Thursday, November 28, 2013

Things In Sports I Am Thankful For, Part A Gazillion

In no particular order, I am thankful that:

Steve Logan, former East Carolina football coach, has a radio show. Imagine, if you will, a devoted blues fan and wine expert who talks like an extra from Walking Tall while expertly dissecting the previous week's football coaching blunders. It's a gift, I tell you. A gift.

Jose Oquendo is still coaching third base for the Cardinals. I mean, I'd rather he were managing (which is another way of saying Dr. Mrs. The Sportsthodoxy has boycotted Cardinals fandom until they make him manager) but hey, he's still on the field and wearing a Cards uniform, so that's something right with the universe.



Sports On Earth is going strong. The world needed a place for intelligent long-form sportswriting on the web that is not tainted by its proximity to Bill Simmons.

Keith Law regularly exercises his snark-fu during ESPN chats. Sports media, like political media, has somehow acquired this notion that all questions and opinions must be treated with equal weight and gravity. This is incorrect. Many opinions, be they "my hometown team is great and you're just a big meanie" or "the acidification of the oceans is a liberal job-killing plot!", are complete idiocy, and deserve to be treated as such. Kudos to Keith for calling out nonsense and treating it as it deserves.

Adam Sobsey and the Bull City Summer project was a thing. If you haven't read it, stop right now and go do so - it was a wonderful, insightful, moving look into a year in the life of a minor league baseball team, warts and all, and it made my regular pilgrimages up 147 to the DBAP that much more enjoyable.

The old Durham Bulls stadium is still standing, still green, and still playable. The last time we did my fantasy baseball draft - 20+ years and still going strong, guys - we took some time before the festivities to just wander into Durham and stand beyond the outfield fence as somebody shagged flies. Could have been NCCU players, could have been high school kids - it didn't matter. It was a moment of reverence.

That there's actually, finally, real discussion on head trauma in sports. It will be a long, ugly, brutal discussion with much misinformation and chest-thumping and human damage along the way. But at least there's now a discussion. And that's a start.

Someone besides the Lions and Cowboys is playing on Thanksgiving. Nothing against those two teams, but  - OK, I have a lot against those two teams. Nice to see some different colored uniforms on the field at long last.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks. Make it a good one.

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