Tag: sports

Who You Gonna Call?

by earlthepearl137

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re a billionaire.  No, a multi-billionaire.  What would you do?  Would you buy a private jet?  Probably.  Who would you hire to fly the plane?  Tom Hanks played Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in the movie “Sully.”  Would you hire him?  No.  He’s not a real pilot.  You would hire someone with a pilot’s license.  You could hire Tom Cruise who played Lieutenant/Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the movie “Top Gun.”  He actually does have a pilot license, but he is the exception to the rule.  Most actors are actors, not the role they are playing.

If you needed surgery, would you hire Alan Alda, who played Dr. Hawkeye Pierce in “M*A*S*H” from 1972 through 1983?  Or maybe Hugh Laurie who played Dr. Gregory House in “House” from 2004 through 2012, or Richard Chamberlain, who played Dr. Kildare in “Dr. Kildare” from 1961 through 1966, or George Clooney, who played Dr. Doug Ross in “ER” from 2000 through 2009?  No, you would find a real surgeon, one who actually went to medical school and practiced surgery.

If you had legal problems, would you want Raymond Burr defending you.  He played Perry Mason in “Perry Mason” from 1957 through 1966 and never lost a case, at least not until “The Case of the Terrified Typist.”  James Spader was terrific as Attorney Alan Shore in “Boston Legal” from 2004 through 2008, but in real life, he never passed the bar.  If you needed a lawyer, you would hire an experienced lawyer.

Jane Withers played Josephine the Plumber in Comet ads from the 1960s through the early 1970s, but if your gold toilet was overflowing, you would call a real plumber.  If you needed other home improvements you probably wouldn’t call Tim Allen, even though he played Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor on “Home Improvements” from 1991-1999.

If you bought a major league baseball team it is unlikely that your starting pitcher would be Charlie Sheen, even though he played Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn in “Major League.”  Kevin Costner played “Crash” Davis in “Bull Durham,” and he pitched a perfect game in “For Love of the Game,” but he probably wouldn’t make your team either.  It’s also unrealistic to think that you would have Robert Redford in the lineup, even though he played Roy Hobbs in “The Natural.”  It’s also quite unlikely that you would have Tom Hanks manage the team, even though he did a swell job as Jimmy Dugan in “A League of Their Own.”  If you did hire these guys instead of professional athletes, you might learn the hard way that “there’s no crying in baseball.”

If you chose to buy a football team, Cuba Gooding Jr. would probably not make the team, no matter how much money you showed him, even though he played well as Rod Tidwell in “Jerry Maguire.”  Adam Sandler and Burt Reynolds both played star quarterbacks in two different versions of “The Longest Yard,” but neither of them would start on your team, unless you didn’t care about winning.

If you wanted to sign a prize fighter, I’m sure you would want somebody with more real ring experience than Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Will Smith or Hilary Swank, even though they put in many hours as Rocky Balboa, Jake LaMotta, Muhammad Ali and Maggie Fitzgerald in the movies.

The list of famous people you wouldn’t hire could go on and on.  In just about every case you would hire a professional, instead.  Maybe, you might make an exception and hire Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson as bartenders, but otherwise, you would stick to people who do the job in real life, not actors.  If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, you’re not going to call Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd unless you need a laugh.

My favorite TV President is Martin Sheen who appeared as President Josiah Bartlet in “The West Wing” from 1999 through 2006, and my favorite movie President is Michael Douglas who played President Andrew Shepherd in “The American President.”  Kevin Klein was also a great substitute President in Dave, but I wouldn’t vote for any one of these three to be the actual President.  They don’t have the real-world experience.

So, I wonder why 75 million Americans elected to the Presidency a failed businessman and con artist who bankrupted 3 casinos and was convicted of 34 felony counts of fraud, simply because he played a successful businessman in “The Apprentice” from 2004 through 2017.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl

Demons and Angels

by earlthepearl137

Aaron Judge said that the 2024 World Series will haunt him for the rest of his life. Losing a baseball game, especially an important game like the World Series, should affect you, but not haunt you for the rest of your life.  Killing somebody is something that should haunt you for the rest of your life, not an error on a pop fly.   I understand how Aaron Judge feels though.  He’s an MVP player and he took his eye off the ball for a split second to look at the baserunner. It led to a disastrous 5th inning in a World Series game that the Yankees desperately needed to win to stay alive in the series.

So, what should he do?  Wear a hair shirt for the rest of his life?  No.  He made an error.  Nobody died.  Sure, millions of people were disappointed, but shit happens.  Just minutes before that play, he made a sensational catch crashing into the centerfield wall. He, certainly, didn’t miss the next shallow pop fly on purpose.  It was an error. He was trying to make the play and keep an eye on the baserunner, too.  Looking back on it, he should have kept his eye on the ball, but you don’t play baseball looking backwards.  You play it in real-time, and, in real-time, shit happens. It’s the law, Murphy’s Law, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.

Aaron Judge makes $40 million a year.  He signed a $360 million contract for 9 years.   He could probably eke by for 9 years on just $320 million, and not have to really give up anything.  So, I’ve figured out how he can turn something really bad into something really good.  He can donate his entire $40 million 2024 salary to New York charities, or he could start his own charity.  That much money, would feed a lot of the hungry, clothe a lot of the naked, house a lot of the homeless, and heal a lot of the sick.  He can turn a World Series game gone bad into something that make the world much better for a lot of people.  Maybe, management and others on the team might want to chip in something, and be part of helping to turn a lost World Series Ring into a ringing victory for New York City.  The shortstop who made the bad throw to third, and the pitcher who didn’t cover first base, both played their asses off for every other moment of the game.  They each made just one mistake, but those mistakes will probably haunt them, too, for the rest of their lives, like Ralph Branca’s homerun pitch to Bobby Thompson, or the ground ball that went through Bill Buckner’s tired old legs at first base. Their small errors will take on mythical proportions, unless they can exorcise the demons quickly. They can do that by turning those demons into angels, angels of mercy.  I’ll bet that the Yankee players and management could easily raise $100 million and, if their charity had a catchy name, the multitude of Yankee fans might easily match that amount. Right now, I’m leaning towards naming the charity something like, the Call to the Field, or the ’24 Challenge, or The World Serious Fund.

The damned Yankees of 2024 can rise up like a Phoenix from the ashes of the World Series.  Instead of letting something haunt them for the rest of their lives, they, and their fans, can use the moment to do things that will make them positively proud of themselves for the rest of their lives, something worthy of a ticker-tape parade. It could positively benefit the lives of many thousands of New Yorkers, probably enough people to fill a baseball stadium.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl