Beware the ides of April

Technically, the ides of April is the 13th, but we're in the ballpark, and horrible, awful tragedies seem to happen this time of year.
And it's already been a terrible spring.

My dying industry

First, a friend sends me this unfortunate headline about the Saints coach:

Sean Payton beats the Easter bunny but not his wife in Crescent City Classic

Then the Washington Post emails me a NEWS ALERT! No, it's not about the American rescued from the Somali pirates. It's this:

News Alert: The First Puppy Makes a Big Splash

I ran across the clincher catching up on Undercover Black Man, who is noted for his unflinching roll call of MBP's--Misidentified Black Persons:

“In Sports on Monday, a photo accompanying articles about Sunday’s Lakers-Clippers game pictured Laker Lamar Odom trying to shoot over the Clippers’ Fred Jones. The caption misidentified Odom as Laker Kobe Bryant.”
Yes. The L.A. Times. Kobe frickin’ Bryant. Unbelievable.

Collapse is funny, except when it's sad.
ht/tt

R.I.P., Mark Fidrych

It is hard to overstate the phenomenon that was "The Bird," though plenty of media will make the effort. I think younger people will have a hard time understanding all the gushing over Fidrych, because unfortunately they haven't ever seen anything like him--an athlete who played, in the truest sense of the word.
It wasn't just a job for Fidrych, and though he put on a show, by all accounts it wasn't an act. He really enjoyed what he did. He wasn't cutting an opponent's throat, or humiliating them, or cheating, or aggrandizing himself for profit. He just played a game to the best of his ability, and his ability was rare. "He could throw a baseball through a keyhole from 60 feet," is how one competitor remembers it.
I had a conversation with Filip Bondy of the Daily News not long ago about the lack of playfulness among modern athletes. He lamented the departure of the Mets' Pedro Martinez, who had fun with the press and the fans, and knew never to take things too seriously, best exemplified, of course, when he was asked how he'd pitch to Babe Ruth: "I'd drill him in the ass."
Those kinds of quotes are as rare as the Bird nowadays, replaced by the premasticated mumblings of a class of people who (publicly anyway) want nothing to do with fun. It's what we've sown by turning kid athletes into de facto professionals before they turn 12, with every public utterance purposely boring, a la Jordan or Tiger or Tom Brady, or purposefully, and artificially, "outrageous," a la Terrell Owens and Bill Romanowski. In both approaches lie the same goal--to be marketed, or to use one of the dreariest words of the age, "monetized."
Maybe, as we enter a time more like the 1970s, another era where Mammon failed us, the monetization of the self will no longer be the paramount goal of life. And maybe the monetization of sports will be seen for the boring, joyless pursuit that it's become.

Donut (a-)holes

Some morons decided to carve donuts into the U.S. Oval soccer fields Friday night. City gym employees say the cops caught them, though. Few things worse than an idiot in a car.

Is it Evil Congressman Maffei?

The Tupper Lake bank robber's fake beard raises questions.
In other Star Trek parellel universe news, ever notice how much this guy resembles this guy?
ht/tg

Coach K's tears

For those into statistical analysis (and who isn't?), this is CyphersSpace post No. 100! Now go celebrate by taking a look at the favorites (hint--a prominent Polish-American is in the mix) for March Madness 2010--on ESPN Insider. Subscribe today!

If you liked Pulp Fiction...

...click on this YouTube video, wherein Brad Richter proves he's a really good guitarist.