Dolberry's Law

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!

Why I'm posting more lately ...

One reason ... more T-giving food for me.

I noticed last year during the holidays that many of my conversations w/ assorted family members were shortened because of the advance notice on all-things-Dolberry provided by the blog. As a result, I was able to eat about 15% more than usual because of the less time wasted w/ unfilling small talk. So, w/ T-giving coming up (T minus 10 days), here's some additional Dolberry-related stuff. I will not be repeating these next week. Thank you for your consideration.

Dolberry has been very busy & has not had a chance to follow college football at all this year. I will not be prepared to talk at all about this next week, so there's no sense even bringing individual teams or games up.

I do expect to be able to follow college basketball though. That was really funny that UK lost to Gardiner-Webb. I will gladly entertain any conversations about how a team that lost to UNC by 53 last year could stomp UK at home. That is, as long as we're in line for more food. Not when I'm eating, please.

Work is fine. If you're a Republican, rest assured EPA is doing all that we can to ensure that all those aging hippies and wannabe Socialists don't ruin the American economy through some sort of sensible global climate change action. If you're a Democrat, rest assured EPA is doing all that we can to combat global warming by creating numerous and conflicting groups, divisions, and offices to design and promote sensible climate change action.

Softball is over. We won the championship. Dolberry will talk about this as long as you want. In fact, I'll go ahead and bring our scorebook. We can go at-bat by at-bat through our 15 game regular season and three-game tournament sweep. We can do this while the underlings are doing the dishes.

APD is fine. As far as I know, he will be available for questions. All he eats is bread anyway and he talks w/ his mouth full, so it's not really an issue w/ him.

I'm not on speaking terms w/ our dog, Cherish. I took her out for a run this Saturday over to the Lake. She ran about 0.25 miles than sat down and refused to take another step. Even a step back toward the car. I had to carry the stupid beast all the way back to the car. The beautiful KMD hypothesized that it was her dinner time and that she didn't feel like running as a result. Once home, she was running around like normal. BAD DOG!

The beautiful KMD is more beautiful than ever, but you'll be able to see that yourselves, so there's no sense going on about it.

I like lots of new music and bands, but I do not expect you to be interested in them. Rest assured, Dolberry is NOT interested in any new music, bands, movies, blogs, etc., that you may find interesting.

Dolberry has not followed the NFL much either. Certainly not last week or the first week of the season. No sense discussing.

If you have any other topics you'd like to pre-discuss in advance of the feeding frenzy, go ahead and post a comment. Otherwise, for your own safety, please do not get between me and the turkey. (Not Dad, the edible turkey.)

The Value of an Extra Hour of Sleep

Everything these days is gauged by its monetary value. For instance, at work, we promulgate rules only if we can prove the rule will save more money (e.g., reduced health care costs) than it will cost. Obviously, some things are harder to quantify (e.g., the value of a pristine bright blue sky). I'm not sure if anyone has quantified the value of an extra hour of sleep ... but we can attest that it's at least $6 ... which was the cost we gladly agreed to swallow this morning in order to return our rental car an hour late.

If there are any UK fans who read this blog ... go away! No, I'm just kidding. I thought UK played an exceptional game. This morning ... after a rough night of sports ... and thinking about the value of time ... and pondering two funerals ... and wondering what people'll say about me when I pass on ... I decided I was giving up sports. BUT that was before the O'Jimmies pulled to w/in 1.5 points of first place, so I'm sticking around for another 2 weeks. After that, I'm finding something else to do.

Interestingly, as I'm writing this, we're watching the Emmys and they just had a classic line from Michael Scott: "A boss’s salary isn’t just about money. It’s about perks. For example, every year I get a $100 gas card. Can’t put a price on that." Oh here's an even funnier one from the same episode ... "Negotiations are all about controlling things; about being in the driver’s seat. And, you make one tiny mistake and you’re dead. I made one tiny mistake, I wore woman’s clothes."