The order of the world is established through a system of laws. Without the controlling influence of laws, it is easy to speculate that humanity would rapidly disintegrate into a chaotic mess. Laws can originate from many sources. The first ones were divine, they've been embedded in our psyches for generations. ("Love your God. Love your neighbor.") Some come through a legislative or deliberative process and their wisdom is borne out over decades. ("Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.") Some laws might be needed for a time, but circumstances eventually relegate it to obsolescence. According to dumblaws.com, in the State of Kentucky one may not dye a duckling blue and offer it for sale unless more than six are for sale at once.
Dolberry has always liked that category of "laws" that naturally spring from human observation and persist because of their truth. The most famous of these types of laws is the rather pessimistic Murphy's Law. Another famous one is Moore's Law. I've spent the last month ruminating over another law that I think could radically reshape the way sports fans watch and communicate about their passion. In typical Dolberry modesty, I propose it be called Dolberry's Law.
Dolberry's Law reads as follows: "As a sports fan, you may only claim credit for championships that were won during your lifetime and during a period in which you actively rooted for that team."
As we move into the Final Four and Opening Day of baseball season, it is perhaps fitting that we now gently admonish the two groups that I think will be most affected by Dolberry's Law, i.e., New York Yankees fans and U of K basketball fans.
When we were in Sarasota watching the Reds spank the Yankees, I overheard the following snippet from a conversation between a group of grumpy (& prolifically profane) 20-something Yankees fans ... "talk to me when you've won 26 World Series instead of four." (Actually, the Reds have won five, but I wasn't going to interject.) According to Dolberry's Law these guys are actually only entitled to take credit for four WS wins (96, 98, 99, 00). As a 41-yr old Reds fan, I'm entitled to gloat about 3 WS wins (75, 76, 90). Four vs. three is not a huge advantage, certainly not one worth boasting about.
The biggest category of fans misleadingly padding their championship stats are Wildcat basketball fans who continuously trumpet their seven titles. Unless you were born before 1950, you are not eligible to take credit for the titles in 48, 49, 51, & 58. So UK fans of my age can legitimately take credit for only three. (U of L has two over the same period.) So the next time you run across a UK fan, watch out for them drooling chewing tobacco on your shoes and admonish them with Dolberry's Law if they try to take credit for championships won when a whole race of Americans weren't even allowed to participate in the sport.
And just so Dolberry is not accused of making the law for his own use, please realize that I'm losing credit for Saint Louis University's all-time leading 10 soccer titles between 1959 and 1973. Using the "actively rooted" section of Dolberry's Law, I would only be eligible for any titles that the glorious Billikens won that one Saturday night I rode a bus out to some crazily far away western St. Louis suburb to watch a 0-0 tie. (Actually, Dolberry was probably only eligible for maybe 10 minutes of the 90 minutes of gameplay.)
C-A-R-D-S!
Showing posts with label soccer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soccer. Show all posts
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
No more Sarasota (after 2008)
Sarasota residents voted down a $16 mil bond referendum yesterday that would have kept the Reds in Sarasota for another 30 years. W/o the renovation of Ed Smith Stadium the Reds have said they will host their Spring Training games elsewhere.
There's the usual heated internet argument on the Sarasota Herald Leader page between "snowbirds" bemoaning the loss of their traditional visits to SRQ and those locals who are pleased that there'll be less traffic and "brain-dead" baseball fans. Dolberry agrees w/ both camps, Yes, one does have to be somewhat impaired in the brain dept. to pay $109 /night for rooms in those shabby Tamiami Trail hotels (Knights Inn, Sleep Inn, etc.). And yes, I will also miss greatly going to SRQ in future springs.
People always imply that voters are not smart enough to figure things out, but in this case I think one Sarasotan had the topic nailed.
"Let the Chicago Cubs or whoever they are pay for it themselves," retired Ohio school teacher Susan Slovensky said after voting no.
Dolberry agrees. If the Cubs can pay middle-reliever Scott Eyre $4 mil a year, they can pony up for repairs to Ed Smith Stadium. Even if they do play in AZ ...
And as usual, it is the politicians that have it all wrong. One local city councilman was on TV saying it could be a good thing. That they could raze Ed Smith and build needed youth soccer fields.
Soccer? Soccer?!? Councilman. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? Soccer! Give me a break! Soccer.
There's the usual heated internet argument on the Sarasota Herald Leader page between "snowbirds" bemoaning the loss of their traditional visits to SRQ and those locals who are pleased that there'll be less traffic and "brain-dead" baseball fans. Dolberry agrees w/ both camps, Yes, one does have to be somewhat impaired in the brain dept. to pay $109 /night for rooms in those shabby Tamiami Trail hotels (Knights Inn, Sleep Inn, etc.). And yes, I will also miss greatly going to SRQ in future springs.
People always imply that voters are not smart enough to figure things out, but in this case I think one Sarasotan had the topic nailed.
"Let the Chicago Cubs or whoever they are pay for it themselves," retired Ohio school teacher Susan Slovensky said after voting no.
Dolberry agrees. If the Cubs can pay middle-reliever Scott Eyre $4 mil a year, they can pony up for repairs to Ed Smith Stadium. Even if they do play in AZ ...
And as usual, it is the politicians that have it all wrong. One local city councilman was on TV saying it could be a good thing. That they could raze Ed Smith and build needed youth soccer fields.
Soccer? Soccer?!? Councilman. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? Soccer! Give me a break! Soccer.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
DCV Top Bands of the 80's: #2
2. Big Country
The DCV countdown started way back on January 6th of this year w/ a note about the scoring system. Assuming most folks don't remember, it was a combination of
- how much I liked them in the 80's (60%),
- how much I like them now (30%), &
- how popular they were w/ other folks (10%)
Big Country lost big on the 3rd criteria, & got nosed on the 2nd criteria, but they were the clear winners in the "how much I liked them in the 80's" category. If it wasn't such a countdown copout I'd just call them #1a to the next band's #1.
It's sounds weird to say looking back, but Big Country's music was just incredibly instrumental in Dolberry's surviving (and perhaps prospering through) the high school and college years. It's cliched to say so, but their songs we're the soundtrack to the 80's for me.
I can still vividly remember sitting in my room listening to The Crossing and being inspired. Not necessarily inspired to be doing the homework I was supposed to be doing, but inspired to live my life in a certain way. Big Country's root-level philosophy was embedded in their one big hit "In a Big Country" (peaked at #18 in the U.S. in 1983) and it was to "stay alive". Stuart Adamson and the lads spun huge anthems about you-and-me people trying to make it in a world that was/is not always necessarily looking out for us. But the people in BC's songs always held onto a spark, always yearned for something better, always strove to stay alive (in the figurative and literal sense).
Some sample lyrics (that still come immediately to mind w/o need to reference them):
In a big country, dreams stay w/ you. Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside. Stay alive.
I will carry you home w/ the stars in my eyes. I will carry you home while the westerlies sigh.
It's just a shadow of the people we should be, like a garden in the forest that world will never see.
We save no souls. We break no promises.
But when I look at you I see you feel the same way too. And you will take my hand and be w/ me in wonderland
Im not expecting to grow flowers in the desert, but I can see the sun in wintertime.
The memories are very fresh when it comes to Big Country. The Crossing was always my get-fired-up-for-races tape. I still remember getting the Wonderland EP cassette from that mall south of Louisville (the same one where we got Intellivision) and wearing it out. Every Friday at SLU was Steeltown afternoon. The tradition was to listen to that tape in its entirety as part of the transition from school week to weekend. I wore lots of plaid back in the day in my attempts to emulate the lads. I still vividly remembering driving down Taylorsville Rd. one day and hearing "Look Away" from their third album The Seer on the radio.
The 80's were a great time for Dolberry up through 1988, when I dispatched myself to the wastelands just south of downtown Chicago for grad school leaving most of my friends behind. Big Country hit the skids (inside joke there) that year as well w/ their dismal 4th album Peace in Our Time.
Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, Dolberry and BC's fortunes both picked up in the early 90's w/ me leaving school, getting a job, getting engaged, getting on a good softball team. Meanwhile, Big Country blasted back to life w/ Buffalo Skinners. Again, the memories are vivid of an afternoon in Stephen's apartment in Elgin IL, him saying he'd gotten BC's new album & I should give it a listen. Not expecting much, figuring they had wandered off the track for good, I was surprised that the first song ("Alone") really rocked. Figuring that would be the outlier, was surprised the second song ("Seven Waves") really rocked. The whole album really rocked.
BC put out three more studio releases in the 90's and while never reaching the unobtainable heights of The Crossing or even Buffalo Skinners, they all had several very good songs on them.
I'm guessing that most readers know the total irony of how Big Country's story ended, or at least how Stuart Adamson's story ended. (I love Tony, Mark, & Bruce, but Stuart was the heart of BC.) He hung himself in a Best Western hotel room in Honolulu, on December 16th, 2001. His blood alcohol level at the time was > 0.279. Stuart had reportedly battled alcoholism for many years. It is strange to me how a life spent encouraging others to stay alive would end w/ someone taking their own. I get teared up thinking about it even now.
I was playing indoor soccer that winter in an attempt to stay in shape in the softball offseason. It was a team consisting of individuals who had signed up to be on the house team (i.e., no one knew each other) and we played that way. We lost nearly every game and most of the time was spent in endless recriminations of overly long shifts and not enough passing. I was pretty detached from all of this as I was in way over my head as far as my soccer skills go. I'd take a shift or two a half and try not to embarass myself. The night of Stuart's death (& I believe Kristin broke the news to me), I vowed to get a goal in his memory ... as he was a big soccer (football) fan. Amazingly enough, I got two. My only two of the season. Things like that make me think that there's a God, and he's real, and he's there for us, and he wants the best for you-and-me in a world that's not always looking out for us, and that we need to keep that spark, we need to keep yearning for something better, and that we need to stay alive ... just as Stuart said.
Best songs: In A Big Country, Fields of Fire, Wonderland, Harvest Home, Where the Rose Was Sown, Chance, all of The Crossing, You Dreamer, Look Away, pretty much all of them.
Worst songs: Eggplant, King of Emotion
The DCV countdown started way back on January 6th of this year w/ a note about the scoring system. Assuming most folks don't remember, it was a combination of
- how much I liked them in the 80's (60%),
- how much I like them now (30%), &
- how popular they were w/ other folks (10%)
Big Country lost big on the 3rd criteria, & got nosed on the 2nd criteria, but they were the clear winners in the "how much I liked them in the 80's" category. If it wasn't such a countdown copout I'd just call them #1a to the next band's #1.
It's sounds weird to say looking back, but Big Country's music was just incredibly instrumental in Dolberry's surviving (and perhaps prospering through) the high school and college years. It's cliched to say so, but their songs we're the soundtrack to the 80's for me.
I can still vividly remember sitting in my room listening to The Crossing and being inspired. Not necessarily inspired to be doing the homework I was supposed to be doing, but inspired to live my life in a certain way. Big Country's root-level philosophy was embedded in their one big hit "In a Big Country" (peaked at #18 in the U.S. in 1983) and it was to "stay alive". Stuart Adamson and the lads spun huge anthems about you-and-me people trying to make it in a world that was/is not always necessarily looking out for us. But the people in BC's songs always held onto a spark, always yearned for something better, always strove to stay alive (in the figurative and literal sense).
Some sample lyrics (that still come immediately to mind w/o need to reference them):
In a big country, dreams stay w/ you. Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside. Stay alive.
I will carry you home w/ the stars in my eyes. I will carry you home while the westerlies sigh.
It's just a shadow of the people we should be, like a garden in the forest that world will never see.
We save no souls. We break no promises.
But when I look at you I see you feel the same way too. And you will take my hand and be w/ me in wonderland
Im not expecting to grow flowers in the desert, but I can see the sun in wintertime.
The memories are very fresh when it comes to Big Country. The Crossing was always my get-fired-up-for-races tape. I still remember getting the Wonderland EP cassette from that mall south of Louisville (the same one where we got Intellivision) and wearing it out. Every Friday at SLU was Steeltown afternoon. The tradition was to listen to that tape in its entirety as part of the transition from school week to weekend. I wore lots of plaid back in the day in my attempts to emulate the lads. I still vividly remembering driving down Taylorsville Rd. one day and hearing "Look Away" from their third album The Seer on the radio.
The 80's were a great time for Dolberry up through 1988, when I dispatched myself to the wastelands just south of downtown Chicago for grad school leaving most of my friends behind. Big Country hit the skids (inside joke there) that year as well w/ their dismal 4th album Peace in Our Time.
Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, Dolberry and BC's fortunes both picked up in the early 90's w/ me leaving school, getting a job, getting engaged, getting on a good softball team. Meanwhile, Big Country blasted back to life w/ Buffalo Skinners. Again, the memories are vivid of an afternoon in Stephen's apartment in Elgin IL, him saying he'd gotten BC's new album & I should give it a listen. Not expecting much, figuring they had wandered off the track for good, I was surprised that the first song ("Alone") really rocked. Figuring that would be the outlier, was surprised the second song ("Seven Waves") really rocked. The whole album really rocked.
BC put out three more studio releases in the 90's and while never reaching the unobtainable heights of The Crossing or even Buffalo Skinners, they all had several very good songs on them.
I'm guessing that most readers know the total irony of how Big Country's story ended, or at least how Stuart Adamson's story ended. (I love Tony, Mark, & Bruce, but Stuart was the heart of BC.) He hung himself in a Best Western hotel room in Honolulu, on December 16th, 2001. His blood alcohol level at the time was > 0.279. Stuart had reportedly battled alcoholism for many years. It is strange to me how a life spent encouraging others to stay alive would end w/ someone taking their own. I get teared up thinking about it even now.
I was playing indoor soccer that winter in an attempt to stay in shape in the softball offseason. It was a team consisting of individuals who had signed up to be on the house team (i.e., no one knew each other) and we played that way. We lost nearly every game and most of the time was spent in endless recriminations of overly long shifts and not enough passing. I was pretty detached from all of this as I was in way over my head as far as my soccer skills go. I'd take a shift or two a half and try not to embarass myself. The night of Stuart's death (& I believe Kristin broke the news to me), I vowed to get a goal in his memory ... as he was a big soccer (football) fan. Amazingly enough, I got two. My only two of the season. Things like that make me think that there's a God, and he's real, and he's there for us, and he wants the best for you-and-me in a world that's not always looking out for us, and that we need to keep that spark, we need to keep yearning for something better, and that we need to stay alive ... just as Stuart said.
Best songs: In A Big Country, Fields of Fire, Wonderland, Harvest Home, Where the Rose Was Sown, Chance, all of The Crossing, You Dreamer, Look Away, pretty much all of them.
Worst songs: Eggplant, King of Emotion
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