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Sports Arena
The First and the Last
A different kind of Sunday double-header.
TAMPA — What better preparation for watching the biggest football game of the year Sunday evening than to watch an inconsequential baseball game Sunday afternoon.
No disrespect to the Spartans of the University of Tampa, or to the Fighting Falcons of Bentley College (of Waltham, Mass. — I hadn’t heard of it either). The game certainly wasn’t inconsequential to their players, coaches, and fans. And it wasn’t inconsequential to me, because it was the first of many baseball games I’ll watch this spring, summer, and fall (it is spring in Florida now). With some colleges already playing hard ball, and Major League players reporting to training camps in Florida and Arizona this month, the gladiator sport will soon yield to the more subtle pleasures and the more relaxing rhythms of the Grand Old Game.
Fewer than a hundred souls turned out in Tampa on a sunny, 82-degree “winter” day to watch the Spartans go 3-0 on the brand new season. A few more turned out in Indianapolis for the game there. In the press box at UT were four students, the university’s sports information director, and one old coot just glad baseball is back. There were a few more media types in Indianapolis.
The football game, at the clunkily-named Lucas Oil Stadium, was a pretty good one, even though it was punctuated by the usual over-long, over-produced, and tasteless half-time featuring yet another past-it pop star. This one ending with a harrumphing, politically correct banality as “world peace” was spelled out in big letters just before resumption of a game in which the participants try to knock each other’s brains out. “World peace” — good grief! What does the NFL think this is, the Miss America contest?
At least some of the bad taste left by the nonsensical half time spectacle was washed away by Clint Eastwood’s short, “Get out there and block and tackle, America” message.
The ads were perhaps not as out of control as they’ve been in years past. At least there were no gas-passing animals. But there was a woman who delivers a felonious head butt to her husband in order to commandeer a tin of Greek yogurt. (Imagine the fertilizer storm from feminist groups if the husband had butted the wife.) Budweiser put up a manic ad that featured what was probably only 30 seconds of rap but seemed like 30 minutes. And it’s not entirely clear how those polar bears fumbling around with bottles of Coke to Beethoven will make people buy Cokes. Presumably the folks paying the gaudy amounts for the air time know the connection. The beer-fetching dog was fun to watch (though it doesn’t change the fact that Bud-Lite tastes like beer-flavored water).
This NFL season had its moments, not the least being the Packers’ run at perfection and the uplifting Tim Tebow Show in Denver. The Giants took the final game fair and square. And you’ve no idea how hard it is for this Southerner with a perfect life-time record of never pulling for New York team to say this. And thus NFL players begin off-season healing from those tens of thousands of collisions they’ve endured since last summer’s training camps for our amusement. (If the baseball off-season where aficionados speculate on what the next season will bring is called the Hot Stove League, do football fans have an Air-Conditioner League?) So with a nod to hockey and the NBA, the thoughts of many of us now turn to baseball.
No need to go through all of George Carlin’s great routine on the difference between football and baseball. But it’s goodbye to bombs and blitzes and forearm shivers in arctic weather, and hello to good at-bats, hitting behind the runner, throwing from the stretch, and running home in 80 degrees (OK, maybe not even 70 in those first few home games in Fenway and Wrigley).
The Super Bowl reminds us all why football careers are shorter than baseball careers, as wide-body after wide-body was carried off the field of battle with injuries. The day’s two games also demonstrated for me yet again that while a small cohort understand the infield fly rule, no one on Earth or the closer planets knows what pass interference is.
Oh yeah, you may not have found any mention of it in your morning sport page, but after beating Bentley 7-0 and 8-0 on Friday and Saturday, it took the Spartans single runs in the bottom of the 8th and the 9th to take care of Bentley 2-1 on Sunday. It will be a long flight back to Massachusetts for the Bentley boys, what with only one unearned run in three games to show for their weekend. But they’re young and resilient. They’ll bounce back. And they have lots of games left this season, which no team in the NFL can say today.
About the Author
Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
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Richard Baker| 2.6.12 @ 7:02AM
Even though I'm a longtime Redskins fan, was glad to see the game and congratulations to the New York/Jersey Giants. Good game and see you guys next season.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.6.12 @ 7:52AM
That half time show was awful.
My friends and I were out on a deck smoking cigars and drinking Margaritas during half time and could see the TV but not hear the sounds through a window on the deck.
When the World Peace thing popped up at the end a couple of us laughed out loud. These were people in their late 30's early 40's who refer to me as the "elderly guy" and some of them have liberal tendencies. One of them remarked, "What bullshit!" to which the rest of us could only turn back to the street and make remarks about the first half.
Brian Mc| 2.6.12 @ 9:24AM
Wow...was that a liberal suffering a reality check? Thanks for sharing, Bill. The same words uttered from my lips as the wife stepped up to the blue ray and inserted "The Fellowship of the Ring" as I muttered, "Yeah, tell that to the murderers, rapists, criminals who most likely failed to let the message sink in"...liberal smugness never ceases to amaze.
POST American| 2.6.12 @ 8:41AM
"The woman on her own,
the woman without the filial
---is a natural destroyer
---she can't even help it."
D H Lawrence
1922
"And what shall we do with those
who lack the filial?----Why, they shall
be the poisoners of course."
-Arthushastra
(Ancient Hindu manual
of government control)
AS abortions sweep past 51 MILLION
----and the 'easing out' of the old and unfit
(ie 'challenged life' )----is undeniably
'on the go' ----WHO better to make an
agenda advancing half-time splash at
our rectum worshipping 'Super Bowl'
---than the '80's Show' EYE-con herself?
------BTW ----we're watching all this
while standing in Tower #2. . .
JimH| 2.6.12 @ 9:17AM
Cmon Larry, If you want a local reason to support the Giants look at USF alum JPP. The G-men also have a USF man at linebacker who's name escapes me at the moment.
Al Adab| 2.6.12 @ 11:54AM
When the NFC wins, 78% of the time the dow goes up for the following year. We will see this time when the market starts to discount the election. We saw the results in '08 when the market realized Obama would win.
Sugartown Super| 2.6.12 @ 1:01PM
The Clint Eastwood thing almost sounded like an Obama ad. You know: the first half was bad folks, but just watch me kick a** in the second half! Promises, promises...
Al Adab| 2.6.12 @ 2:42PM
I took it the other way around. It's halftime and our team (the free market one) is losing so we had better get our act together and pull out all the stops to win. The breaks are beating the boys and it's time to win one for the Gipper. To say nothing of the future generations relying on us now.
fmm| 2.6.12 @ 1:34PM
To be honest, the football game was no more important than the baseball game. I watched neither.
Stn| 2.6.12 @ 2:13PM
Mr. Thornberry, you are a moron.
I wouldn't have given this article a moment of my valuable time except here goes -- I'm gonna say what you supposed intelligent thinker writers never get around to.
What the crap are these fool kids doing with their lives? They are in college for just a precious little wink in time called 8 semesters. They are over before one knows it.
Baseball, hockey, football, basketball and all the others should once more be relegated to the intramural level. Intercollegiate athletics ensures a dumb and failing tomorrow for America.
Don't esteem junk.
All those boys (they surely aren't men and are on no pathway to being men) do is play baseball, year round. They play in AAA leagues when not putting on the college uniform on the diamonds.
This is stupid. Either they are budding academics rigorously pursuing high-end degrees and real skills that our society needs, or we're all wasting our time.
End the NCAA legion of hypocrisies. Stop underwriting folly.
Those little boys (they really are very selfishly bratty when you get to know most of them -- believe me, I know) should be in church on Sunday. Yes, church. Not doing warm-ups, doubleheaders or on a bus for these useless away events.
And you think our nation will enjoy a better "tomorrow?" Not possible.
A kindred spirit: I am with "fmm" above.
STN| 2.6.12 @ 2:24PM
It is best to talk with facts. Facts should always carry the day. Mr. Thornberry, you end the article by talking about how many games are yet to play -- in this collegiate baseball spring 2012 season.
Whoa! Is that understatement.
I challenge every reader here to do what I've done the last two years: I just glance at an online or brochure listing of the college near me, their baseball schedule of games from now until May (June if they go to Omaha)
Whoooa! It is over 5 dozen games and the season has yet to officially start.
Half of these games are away. If there is any post-season play, the game tally goes over 60 easily (and this is not counting charity or college vs. AA games that are done for 'show' or filler)
So ask yourself: How much class time, library, time seminar time, study group time, lab time does that collegiate roster of 40 players see?
We are all fools if we think them to be labeled "students."
This has no business being associated with academia.
Go let the boys play; they shouldn't be enrolled - anywhere.
Seek| 2.6.12 @ 2:24PM
NCAA-sanctioned college sports are a healthy alternative to far worse mischief...such as culture war waged from church pulpits.
Glenn T| 2.6.12 @ 6:27PM
Ha Ha. I LOL'd when the the cliched words "World Peace" came up on the super bowl halftime screen. I remarked to my wife that certain LA Laker player was a genius to get his new name spelled out in the super bowl for all to see... after all what was his chance of getting Ron Artest spelled out like that ???
John Corn | 2.6.12 @ 7:40PM
Best half-time show in 20 years; it was entertainment, as opposed to rock slimes.
Dumb column.
fckewe| 2.7.12 @ 5:47AM
Try writing with a cooler full of beer on your desk man, you ramble pointlessly when your full of suds.