Pickabar Blog

Mayweather was completely dominating the fight. He knew it and Ortiz knew it. It was pretty easy to see that Ortiz was starting to get really frustrated that he was throwing six and seven punch combinations and expending lots of energy to maybe landing one glancing blow. Floyd was also landing those overhand rights pretty much at will and without much effort. If Ortiz wasn’t 15 or so pounds bigger than Floyd, he probably would have been wobbly by the fourth.

With that context, I think it’s pretty clear that Ortiz was getting frustrated and that’s why he threw not one but three head butts. I didn’t notice the first two, earlier in the fourth, my first time watching the fight. The first two didn’t land, but the referee gave warnings to watch the heads. The last one was super blatant and split Floyd’s lip in two places. I think it’s pretty clear that Ortiz was starting to realize the beating he was in for and got desperate.

After the point was deducted, Ortiz apologized profusely. Good for him! Then he kissed Floyd. Uh, ok. Then he wanted to hug and apologize a third time. Is he such a huge Floyd fan? Was he just so contrite that he wanted to apologize three or four times, plus a hug, plus a kiss? I think it’s more likely that he wasn’t really in the mood to keep getting his ass kicked.

At that point, the ref says “let’s go” and looks at the time keeper to make sure time is in. Instead of waiting until everyone was set to go, Floyd throws his hands and catches Ortiz. Even at that point, instead of defending himself, Ortiz looks to the ref and catches the second punch, rocking him gently to sleep.

Now, you can say that what Floyd did wasn’t the best sportsmanship or very classy. You can also say it denied us as fans the chance to watch him beat Ortiz up for a few more rounds. You can’t say it was illegal. The referee definitely didn’t. The rule is, protect yourself at all times. It’s that simple. It’s not like Floyd whacked him immediately after the ref tried to break them up. Ortiz had already apologized two times and was going in for yet another hug. Come on now, it’s the fight game. The hurt game. Ortiz was tired of getting hurt.

I’m sure Floyd’s lip, split in two places, was barking at him. I’m sure he was pissed off and decided to make Ortiz pay for his sudden desire to see world peace spread only seconds after ramming Floyd’s mouth with his forehead. I can understand why Floyd would be pissed. Why are you trying to keep hugging me and kissing me right after you just split my lip open?

When you see someone blatantly trying to butt, then trying to apologize for as long as he possibly can just to keep more right hands from bashing his face in, then not even trying to fight after getting hit with what he thinks is an unfair punch AND THEN NOT EVEN ANGRY AFTER THE FIGHT IS CALLED OFF, you get the impression that that dude was mentally checked out of the fight.

You know what, I’m starting to sound like a Floyd apologist. All that said, Floyd totally screwed the fans watching the fight. I would have really enjoyed watching him take Ortiz apart for a few more rounds. I’m sure that both Floyd and Boxing as a sport will lose fans and suffer after yet another unsatisfying end to a super fight. Honestly, I’m a lot less of a Mayweather fan today than I was on Friday. I still say that what he did was totally legal AND that Ortiz had mentally checked out of the fight.

No matter how classless Ortiz’ or Floyd’s actions might have been, I thought Larry Merchant was more classless. Floyd did not break the rules, so I can’t see treating him with such disrespect if you are supposed to (at least officially) be a journalist. Floyd was obviously upset with how he was being treated, but he didn’t threaten Larry. He expressed his opinion that Merchant wasn’t being fair to him and suggested that he interview Victor Ortiz, because he was done talking and wouldn’t do any future interviews with him. What about that required a journalist to threaten to fight him? Let’s look at it fairly. Larry Merchant is speaking from a protected place, because he can be as aggressive to Floyd as he wants and Floyd really can’t respond in kind due to his interviewers advanced age. Let’s also be honest, even if Larry was 50 years younger, he couldn’t land a punch of Floyd and I doubt he’d try, former fighter or not.

…but, that’s just my opinion. What do I know?

Here are two pieces of wonderful writing that I’ve encountered recently and would like to share with you. One is a five year old story that shows what sports journalism really could be if it could slip off it’s celebrity gossip shackles. The other is a just published opinion piece on Obama that summarizes my thoughts so eloquently that I have just read it three times in one sitting.

Gary Smith writes about the death of Max Kellerman’s brother Sam at the hands of a boxer they had both supported personally and professionally:

 

 

Max entered Price’s office in Hollywood to sign his two-year, $1.66 million deal with Fox. Sam came along to ink his first contract: a $4,600 deal to write 23 columns for foxsports.com, which Max had helped arrange. Price watched in astonishment: Everything was upside down. As Max hastily scribbled his signature in silence, Sam shouted, "Everybody stand back! I’m about to sign my contract! Wait a minute! Photograph!" Sam struck a bonus-baby signing pose, then swaggered out of the office. Max hurried to catch up to him and kiss him on the forehead, his eyes misting with so much pride in his brother’s achievement that Price, for the only time in his life, felt cheated to have been an only child.

 

The story is an emotionally wrenching narrative about what it means to be a family, the gifts and burdens that come with each person’s particular familial experience and what it means to see talent and possibility unfulfilled. I highly recommend it.

Drew Westen’s Op-Ed in Saturday’s New York Times addresses the transformation of Obama the candidate into Obama the president. In the tradition of the best opinion pieces, Westen states his case with a straightforward ease and obvious sincerity that serves to slip each sentence into the reader’s consciousness as if it were in fact an original thought from the reader himself. In short, he says what I have been thinking in much better terms than I have been thinking them and that has strengthened, enhanced and sharpened my views on the recent debt crisis and Obama’s entire presidency. The closing paragraph is especially moving:

 

 

But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.

 

I’ve always felt that instead of “Thinking Man”, humans should really be called “Storytelling Man”. Any suggestion that other animal’s do not think is laughable. The thing that separate us from our other animal brethren is that our sense of self allows us to perceive the events of our lives as part of a narrative. Our brain edits that roaring and chaotic stream of information that makes up reality into a more easily digestible movie with us as the leading man or woman.

We tell stories to ourselves and others as a way to share information rapidly and durably. It helps us to make sense of our world and to share that understanding with others even long after our deaths. Our stories outlive us and they carry us towards the future. The also help us to make snap decisions in the here and now, especially when our choices aren’t necessarily palatable or without cost.

Unfortunately, that reliance on narrative to shape and process our world can also lead us to making irrational choices. Sometimes, the narrative stops being a tool and instead becomes the actual goal in itself. Sometimes, the narrative is twisted and distorted so severely by our baser emotions that it begins to lead us towards the edge of the cliff instead of away from it.

True leaders understand that in a deeply intuitive way. I wish we had one of those leaders in our country.

Anyway, I feel inspired. I think I’ll start writing on Monday.

Jim Breuer hits the ball with the good part of the bat in this quote from WMMR:

It’s like being in love with an alcoholic. It’s like you constantly defend her:

“Dude, your alcoholic friend is a mess.”

“Nah, you just don’t know her like I do.”

How soon until opening day 2010?

I need this:

That’s right, a bespoke Keith Hernandez in 1986 lego man. Geektastic!

I live in Brooklyn and I play in a band. That’s not really unique. It’s not even unique in my building. In Brooklyn, 43% of the population has a band or makes beats or sings piano jazz or plays mariachi music on the train. Ok, I made that number up, but the point stands. There are a whole lot of bands in Brooklyn.

Let’s imagine that we are able to get every musician in Brooklyn to meet in a single large room. Then, let’s ask all of the not-so serious, I just play for a laugh folks to step outside. At this point you will have a room full of thousands of people who spend their lives practicing, buying gear, booking gigs, making flyers and doing everything else they can think of to get their music heard. Most of these people do so with the full knowledge that more than likely their music “career” will never earn them a dime of profit and will never see them performing in front of anything but small groups of other folks with an unhealthy interest in music. These people will have had to deal with petty tyrant promoters, miserly bar owners, sleazy hustlers with get rich quick schemes and lots of self declared experts who have never created anything bursting with eagerness to bad mouth the work that they have struggled and strained to produce. All of this just for the dream of possibly having their music heard and appreciated.

Now, let’s imagine that we have access to a new wonder drug that will allow singers to increase the resonance of their voice, guitarists to increase the strength and speed of their fingers and drummers to increase their stamina. Since this is hypothetical, we’ll also imagine that it allows lyricists to come up with better couplets and producers to come up with better hooks. The drug has some potentially dangerous side effects, but is prescribed by doctors to genuinely sick people all the time. Let’s divide our hypothetical room in two with a thick white line. Everyone who is interested in taking this new wonder drug will stand on the left side of the room and everyone who wants to abstain will stay on the right side. Does anyone really think it would be a challenge to get a seat on the right side of the room? There will be some purists, but they’ll be plenty of people clamoring for the drug regardless of the cost or side effects.

Now replace musicians in that example with artists or dancers or actors or stock brokers. Win at any cost has been the mantra of our society for years. Maybe it always was. We love the image of the renegade lawman who is willing to take matters into their own hands. We want our interns to work marathon shifts at hospitals, our college students to study all night and our computer programmers chained to their desks sucking down Mountain Dew. We know that sometimes these efforts require pharmaceutical assistance and we either willingly turn a blind eye or secretly admire the willingness to do what it takes to get things done.

This morning, I read (via Peter Gammon’s column on ESPN.com) a post on the Only Baseball Matters blog about the history of performance enhancing drugs in sports and it really got me thinking. Go ahead, read that now.

Back?

As I alluded to regarding the furor over Michael Phelps being pictured with a bong, I feel that our culture is like a wrestler. We love to pick people up just so that we can get maximum leverage when we smash them back down to earth again. Let’s take a look at the life of the athlete in our society.

We choose from the most apparently gifted at a young age, drive them to exchange childlike play for regimented practice, ask them to shoehorn all of their time and energy into the relentless pursuit of excellence in ever narrower fields of achievement and then we carry them on our shoulders in celebration of their absolute commitment to winning. We pay for special trainers, special equipment, video lessons, cutting edge athletic gear and anything else that we can find to give them any edge, no matter how slight.

We laud only those who have proven that for them life is solely about victory regardless of what sacrifices are required. We make exceptions and excuses for them whenever anything non-athletic becomes too much of an impediment in the way of their progress. We excuse away their failings away from the field as long as they keep putting up the correct numbers while they are on it. We hold those who achieve apart and remind them at every opportunity that they are something special and the thing that makes them special is being just a little bit better than everyone else at one single activity.

We shower the tiniest sliver of those at the very pinnacle of the heap with riches that would make most CEOs jealous and then lambast anyone who appears to be less focused on wins and losses than we are as fans in the stands. We turn young men with a physical gift and a compatible mindset into walking engines of business responsible for supporting extended families or even whole villages and then we demand that they perform consistently at the highest levels of human potential all the while appearing as if they are having the time of their lives playing children’s games. If the day comes when they are unable to meet the ever increasing expectations we place on them, we throw them on the dust heap of history and rush to embrace the new blood pressing forward to take their places.

We ask them to sacrifice their childhoods, time with their families and just plain relaxation. We offer them a dream of success and fame with full knowledge that only the smallest percentage of them who have the correct mix of genetic gifts, mental make-up and old fashioned luck will ever succeed. We push them towards that chimera even though we know the dangers. We drive them to rush back to the field of play after injuries and we celebrate those who are willing to play through pain even if that takes a shot from the team trainer or some new surgery. We do this knowing full well that these things will lead to shorter life  spans for many of them, even the ones who will never touch the brass ring.

In short, we throw young people who are physically and mentally strong into a dark closet, arm them with knives and promise them that the few who survive will be showered with huge sums of money and universal adulation.

…and then we’re surprised that maybe just maybe those athletes might take performance enhancing drugs?

I hear what you’re saying, what about the kids? The kids are going to be influenced by these role models and their choices regarding drugs! Maybe that’s true. However, aren’t those same kids going to be influenced by the drugs ads that they are constantly confronted with on TV and in magazines? How about all of the alcohol ads that are shown every five minutes during almost any sporting event? What about the anxiety pills they see mom taking after a stressful day, or the double shot vanilla soy latte they see Dad slugging down every morning?

I don’t have an easy answer for any this. I’d like to live in a world where all competitors are playing on a clean slate and pure talent and skill decides the victors. I agree with the one year ban placed on Antonio Margarito after he was caught with doctored wraps on his hands. At the same time, I think it’s time that some folks came off their high horses and took a look at their own lives.

This quote from another post at Only Baseball Matters really stands out for me:

I have some context, that perhaps a writer like Lupica doesn’t. I’ve worked in construction for most of the last 25 years, and I know what it’s like to work through pain…I’ve worked
with my body since I was 14 years old. In that time, I’ve taken every pill, literally, everything I could get my hands on, to make sure I could go to work every day. Until you do, maybe you can’t understand. But I know that my readers who come from a similar background understand.

What about you? Would you consider taking a drug if you new it would get you a promotion at your job and maybe get your kids into a better school?

Has their been cheating in baseball? Probably for as long as people have played versions of the game. It’s not the only sport and more than likely not the worst.  Sports are not the only field of endeavor where we as a society have embraced drugs as a tool. It’s time to end the hypocrisy and discuss this with a little less self-righteous absolutism.