Hey Rube
Page 15
How long, O lord, how long?
Surely I was not the only rabid basketball fan to feel joyous at the sight of a taxpayer-funded Marijuana message on all of our TV sets last week, in conjunction with the CBS broadcast of the annual NCAA championship tournament. It was relentless—popping up, as it did, at what seemed like every other time-out or crowded commercial break.
The message itself was terrifying: Marijuana means Death, for You and many others, including the judge and who knows how many U.S. Marines. It is a truly frightening thing to see on your TV basketball screen. One toke over the line is no longer a harmless joke. No sir, it is Felony Terrorism, under this brand-new American Patriot “law” that came in with the new century, the new president, the new morality, etc., etc.…
College basketball is riddled with harmless dope-smokers, of course—no worse or better than any other segment of American society. Wow! Maybe that explains the diminishing quality of play in the Big Dance every year. Hell, yes. These freakish young brutes are too stoned to compete in anything more serious than a public sex contest. They are addicts. Their brains have been fried. They are doomed. We have spawned a whole generation of lazy, brain-damaged show-offs.
That is the view from the White House and most of the U.S. Congress these days. It is World War III forever, by the look and the language of it, and the Meanness quotient of the U.S. image in the world is growing logarithmically with every passing day.
Whoops! No more of that stressful gibberish, eh? Exactly. We don’t need it. Our world is full of exciting options—the Oscars, spring training, the NBA play-offs, heavy golf, the Gonzo beauty pageant, the War, the Stock market.… We are blessed.
The NCAA Tourney is always a time of visions and confusing hallucinations. It is spring and the sap is rising. Every dawn is another righteous challenge, another test of faith, another fateful notch in the national TV ratings.
There is a lot of happy talk on the great American street these days about the “amazing jump” in ratings for the NCAA games this year, but none of it is true. The TV numbers are the same as last year and the year before, which were mediocre.
So rest easy, folks. We have nothing to fear but Fear itself. The Kentucky-Maryland game is cheap history now, and good riddance. Maybe you remember this: 11:43 p.m. Friday. We are nearing the end of the game now, the Terps are up four, Kentucky has croaked, and this may be the sloppiest college basketball game of the year. The shooting is miserable, the passing is rotten, and so far we have seen 28 turnovers. This is embarrassing. “Very uncharacteristic of teams of this caliber,” says Jim Nance as Kentucky throws the ball away twice in 30 seconds. I will not watch it on tape or anywhere else. It sucked.
But today is a new world. We are coming up on another Final Four, and I feel the urge to gamble. My pre-Dance bracket sheet shows me with two out of four teams still alive—which is nothing to brag about, but it beats the dim performance of one longtime gambling antagonist (whose name I dare not speak aloud), and I feel vaguely happy about it.
I see Kansas über alles, with Oklahoma as runner-up. Maryland is eminently beatable, and Indiana can’t possibly continue to hit all those 3-pointers like they did against Duke and Kent State. The joke is over for those people.
That is how it looks from out here in the Rockies, sports fans. A pretty slow weekend, all in all.
—March 28, 2002
Dr. Thompson in Beirut
ESPN Editor’s Note: Dr. Thompson has gone to Beirut for a few weeks, and we will not be able to reach him from time to time, except by personal courier. We still respect him and await his safe return. Vaya con Dios, Doc. May the wind always be at your back.
Meanwhile, in the space below, the man utters some random warnings and predictions for those among you who don’t mind going out on a limb.
For openers, the Fix is in at Churchill Downs, so adjust your bets accordingly. The Derby itself is always a little suspicious. What would you do, for instance, if you thought you knew that Saturday’s KY Derby was going to be won by a colt named “Patriot”?
A) Buy U.S. War Bonds immediately?
B) Smell a Rat and call the FBI?
C) Move to Beirut and grow a beard?
D) Bet heavily on “Patriot”?—AKA Johannesburg
The answer is D, of course. The Fixed beast will always win, if word comes down from the top. It is a natural law, and in this case it translates to bet Johannesburg Now, while you can still get 50–1 odds. And if you can’t find a reliable bookie, find a friend who believes you are honest and thinks he is pretty smart about horses—then fleece the poor bastard just for the fun of it.… Hell, bet with two or three good friends who trust you. Why not? They would to the same thing to you, if they knew who was going to win the Derby. Yes sir, this is horse-racing season, and a lot of people are going to get fleeced before it’s over. That is what the Sport of Kings is all about.
And now that you mention it, how about this ugly flock of nags that we have in the Derby this year? What happened to the 2002 crop of thoroughbreds? And why is Sports Illustrated saying all those horrible things about Johannesburg? Are they in on the Fix?
My hunch is Yes. They Know something that we don’t, and some of their top secret information has leaked out. It says that a cabal of playboy speculators in the racing business have conspired to destroy the Irish colt’s reputation (see S.I., April 29, 2002) in public while privately betting him at 50–1, then pump him full of Mandrax on Derby Day and watch him win like the freak he is. The payoff will be $50,000,000,000 cash.
On other fronts—Dallas will whack the Lakers and win the NBA title, the Red Sox will fail spectacularly to win the AL pennant again this year, San Jose will seize the Stanley Cup, and Sports Illustrated editor Terry McDonnell will be present in the winner’s Circle at Churchill Downs when Johannesburg, the much-maligned beast, gets his collar of roses.… And guess who we will see on the cover of S.I. next week—yes, it will be good old reliable Johannesburg, the amazing streaker from Ireland. Take my word for it, folks. I know what’s happening.
Indeed. I just spoke with McDonnell, and he brazenly confirmed that it’s all true. He and 35 staffers will be in the clubhouse at the Derby, and they are all “betting heavily” on Jo-burg.
And that’s about it for now, friends. What the hell? I am going to Beirut anyway, so why not kick out the jams. Truth is beauty, beauty truth—that is all ye need to know.
—April 29, 2002
Dr. Thompson Is Back from Beirut
Hi, folks. My name is still Hunter and I am still a fool for football—or maybe just a fool, because last night I had a strange vision that featured Miami and New Orleans playing in Super Bowl XXXVII when (and if) it finally rolls around in February, and I think I saw the Dolphins winning it by a score of 31–17.
How’s that for jumping the gun, eh? Some people will call it premature, but not me. A vision is a vision, whether it reveals itself 24 hours ahead of the actual game or 24 months, and I never ignore these creepy little flashes—but I RARELY BET real money on them unless I can get 22–1 odds.… That way I can honor just about every vision that comes to me in the course of a season, and still break even.
Ho ho. Don’t try this at home, folks—at least not until you have checked your visions against the record for at least 22 years, like I have. The downside in this kind of gambling is that it can mean Grief, humiliation and, in some cases, an agonizing reappraisal of your whole life.
So why am I saying these things? You might ask. If pain has made me so wise, why am I trying to hurt myself again by betting on long shots? Am I a fool?
No. I am a sportswriter and a lifelong football addict—so why not?
That is what I said to my odd neighbor, Omar, last night when we were discussing pro football in my secluded attic office.… Omar has been in the neighborhood for a while now, along with his star-crossed little sister, Omin, and they have both become High-end football fanatics who love to gamble (Omar more than Omin, who rarely appears in
public and has another home in Big Sur, where she lives in the winter with her family), and Omar has learned enough about the game to gamble shrewdly on most days.
“I will give you 22–1,” he said, “but only if you give me the same bet with New England and San Francisco.”
“Never in hell,” I said.
We finally settled on 15–1, which seemed about right.
“Why Not?” I said. “We have 22 more weeks of football to get through. Hell, we might both be dead from Anthrax by then.”
“Nonsense,” he said quickly. “But what about the Broncos? Why won’t you bet on your homeboys?”
“I will,” I replied. “I will bet against them, at 20–1.”
Omar’s grasp of American football was improving. Two years ago he thought a football was round.
“How did you get so smart so fast?” I asked.
“Well,” he said after giving my question some thought. “Maybe it is because I studied American football very intensively for 10 years before I even met you.”
I laughed at him. “We will see,” I smirked. “I will bet you $100,000 dollars that I will pick more winners than you do this season.”
He reached into the pocket of his long black jacket and pulled out a fistful of money. “Yes,” he muttered, “I think I have it right here.” He smiled faintly and dropped 100 big ones down on the bar.
I was stunned but not entirely surprised by his bold maneuver. “Fair enough,” I said. “I will go along with just about anything, in September. Can I give you a cheque?”
“Of course,” he chirped. “Money means nothing to me, nothing at all.” He paused. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Because I hate people like you,” I said sharply. “Your instincts are Evil and you are overcharging me for petroleum products.” I flashed a grotesque-looking grin at him, a face he had never seen before. “You might get away with that oil ripoff,” I told him. “But you will never get away with pretending to know Football. I will beat you like a gong.”
Just then a loud knocking came on the front door, and Omar disappeared out the back. Moments later I heard his gray, high-powered Land Rover disappearing up the road with a dull atavistic roar.
And that was that for last Sunday. Other people came by to try their luck, but they all looked like amateurs compared to Omar.
“Well,” I thought, “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride.”
—September 23, 2002
The NFL: We Will March on a Road of Bones
Gambling on the National Football League got off to a slow start out here in the Rockies this season, and nobody blamed it on Baseball—or NASCAR racing either, for that matter, or even the annual Texas-Oklahoma showdown.… Not even the LA Lakers opening in Oklahoma City could compete with War, Fear, and Terrorism on the national stage. The Great American appetite for total War seems to have finally triumphed over its love of Sport and Gambling.
I deplore this, but so what? How many Oil Wells do the Denver Broncos own? Or the New York Yankees?
It is nothing, compared to the long-suffering nation of Iraq. That is elementary, Mr. Blue. The USA has dominated Baseball and (U.S.-style) Football from time immemorial, but nobody east of the Hudson seems to care.
* * *
Last weekend was a Monster for the NFL and everything it wants to stand for. There were awesome displays of Speed and Violence, on a scale that made baseball look like slow motion.… The contrast was day and night.… One so-called evening baseball game took four and a half hours, and that was just a run-up to the horrible tedium of the World Series. Which once again is overstaying its welcome. The season should be trimmed back to about 110 games, which would give it a whole new back-to-school DEMOGRAPHIC that would have the baseball season officially over with by Labor Day.
Why not? Baseball is a summertime game, in most all-American towns, and Football is not. The seasonal confusion is only a factor of human Greed. It has that good old familiar odor, the stench of Mendacity, More games = more money. More money = more teams. More teams mean more NFL T-shirts sold and a dark new wave of public lewdness and promiscuity among innocent teenage girls.
There is a rumor around sporting circles in Denver that the Broncos plan to market T-shirts with nipple holes cut in the chest next year, or even this one.… But it gets cold out here in the wilderness as autumn wears on. Last night it was 22 degrees F and sinking steadily. Any scheme to sell topless football shirts would meet with public ridicule and rejection, if only because of the Colorado weather. That fine new stadium they have over there may be huge and modern and finely manicured—but it ain’t weatherproof; there is no escape from the vicious blizzards and ice storms.
And so much for that, eh? Who needs public lewdness in a time of fear and depression like this? Not me, Bubba. Watching Denver lose to Miami with six seconds to go on Sunday night was hard enough on TV—and hell, we had a big stack of apple-wood burning in the fireplace.… I won heavily for the second week in a row, leaving me nicely ahead in the W-L column, but way behind on the total money earnings.
The reason for this, of course, is that people are betting less money on football games this season, because they have less. A broke person doesn’t mind making a small bet or two here or there, but a poor person won’t, because he can no longer afford to spend cash on anything. He (or she) is far beyond being temporarily “short of cash” in this brutal winter of 2002.…
No. That is what “broke” used to mean. But “poor” means permanent.
I have lived through almost 50 pro football seasons, thus far—along with five or six major economic depressions and constant wars all over the world—but I’ll be dipped in shit if I can remember a year in the life of this nation that was played out against a bleaker and more ominous historical backdrop than the one we have today.
The quality of the football we see today is no doubt better than ever. The players are bigger, faster, and enormously richer. There are three or four current teams in the NFL that would have visibly intimidated the best teams of yesteryear, including the ’85 49ers and the ’68 Packers.
Either one of the teams in that bloodcurdling Sunday night game would run away from those sluggards who ruled their roost in the old days. The Dolphins and the Broncos played a genuinely brutal football game that both teams lost. Denver lost on the scoreboard and Miami lost its quarterback, all for a silly little “W” on their record. Both were once-beaten coming in, and now—after inflicting many crippling wounds on each other in public for three ball-busting hours—both Miami and Denver are structurally weaker than they were on Sunday morning.… What is a bloody two-point victory worth, if it costs you your starting quarterback and your strong safety for the rest of the season? The Broncos are better off in defeat than the Dolphins are in victory—which is a dismal thing to say about the two best teams in the league at this stage of the season, but it’s true. That Sunday night game was qualitatively hurtful on both sides and opened the Super Bowl up, once again, to some squirrelly team like New England or New Orleans. Even the winless St. Louis Rams came out of their injury-plagued funk long enough, last week, to torpedo the unbeaten Raiders. Both the NFC and the AFC look oddly scrambled this year. We are entering a time of Extreme Parity.
At least the Super Bowl will be better, bigger, and faster than the World Series. Not even George Steinbrenner’s deeply tainted millions will keep baseball alive forever. The Yankees’ payroll would cover three or four teams in the NFL, maybe 16 or 17, and they are no more dependable than goats when the weather turns cold anyway. Baseballs freeze in the winter, so they can’t bounce normally.… I know this from horrible experience: I once walked 22 consecutive batters on a chilly night in Taylorsville, Kentucky.
But that is another story, and we will save it for later—maybe for some warm summer night when bands are playing and children shout and perverts work the bathrooms under the bleachers. You bet. That is where baseball belongs.
—October 14, 2002
PART THREE
LOVE AND WAR
A Wild & Woolly Tale of Sporting Excess
Okay, boys, this one is going to be short and hopefully quick, because of my wound and the terrible excitement it has generated—along with the grief and the pain and public humiliation.… Yes, we are living from one moment to the next tonight in the Chateau Marmont, never knowing if the next word on this page will be the last—for now, at least.… Who knows what will happen by midnight?
After my unfortunate encounter with an oddly configured hotel window (now shattered), I lost enough blood yesterday—or was it Friday?—to keep two or three people alive for 22 hours. Or at least it looked that way to the manager and the frightened workers dressed in biohazard suits who were ordered to mop up my blood. The manager wrung his hands and tore his hair when he saw the damage and tried to call an ambulance for me.
Harsh words were spoken, as I recall, and several suites had to be closed off, on a max-capacity weekend.… There was a flashy convention of Gucci executives, a movie crew busily filming the last days of Warren Zevon, and a profoundly violent gathering of famous actors and huge dogs who were here to launch the production of a gamey film called The Rum Diary in 2003.
This was the reason for my own participation, if only because I wrote the book. Johnny Depp was here, along with Benicio Del Toro, Nick Nolte, and the goofy child prodigy Josh Hartnett of Black Hawk Down fame.… The idea was to meet and quarrel calmly for two or three days during the final weekend of the World Series.
Events went wildly astray on us—like they did for those people who went to that theater in Moscow last week expecting to take in a stirring performance of Nord-Ost.
Indeed. We are living in unnaturally savage times, folks.
My own individual record for spontaneous blood contribution in public will hopefully stand forever.… It was something like 2.4 pints, liberally distributed on the walls of a top-floor suite that need not be identified at this time.… It is enough to say that the spectacle was far beyond the visual horrors of anything ever involving my old friend John Belushi or even the Manson family.…