Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

You know you’re sitting in the cheap seats when . . . .  

 

My question – what’s he looking at?  And where’s his buddy for the other one?  Bathroom break?  Went for a Coke and a hot dog?  

 

Joe Doakes

Perhaps placing bets on the Millers game…

…and maybe you can call me a cynic, but when I heard NPR and the BBC hyperventilating about the first female umpire in MLB history, I have to admit I wondered if a story like this…

…was pretty much iunevitable.

Not that anyone needed the reminder, but there’s a reason Berg’s Fourth Law is called a law, and not a breezy suggestion.  

It never fails

I heard the media hype last week – “the Wolves are gonna do it”.  The chuckleheads on local sports media were actively saying they thought the Wolves would go all the way. 

And maybe they could have.  But not when the local media were thinking they could do it.  

But Berg’s Fourth Law is as merciless as it is infallible:

A Minnesota sports team may be a contender until the moment the local media (and political class) actually believes they will be contenders. At that moment – be it spring training, late November in the NFL season, or week 72 of the NHL playoffs – the season will fall irredeemably apart.

So how did it go?

Some wags put it this way:

But that’s not accurate. The team had no more control over the tournament than the Earth has over the sunrise.

The media, on the other hand, are dealing with forces they clearly don’t understand.

And it’s all been here in black and white, all along. 

There is no Berg’s Law I want more to repeal than the Fourth. 

To wit:

A Minnesota sports team may be a contender until the moment the local media (and political class) actually believes they will be contenders. At that moment – be it spring training, late November in the NFL season, or week 72 of the NHL playoffs – the season will fall irredeemably apart.

But…well, you know where this is going, right?

For the past week, the Minnesota media has been yammering away, not merely that the Timberwolves had potential to go all the way to the NBA Championship, but that it seemed likely.   

On top of that, sports pundits also predicted the Minnesota Frost women’s pro hockey team was likely to get a repeat championship.  

Is anyone seeing a problem, here, yet? Anyone but me?

Yes, I know.  They were just the first games of five game series.   The Twolves and Frost can still pull it out.

Hypothetically.

And only if the entire Twin Cities media figures out that they’re dealing with forces they can not comprehend.  

I don’t make the rules.  Berg’s Law does. 

“…I believe the children are our greatest probleeeeeeemmmmm”.

Hope Walz uncorks on the most insidious form of “privilege”:

Forget for a moment that barefoot running is kind of a fad these days:

Forget the corn-fed American runners.  Let’s talk about Abebe Bikila, the legendary Olympic marathoner who…grew up dirt poor, trained barefoot, and was one of the greatest marathon runners ever.  

Look, nobody’s ever accused Hope Walz of being an intellectual titan. Nobody expects it. Seeing her parents, one would be mad to even think about it.

But you just know she’s going to be running for office soon, don’t you?

XCel Energy’s sponsorship deal with Saint Paul’s major arena is over:

All I know is that after twenty years of calling it “The X”, the new sponsor is going to have to be Excedrin, Microsoft Excel, X, Space X, or Ex-Lax, or I’m never going to remember it.

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

The head of the NCAA says it’s “debatable” whether male athletes have a physical advantage over females.

I propose a scientific experiment to end the debate.   Take the top 50 male athletes in every NCAA sport and play them against the top 50 females.  Run a “Best of the Best” tournament with brackets, just like any other tournament.  See who winds up on top.  

Where there are different rules for men’s versus women’s sports, we play from the women’s tees, throw the women’s shot putt, etc.  Referees and judges will be equally split, men and women, to ensure fairness.

Biological men. Biological women.  No trans people allowed.  This competition is not a social studies project to pamper sensitive feelings, it is a scientific inquiry to determine whether biology plays a determinative role in sports.  Therefore, people with unusual medical conditions such as Imane Kehlif who has Swyer Syndrome, will be excluded, as they are outliers who will skew the results. 

The sports where guys win the tournament prove trannies cannot compete against girls because their male biology gives them an unfair advantage.

The sports where girls win are the sports where trannies can compete against them, since they won’t have an unfair physical advantage.    

And once we’ve established that by SCIENCE, it can never be questioned again.  After all, you trust the Science, don’t you?  You’re not a Science Denier, are you?  

Joe Doakes, no longer in Como Park

 

 

That’d be cool – but it’s kinda been done.

Just in time for the 1984 Olympics, the hot new social trend ripped straight from the world’s streets:

Coming up in the 2028 games? Streaking.

MITCH: Go Timberwolves!

CRITIC: But hey, Mitch – since when do you care about pro sports?

MITCH: Outside the Bears, Cubs and Twins?

CRITIC: Right. Since when?

MITCH: Since never. Don’t usually care. But I DO care about having fun, and being in a place where one of the teams is doing well is kinda a blast, even if you don’t care that much about the sport. See also the NDSU Bison.

CRITIC: But you haven’t been a loyal Timberwolves fan!

MITCH: Yep.

CRITIC: That makes you a fair weather fan!

MITCH: Dang skippy it does. Why waste time on losers?

CRITIC: But you’re a Bears fan.

MITCH: Yep. And they’re going to the Super Bowl this year. Or next, if that doesn’t work out. The weather is *always* fair, here.

CRITIC: But doesn’t this violate Berg’s Fourth Law?

MITCH: Close. But here’s the statutory technicality: I’m not saying “they’re gonna win!”. I’m being hopeful but pessimistic. So we’re good.

CRITIC: That don’t make no sense

MITCH: Shut up cheer. Sheesh.

This Timberwolves season is a nail-biter. For my purposes, things like this are the issue:

This, of course, runs afoul of Berg’s Fourth Law:

A Minnesota sports team may be a contender until the moment the local media actually believes they will be contenders. At that moment – be it spring training, late November in the NFL season, or week 72 of the NHL playoffs – the season will fall irredeemably apart.

It’s been an amazing run so far for the TWolves. Let’s just say I’d be happy to repeal the law, ifi circumstances allow.

But no mistake about it – this is a test.

As we noted yesterday, the sports bar “A Bar Of Their Own” – which opened on March 1 to paeons of praise and wall-to-wall coverage from local media – has a unique-ish marketing hook; the TVs are all tuned to womens sports.

That’s all well and good. I support anyone and everyone bringing a new product or service, or bar for that matter, to the market and letting the market decide.

But, again as noted yesterday – if I were the proprietor of another sportsbar, I might be wondering what marketing hook I could come up with to get pretty much every single news outlet in town to come back, not once but several times, to provide breathless, adulatory coverage to my establishment?

“A Bar Of Their Own” (henceforth ABoTO) got the sort of gauzy, soft-focus, “lifestyle” coverage – sometimes not just bordering on cheerleading, but sailing right past it it into borderline unseemliness – that money can’t buy .

But – what if money did have to buy it?

How much free advertising (called “Earned Media”) did ABoTO get over this past few months?

Method To (March) Madness: Advertising costs money. And while rates and revenues have dropped sharply on traditional broadcast and print media over the past decade and change, it’s still not cheap.

So here’s what I did:

1. I took the six biggest media outlets in the Twin Cities, other than Shot in the Dark and the Northern Alliance; WCCO (Channel 4), KSTP (Channel 5), KMSP (Channel 9), KARE (Channel 11), MPR and the Strib.
2. I figured out how many times each of the outlets ran stories on, or prominently referencing, ABoTO. This is the “Story Count” for each outlet.
3. I multiplied the number of stories by the number of “newscasts” on which the piece of hard hitting journalism appeared (the “Newscast/Publication Count” in the table below. (In the case of the Strib, this refers to many days it appeared in the paper).
4. I multiplied the number of appearances by an adjusted, estimated spot ad rate. See “Assumptions”, below. That gave us a “Total Advertising Equivalent”.

Now, the goal is to provide a ball-park figure, not an academic or legal disquisition. But just so we’re clear, I made a few assumptions.

Assumptions: Here’s what I included and excluded, and why.

• I included unique stories that appeared on the station website. Some outlets run the story online multiple times on the same date with different headlines. It’s a marketing thing.
• I counted the number of newscasts that would have likely run the story. (With the Strib, I figured a story would run in one day’s edition).
• I assumed each outlet would run the story for one day’s worth of newscasts. I know that the story ran for longer than one day on some TV stations, but I had no way to measure that.
• I left out longer-form pieces, like appearances on “magazine” or “features” type shows (“Twin Cities Live”, “The Jason Show”, “Good Day” and the like).
• The rates, I fudged – downward. A one minute spot on a major metro TV station newscast runs (according to local broadcast sources) between $1,000 and $1,500. There is of course a quantity discount (and the amount and frequency of some outlets coverage would seem, if only sarcastically, to appy), and ratings do count; I gave a 10% bump to Channel 4.
• The rate and number of appearances on MPR are a semi-educated guess.
• The rate at the Strib is evel less educated, and is based on the price of a prominent display ad.

With all that understood, here are the numbers:

The estimate is inexact – there might be other ways of estimating the numbers, but I can’t think of many objectively better – and I’d be amazed if any of them showed less benefit to ABoTO.

This is the spot where a lesser writer might throw in “doing this is more fun than watching most women’s sports” – but as I noted yesterday, I’m distantly related to women’s nordic skiing royalty, and let’s be honest, who doesn’t love beach volleyball, so I’m going to let that trope go.

Anyway – I guess if you’re thinking about opening a business, the path to free advertising is clear.

As you may recall, our “Lieutenant”/co-governor and state’s designated Karen, Peggy Flanagan, filled out her March Madness bracket based on the schools’ home state abortion laws.

She got well under half right in the first round. She was down to two of the Elite Eight, and one – UConn, seeded #1 in its quarter of the bracket – left in the Final Four.

So “abortions laws” might not be a great predictor of basketball success.

What is?

Carry permit laws and Contitutional Carry. Seven out of the “Elite Eight” were either shall-issue or Constitutional Carry, and Connecticut has always been the most liberal of the mid-Atlantic states as re issuing permits.

Lieutenant Governor Flanagan has a unique (?) approach to sports gambling:

I might just have to take enough interest in college hoops to keep track of how her bracket does.

Football? Baseball? Hockey? Hoops? Soccer?

Nah.

But collecting memorabilia from a band whose career bell curve peaked during the Carter administraiton?

We are – or at least, one of us is – the champion!

Vern Simon received certification that his collection of KISS memorabilia has earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records

Today his collection reflects his loyalty to the original four members of his favorite band: Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley.

Vern’s collection also reflects KISS’ reputation as a prolific marketer, lending its name and the likenesses of its members to clocks, lunch boxes, and even a coffin. The latter is one of the few KISS items Vern does not own, though he does have a KISS coffin displayed on a poster.

“I want to be number one,” he said. “I’ve never been number one in anything.”

You have climbed to the mountaintop, Vern Simon. You are among the rarest species of Minnesotans – one with an actual championship.

Another thing I missed when I was out of the country – the death of the only sports figure I ever actually wanted to be.

Dick Butkus, Chicago Bears legend and the man who defined the position of middle linebacker, died last week at the age of 80:

A ferocious tackler drafted out of the University of Illinois, Butkus was an imposing force as the Bears’ middle linebacker for his nine NFL seasons in the 1960s and 1970s, and made eight Pro Bowls.

Butkus thought his intensity on the field was simply how the game should be played, according to an article on the Bears’ website.

“I thought that was the way that everybody should have played, but I guess they didn’t because they were claiming that I had a special way of playing,” he said when asked about his ferocity, according to the article.

No one remembers when I became a Chicago Bears fan – it was almost certainly before I knew what football was – but as long as anyone could remember, I knew who Dick Butkus was.

And while I was always too tall, for my weight and build completely wrong for football, literally, the only athletic ambition I ever had was to be a middle linebacker like the great one himself

The rule changes in baseball this season got a lot of press.

But a rule change in basketball seems to have gotten less press.

Apparently, two field goals inside the three point line is now worth five points.

In related news, the Wooves/Linx “community” group has decared its “Inspirinig Women” winner for 2023:

“Trans woman” crushes female opponents in AAU hoop match

Do you know what some of these women’s teams need to do to be competitive? Have five trans women on the team!

I never read any of the Harry Potter books, but I had kids of an age where I wound up watching few of the movies.

So I’m familiar with the sport – or “sport” – of Quidditch. In the movies, it was a fantasy version of, for lack of a better description, polo played on witch brooms.

I wasn’t familiar enough with it to know there’s a professional league – presumably sans levitation. At least for now.

But like (it seems) all professional sports, “woke” has engulfed even this supremely artificial “sport”:

U.S. Quidditch and Major League Quidditch announced the name change on Tuesday as well as their own rebranding as U.S. Quadball and Major League Quadball. The groups announced their intention to find a new name for the sport in December, citing what they called anti-trans positions of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.

In addition to distancing themselves from the author, organizers hope the name change will give the sport more opportunities to grow and not be inhibited by the trademark for “quidditch” being owned by Warner Bros.”Bringing full creative control of the name of our sport to the vibrant community of players and fans that has grown and sustained it will allow our organizations to take the next step,” MLQ co-commissioner Amanda Dallas said in a statement. “We are now able to pursue the kinds of opportunities that our community has dreamed about for years.”

So, the “sport” wants to distance itself…

…from the woman who created it, in her own mind, from whole cloth, as part of a bunch of fantasy novels about a teenage wizard?

Because she affirms biological reality?

UPDATE: I’d say “in an unrelated matter“, but it’s really not unrelated at all.

International swimming‘s governing body ruled over the weekend that transgender athletes will have to have completed their transition by age 12 to compete in international events.

“This is not saying that people are encouraged to transition by the age of 12. It’s what the scientists are saying, that if you transition after the start of puberty, you have an advantage, which is unfair,” James Pearce, who is the spokesperson for FINA president Husain Al-Musallam, told The Associated Press.

I’m noting this, not so much because of the merits of the compromise – which strikes me as the closest they can get to banning transgender competition without explicitly saying so – As to point out the commentary of our “gatekeeper“ class on the subject.

I was listening to the BBC announcing this decision on Sunday. The anchor was interviewing a representative from the international governing body.

She asked “and does this apply to transgender men as well?“

Perhaps I’m projecting – but there was a split second of silence, just a little conversational bitch where, perhaps only in my imagination, the representative seemed to be thinking “are you kidding? How many moons do you imagine orbit a planet where transgender men are a factor in international athletic competition?“

It was probably just me. He answered very politely.

Perhaps knowing that a bunch of lawyers are about to become very, very wealthy.

1936: Jesse Owens, running in the Olympics, humiliates Adolf Hitler.

1948: Jackie Robinson humiliates bigots.

1980: US Hockey team humiliates the USSR.

2022: Nancy Pelosi humiliates the US and freedeom-loving people everywhere:

Nancy Pelosi urged U.S. Olympic athletes not to speak out against the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights abuses while in Beijing, saying the athletes shouldn’t risk “incurring the anger” of the “ruthless” CCP…“Make no mistake — our athletes should participate,” Pelosi said. “They’ve trained, they’re disciplined, they’ve dreamed, they’ve aspired, they’ve worked hard. But this year we must celebrate them from home as they compete in China.”

But Pelosi also indicated that she believes U.S. athletes should keep quiet in China to avoid the Chinese government’s wrath.

If we’re worried about a government’s “wrath” – particularly that of a regime that is historically among the most murderous in history, and one that is currently engaging in genocide – why are they over there, anyway?

A friend of the blog emails:

LOL. White urbanists who make up majority of attendees at MN United games upset that US Soccer chose Allianz Field for USMNT World Cup qualifier game because of the fan base whiteness.

Have any of them decided to just give their top row tickets to, say, immigrants or refugees?

Congratulations to Tony Oliva and Jim “Kitty” Kaat, who were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday:

The National Baseball Hall of Fame will induct at least six new members in 2022. Sunday evening the Hall of Fame’s Early Baseball Era Committee announced Negro League legends Bud Fowler and Buck O’Neil have been voted into Cooperstown. Also voted in were Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Minnie Miñoso, and Tony Oliva by the Golden Days Era Committee.

Few things are more contentious (or more pedantic) than the arguments concerning the merits of those who are on the outside of the Hall. The statistical devotees crank out the metrics in every conceivable way to argue their points, while the old timers often use the same approach to Hall worthiness as Potter Stewart used to define pornography — they can’t define it, but they know it when they see it.

Since the arguments are indeed contentious and pedantic, I’ll try to avoid them here. But I will say this: I am old enough to have seen both Oliva and Kaat play, mostly in the 1970s. Oliva was a shadow of what he once was by then, just as Willie Mays was in his final, awful season as a New York Met. Oliva’s knees were shot and he couldn’t play in the field any more, but his swing was still sweet and he would flash occasional power. I was living in Wisconsin and didn’t see the Twins much, but when they would appear on the Game of the Week you could tell Oliva was a figure meriting great respect — the Curt Gowdys and Tony Kubeks of the world described him in almost reverent tones. In some ways, Tony Oliva and Kirby Puckett had similar careers; great stars cut down by injuries. And both were lifelong Twins.

Kaat was a good, perhaps not great, pitcher for a very long time. He was a contemporary of other pitchers who had comparable careers — Don Sutton, Bert Blyleven, Tommy John, and the Perry brothers, Gaylord and Jim. Of these pitchers, Sutton and Gaylord Perry are in the Hall because they were 300-game winners, usually a surefire ticket to the Hall as long as you’re not Roger Clemens. Blyleven was next to make the Hall, primarily because the statistical devotees championed his cause. Blyleven won 287 games, John won 288, and Kaat won 283. Jim Perry trailed the rest with 215.

As it happens, Kaat, Blyleven and Jim Perry were all Twins for long stretches of their careers. All three were among the best pitchers in the American League. What separates them? I don’t know the answer. But I do know this — Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat are both worthy, whether you use metrics or the Potter Stewart test.

Did the Boston Celtics bench Enes Kanter for dunking on the Chicoms?

What a difference a year and a few tweets slamming China for slave labor make. Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter has seen his playing time severely diminished after posting a series of social media messages attacking NBA partner China for oppressing its peoples, leaving some wondering if Kanter is being punished for his advocacy of freedom.

The Celtics are denying it.

The correct answer is “of course they are””.

I mean, isn’t that what Kaepernick saga taught us? Allegation = guilt?

(Note: I apologize to those of you who had “never, ever” in the “when will Mitch write anything at all about the NBA?“ pool.)

During the Twin Cities marathon yesterday, former Viking and former Minnesota supreme court justice Allen Page…

…cheering on the runners by playing the sousaphone.

Got to say, Page is looking pretty good for a 76-year-old guy, especially for a former NFL lineman from back in the “concussion? We don’t care about no stinking concussion“ stage of the game.

It’s just that this slide is a thing of almost-artistic beauty: