A European Super League is socialism for the rich; the Yankees prove why that is bad for any game
But first, let's laud a rising young star in Canadian women's rugby before mewling about underperforming millionaires, and malevolent billionaires, and how Ontario really does not have a premier.
Over the weekend …
Sophie de Goede did that rugby
Ac·cen·tu·ate the positive in these trying times.
One knows beast mode when they see it, and that was Sophie de Goede of Victoria, B.C., and Queen’s University at Kingston during a Premier 15s game in Britain last Saturday. As a casual appreciator of rugby, that is about it for the setup of de Goede’s length-of-the-field try for Saracens.
Is that a pick-five or a pick-seven? De Goede also kicked the ensuing convert.
The Women’s Rugby World Cup is 5½ months away and one will surely hear more then about de Goede. Give her all the agency in her success, please take note that her “best decision I’ve ever made” was becoming a two-sport athlete at Queen’s, playing rugby and basketball for the Gaels.
Gary Neville calls out socialism for the rich teams
Whether this European Super League deal happens or it is just more sabre-rattling, there is a reason why soccer plutocrats pitching this idea is going over so poorly. I will do a project much?
The culture is at a point where most us desire more social democracy in our lives and more precarity and real stakes for sports teams. Soccer is the best structured sport in the world due to the promotion-relegation system and other elements. There used to be real risk involved. It is not perfect because of the money in the game, but it is more honest than salary-capped North American leagues that are designed to make every team bend toward the middle. If you did not watch this already, Sky Sports’ Gary Neville summed up the frustration by calling for “independent regulators (to) stop these clubs (from) having the power base.”
The leagues in North America are a good example of where being ‘in the club’ shields the richest teams from having to be more than than sum of their high-priced marquee talent. Sunday happened to be a good convenience sample for that!
How about those Yankees?
Gerrit Cole looks like the actor who converted critical success into a nine-movie deal with the ‘next Netflix.’ The New York Yankees pitching ace is saying all the right things, but his body language suggests he knows it in his bones that he is stuck performing in underwritten, poorly edited, overproduced schlock that looks like it was made over a four-day weekend. Hey, when they back the dump truck of money onto their front yard, you do not care if they have any grasp of craft. You just know to trust these are techbros who have figured out enough people will watch in any event, and their cheques will clear.
The off-season is the time to affirm that the last big spenders in baseball — all of about three east coast teams and three west coast teams — are better for the sport than the Tampa Bay Rays and their truly cheap imitators. It is better to have teams who try rather than claim they can controllable-years and gamify their way to greatness. In-season, it is open season for the revelling in the Yankees being dead last in the league for the first time since the creation of divisional play.
The multitudes of Yankee terribleness on Sunday came in their second at-bat and Tampa Bay’s third at-bat. Their other US$300-million player, Giancarlo Stanton, opened the scoring with a stadium-assisted home run, a line drive sliced over that damn short porch in right field. According to StatCast, it would not have been a home run in any of the other 29 ballparks. In fact, it was the epitome of what decline-phase Joe DiMaggio called “piss homers” when he was reduced to hitting them at the original stadium 70 years. Stanton has on-based under .350 and slugged under .500 since signing in New York, so he will take what he can get.
The Rays promptly got the run back, and scored another one with help from miscues in the outfield. Aaron Hicks let a shallow fly ball drop in centrefield for a hit, then tin-gloved the pickup on a ground ball single and allowed a runner to get in position to score on a sacrifice fly. On the sac fly, Clint Frazier threw the ball from leftfield to no one in particular.
Remember, this is a franchise that is worth about $4.5 billion. At least they know they will not get relegated to Triple-A East for next season.
Lastly, but not least of all (except for you-know-who)
Slava Malamud has a thread about why hockey is “totally irrelevant.”
More on this later in the a.m.: the Toronto Maple Leafs might have made NHL betting history, and not the good kind. At least the Vancouver Canucks had Braden Holtby in goal and not a Zamboni driver.
Last week, Mara Reinstein wrote a 10-year retrospective for The Ringer on the 2011 Academy Awards telecast, the one hosted by James Franco and Anne Hathaway. The ketchup quote — it goes on everything — from writer David Wild: “You have to react and address something as it’s happening. You’ve got to listen to that voice, or else.”
Apologists often push back by saying you have to give someone or somethinga chance. Which segues into, you guessed it, Doug Ford’s Alternative Facts Fantasy Camp. The good news, of course, is that the other levels of government are making an end run around them.Say, say, say it loud: effective public health measures, not vaccines, lower the COVID19 case counts. And common sense did not enter into why the Ford (Fib Or Retract Daily) ‘government’ scaled back ill-conceived COVID restrictions overnight.
It reacted since three of that party’s voter demographics told it to get stuffed. Olds had a point about unnecessarily losing their precious golf. Police unions and management balked at police state tactics. Tinfoil hatters whose idea of a pretty nice little Saturday is gathering for anti-lockdown rallies were also louder and madder than usual.1
Not since John Manley announced subsidies for NHL owners 21 years ago have I seen the public respond with such uniform vitriol to a gov't policy rollout. @fordnation is taking it (quite correctly) from all sides. This next six weeks may deal him irreparable damage #onpoliOntario’s enhanced restrictions were always intended to stop large gatherings where spread can happen. Our regulations will be amended to allow playgrounds but gatherings outside will still be enforced. Play outside safely. Parents keep your distance & wear masks if you can’t.
Doug Ford @fordnation
I'm well-versed in the political history of this province & I can say with a fair degree of confidence that this Saturday, during which virtually every police service mutinied against provincial authority, was the most humiliating 24 hours ever suffered by an Ontario government.Ticking off both police and the U of Facebook med students who used to like Rage Against The Machine before that band got political?
That is almost a talent.
And, notably, improved measures did not arrive. Anddddd the premier-for-now is apparently trying to walk away from part of his job.
We are in the early stages of Doug Ford backtracking on his useless and even counterproductive new covid measures without replacing them with measures that would actually significantly reduce covid transmission.Modern conservatism in Canada is an ideology. Different political parties in power might adopt different strategies in addressing a crisis like covid-19, but Cons stand out for rejecting professional advice and doing what their ideological predisposition demands.
The way memes moved early Saturday makes one medium-suspect that certain third-party actors — hey there, Jeff Ballingall!! — are passing along Doug Ford’s coat and shoe sizes to their cement contractor, mixaphorically speaking. That is why a coaching point involves stressing that the collapse in governance in Ontario is on the entire party. Ford should resign, sure, but that is low-hanging fruit.
The mess and the stress would be the same under Premier Christine Elliott. It is all just rearranging deck chairs at this point.
👇 We all need to make sure Ford is a one-term premier. Short memories are why we're here now.The next time someone says they don’t vote because it 'doesn’t matter’, remind them that poor voter turnout in 2018 meant that 24% of the electorate gave the historically incompetent & corrupt Doug Ford a majority government. And now all Ontarians are paying for it. #onpoli
Jeff Brown @jwbrown556
That is more than enough for today. Please subscribe, and thank you for allowing these words on your screen.
Which count as large gatherings where spread can happen.