Sleepless in Midland

KC Chiefs blocker now helping out on the coronavirus front line

Laurent Duvernay-Tardif was a starting right guard for the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl just a short time ago. His education was in medicine, and he decided to help out where he was needed.

A very nice article about him appears in Sports Illustrated: A Blocker Moves to the Pandemic’s Front Line. Here's an excerpt:

Less than three months after helping the Chiefs to a Super Bowl victory as their starting right guard, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif is putting his doctorate in medicine to use: fighting the coronavirus outbreak at a longterm care facility in Quebec.

--(Laurent Duvernay-Tardif as told to Greg Bishop Apr 27, 2020.)--

Soon into the crisis I started to ask how I could help. I reached out to the health ministry and public health authorities, but found out that I fell into a gray area where they didn’t know what to do with me, because I don’t have a license to practice—yet. In the interim, officials briefed me on an almost daily basis, and I used my platform and credentials to relay their messages. In Montreal, for a while, the age group most infected was people between 20 and 29, so there was an issue with enforcing those social distancing measures. I tried to reinforce the need for them.
...
I was assigned to a long-term care facility near my hometown on the South Shore, which is about an hour from Montreal. On my drive in, I thought about my own draft experience, back in 2014, when I missed a second-day draft party at my house because I was working at the hospital, in an intensive care unit, helping with an emergency C-section. The Chiefs took me the next day, in the sixth round. My shift started at 7:30 a.m. I found out that I would be working for now in more of a nursing role, helping relieve the workers who have already been in place. There’s so much that needs to happen just to visit with every patient—masks donned and hands washed and equipment like gloves and visors tugged on and off and thrown away. I handled a medication cart, making sure to administer the right dosage and in the proper way. Honestly, I was drained after—and looking forward to going back.

There was one positive test for COVID-19 at the same facility. Officials had set up a makeshift space in the cafeteria with 15 beds to be filled any time a patient comes down with symptoms. So far, due to those types of measures, the virus has not spread to other patients yet.

It’s wild to think that just 10 weeks earlier I played in the biggest game in sports. I was reminded of that even at the facility, when one of the people training me turned and said, “You’re the football player, right?” When I answered yes, he said, “Bro, you just won the Super Bowl.” Indeed, I told him, and now I just want to help.

A true hero!

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10:52 AM 4/29/2020

Bang the drum slowly -- Tony Adams counted the drum beats in the Astros sign stealing scandal

This is one of those things that makes the internet such a valuable resource.

A fellow named Tony Adams did the painstaking task of watching reruns of as many Astros' games as he could find. Then he documented the number of times someone banged on a garbage can -- one of the signals used by the sign watcher to alert a batter what kind of pitch to expect.

Here's his opening statement:

I’m an Astros fan. They cheated during the 2017 regular season — the evidence is clear. In an attempt to understand the scope of the cheating and the players involved, I decided to listen to every pitch from the Astros’ 2017 home games and log any banging noise I could detect. These are the results of my efforts. I’ve logged over 8,200 pitches and found banging before over 1,100 of those pitches.

See a bar graph of his results at Sign Stealing Scandal.

It's a truly remarkable piece of work.

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3:33 PM 2/4/2020

Russian curler caught doping

Many an arm chair athlete has probably thought the one winter Olympic event he/she could compete in would be curling. Brings to mind a joke a comedian once made on a late show: "I could compete in the Olympics. "Which event would that be?" "It's the one with the broom."

But here's something that really does raise a chuckle: A Russian curler tested positive for doping. See Russian Curler's 'B' Sample Confirms Doping Result; Bronze Medal In Jeopardy. The sport must be harder than it looks.

Meanwhile, speaking of drugs. Here's a point of view that will get drowned out by the media flood of anti-gun activists: Guns and school shootings: The dirty and deadly big secret. The "secret" exposed is the commonly prescribed psychotropic drugs for unruly young boys. Now there's a doping case that should bear some scrutiny.

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9:00 AM 2/21/2018

Advertisers walk a tight rope to avoid breaking Olympic rules

This is probably helpful info for advertisers. Found at Adweek.com: A One-Stop Guide to the Perplexing World of Olympics Marketing. There are specific rules applying to athletes, official sponsor brands, and brands that are not official Olympic sponsors but still have standing relationships with athletes participating in the games (“non-official sponsors”).

They all have to be careful what they say, for example, that last category -- non-official sponsors -- cannot "use terms that even suggest the Olympics, depending on context, including:"

Victory
Games
Medal
Bronze
Silver
Gold
Pyeongchang.

Dang. That seems restrictive. But advertisers are probably pretty adept at walking the tight rope to grab the gold, er uh, brass ring.

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1:56 PM 2/13/2018

Taking a knee and biting the hand

All those rich professionals ball players on the field who refuse to respect the U.S. flag have every right to do so. They should thank our founding fathers for giving them that right, but that wouldn't fit the narrative.

In any event, the politicization of pro sports could have a positive effect. The case for taxpayer funded ball parks for pampered professionals and wealthy owners has always been a misuse of tax dollars. Voters who will inevitably be asked to pay for new sports stadiums might have second thoughts about that concept.

So maybe voters will balk the next time some pro team owner comes to them with his hand out. The ballot box is where conservatives protest. Let the millionaire players pay for their own stadium.

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9:13 AM 9/24/2017

Good ad featuring nice ball handling by Stephen Curry

We have a good time on these pages poking fun at bad ads. So in fairness, the good ones deserve some recognition, too.

There's a good one airing these days for Infinity, the car. The ad features some fine basketball handling by Stephen Curry. He dribbles two balls in synchronization. It's very impressive. Watch it at this Youtube video if you haven't seen it already.

BTW, Mr. Curry made a smart move by doing this. His name appears on a screen during the ad, and it was a good thing. You probably know who he is, but I didn't know before looking him up on Duckduckgo. Now I know, too, and he's got a new fan.

Michael Phelps put that Chad le Clos dude in his place -- YEAH!

That disgusting video of the South African dude disrespecting Michael Phelps is all over the net. Here's a youtube vid of the scene. Looks almost like the le Clos character is trying to do a Muhammad Ali number, but without the skill to back it up.

It's a metaphor. It seems the whole world is disrespecting the U.S.A. these days.

It would have been refreshing to see Phelps jump up and smack le Clos in the kisser. But Phelps had a bigger goal in mind, which was to beat the hell out of him in a race. And he did!

U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!

And to think that anyone wonders why the phrase "Make America Great Again" has so much traction.

Enhanced Human Operations -- put it to use on football players

Even non-football fans couldn't avoid hearing about the slug fest that took place between the Bengals and the Steelers last week end. No one wants to see players get hurt, whether intentionally or not, and the helmets in use these days are probably as good as current technology will allow.

But there may be more work to be done with body protection. DARPA is working on what they call Enhanced Human Operations for military use. So why not apply some of that technology to pro-football?

Put them in Iron Man suits and let them go at it.

NFL -- when MMA is not enough.

Another great sports photo from James Durbin

He's good. We talked about him before, see previously, James Durbin's airborne athletes. And he's still cranking out those extraordinary photos of athletes in action.

Take a look at the one below from print edition of the 10/24/2015 Midland Reporter-Telegram. The tackler has his arms outreached for the runner, and the photo was taken at just the right moment.

According to the text, the tackle was unsuccessful, but what a great shot it made.

I assume Mr. Durbin uses a camera with a processor fast enough so that he can snap, snap, snap, and get lots of photos of a sequence of movement within a play. Then he can pick the one that captures the moment. But that's not to take anything away from his obvious talent. He's got a good eye, and he had to be at the right place at the right time.

A color fun run in Odessa 11-16-13

If nothing else it should be colorful. It's a five kilometer fun run in Odessa, Texas, scheduled on 11/16/13 -- click for details.

Here's how it works. The race begins at 9:00am with waves of runners starting every five minutes. Along the way are stations where volunteers throw colored power at the victims runners. The still shot below is a screen capture from this Youtube video which should give a taste of the event.

If breathing colored powder sounds like fun, imagine the joy you'll experience as you gasp across the finish line.

The promoter is TheColorRun.com, a for-profit event organizer which helps some charities raise money. The charities that are supposed to benefit from the Odessa run are the United Way of Odessa and Global Citizen -- an organization which takes a vague but noble stand against injustice and poverty.

ColorRun.com has offered me two free pass codes to the event if I write a blog post about it. Well, here it is. If they follow through with that, then the pass codes will go to the first person who emails me asking for them.

Hold your breath!

Psst. To get $5 off the full ticket price use the code: COLOR5OFF. And for tips on cleaning the powder off afterward -- now there's a first world problem! -- see Cleaning Up.

How about those Washington Whiteskins?

The English language is constantly evolving, and words come in and go out of fashion all the time. But sometimes it isn't a natural pace, especially when the grievance committee fixates on a word they don't like. The current word in the bulls eye is "Redskins," as in Washington Redskins.

There are those who want to move the word "redskin" into "N" word status even though most people think the current usage as a team name is OK.

But, we can't stand in the way of progress, or to put a finer point on them, progressives. So let's come up with a new name for the Washington Redskins.

The name should be similar enough to Redskins so as not to confuse too many people, so we'll try to keep one of the syllables. Personally, I like "Whiteskins." White people are seen as the great oppressors, so maybe that's an intimidating enough image.

Or maybe just "Skins." Every male over a certain age was probably a "Shirt" or a "Skin" in some school yard game.

Perhaps a more appropriate name would simply be "Reds." The "Washington Reds." Yeah, that would work. The current administration has accelerated the nation's pace toward socialism, and although "Reds" is more closely associated with communism, it's close enough.

Anyway, here are a few more suggestions:

Washington Bureaucrats;
Washington Regulators;
Washington Tax Collectors;
Washington Bullies;
Washington Tape Worms;
Washington Goal Post Movers.

Editor's input: If the objective is to put fear into the hearts of opponents, why not name them the Washington Killer Robots? - Robo-ed.  | That'll happen soon enough, Robo. Let's not rush it. Meanwhile, Washington Spambots might fit. - Sleepless.

Editor's second input: Krauthammer wrote a post dated 10/17/13 that said some of the same things you did. Is he stealing your ideas? - Robo-ed. |  Well, I doubt if Karuthammer reads this blog, so maybe the points and analogies were so obvious anyone could come up with them. - Sleepless.

Village of the Damned plays high school football

Maybe someone who follows West Texas high school football knows the story behind this. Take a look at these two photos from the Midland Reporter-Telegram issues of 11/24/12 and 11/26/12. Notice anything unusual about the players?

All of those young men seem to be sporting blond hair. Is that a coincidence? The odds are against it being a natural phenomenon.

They are identified as Greenwood High School football players, but they look like adolescent kids from the Village of the Damned, minus the scary eyes.

Maybe their mothers were impregnated by one of those fertility doctors who used blond sperm to impregnate his patients. But that's even more unlikely.

Perhaps the boys bleached their hair to intimidate their opponents.  Gorgeous George would be proud.

What they need now is a good Haka dance to really intimidate their opponents, perhaps to the tune of a Beach Boys song. Or they could just use their Village of the Damned powers to cause turnovers. Either way.

[How did you miss Bleach Boys?  Robo-ed.]

So you think you've been in a fight

A boxing match is a punishing event. It's doubtful anyone would disagree with that statement, but just in case, take a look at these before and after photos of fighters.

They are from a book by Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein titled At the Fights - Inside Professional Boxing.  To see more photos click here .

Via BusinessInsider.com.

Noisy Olympic spectators

I really laughed at this. If you've ever attended a sporting event and had to sit near a noisy nuisance maybe you can enjoy it too.

The guy here is supposed to be the King of Sweden, and maybe among royals the need to make noise outweighs any need for common courtesy to the ordinaries.

Found at Yahoo.com.

Obama performs on the Olympic rings

While noting that the rings may be the most difficult apparatus in gymnasts' sport, TheAtlanticWire.com asks If This Is the Olympics, Where Are the Rings? Not to worry, we've found them.

Oops. Poor old Barack, all tangled up in problems of his own making, aided and abetted by a mainstream media enthralled with the image they created.

Isn't Erin Bonsteel a terrific cartoonist? More of her magnificent work can be found at AntiAntiUnderground.com.

Catching Hell

There was a documentary called Catching Hell on ESPN the other night that was truly frightening. Here's ESPN's synopsis:

In the 8th inning of Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS, Cubs fan Steve Bartman reached for a foul pop fly and tipped the ball away from Cubs left fielder Moises Alou, which caused anger and rage from fellow Cubs fans. Watch "Catching Hell" Tuesday September 27th 8pm EST on ESPN

The Cubs lost big that night, and it seemed as though every fan in Chicago blamed Bartman. They chanted, "Ass Hole, Ass Hole, Ass Hole." They threw beer at him. They yelled at him. They threatened him, and security personnel finally spirited him to a secure room until the game ended and the crowd dwindled. They disguised him to get him off the premises, and a security guard took him to her apartment until it was safe for him to go home. He has lived in seclusion ever since.

His sin was that he tried to do what everyone else around him was trying to do, snag a foul ball. Someone down the row eventually grabbed it, and later cashed it in.

But what was so astonishing about the whole event was that the crowd at Wrigley Field turned on a dime from enthusiastic fans to a ruthless lynch mob with one solitary guy as their target. It was scary.

Watch the rebroadcast tonight, 9/29/11, on ESPN2.

Batter up

As seen Monday morning at a local ball park.

A different take on the expression "In the batter's cage."

Actually it was a fellow working on the light fixtures. The crane lifted him in the cage up to the point needing work.

Who ratted out A-Rod?

Sports Illustrated broke the story about Alex Rodriguez's alleged performance enhancing drug use in 2003. Since then fans, opinion pages, and even President Obama have weighed in on it. Say what you will about that, it was Rodriguez's secret until someone ratted him out. Sports Illustrated cited "sources."

SI said that the tests took place in 2003 of 1,198 players to satisfy an agreement between MLB and the union to help determine whether to impose mandatory random drug testing. According to SI the tests were supposed to be anonymous, however the players were asked to sign their names next to a number corresponding to their urine samples. Then in 2004 the Feds raided the lab and seized the test results.

So who leaked Mr. Rodriguez's results to the press? Allen Barra of the Wall Street Journal says this:

No one can be sure why A-Rod's was the only name mentioned, but as baseball's most highly paid and publicized player, and the only player to be publicly linked with Madonna, outing him would have generated the most publicity.

As to who did it and why, there's a very short list of candidates, says [former head of players union] Mr. Miller. "MLB, the union and the federal investigators all have the information, and if the first two had anything to gain by revealing a name on the list, I can't imagine what that would be."

So Mr. Miller is pinning it on the Feds and makes a good point in questioning what the MLB or the union would have to gain.

Mr. Allen Barra's article was titled For A-Rod, Placebos Might've Worked Better and he goes on to say that the particular drugs A-Rod was supposed to have used apparently didn't really help in the years he was supposed to have used them, adding:

Mr. Rodriguez has admitted using Primobolan and testosterone from 2001 to 2003; no penalty was attached to the use of such substances before the Basic Agreement between the players and Major League Baseball went into effect in 2004. Primobolan is not a prescription drug, and legal penalties for its use range from minimal to nonexistent; testosterone is a legal prescription drug.

He says they were legal, or if illegal, the penalties were minimal at the time, and they probably didn't affect his ability to hit a ball. So maybe that's why someone outed him. They had an ax to grind, he wouldn't go to jail, so that was the only way they could hurt him.

Anyway, it seems that nothing is secret anymore, even military secrets get reported now as breaking news. As for A-Rod, next time he's asked to take an anonymous test he should sign with a pseudonym and use a wizzinator to cover all bases, so to speak.

Super Bowl XLIII snacking tip

A friend offers this helpful Super Bowl snacking tip:

If you find yourself munching on Salmonella peanuts, spit, don't swallow.

OK, thanks.  Good advice.