Bleacher Views

Remember what it was to be cool? Do you remember telling someone, “Be cool, man!” Actually, it was more like one word, “Becoolman!” One word, but drawled out – because that was really cool. “BeeeCooolMan!”

In Boston, you don’t drink the Kool-Aid, you swallow the Red Sox “chowdah.” Youngsters, used to winning World Series and bringing home Super Bowl trophies, may not know the feeling. But we old timers, we know what that “chowdah” tastes like, and we keep trying to swear off it.

Back in the dark ages of the Eisenhower administration, the newly affluent popular culture was introduced to fads: coonskin caps, hula hoops and joy buzzers. Remember joy buzzers? The comedy of cruelty on the playground.

So, you think you are a clear headed, flinty-eyed rationalist, do you? You think that all we need for the universe to give up the rest of its secrets is a more powerful telescope, a bigger particle collider, some fancier math theorems, and we will have it knocked. No more mysteries for the human race.

If you wish to drag me up in front of a House Un-American Sporting Committee and accuse me of harboring unnatural thoughts against the American Sports Scene, I will not protest and will go quietly, canceled bleacher ticket in hand.

You see, I am not a fan of post-seasons.

The Biblical precursor to our game of football was a game called Stones. Somehow the editors of the King James version missed the reference to the game, but we football coaches picked it up some time in the distant past; and it explains a good deal of the strange goings on in our game.

I’ve always been a fan of Sisyphus; I mean who couldn’t be? The dude gets condemned to a death time of useless labor, and he sticks with it.  Kinda like playing for the Orioles for all eternity but still batting .300 for the career. Heroic, even.

Out here in the boondock bleachers, calling a player “scrappy” is the equivalent of placing a halo around his head and putting a “Saint” in front of his name.