Lyndon Johnson was President when I began getting Sports Illustrated magazine. I was nine years old For the first time since 1966 I will not be getting SI delivered to my house. I'm giving up my subscription. Even with the advent of then internet I still looked forward to the weekly delivery of SI. Not only for its spectacular photography, but for quality writing you would find in few other places. Even as a kid I knew I was reading important stuff when a new Frank Deford or Bill Nack piece would run. Paul Zimmerman on the NFL, Dan Jenkins on golf or college football, Bud Shrake on all kinds of topics…later it was great long-form pieces from Gary Smith and Alexander Wolff. Even Pulitizer Prize winning authors who would normally write for places like The New Yorker or Atlantic, knew that good stuff was appearing in a “sports” magazine. It wouldn't seem like “slumming” if they contributed. and, then of course there were the covers…whcih sometimes reached the point of being works of art. But, the media world has changed and the arrival of SI is no longer the event it once was in my life. The magazine has been sold and cut up and faced budget restraints as it's new owners were more interested in short-term profit than long term quality of the product. Like the TV landscape, the world of print media has fractured into a million little pieces with every webzine and blog site clamoring for your eyeballs and mouse clicks. Much of the best sportswriting these days can be found elsewhere although the folks at SI soldier on and still can hit a home run once in awhile. I'm spending much of my time these days on sites like The Athletic where the money I used to spend on SI is getting me excellent writing everyday without pop up ads or ubitqutous videos. As a kid I came of age reading SI, Sport Magazine and The Sporting News. We also were limited to just a few tv channels and “games of the week” chosen by the power brokers in New York. No more…we have more media power at our fingertips then at anytime in our lifetimes. It's our job to sift the wheat from the chaff…the good from the bad…the cheap from the important. Choose wisely Grasshopper!
The San Diego Padres only had one hit yesterday. It was by a pitcher pinch-hitting for a pitcher. The only time that has ever happened in major league baseball.
NFL teams still obsessing over the wrong things. Colin Kaepernick's tryout with the Seahawks was cancelled after he wouldn't say his protests would end…while the 49ers keep a guy like Rueben Foster on their roster. Foster is charged with three felonies for allegedly punching his girlfriend in the head 8-10 times.
I'm not sure how this will work but Lindsay Whalen is going to try and coach the Minnesota Gopher womens basketball team while still playing for the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA. She led the Gophers to alot of success in her college days including a Final Four run and has had a great pro career for the last 14 years including 4 WNBA championships. She will play in the summer and run the Gophers in the fall,winter and spring.
As I get ready to travel to West Salem a week from tomorrow to see Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen in concert, I read this morning that there is going to be an album of previously unreleased material from Hillman's old bandmate Gene Clark. Clark wrote and sang some of the great work by the first incarnation of the Byrds. The collection will include more than a dozen tracks by Clark who died in 1991. Clark was a top-notch songwriter and this should be a nice find.
The Badger basketball team may be adding some size for the next two seasons. They have one scholarship remaining for next season and are looking at a graduate transfer named Wyatt Walker from Samford. He graduates this spring but has two years of eligibility left after missing much of last season with an injury.
It's Trivia Weekend in Stevens Point! Let's play Trivia, Fast Eddie! The answer to the first question tonight at 6pm on WWSP 90.FM is Robert Redford. You're welcome.
Elections have consequences….Paul Ryan has decided he has done enough damage to America by not only ballooning the deficit with his GOP led tax scam….but then also threatening “adjustments” to Social Security and Medicare to fix the problems they created. But the lasting legacy of Ryan's terrible tenure as House Speaker is his capitulation to Donald Trump . The choice to abdicate the House role as a check and balance on a crazy executive has done the lasting damage to the country and he deserves nothing but our contempt. Can the coming Blue Wave flip Ryan's district? I guess it all depends on who the Republicans find to run. They certainly can't be throwing their support behind white supremacist candidate Paul Nehlen who was running against Ryan in a primary.
Quotes Of The Day
“Paul Ryan now enjoys the peace of mind that when he turns 50–in less than 2 years–he will enjoy a defined-benefits pension of about $79k annually for the rest of his life, funded by the same taxpayers whose Social Security he's been trying to cut or privatize his entire career.”-Joshan Zeitz
“Paul Ryan's monument will be the putrid and smoldering ruins of the Republican Party and conservative movement that he betrayed with his complicity and cowardice. He lacked the guts to stand for decency and the wisdom to confront the threat of Trumpism.”-Steve Schmidt
“Paul Ryan is a “policy wonk” if you define a “wonk” as someone who lies effortlessly about policy and shifts his position based on the political winds.”-Dan Pfeiffer
“All these Republicans running like scalded dogs should prove their intentions once and for all. They wanted to pass a tax cut, further shift the economic balance, and leave to enjoy the spoils and gratitude. No interest in public good whatsoever.”-Jared Yates Sexton
“Look, its obviously hard to pinpoint *just* one thing to look forward to when Trump leaves the White House, but Sarah Sanders' exit has to be near the top of the list.”-Jamie O'Grady
“Inability to seperate partisan loyalty from patriotic obligation is the downfall of the GOP and the principle threat to our democracy. And no one is more responsible for this than Ryan. No one.”-Jennifer Rubin
“One day someone will do an accounting of the *total* amount we Americans paid Donald Trump and his fat-cat cronies to continue living (0n the public dime) in the manner to which thay had become accustomed” and it will be a “nine-figure” sum. One of history's great swindles.”-Seth Abramson
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. For the traitor appears not a traitor–He speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation–he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city–he infects the body politic so it can no longer resist. A murderer is less feared.” Cicero 42 BC
Songs Of The Day Happy Birthday to Herbie Hancock who turned 78 yesterday
