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Columnist, ‘The Jester’s Quart’
“Ser-i-ous-lay?”
There`s nothing worse than being ignorant to what someone else perceives as common knowledge. I remember back in the seventh grade there was an announcement over the loudspeaker proclaiming, due to random acts of vandalism, that students were banned from bringing Magic Markers to school.
"A magic what?" I asked a classmate.
"You don`t know what a Magic Marker is?" she responded, with the mocking force of a thousand spitballs aimed at my forehead.
Sure I did. Red, black, great contact highs. But the words didn`t click when I heard them come through the speaker. I had a brain freeze of Slurpee Strata proportions, and there was no turning back. I was now the Idiot Who Didn`t Know What a Magic Marker Was.
Fourteen years later, I would become the Idiot Who Didn`t Know What an Electronic Dartboard Was.
I was in this bar in Newport News, Va. last weekend. One of those hole-in-a-strip-malls that still serves Pabst in a bottle and whose largest piece of wall decor is an adult beverage-sponsored vinyl banner with a NASCAR schedule printed on it.
I stopped in after covering a track-and-field meet to watch the Belmont Stakes, settling in at the bar next to a regular, who was kind enough to allow me to see the Belmont on the big screen instead of that car wax infomercial he wasn`t watching.
Looking back over my shoulder, I saw a line of arcade video-game sized machines lining the wall with dartboards mounted on them.
"Hey," I asked the barkeep, "are those electronic dartboards?"
Her affirmative answer was echoed with a "cool" from yours truly, which was then answered by a look of disdain and disbelief from the young tattooed gentleman smoking a Kools on the stool next to me.
"You ain`t never seen an electronic dartboard before?"
"Nope."
"Ser-i-ous-lay? Nah, SER-I-OUS-LAY?"
At this point, I couldn`t have felt more like the elitist Northeasterner if I had a cosmopolitan in one hand, a copy of “The Village Voice” in the other, and an "Intellectuals for Kerry" T-shirt on.
There was a disconnect here. I know electronic dartboards exist...in the basements of American suburbs, but not typically in the bars I frequent. And certainly not mounted on a Pac-Man sized machine, and certainly not stacked against the wall with a half-dozen others.
"You ain`never...seen...an e-lec-tronic...dartboard? Ever?"
"No, not in the bars I go to."
"EVER?"
At this point I felt like he was rubbing it in. But considering I was the only guy in the place with a New Jersey accent, I decided to bite my tongue out of fear of a potential Four Horseman-style beatdown from the townies.
As I watched Smarty Jones stumble into the annals of obscure sports trivia history, I listened to the electronic dart-throwers taunt each other after every toss. When one would win a game, the celebration would consist of a bellowing victory yell and a few "yeah, what`s ups," before degenerating into some variation of "who`s your daddy/mommy/pimp?"
It was all music to my ears.
There`s this frustrating sentimentality creeping into sports these days. We`re doing whatever we can to take the swagger out of winning. Hell, the NFL has all but made it illegal.
But those guys throwing darts...that`s sports. That`s emotion. That`s rubbing it in a guy`s face because he wasn`t good enough to win. Because sports are about winners and losers. And the losers don`t deserve overwhelming respect, because if they did, they`d be winners.
It`s that "everyone gets a gold star" mentality, straight from a.m. kindergarten. It`s disgusting. There`s nothing worse in sports than ties in hockey, the consolation game in the NIT or the bronze medal. Well, except for Bob Costas talking about any of them.
That`s why the post-Belmont comments by Birdstone`s connections were some of the flat-out most embarrassing and revolting things I`ve ever read.
They actually apologized for winning the damn race.
Trainer Nick Zito said he was sorry Birdstone won. Jockey Edgar Prado said he too was sorry Birdstone won. Owner Marylou Whitney said she was "sorry, sorry, sorry Smarty Jones couldn`t win." Husband John Hendrickson added they felt "horrible" about winning.
I just wanted to grab each of these self-loathing twits and slap them (there you go, Bob Ryan).
Sorry? SORRY? Winning means never having to say you`re sorry.
If you honestly feel the need to apologize this profusely for your own good fortune, then don`t even run the damn horse. Take it out of its barn 10 minutes before post-time, and shoot it. And then send it to that factory where they mix it with liver and stuff it in a tin can so my cats can eat it.
So Smarty Jones didn`t win the Triple Crown? Don`t apologize. It`s not your fault. It`s Smarty Jones` fault. And hopefully when they erect that statue of the horse in his hometown, Philadelphia fans will do what they always do with defeated heroes and pelt it with snowballs and batteries.
If I`m Nick Zito, I`m talking all kinds of stuff in the postrace. I`m jumping up on the table Coyote Ugly style, saying crap like "looks like someone`s gone from Triple Crown to single frown" or "looks like this Seabiscuit`s gone stale." I`m cracking jokes about the glue factory. Anything`s better than "I didn`t rejoice. I feel sorry for that horse," which is what Zito told ESPN.
But that`s the gross sentimentality that`s taken over sports. When the Cubs or Red Sox win the World Series, their opponents will be expected to be profoundly honored to have been a curse-lifting sacrifice to the baseball gods. Can you imagine Barry Bonds saying how happy he is that Boston can finally hold another parade for the Sox? Me neither, but it`ll happen.
In hockey, it`s become mandatory that one team in the Cup Finals has to have its "Bourque"--someone with a storied career who hasn`t won but jack and squat. And then when this sadsack veteran wins his first ring, the team he just vanquished is expected to talk about how great it is to "finally see him win one." I`m sure the crushing disappointment for the Calgary Flames in blowing a 3-2 series lead was tempered by Dave Andreychuk`s first Cup.
Whatever.
There are three degrees of post-victory celebration. If you say:
"They were a scrappy/hard-working/blue-collar team, and we were lucky to get out of here with a win," you are a Gracious Winner.
"I`m almost sorry there had to be a winner, because it was such a classic game," you are Lying, but a Gracious Winner.
"I`m sorry, sorry, sorry [Team X] didn`t win," you are a Self-Loathing Idiot, one `sorry` away from putting the champagne away, going to your opponents` locker room and giving them all erotic foot massages.
I`m not asking for Jimmy Johnson screaming "How `bout dem Cowboys?!?!" after every championship. No one likes a douchebag. But there`s a difference between being humble and being humiliated.
Muhammad Ali once said, "I`m not the greatest; I`m the double greatest. Not only do I knock `em out, I pick the round."
Today, it`d probably go something like, "I`m about average, and I`m gracious enough to inform my opponent in what round I plan to defeat him. And, of course, I`m sorry, sorry, sorry, I had to knock him out."
Float like a butterfly, apologize profusely.
"Ser-i-ous-lay?"
WE GET LOVE MAIL
Thanks to everyone who chimed in on The Jester’s Quart: I Hate Hockey, the F.A.Q. Here’s some of the feedback:
Well said. The same goes for hockey media in Canada - their heads are just as far up their own asses. But I don`t think you should dismiss the Jessica Alba on a stripper pole idea. That`s much more exciting than a shootout...
-Jay
GW: More exciting, yes, although I understand it can also lead to a shoot out.
I loved your article. I live in Houston and happen to be a big Aeros fan. When I got to the end of your article you said, "Minor league hockey is all around the country, in leagues like the AHL and ECHL. In the AHL this season, teams in Houston and San Antonio outdrew teams in Albany and Toronto. . . me that it’s more about how the sport is marketed than it is about the appeal of the sport itself." The Aeros just moved to a new arena and still only drew about 5,000 fans a night. I didn`t expect more than that because the marketing sucks. People at the games complained that they don`t advertise in the paper better. We had 10,000 people there on a bobblehead night, 10,000 again on fan appreciation night, but we can’t get more than 3,000 for a playoff game. The one thing about Houston that was good this season was that they had an attendance increase for the first time in it`s history. I agree with you that hockey is still a big sport being as I`m a huge fan and live in football dominated Texas.
--Timmy Thorne
GW: So there you go. The key to the NHL’s renaissance lies in 41 “Fan Appreciation/Have a Bobblehead” Nights. Count me in.
Thanks for all the kind words about the column. Hit me at jestersquart@hotmail.com with any comments, gripes, corrections or observations.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
Britney Spears has undergone arthroscopic knee surgery after a fall during the filming of her latest video. Doctors were optimistic about her rehabilitation, telling Spears she’ll be back on her knees in no time…
Now, I understand the notion that we should honor the dead and their legacy.
But Fox News has gone too far.
Ronald Reagan, and I don’t care how you view his presidency, was a B-movie actor.
Case closed.
On the day after Reagan died, Fox News Channel presented a look back at his film career. Reporter Bill McCuddy began his presentation by saying that Reagan “had a prolific career, despite what some will tell you,” and that one critic claimed Reagan “had some ‘A’ roles.”
I’ll give you “Knute Rockne: All-American.” But for Fox to analyze Reagan’s career and NOT show a single clip from that movie with the monkey is the kind of partisan revisionist history that’s dividing this country…
Reagan’s funeral in Washington, D.C. was all but mapped out before his death last weekend. Our 42nd President, Bill Clinton, also has plans for his memorial … although federal officials are pessimistic that the Prancing Pussy in Little Rock can handle 100,000 mourners…
A lot has been made of the interview this week on ESPN between Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. Larry Legend made some comments about the NBA and white players that ESPN felt it could use to sell its interview … er, I mean that could be interpreted as insensitive.
“As we all know, the majority of the fans are white America. And if you just had a couple of white guys in there, you might get them a little excited. But it is a black man`s game, and it will be forever. I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American,” said Bird.
“If you just had a couple of white guys in there” is such a silly comment. The league has plenty of white guys; it’s just that they’re not from Indiana and they have more vowels than consonants on their names.
Silly or not, Bird has every right to make these comments because the issue of race has dogged him since the first time he laced up his sneakers. Who can forget Isaiah Thomas and Dennis Rodman claiming Bird was only praised because he was white, and then going unpunished for their comments? Or this year, when Spike Lee said the same thing, adding that Bird was the most overrated player in NBA history? Hell, they even touched upon it in the movie “Space Jam,” where Michael Jordan calls Bird white and Bill Murray clarifies that Bird is actually “clear.”
Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon came to Bird’s defense on the Dan Patrick Show this week, saying Larry was “right on target” with his comments and that fans like to see people who look like them in professional sports. I mention this because Wilbon is the one who once labeled the NBA All-Star Weekend “Black Thanksgiving,” which is twice as questionable and incendiary as Bird saying the NBA is “a black man’s game.” But Wilbon is a black man commenting on the NBA, and Bird is a white man commenting on the NBA, and I think I just made Larry’s point…
One last thought on the ESPN “basketball summit” interview: Are we now to believe that LeBron and Melo are officially the new Magic and Bird? And if so, who lost the coin toss to be the guy from French Lick?
Musician Ray Charles died Thursday at 73.
Wow…didn’t see that one coming…
Game 2 of the Lakers/Pistons series doubled the ratings of last year’s Game 2, earning a 10.6 rating and 19 share. Of course, only six years ago, Game 2 of the NBA Finals drew a 16.6 rating and a 31 share.
But remember, it’s the NHL with the ratings deficiency…
And finally, in the most under-reported story of the last two weeks, a Utah lawyer’s claim that Viacom owed him $5,000 after his family was exposed to Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl was rejected by a judge.
The lawyer claimed pregame advertising led him to believe the halftime show would feature “marching bands and balloons.”
Obviously, he was upset about not seeing any marching bands…
Published on the web since 1997, "The Jester`s Quart" is a weekly satirical look at sports, pop culture and why NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a jackass. Columnist Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. Email Wyshynski at jestersquart@hotmail.com.
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