From The Sports Desk

[Sancho]

I’m not sure which is a more shocking revelation, bounty: you never seeing Doctor Strangelove or me not knowing who’s in the Super Bowl this year. I usually use Super Bowl Sunday to go to Costco, no lines at the checkout counter.

Major T.J. “King” Kong — Well boys, we've got three engines out, we've got more holes in us than a horse trader's mule, the radio's gone and we're leaking fuel and if we was flying any lower, why we'd need sleigh bells on this thing... But we've got one thing on those Ruskies… At this height, why they might harpoon us, but they dang sure ain't gonna spot us on no radar screen!

President Merkin Muffley — You're talking about mass murder, General, not war.

General Buck Turgidson — Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops! Uhhh…depending on the breaks.

[bounty]

for sure my not having seen that movie is a deficit in my pop culture resume. I should be at the library this week to be able to check if its in the system anywhere.

the super bowl was great right up until the end when a ref made a call that he probably shouldn't have and it totally affected the outcome of the game.

so the author and Julius hung out and talked while Amanda went to the bar within eyeshot of a lone browns player.

"with Amanda making progress, I asked what percentage of athletes Julius had seen who were married or in relationships."

'"pretty much all of them"' he said. later I read that the player Amanda was talking to at the bar was married.''

"do the wives and girlfriends know what goes on?"

"yeah. they let it slide as long as its not in their face. and even if it is, they still let it slide really."

"finally Amanda came back to the table. roughly an hour has passed since her departure. a Pulitzer awaits:"

"I cant believe you made me do that. why would any girl lower herself like that?"

"okay okay mother superior...how easy was it?"

[Sancho]

Yup. That sounds about right.

Men.

Jonathan Franzen gets at it pretty good in Twenty Seventh City:

Probably the best metaphor for the State was sexual obsession. An absorbing parallel world, a clandestine organizing principle. Men moved mountains for the sake of a few muscle contractions in the dark.

[bounty]

the local library has dr Strangelove. will probably fetch it tomorrow when im there to fetch some other movies.

i had a photo in my collection that would have captured that sentiment nicely but it seems to have disappeared, which is really weird. it was of a boxer sitting in the corner between rounds, his trainer holding a water bottle to his mouth, while the boxer has his attention focused on the model carrying the card indicating what round it is!

so ive had to go with an alternative photo that captures pretty much the same thing AND ties in nicely with the posts above.

so on to the whiffle ball challenge!

who was your money on Sancho? the whiffle ball pitcher or the major league baseball player?

[Sancho]

At first blush I thought a major league pitcher would dominate, but the more I think about it the more I think that may not be the case. Pitching and pitches in the majors are highly specialized and highly dependent on the weight and structure of the baseball — 4-seam fastball, 2-seam fastball, palm ball, slider, curve, slurve, etc. The whiffle ball is so different from a baseball that it’s a totally different thing. Also I imagine the types of pitches available to the whiffle baller are very different than those available to a base baller, so much so that success on the baseball diamond won’t translate into success on the whiffle ball diamond. Speed skaters and figure skaters both skate on ice but neither, I think, would do well in the other’s neighborhood.

El Sancho’s conclusion: a whiffle ball pitcher would destroy a MLB pitcher on the field of whiffle ball.

As for the photo — yup, been there - done that.

[Sancho]

Ya know, in retrospect a better analogy would’ve been a Hockey player and a Figure skater instead of a Speed skater and a Figure skater. It’d’a made for a better visual — Wayne Gretzky trying to keep up Dorothy Hamill on the ice.

The more I think about it (and this is with a very limited knowledge of Whiffle Ball) I’ll bet a whiffle ball can do a wicked curve.

BTW Major League Baseball preseason is officially underway. Woo-hoo.

[bounty]

I think the closest analogy might be between two racquet sports---say, tennis and racquetball. the objects being struck at behave and respond differently, and so the nature of the strokes are different and have to be learned.

apparently competitive whiffle ball is (or was at the time of the writing of the book), a thing.

(the author spells it "wiffle" but the auto spell checker here doesn't like that. the bat I have says "wiffle" but im going to go with "whiffle" to avoid the red squiggly lines.)

a reminder of the question the author asked, "would a major league batting champion dominate in whiffle ball?"

he writes "there are hundreds of whiffle ball communities throughout the country, filled with thousands of men who do battle against one another every weekend with plastic bats and plastic balls. the elite of the whiffle community is an organization called fast plastic. with more than 300 teams, 1,500 plus players, and 18 locations spread across the country..."

the author got freddy sanchez who batted .344 for the Pittsburgh pirates, winning the 2006 batting title, to square off against a fellow named jim balian, a "two time whiffle ball national champion and mvp...protégé randy dalbey, a 6'6" 21yr old former all state basketball player; tom raven, who played baseball at asuza pacific...and kyle ramsey, one of the best pitchers in all of whiffle ball."

I found this interesting---they gave sanchez some time to get used to the lightness of the bat, which isnt the little skinny yellow thing we grew up with, nor the oversize things that became available later, but rather has the dimension of a real baseball bat.

after watching him, the author's early inclination appeared to be on the side of the batting champion, saying, "I was becoming concerned that the first inning would never end..."

as for preseason, exciting for baseball fans everywhere! "the one constant through all the years ray, has been baseball..."

[bounty]

by the way, the name of the movie escapes me but there is some rom-com out there that was made around hooking a former hockey player up with a former ladies singles skater to enter pairs competitions.

[Sancho]

Whoops answered the wrong question. Hah! And Oh Yeah a MLB .344 batting champ would definitely dominate at whiffle/wiffle ball, even with one hand in his pocket, or batting as a lefty, I bet. Anyway sounds like they had a good time. BTW I got to watch Sánchez play when he was with the Giants.

So we’re having the last gasp of winter here in western Washington, which is one of the reasons I like baseball— the preseason signals the arrival of nice weather. I’ve got in-laws down in Arizona. The other day I told my wife we should go visit her mother. She saw right through my ploy, “you don’t want to see my mom. You just want to go to a ball game.” I was thinking — well, duh.

It is fun to picture Wayne Gretzky trying to land a triple axel, or for that matter trying to do compulsory figures in his NHL get-up. Think of Dorothy Hamill donning a pair of glasses to do the figures in the ‘76(?) Olympics. It’s not as much fun trying to imagine Peggy Fleming in the Hockey Rink, although Tonya Harding could probably hold her own. (Sorry Tonya. That’s a cheap shot. You got a raw deal in the press, and you still ROCK!)

Speaking of racket sports, we’ve got a weird one here in the PNW — Pickle ball. In a nutshell, pickle ball is to tennis what whiffle ball is to baseball. The pickle ball courts at my local Y are booked well in advance. It seems to be a favorite with the geriatric crowd. We’ve got 80-year-olds strutting around, fresh off a victory, chest puffed out, bragging and trash-talking like a little leaguer. It’s awesome.

[bounty]

im halfway through dr Strangelove and enjoying it.

we have pickleball out here too. I cant say this for sure, but id have to guess that someone at a ymca invented it and that's how its traveled the country relatively quickly. there are even a couple of commercials on the telly that have people playing. one might be old folks, one might be with people that have a medical condition. I think anything that's adapted that can allow people to continue to move and play is great.

I used to follow figure skating, was a huge michelle kwan fan, have been to a couple of stars on ice shows (they are wonderful), read some biographies, have a couple of skating musical box globes, and enjoyed Peggy fleming, dick button and terry gannon as announcers on nbc. terry gannon's still there I think but I haven't watched anything seriously for a long time. I wonder what tonya harding's up to these days?

we still have snow in ny in march, and april, and very rarely sometimes in may but the heralding of better weather for me is when the geese show up on my pond. they got here over a week ago, I think they are early, its the earliest they have ever arrived, but its been a mild winter so far so we'll see how it goes.

but yes, I can see how baseball season and spring training and good weather are inextricably woven together. I think catching a preseason game might even be more enjoyable than an in-season game. a smaller stadium and more intimacy sounds desirable. I used to date a girl a long time ago who had family in vero beach. take mom-in-law to the game!

so your guy sanchez against the whiffle ballers!

"play ball.

"balian opened on the mound for the whifflers.

"holy sh*t!

"as far as whiffle ball, or any other kind of pitching is concerned, his pitches were as nasty as nasty gets. balian has been clocked at 87 mph, which from 45ft away is the equivalent of 117 mphs in baseball. jim was throwing pitches that looked like they were done with CGI effects: a drop ball that completely fell off the table, a riser that started an inch off the ground and ended up over the batters head, and a slider that broke 4ft.

"but he was wild early. freddy walked to open the game and was fouling off pitches and making balian work. sanchez went down with three strikeouts in the first inning, but I was sure the levee would break."

[Sancho]

Do you realize that fluoridation - is the most monstrously-conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?

Still got my money on Sanchez.

I’m afraid I don’t know too much about figure skating. I watch it every four years at the Olympics and that’s about it. Also as every fan of crossword puzzles knows, an AXEL is a figure skating jump but an AXLE is that rod that goes between two wheels (and for post Wednesday puzzles, AXL is Rocker Rose).

At any rate, Tonya Harding is a fascinating figure In figure skating. I’m not sure what she’s doing now, probably she’s just living her life as best she can. I know she’s from the PNW, Oregon I’m pretty sure, and that she had a rough upbringing. I know she was one of the few women to ever successfully land a triple axel. And I know the press and late-night talk-show comedians were merciless to her. Once the whole knee-bashing thing went down, the pile-on effect was relentless. I don’t think the press was interested in getting to bottom of what happened. They had a story that would sell and they stuck with it - Tonya is trash, and trash gonna do what trash gonna do, so let’s all hate on trashy Tonya. I don’t know how she managed to keep focus and compete after that. El Sancho was pulling for her. El Sancho almost always pulls for the underdog. El Sancho had his money on the Phillies in this year’s fall classic.

[bounty]

I thought George c scott stole the show. he was so good, i could well imagine him playing a comedic part in young Frankenstein

the dvd I got has bonus features to it, so im enjoying that too.

for sure that was part of the general non-acceptance of tonya harding, that she wasn't the typical ice princess people want their ladies singles skaters to be. I have an advanced copy of a book called culture on ice, figure skating and cultural meaning, i'll have to go hunt it up to see if and what the author mentions about her. ive also got Christine brennan's inside edge and a book called frozen assets: the new order of figure skating. they are all relevant to that time period.

yes, named after a Norwegian fellow who invented it, axel Paulson. im not a stickler in the strictest sense but I strongly suspect if we examined the degree of rotation, a lot of the females who have "completed" triple axels would be found to be short. I suspect there is some degree, pun intended, of shortness that's allowed.

alas Sancho...

"by the 3rd inning freddy was no longer remotely even close to getting a hit...[he] was missing pitches not by inches but by feet. the foul tips were a thing of the past. balian's drop ball was untouchable at this point.

(after a couple of walks, sanchez did whack a double driving in a ghost runner)

"but that was the end of the fun for the batting champ. balian regained immediate control and polished off the inning with a series of pitches so devastating that two thousand miles away chuck tanner felt a disturbance in the force...

"we resumed play with dalbey on the mound..."

[Sancho]

Freddy, Freddy, Freddy. Just stand there and take the walk. Any slider that breaks four feet can’t wind up piercing the strike zone very often.

I think you hit the nail on head with the ice princess comment. For Tonya that had to sting. She’d come from humble beginnings and worked hard to get to the top. Nancy also came from humble beginnings, (Southie, I believe) but she looked and acted the part of an Ice Princess. If she’d’a had a couple of exes, big thighs, and her brothers showing up to the competitions wearing track suits, gold chains, and carrying a six pack of Sam Adams, she’d’a probably gotten the same treatment. I can see Tonya under the hood of a pickup, tuning a carburetor, greasy bloody knuckles, smoking a Chesterfield, tall boy sweating on the fender, Lynyrd Skynyrd on the radio. I can’t picture Nancy doing that. Seems to me Tonya’d be more fun to hang out with.

Anyway, I look at all of this with mild amusement. You see I’m from a region of the country known for its trashyness— the south. But I’m here to tell you — North Georgia hillbillies ain’t got nothing on these people in the PNW. Every once in while somebody around here will hear my fading southern drawl and try to give a hard time, or ask me about about Southerners. I usually channel Bill Murray and say something like — “C’mon, man, people are the same everywhere. Y’all are the same as those people down south, maybe just not quite so sophisticated.” Then I watch them puff up.

Speaking of tackiness, there used to be an ice show in the tackiest town in the U.S.A., possibly the world — Vegas. It was called “Nudes On Ice” but everybody referred to it as “Tits on the rocks.” I enjoyed the show.

[bounty]

makes you wonder if they filmed the whole occasion. although I suspect freddy sanchez would probably want it locked away in a vault.

"we resumed play with dalbey on the mound. his stuff was kind of like balian light but it was still goodnight nurse for freddy. K, K, K. the game took on a monotonous air of inevitability at this point. K, K, K. the box score was starting to look like it was done by david duke.

"for the final inning kyle ramsey took the mound. freddy continued taking hard cuts and going after pitches with his trademark intensity, but the results were the same, K, K, K..."

freddy went 1 for 19, with 18 Ks.

"to understanding how freddy ended up looking like your typical Pittsburgh pirate, I asked him to compare hitting a whiffle ball to a baseball.

"'This a lot harder. this is way harder.'"

however later, an all-star catcher corrected the course a bit "we face randy Johnson and don't strike out every time...I guarantee if you give freddy a week or week and a half of swinging that bat, he'd start rocking those guys."

on the figure skating front, since the temporary inaccessibility of the site I haven't taken a peek at my resources. I did however find an old journal article from the journal of sport and social issues called "making sport of tonya: class performance and social punishment." i'll have to give that a re-read. I know Nancy Kerrigan damaged her brand a bit when she got caught on a hot mike (I think) disparaging either mickey mouse, Disney or the parade she had to be in.

that's funny, I hadn't heard of "nudes on ice." figure skaters, pun intended, usually have great figures, so im sure the aesthetics were interesting. the very first broadway play I went to "oh Calcutta" was done in the nude. I had no idea prior to it starting.

[bounty]

forgot to mention---in the "special features" part of dr Strangelove you find out that the original major kong was peter sellers, playing his 4th part in the movie. the reason slim pickens ended up playing the part on screen was that sellers fell out of the bomb bay doors and broke his foot. which might be why dr Strangelove was in a wheelchair.