the athletes we pretended to be on the playground. 

We were basketball kids.  Played in the school yard every night after and Saturday and Sunday until it got too dark to see your teammates or the basket.  For most of us there was no better basketball that UCLA's.

Wooden's Bruins ran off a string of 7 straight NCAA titles between 1966 and '73.  That's one of the greatest accomplishments in sports.  I think it's the greatest accomplishment ever in North American team sport.  Why is better than the Canadiens or the Yankees or the Celtics?  Because Wooden had to turn his team over every 3 years when his players ran out of eligability.  Pro teams could hang on to their core players for a decade. 

He won his first 2 titles in 63/64 and 64/65 with Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich.  Missed a year and then went on the 7 year run.  Ironically that one year UCLA missed he had a kid from New York  named Lew Alcindor playing on his freshman team.  Alcindor, who would later become Kareem Abdul Jabbar, was probably the most dominant college player ever.  But back then freshmen couldn't play for the varsity.  If he had Wooden and the Bruins would have strung together 10 consecutive championships.

When Kareem went pro Wooden reloaded with Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe and Henry Bibby. When they left he recruited Bill Walton and Keith Wilkes and with those 2 the Bruins strung together back to back 30 and 0 seasons.   That's the amazing thing about Wooden.  His ability to find the talent, year after year, and mold that talent into championships. 

During his entire coaching career he had one losing season.  It came in his first year as a high school coach.  He was college basketball's coach of the year 7 times.  His 7 straight titles will never be matched.  I know, never  say never, but I'll guarantee that one.  And check this out, the mastermind of the greatest college sports program ever never made more  than 35 thousand dollars a season.

He was a class act.  He was held in awe by his players, the media and the fans.  One of his best quote was "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail".  That's how he coached.  That's what he passed on to players.  They called him "The Wizzard of Westwood".  He hated the handle but that's exactly what he was.  John Wooden, wizzard. 

Armando Galarraga threw a perfect game against Cleveland on Wednesday.  He knows it, his teammates know it.  We know it. Umpire Jim Joyce, who blew the call, knows it. Everyone who saw what should have have been the the 27th consecutive out live or on video knows it. But the Detroit pitcher wont even get an asterisk beside this one.

9th inning, Galarraga was one out away from perfection.  It would have been the third peerless performance on the season and the second in a week.  Galarraga was covering first for the final out, planted his foot, caught the ball making him a flawless phenom.  But Joyce called the runner safe.  He was wrong.  He later admitted it publicly and appologized to the Tigers and to Galarraga.

Now, the principles did the game proud.  Joyce accepted full responsibility.  Galarraga wouldn't call the ump a chump.  Mistakes happen.  In a rematch today Joyce could have pulled himself from the game to avoid what some thought would be a  reaction from the fans comparable to anarchists at the G8 Conference.  There had been rumours of death threats directed at Joyce.  Hate mail was pouring in. But Tiger's manager Jim Leyland had Galarraga come out of the dugout with the lineup card and had to Joyce to show everyone in the park...no hard feelings.  Crap happens.

What could have been an ugly situation turned into a forgive and forget festival. Because crap happens. But today baseball dropped the biggest meadow muffin of this episode.  Bud Selig, the boss of all things baseball had the opprotunity to over turn the call, make things right and award Galarraga what was rightfully his, the perfect game he pitched.  Selig has the power to go above and beyond the rules...in what they call "the best interest of baseball."   But Bud Light wouldn't bight. 

The purists agree with Selig. Once the call is made it's in the books and nothing, not even an act of an all knowing, all powerful, absolute being not named Bud, can alter it. But that's not what has my knickers in a twist.  The game has the technololgy to avoid situations like this and it even uses it now and again.  It's called video replay.  Wednesday night, game 3 of the Stanley Cup final, Philadelphia  scores a goal.  The goal judge put the light on but play wasn't stopped because the on ice officials didn't see it.  So what did they do?  Not allow the goal?  No. When play stopped the reviewed it and declared it a goal.  If this had been baseball, no goal, no tie game, no over time, no Flyers win and instead of a 2-1 series, Chicago would have been up 3 games to none.

Baseball is full of fungo fundamentalists who wont pull their noggins out of their collective butts.  Traditon, that's what the game is all about.  Tradition?  Baseball is a summer game. You're playing the World Series in November.  Tradition?  Explain designated hitters?   Tradition?  How many teams play their games on plastic instead of grass. 

This is a sport that turned a blind eye to 2 decades of rampant steroid use.  Never mind that players who have been caught using steroids, caught lying about using steroids or suspected of using steroids have their numbers in the record books.  Teams have won world series with admitted steroid users in their lineups. Baseball has done nothing about it.

Listen, sometimes there are exceptions to the rules. Armando Galarraga's perfect game that was stolen from him because of an honest and an admitted mistake is one of those exceptions. In the long history of baseball, which more than any other sport is driven by records, there have been 20 pefect games.  In the best interest of baseball.....it should be 21.