Sometimes, Life Does Imitate Art

In the 1991 movie Soapdish, Sally Field plays a neurotic soap opera actress obsessed with her popularity. Accompanied by the show's head writer, Whoopi Goldberg, she ventures out to shopping malls whenever her insecurities threaten to overwhelm her. There, Goldberg contrives situations where Field is accidentally recognized on-purpose by her fans.

Surrounded by the adoring throng, Field takes great comfort in posing for pictures and signing autographs. Relived that her shelf life as an actress hasn't expired yet, her anxiety dissipates as she realizes the addictive heat of the spotlight is still hers to enjoy.

In 2017, it's hard to watch our so-called president on his victory lap through the south and not recall this movie. In an arena full of the room-temperature IQs who elected him, Trump presides over reenactments of last summer's campaign stops, with the faithful dutifully chanting “Lock her up!” as if it were still relevant.

It has to be a godsend for the man heading an administration so wracked by controversy and conflict.

But if our so-called president is swigging from the nostalgia glass barely one month into his term, what does that say for the future? If The Donald is seeking the reassuring warmth of past triumphs just thirty days after his inauguration, does this mark him as a president unable to cope?

Men like Donald are used to giving orders. Wielding unfettered power. Checks and balances rarely exist in the corporate world. Especially in privately-held corporate monoliths like Donald Trump's.

Donald isn't used to democracy. Donald isn't used to being challenged. Donald isn't used to being overruled.

Donald is used to “Yes, Mr. Trump. Right away, Mr. Trump.”

As the oldest person ever to hold the office, his presidency becomes an exercise in seeing if old dogs can truly learn new tricks. Given his thin-skinned nature and stubborn, resistant and combative ADHD personality, I don't like the odds.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. As it is said, give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself.

We can only hope.

The Learning Curve

Yes, it's taken me this long to process the events of November 8^th. Despite my bolted-to-the-floor cynicism and unshakable belief that you absolutely cannot underestimate the collective intelligence of Americans, the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States has given me a really bad case of what-the-fuck.

Donald Trump? He's the so-called President? How did that happen?

As is so often the case with Donald Trump, he was lucky. First off, the Democratic National Committee seemingly decided sometime after Barack Obama's election that come hell or high water, Hillary Clinton would be their next nominee. After backing the first African-American for president, the DNC would not be denied when it came to nominating the first woman as well.

(If you're a sports fan, you'll recognize this as a text book example of an athlete's selfish pursuit of a record at the expense of their team.)

Whatever your opinion of Clinton, you'll have to agree she wasn't the best candidate for the 2016 presidential race. She reeked of of experience and was a confirmed Washington DC insider. To large portions of an angry populace just emerging from the Great Recession and sick of politics as usual, this was a decided disadvantage. These folk didn't want polish. They wanted punk.

Adding to Trump's good fortune, Bernie Sanders, a left-field candidate himself who would have blunted Trump's severest criticisms of Clinton, was waylaid in large part by his call for free college tuition, which made potential supporters blanch (as if Trump's we're-gonna-build-a-wall-amd-make-Mexico-pay-for-it gambit was a clear-eyed and entirely reasonable immigration platform).

It was all falling into place. Critical blocks of Republican voters turned out en masse and got the billionaire elected despite a record-setting vote deficit of 2,868,519.

Like I said, lucky.

But more than anything, what got Trump elected was his supporter's collective ignorance of history. Writer/philosopher George Santayana is credited with the expression 'Those who remain ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it', and thanks to those who put Trump in the White House, so we shall.

The learning curve will be a painful one.

We will learn anew why restrictions were placed on the snarling jackals who inhabit Wall Street. We will learn why the Environmental Protection Agency was created. We will learn why consumer protection agencies were created. We will learn why the gentle art of foreign relations evolved the way they did, and the importance of playing well with others. 

We will learn why America remained the number-one destination of the oppressed and the abused the world over for so long. We will learn that as in nature, diversity makes us stronger, not weaker.

We will learn that a free press is a critical element of a functioning democracy, however sensationalist and invasive the worst of it may occasionally be. We will learn of the prescience that led to the creation of public lands protected from businessmen. We will learn why unions were created. We will learn why ego and arrogance were regarded as negative personality traits for the balance of human history. We will learn why we prized the clarity and absoluteness of truth.

We will learn the importance of objectivity. And of trust. We will learn to appreciate the beauty of our three-tiered system of government and its system of checks and balances. And we will learn the depth and breadth of our ignorance in electing a man whose penultimate moment before ascending to the White House was sneering at contestants on a pre-fabricated “reality” show before fiendishly informing them “You're fired!”

George Bernard Shaw said one of the two greatest human tragedies is to get what you want. 45.9% of the voting population will learn this, too.

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.