Happy Birthday, Drew Pearson

To any football fan who grew up watching the nineteen-seventies Dallas Cowboys, Drew Pearson was the best wide receiver of all-time. No one made more clutch catches than he. When the game was on the line, it was Drew Pearson time.

Hell, Roger Staubach even credited Pearson with putting him in the Hall of Fame. That's how good he was.

In the wild and free football games of my youth, I unfailingly assumed the identity of Drew Pearson. Owing to the fact I was six-foot three (most of which was in my legs), I could run. It helped sustain the illusion that I was a reasonable facsimile of Mr. Pearson.

I would race into the end zone convinced I was in the silver, blue and white of the Cowboys. Was this what it felt like to be him?

Of course, while Drew enjoyed the adoration of tens of thousands (along with a national TV audience), I had only the hoots and hollers of four or five teammates. But in the true spirit of the game, it never ever detracted from the experience.

(Everyone should know what it's like to catch a perfectly-thrown football on the dead run. It is a perfect and beautiful symmetry.) 

Drew Pearson played in an age when the pass was used to offset the run, not sustain an offense. Otherwise, he would have amassed Randy Moss-like numbers. As it was, his achievements were among the best of his generation.

Let the record show he was selected to the all-time NFL squad of the 1970s, along with Paul Warfield, Harold Carmichael and Lynn Swann. This is no mystery.

What is a mystery is that he remains outside the Hall of Fame. This perhaps is the expected byproduct of voters from New York City, Washington DC and Philadelphia with long memories.

At any rate, happy birthday, Drew. And thank you for providing so many indelible memories to keep me warm in the winter of my life. I had a ball watching you play.

I hope you had a ball playing.

Athletic Celibacy, Pt. 2

This is another post with lists. Lists of the ten all-time longest droughts. Droughts between championships and droughts between appearances in the World Series, the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup. The observant enthusiast will draw several conclusions.

Number-one, the Chicago Cubs were champions long before 2016. Their 107 seasons between championships is unlikely ever to be surpassed. It is untouched in the annals of professional sports.

But their second record is looking like low-hanging fruit.

The Cubs' 70 seasons between visits to the World Series is threatened by the NBA's Sacramento Kings, who haven't paid a visit to the NBA Finals since 1951, when they played 2,290 miles to the east and sported the words 'Rochester Royals' on their jerseys.

Moving on, as a Chicago-based baseball fan I'm trying to calculate the odds of my hometown's two baseball teams owning the two worst cases of World Series avoidance in MLB history. I mean, how do things like that happen?

And what does it say when the parity-obsessed NFL has more teams on the appearances list than any other sport? I guess inept management can happen anywhere—even in luxury suites. Maybe Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy flows upstream?

Finally, if you ever wondered how dominant the Toronto Maple Leafs once were, know that despite not appearing in the Stanley Cup since the Summer of Love was in its planning stages, the Leafs still rank third in Stanley Cup appearances and second in Cups won.

As promised, here are the lists. Two of them, to be exact.

The first contains the ten all-time longest droughts without a franchise appearing in their sport's championship series or game. The second enumerates the ten all-time longest stretches without a championship.

Figures are current through each sport's most-recently completed season.

Chicago Cubs MLB 70 1946-2015

Sacramento Kings NBA 65* 1952-present

Arizona Cardinals NFL 59 1949-2007

Detroit Lions NFL 58* 1958-present

Atlanta Hawks NBA 55* 1962-present

Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 49* 1968-present

New York Jets NFL 47* 1969-present

Kansas City Chiefs NFL 46* 1970-present

St. Louis Blues NHL 46* 1971-present

Chicago White Sox MLB 45 1960-2004

Milwaukee Bucks NBA 42* 1975-present

Honorable mentions:

Oakland Athletics MLB 40 1932-1971

Cleveland Indians MLB 40 1955-1994

Golden State Warriors NBA 39 1976-2014

Minnesota Vikings NFL 39* 1977-present

Here is where the Cubs appear eternal. As hapless as franchises like the Cleveland Indians, Arizona Cardinals and Sacramento Kings may appear, they would have to remain title-free for roughly another forty years—over a generation—to have a shot at the Cubs' record.

That puts it into perspective for me.

Chicago Cubs MLB 107 1909-2015

Chicago White Sox MLB 87 1918-2004

Boston Red Sox MLB 85 1919-2003

Cleveland Indians MLB 68* 1949-present

Arizona Cardinals NFL 68* 1948-present

Sacramento Kings NBA 65* 1952-present

Minnesota Twins MLB 62 1925-1986

Detroit Lions NFL 58* 1958-present

Atlanta Hawks NBA 58* 1959-present

San Francisco Giants MLB 55 1955-2009

Philadelphia Eagles NFL 55* 1961-present

Tennessee Titans NFL 54* 1962-present

New York Rangers NHL 53 1941-1993

Honorable mentions:

San Diego Chargers NFL 52* 1964-present

Buffalo Bills NFL 50* 1966-present

Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 49* 1968-present

* = active

Athletic Celibacy, Pt. 1

Sometimes, I am a statistics geek. You see, while frozen within the permafrost of our national health insurance bureaucracy (again), recovering from the death of a parent and in the midst of a significant surgical procedure, I resort to the comfort of statistics and the clarity and definition they provide. 

You, the dear reader of The Square Peg, are the happy beneficiary.

Now that the Chicago Cubs have relinquished their stranglehold on two of professional sport's most-undesirable records, who is most-likely to break them?

In the first list, we see the ten franchises most overdue to appear in their sport's championship series or game, be it the World Series, the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals or the Stanley Cup.

The first figure is the number of seasons since a franchise's last appearance in their respective sport's championship series or game. The number in parenthesis is the year of their last appearance.

Figures are current through each sport's most-recently completed season.

Sacramento Kings NBA 65 (1951)

Detroit Lions NFL 58 (1957)

Atlanta Hawks NBA 55 (1961)

Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 49 (1967)

New York Jets NFL 47 (1968)

Kansas City Chiefs NFL 46 (1969)

St. Louis Blues NHL 46 (1970)

Milwaukee Bucks NBA 42 (1974)

Minnesota Vikings NFL 39 (1976)

Washington Wizards NBA 37 (1979)

Pittsburgh Pirates MLB 37 (1979)

Milwaukee Brewers MLB 34 (1982)

Honorable mentions:

Baltimore Orioles MLB 33 (1983)

New York Islanders NHL 32 (1984)

Miami Dolphins NFL 31 (1984)

And here are the ten teams most overdue to win a championship.

The first figure is the number of seasons since their last title, while the number in parenthesis is the year in which they won it.

Again, figures are current through each sport's most-recently completed season.

Cleveland Indians MLB 68 (1948)

Arizona Cardinals NFL 68 (1947)

Sacramento Kings NBA 65 (1951)

Detroit Lions NFL 58 (1957)

Atlanta Hawks NBA 58 (1958)

Philadelphia Eagles NFL 55 (1960)

Tennessee Titans NFL 54 (1961)

San Diego Chargers NFL 52 (1963)

Buffalo Bills NFL 50 (1965)

Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 49 (1967)

New York Jets NFL 47 (1968)

Kansas City Chiefs NFL 46 (1969)

Honorable mentions:

Milwaukee Bucks NBA 45 (1971)

New York Knicks NBA 43 (1973)

Miami Dolphins NFL 42 (1973)

Simple Post

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Paying the Bryce

Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper has let it slip he's seeking a ten-year contract for 400 million-dollars.

In a coincidence that is beyond remarkable, so am I. Of course, rain that gets hurt while falling is more likely than yours truly ever seeing such a thing.

Bryce, on the other hand, is another story.

The precious millennial, known for wearing a hat with 'Let's make baseball fun again' embroidered across the front and for telling a grizzled sportswriter “That's a clown question, dude”, is a good-but-not-great player.Yet in our culture of microwave celebrity, he is considered a brilliant one.

He did stitch together a nice 2015, for which he was immediately awarded the National League's Most Valuable Player trophy. But aside from that single season, his play has yet to spark even a single rumor that Babe Ruth has returned from the dead and is inhabiting a Washington Nationals uniform.

Maybe Bryce is just having one on us. Using Harper-speak to get us to lighten up. And if so, good for him. Few things in life are reported with the grim severity as the unmet needs of a professional athlete with an expiring contract.

On the other hand, maybe Harper is outrageously-coddled. Maybe he is someone who's never held down an after-school job, much less a Monday through Friday one. Maybe he's been given a pass from the demands and expectations of the maturation curve because he could hit a baseball. 

Add to this equation that his agent is Scott Boras, one held in contempt by more than a few baseball GMs for his fuck-your-team-I-play-for-my-client mentality, and things take a decidedly darker turn.

Forty-million dollars per for a guy who's never driven in a-hundred runs, never lined two-hundred hits, never won a batting title, finished one season with a slugging percentage over five-hundred and can claim but a single post-season performance that wasn't a disappointment?

The guy who finished in the top ten in his league's WAR exactly once (there's that word again) should be the highest-paid player in baseball? Based on what? All of this factors into the Nationals' failure to advance beyond the opening round of the playoffs even once in three tries.

At his peak in 1930, Babe Ruth earned 80,000 dollars a year. Adjusted for inflation, that equals 1.1 million bucks a year in 2016 dollars. Any idea—any idea at all—why someone named Bryce Harper is worth forty times that?

Me, neither.

Random Thoughts, Vol. 8

Do the vocal cords of people gifted with great voices look different from those of us with not-so-great voices?

How is it that no one questions the yawning chasm within the political platform that claims to espouse the sanctity of life, yet which refuses to ban assault weapons?

Never buy anything you aren't one day prepared to give or throw away.

Isn't it interesting that the coarser our culture gets, the gentler our language becomes?

How is it that globalization lowers American working-class wages but not executive ones?

Never accuse an American of having enjoyed a comfortable childhood.

So let me get this straight: a side-effect of Tamiflu is moderate to severe nausea and vomiting? Seriously?

Nothing like the guilt you feel when you realize you passed a freezer full of battered seafood at the supermarket and didn't even think of calling 911.

After witnessing the enormous sums spent on this year's elections, I now believe—with unshakeable certainty—that we have the best government money can buy.

Who introduced the bill that requires a Tae Kwon Do studio inhabit every strip mall in America?

Getting My Fix

Let's be clear from the outset: this is not a post about narcotics. Or pizza. (Pizza actually is a narcotic, but that will be our little secret. OK? No need to bring the DEA into this.) 

This is a post about the fast-disappearing notion of having things fixed.

More specifically, this is a post about attempting to have things fixed. Things like cars. Garage doors. And telephones. The theoretically simple act of getting things done before your to-do list stretches to the moon and back.

Let me start with my car. Like me, it's an older model with considerable mileage.

I can't afford a new car, and the used ones which fit my slender budget are older models with lots of miles—and like I said, I already have one of those. So I keep it and fix it. It's a slow-motion restoration that neither my insurance company or the concours at Pebble Beach will ever recognize.

But over the past year, the fix part has become remarkably difficult. Routine things like repairing a parasitic amp draw, replacing a serpentine belt, a timing belt and redoing the brakes seemingly present local repair shops with the mechanical equivalent of solving the unrest in Syria. 

Or developing a plan for affordable health care.

It's like owing a Ferrari in Afghanistan. I imagine the mechanics whispering and pointing as they gather 'round to eyeball the wonder that is my made in Japan exotic (which is incidentally one of the best-selling cars in the United States and has been for decades).

Last winter, a parasitic amp draw cost me a job interview, two unscheduled days off and the howling derision of my employer. The shop I brought it to failed to diagnose the problem not once, but twice. I suppose you could say what they lacked in ability they made up for in consistency.

As a bonus, I not only received two repair bills (which doubtlessly covered the two “free” tows) and  a door panel the mechanic had confused with a boot wipe, but an unrepaired car which continued to threaten not to start at the most inopportune times.

Thankfully, the remainder of the winter was as mild as Minnesota salsa.

Like thousands of Americans, I celebrate the arrival of spring by replacing my serpentine belt. After settling the bill and bringing the car home, I noticed a strange clicking sound. I called the shop and was advised it would disappear as the belt “loosened up”.

A day later, they were proven correct.

The clicking noise disappeared as the belt loosened up sufficiently to remove itself from the network of wheels and pulleys on which it was deigned to travel. The shop paid for the subsequent tow and belt replacement, so it wasn't the exercise in abject hopelessness the twin visits to the previous garage had been.

A month later, I became aware that whenever I had to brake my car was bathed in the grinding, metallic music that is worn brake pads. Armed with a coupon, I brought my car to a third facility for still-more maintenance. All four brakes required attention, but many hundreds of dollars later the car at least stopped quietly and with certainty.

I especially liked the quiet part.

After several unsatisfying, late-summer flirtations with several used cars in the area, I decided to renew my vows with my long-term vehicular spouse. As a renew-your-wedding-vows gift, I decided to have my beloved's timing belt replaced.

As it happened, the shop that had erred with the serpentine belt was offering a special, and since a passenger-side power window regulator, struts and the second serpentine belt had been installed to perfection, I decided to forgive and forget.

Which is the biggest reason I'm currently stockpiling Aricept.

After paying yet-another robust bill and bringing my four-wheeled wife home, I was crestfallen when the now-familiar sounds of mechanical angst hit my ears. Too fearful of incurring a murder one charge to return to the shop, I instead visited the local dealership.

They confirmed my suspicions that the belt was too tight, and for one-hundred-twenty dollars and change corrected the error. (And if you're wondering—no, I'm not buying the guilty garage a box of belt-tension gauges for Christmas.)

I admit to not calling the Illinois Attorney General's office or scouring the walls of these facilities for ASE certification prior to my visits. But all are established shops with good reputations.

In all fairness, I can imagine what it's like working on older cars. The maddening array of connectors and fasteners, brittle plastic and rusted-on bolts alone would be enough to make me certifiable. Not to mention the ocean of proprietary designs and procedures each manufacturer unwittingly builds into their cars. 

I'm sure it is tougher than a two-dollar steak. 

But since these businesses advertise and market themselves as repair shops, is it not entirely reasonable of me to expect a repair in exchange for my hard-earned buckage?

Of course it is.

Alas, in a town like mine there a finite number of garages. And screaming at the mechanic reminds me of the guy who complained to the chef about his last meal. Unless you're in the kitchen supervising the preparation, there are just too many avenues for retaliation.

It's best to just blog about it. That and save for a new car as you beseech an uncaring god that the intermittent noise from the driver's side front wheel exists only in your imagination.