Sports got you confused? Been out of touch? Not surprised that Michael Jordan back in the NBA because you never knew he left? Well, not to worry, dear reader, this is truly your lucky day. You now have the unique opportunity to learn the Verities of Today's Sporting World.
Verity One: The more bizarre your name is, the better you are at football. If you want your child to make it to the NFL, you better start using your imagination. Having a name like Napoleon Kaufman, Priest Holmes, Lawyer Malloy, Yancy Thigpen or Shockmain Davis works on several levels.
First there is the intimidation factor, i.e. "With a name like that he must be good, or else he would have been laughed off the field." Second there's name recognition, after all it's really easy for Dennis Miller to remember your name on Monday Night Football when you share it with a deceased early 19th-century European Midget-Emperor (Just imagine the one liners: "Wow, Napoleon's taking it to the defense like it was the battle of Austerlitz"). Finally there's infinite marketing potential, Shockmain's jolting energy drink, Thigpen's playpen for kids, Priest's (bath)robes; the list just goes on ad infinitem.
Verity Two: Oceans may rise, Governments may fall, a competent, intelligent person with no skeletons in his or her closet may even become president (Hah), but the Chicago Cubs will never again win the World Series.
I know it's sad, I feel bad myself, like I'm leading a tour through a zoo or something: "To your left you will see penguins in their re-created polar habitat, and as you look to your right you will the Chicago Cubs, hopelessly trapped in their natural Wrigley Field Environment, wandering about aimlessly. They do nothing day after day, yet people always come to see them."
Verity Three: No matter how loud I yell and scream at them, the Knicks will blow a15-point 4th-quarter lead to the Pacers. Both Spike Lee and I know that Reggie Miller is like Keith Richards; he doesn't know how to die.
I once saw Miller score eight points in the last 16 seconds of a playoff game to beat the Knicks. I count that and the fact the George W. Bush actually got elected as the most shocking moments of my life. Now I've just learned to take such events as commonplace.
For an entire season Miller couldn't hit water if he fell off a boat, suddenly he steps into Madison Square Garden and he's sinking like the Titanic. I really feel that someday I'll be regurgitating such childhood nightmares as I lie on a psychiatrist's couch.
Verity Four: At any given point in time, Mike Tyson is either pending trial, on trial, going to jail or in jail. This isn't even a verity; it's an ironclad mathematical proof.
Two plus two is four, the sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse, and Mike Tyson is in trouble with the law. And, as opposed to the outcome of his matches, the law always seems to win.
I suppose this trouble shouldn't come as a surprise, I mean Tyson was under the lofty guidance of Don King, a.k.a. Satan, for most of his career. It was somewhat shocking that a man of his vision and character, who produced quotes such as "I'm going to rip out his heart, I'm going to eat his children," could do such terrible things. Alas, it's always the ones you least expect.
Verity Five: Salaries will continue to rise until the entire United States is purchased by Major League Baseball players and divided up into small feudal monarchies. I think "A-Rod Land" has a nice ring to it, don't you?
Sports in general has been heading this way for years. Soon, a quarter of the GDP will go to financing the Yankee's payroll, and you'll have to take out a second mortgage to go with some friends to the game. But, hey, as long as Derek Jeter can make the final payment on his solid gold toilet, who am I to argue?
I'm just glad the money's not being spent on education or improvements in the community, because that's just downright silly. Unfortunately, this progression will ultimately force some people to make tough financial decisions. College or baseball tickets? My vote is still up in the air.
