The Oligarchy of Sports

As I listened to Artie Lange guesting on Bubba the Love Sponge, he was of course entertaining and, as usual, poignant. Toward the end Bubba, a big sports fan, asked fellow sports nut Artie if he'd gone for the Yankees' scheme; pay $20,000 to hold your season seats for the new Yankee stadium. My transcription of that dialog - with edits - is as usual at the end of my rant.

Here's the scenario when I was a kid: I went to at least a half dozen to a dozen Laker games a season. There were so many future Hall of Fame-rs then, and I saw them all; Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, Wilt, Rick Barry, and my fave, Elgin Baylor... I am this old; I saw the Lakers play first at the Sports Arena. I did that up until about the age of 12. Then they moved to a bigger arena.

Sports then weren't dominated by athletes looking to get paid for endorsing some jerkoff sugar water. I suppose with what little most of them made then I wouldn't begrudge them if they had. But the air was unassuming then, so much so that a kid could hang around after the game and get all of their autographs - save for Russell and Chamberlain who never signed - which I still have on programs socked away somewhere. With the move to the Forum in '67, things changed. Much nicer venue, higher prices - but still in the ghetto. Jack Kent Cook - who'd go on to own the Redskins (a horrible name) - was the money and the man behind the move.

My last great memory associated with the Lakers is '88, when they were going for the first back-to-back championship in 20 years since the Celts. We didn't think we had a chance at tickets, and I didn't want to hassle going to the box office with all of the yahoos and scalpers. But my friend Linda went and got two tickets - one for game 6, one for game 7. That's all they had, singles. She asked me which one I wanted, and I said she should pick since she was the one who went through the trouble; she took game 7.

Game six is my favorite sports experience. The Forum was packed, the game was a classic, and produced one of the most jaw-dropping performances I've ever witnessed by a human being:

One of Piston guard Isiah Thomas' career-defining performances came in Game 6. Despite badly twisting his ankle midway through the period, Thomas scored a still-NBA Finals record 25 third quarter points, as Detroit fell valiantly, 103-102, to the Lakers at the Forum.
-from the Wiki on the '88 Finals

At one point, when the Lakes - both teams really - were whipping the crowd into a frenzy, it got so loud that the young couple beside me who I'd befriended and I tried shouting to each other to no avail.

I think we got those seats for under 30 bucks each. They weren't great seats, but this was the Finals. It was history in the making. And it was a classic matchup.

Sports have provided so many moments seared into my being that to me, life is kind of colorless without them. I mean, I love art in all of its forms, but for my money, nothing matches the intensity and elation of sports at its best. Let alone really good books or docs on sports - HBO's Real Sports being some of the best filmmaking around. Then there's playing sports, because if you play consistently and long enough the odds are that you'll experience "the zone" at least a few times. That's a remarkable thing.

Just last year, Fish got tickets for the playoffs. It was the first round, Denver, and they were good seats through one of her company's clients. I hadn't been to the Staples Center in a few years for a Laker game, although I'd seen the Clippers a few times, but any team that has had Benoit Benjamin start for them, well, that doesn't count.

Sports today, the business of sports, like everything else, is about spamming you relentlessly to cram consumerism down your throat and up your ass. The sheer amount of wattage running all of the spam signs in Staples could power Kobe's ego for a week. And for me, a lifelong Laker fan who's been priced out but who helped build their fucking business, it's bittersweet at best.

I don't like Kobe, I think many have problems with him but are cowed because he's a superstar. But what else explains why Shaq - arguably the most dominant player in the league then - would leave when by my estimation they could have won 2 possibly even 3 more after already three-peating?

The Lakers of today are a name only, or a commodity, a thing that's used - for status, not for enjoying. There's a thrill when you hear a band that you like; but it's so much more when you see them play live. TV and sports are cool, but watching a live game, being in that atmosphere, particularly as a kid, it's indescribable. And I would have loved to share that with Renee, but the Lakers fucked the very fans who made them what they are.

And still, the Lakers of today are nothing like the great 80's or even the struggling 70's teams (with the exception of the '71 championship team which is really an extension of the 60's team), let alone the classic 60's. Today it's all very in your face crass, impersonal, all about money and that just kills what sports used to be about - the real fans enjoying their team. It's Lamar - pay me 14 mil and watch as I fuckin' disappear - Odom. It's Kobe jackin up 20 footers with the team standing around just watching, about as interesting to watch as the jerkoff business people in the corporate boxes sipping fuckin' chardonnay or whatever their lame-o candy asses like. It's depressing.

No, the Lakers, they've broken cardinal rule number one of the streets; don't forget where you came from.

Just like our government and these jerkoff corporations are giving a big "fuck you" to all those from the working class who had grandparents and older generations claw their way over and literally build this fucking country. My grandparents' generation for one are stomping and yelling from their graves, but it's one quality of being a complete fucknut that you can't have a conscience.

No, the Lakers, much like Artie Lange's Yankees, have given a great big resounding finger to us from the working class, the real fans, and opted for the Hollywood jerkoffs who take their blonde bimbo with the fake everything because the Laker game is where you go to be seen. It's sad; the Laker game has become a circle jerk beauty pageant. God forbid you should get distracted by a basketball game.

Oh, as Fish and I drove up to Staples for that playoff game, I saw what for me was the most astounding representation of just how lame sports are today. As we passed a parking lot right off of Fig, I believe, there was a small parking lot almost directly across from the arena. In the lot were nothing but Lexuses, Audis, Benzes, Beemers, Bentleys, limos... a sign read: $40.

Sports are supposed to be fun, not getting you to whip out your wallet to corporations. For god's sakes, it's supposed to be something working class kids can have in their otherwise deprived lives of not being able to shop on Montana Avenue, but these shitheads don't care. It's like the kid who comes to a marble game and wants all the marbles so that no one else can play except whom he deems. The league, owners and corporations have all conspired and now only the kids in Beverly Hills and Brentwood can go, or those with parents who have connections. It's just mean and sad.

What's become of the world?

From Bubba the Love Sponge, 3/20/09 – guest, Artie, at about 1:07:45; transcribed & edited by jp
Note: Artie's a multi-millionaire, and Bubba's not poor by any means. Still, their working class roots keep them grounded. Spice is Bubba's sidekick.

Bubba: Did you cough up the extra money, just the fuckin’ outlandish amount of money they’re making people lay down for a seat deposit for the new Yankee Stadium?

Artie: Unfortunately man, I did.

Bubba: My god. Can I ask at all what that seat deposit was?

A: Well I’m splittin’ it with uh…

B: (Astounded) Man…

A: …with two other guys who I’ve always split it with. My cut now… in the old stadium, I had amazing seats; I had five rows behind third base, and I had ‘em for ten years. And, uh, you know, throughout the World Series and everything, they cost me, I had ta lay out about twenty g’s. But, when the Yankees are good, you know, back then they cracked down on this now you can’t do it anymore because, you know, huh, the Yankess don’t want you scalping tickets, not because of any ethical reasons because they fuckin’

B: Resell ‘em!

A: Exactly. So they wrote me a letter threatening to take my fuckin’ tickets away because… to a legal scalper, no bullshit…

B: A ticket broker.

A: Yeah, a ticket broker. So, uhm, I was laying out twenty grand but back when they didn’t give a shit about that you could make money on the fuckin’ deal because it was like a part-time job, the Yankees were that good. So you’re not allowed to do that anymore, so obviously, I’m not gonna sell tickets to anybody, cuz fuck it.

B: You have the same seats or no?

A: Okay, twenty g’s for five rows behind third. In the new stadium, okay? I’m now ten rows behind third because five rows back are all corporations. You can’t even get near it.

B: Not even close, huh?

A: And, it would have been two hundred grand.

COLLECTIVE: OOOO!

B: AIG needs that bailout money to get those.

A: Yeah. That includes the vig they charged everybody…

B: Jesus…

A: So now, going back another five to seven rows, I’m like around the tenth or twelfth row, I gotta see, behind third, still downstairs, not bad, uh, I laid out… sixty five thousand.

COLLECTIVE: OH!

B: That was only one third.

A: Yeah.

B: That would make me no longer a Yankee fan.

A: And I did it reluctantly. I actually told my friend who I do it with all the time, I said you know what?, cuz I hate A Rod, I just don’t like the guy, uh you know, he’s got no rings with the Yanks yet…

B: Missing in October.

A: Right exactly. I said this on Letterman, I said I got no problem with A Rod doing steroids, but clearly he stops doing ‘em October first.

B: It’s the truth.

LAUGHTER

A: If you’re gonna do ‘em do ‘em all fuckin’ year brother. I mean, Jesus. So uh, I’m an underdog kinda guy too like you guys, the Yanks were the one frontrunner I always liked. But it’s even getting nauseating for me with the A Rod. You know Jeter doesn’t like him, uh, he’s out for a couple of months. I don’t care if Scott Brosius is drunk with a big huge gut somewhere, and I don’t know if he drinks at all, I’m just saying if he is somewhere, just bring him back. I like Brosius better. Bring back Graig Nettles who I know drinks, I love Nettles, he’s the best! Dig up Clete Boyer’s bones, 1960’s guy who fuckin’ died.

B: Just prop him up there.

A: So … I almost said, “You know what? Fuck these motherfuckers”…

Spice: Cuz they’re fuckin’ the fans is what they’re doin’.

A: And I have a venue to say it. I almost wanted to say “Fuck the tickets” and then get on the air …

B: And say it.

A: …and say “Look, this is why I’m not doin’ it.”

B: Yeah. It’s highway fuckin’ robbery.

S: If you’re an average fan no way can you go to the game.

A: My old man climbed roofs for a livin’ man, I don’t think he ever made sixty five thousand dollars in a year, and he’s the one who got me into the Yankees, that’s what the Yankees were born on.

B: But you know, your dad, back in the day, he could still take his boy to the ball game.

A: That’s what I’m saying.

S: None of these corporate assholes are true Yankees fans from back in the day.

A: The story I tell in the book about when [my dad] threw me on the field, the Reggie Jackson game…

B: I remember that!

S: That’s great…

A: Now we sent away for tickets, World Series game, game six, he sent away in the middle of the season, cuz the Yanks had played the Reds in the series, got killed the year before, but, he took a chance, he said, “You know what? I’m gonna send away through the mail for tickets.” We got nosebleed seats cuz they came through the mail, last row of the upper deck behind third base. I remember Graig Nettles looked like a speck – not a spic, a speck – it was the South Bronx. So I can remember, that’s where a guy, right in front of my father, you talk about a different time, the ‘70’s, a guy asked me to hold his beer while he rolled a joint.

LAUGHTER

A: Ten years old I had a contact high cost my old man $80 in hot dogs. I still have those ticket stubs, it’s a shit seat, last row the upper deck, but this is a World Series game. TEN BUCKS A PIECE.

B: Yep!

S: God that’s cool…

B: And a guy could afford to take your boy to the ball game.

A: Oh! You know who you see at the Yankees games now? Guys in suits who get there in the third inning and leave in the seventh…

B: With their fuckin’ Blackberrys...

A: Or some rich kid in a polo shirt with khaki fuckin’ shorts whatever the fuck…

B: Penny loafers…

A: Right. In the ‘70’s and even into the mid 80’s you saw guys who just worked for the city somewhere, you saw a fireman, a cop, a plumber. Or guys like my father, I remember my father taking me to a Yankee game right from work. He had sheet rock on his arm and insulation, and he’d wash up in the fuckin’ sink at Yankee Stadium, and hold me up to take a piss in the sink.
…
A: But yeah, that’s it man. Can you believe that? Sixty five g’s I’m payin’. And I’m not allowed to sell ‘em anymore. I mean they’re just rape… They’re telling the blue collar fan to fuck off, and the Jets and the Giants both did it too. It’s a fuckin’ shame.

A One Way Street Named Loyalty

I've been up in Berkeley for about 2 weeks now, and I must say, it's a welcome break from LA. One of the good things is I got to see my cousin Warren and his wife, Janet.

During our dinner, we got on the topic of sports, and being much older than me - sorry, cuz - Warren had all these great stories about his early support of the Raiders. There were some great anecdotes, but one of the most astounding was when he said that in the early days - this must have been the mid 60's - when they played in what sounded like a podunky kind of field (Youell Field...?) he said you could walk right up behind the bench and hear all of their chatter.

My god, can you imagine that?

This was a team whose rep preceded them by a country mile, and I have to admit, the Rams who I was loyal to for years but who ended up telling all of the LA fans to fuck off, paled in comparison. The Raiders, from the artistry of Fred Biletnikoff to the craziness of "The Mad Stork" Ted Hendricks to the beautiful aggressiveness of Jack Tatum (one of my favorite players because I played free safety) defined "bad" and backed it up in spades. I just can't imagine what it would have been like to have watched and listened to these legends of the game.

That being able to listen to the players, it's no small point, as Ed Sabol's NFL Films would show some years later, slowing down the game and making it heard so that its beauty could be greater appreciated. Today it's all about security and posses, let alone the crush of media. A kid's lucky if he even catches a glimpse of a player these days.

The other major point in Warren's reminiscences was his being an early season seat holder, for a mere few hundred bucks. When in 1992 the team - let's be honest, shall we? Al "I never saw a dollar I wouldn't run over my mom for" Davis - picked up and moved to LA, it was merely following in the footsteps of the Rams, who had done the same. Thus, money triumphs over loyalty, and in a mark of cruelty seen only by the likes of Stalin and that shithead priest who was preying on deaf kids, Davis would move the team back to Oakland. This, after having pocketed a cool $10 mil non-refundable deposit from LA's Irwindale after a failed bid, screwing the old Raider fans by making them put down a huge deposit much like what the Yanks did to Artie Lange and getting the city of Oakland to once again mistake bending over for opening one's arms in welcome.

~~~~~

It's a habit of old folks like us to romanticize "the good ole' days" but damn sometimes it's true. Later, while watching the Lakers and Jazz play, I was prompted by a commercial to tell Warren that I feel lucky in one regard to having come up before the mega-growth of sports. I have no memories whatsoever of one of the NBA legends and my boyhood hero Elgin Baylor acting like a jerkoff in some shitty, canned commercial for sugar water or a car that promises to get you any amount of women. Talking to Warren makes me think of the Little Richard quote I used for Ma's piece where he talks about the old time rock and roll as representing the joy, fun and happiness in music. That's how it was then, just a joy, awesome, really, to watch these magnificent athletes strutting like titans. All without a motherfuckin' posse and them feeling as if the universe was lucky to have them.

After hearing Warren's reminiscences the anger I had about pro sports today was slowly replaced with feeling awfully lucky to have come up when we did.

Me: "It ain't like the old days."

Warren looks down, slightly wistful, with a smile: "No, it sure isn't."

American Sports Gone Wild

What IS it about our twisted American culture that produces outliers that make foreign psychopaths drool? Of course there are sickos everywhere, but I guess like everything else American, we have to do twisted bigger 'n badder.

And so we come to the sad state of American major league sports, and a unique time in our history. Because major scandals are rocking them all.

To the non-sports fan here they are:

1. NBA: A ref is caught on the take, which means he has been fixing games.

2. NFL: Star quarterback Michael Vick has been indicted on animal cruelty charges, namely, pitbull fighting.

3. MLB: Superstar Barry Bonds has just broken Hank Aaron's all time record - one of the milestone achievements in American sports. Much of the public looks on with a jaundiced eye, as it is widely rumored that Bonds, at age 43, has been juicing roids and thus, his achievement is tainted. It explains why fans in stands hold up signs and wear t-shirts with huge asteriks on them, because his record will be footnoted by the controversy.

Now, when I was only a lad, sports were a big deal and the athletes we revered were gods. This was the birth of the Sabols' fledgling "NFL Films" with the timeless, basso profundo "voice of god" narration by John Facenda. Chicky Baby Hearn called the Lakers and the man known by some as "The Voice" and generally recognized as the greatest play by play baseball shot caller, Vin Scully, called for the Dodgers. The Rams, who walked on water, were straight old school: The Fearsome Foursome - Rosey Grier, Merlin Olsen, Lamar Lundy, and the great Deacon Jones (number 75!). They set the standard for the classic defensive four set, inherited/adapted later by Minnesota's "Purple People Eaters" (Marshall and Page were the standouts) and the infamous Pittsburgh "Steel Curtain."

For me, hoops was it. This was when Jerry West was coming into his legendary "Mr. Clutch" status, and I saw plenty of games where he just dropped like he was unconscious. As unbelievable as "Zeke from Cabin Creek" was, for my money, number 22, Elgin Baylor, was the man. I caught him at the end of his career - bad knees had slowed him - but the man whom no less than Red Auerback proclaimed the greatest forward he'd ever seen, was something else. For me, it boils down to that intangible, that jes nais se quois, what Breton said about reading Cesaire, that he possessed that unmistakable major tone that separates great from lesser.

And Elg had it. I once saw him grab a defensive rebound along the baseline and, while trying to maintain his balance as he was about to fall out of bounds, he flung the ball over his shoulder in a blind no-look, most casually but in total confidence, and hit a streaking Laker guard on the dead run at mid court. Perfectly timed.

How did he do that?

And in those moments, as small a kid as I was, I knew I had caught a glimpse of greatness, pure poetry, as pure as anything I've experienced through music, movies, literature, painting...

I loved sports and worshipped the gods who played and privileged us mere mortals by giving us glimpses of our humanity, the better side of us, under highly regulated conditions.

All of this rambling is to say that I think what's happening is just sad today. Everyone's so friggin' jaded, and that includes the fans. It just doesn't seem fun anymore. Damn.

Tribute: GOAT @ 65

For a little APA boy coming up on the mean streets of East Los in the turbulent 60's/70's, sports provided an out. Not as a realistic way of making a living, but socially, culturally, psychologically. Aside from the way being an athlete constructed manhood, it bonded neighborhoods, schools and teams, just like in white neighborhoods.

And let's face it, bottom line, sports were fun.

We played seasonally; basketball, football and baseball. No tennis in el barrio. And despite being almost 100% Latino, no soccer either.

As absent as he was in my life, my father managed to instill a love for boxing through stories of him paying just to watch Sugar Ray (the original) train. None of my close friends boxed, but we followed boxing religiously, and we had THE decade, the 70's.

With no role models for APAs outside of Bruce Lee who was, after all, an actor playing at fighting, I turned to athletes. I worshipped Elgin Baylor, who I caught at the very end of his career. No less than Red Auerbach said that "Elg" was the greatest forward he'd ever seen. (R.I.P. Red)

But Ali, - the former Cassius Clay - was clearly in a class by himself. Needless to say, he made a deep impression on me, particularly for his stance on the war.

It's about the white man sending black men to fight yellow men to protect the country they stole from the red man.

And, rightly or wrongly attributed, the famous: No Vietcong ever called me a nigger, which was probably taken from, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong." Either way, for anyone who was a mud peep poc with an ounce of brains, let alone an Asian mud peep, that spoke just as powerfully as any "I have a dream" speech.

Powerful indeed to a young, fatherless, impressionable APA boy.

My heart sank in Superfight I as Frazier's legendary left hook found my hero's right-side jaw late in the fight - I recall it was the 14th. I remember seeing the pictures of the red tassles on his adidas - so slick and pimped out - wildly flying as he hit the canvas. I'll never forget Anthony Aceves, a hardcore Frazier fan, laughing at me the next day, and my rage at Smokin' Joe's "lucky punch."

This was before cable, so we had to watch the news reports and listen to the radio. Stoneage!

But then closed circuit TV came into play, where essentially a pay-per-view setup was installed in a large setting, like a sports arena.

And it was then, September 30, 1975, in the Long Beach Arena, where my older friend Ike drove us to watch the Thrilla in Manila on a gerry-rigged big screen.

And my heart began to sink again as the titans warred like gods on earth. I had Frazier ahead into the deep rounds. Of note, this was back in the day of 15 round fights...

And then Frazier's mouthpiece flew out and Ali somehow let loose with a flurry that clearly stunned Joe. The place erupts, and I can't hear anything, but feel electricity in the air. It's a moment seared into memory forever.

Ali would say afterward that it was the closest he'd ever come to dying. He also gave props to Smokin' Joe, calling him, more or less, the second greatest of all times.

I somehow missed the Rumble in the Jungle on closed circuit, but all of the bookies had Ali a HUGE underdog to Foreman.

Before Mike Tyson, there was Foreman, the meanest, baddest cat on the planet. Put it this way, as bad as Ken Norton was, he of the broke Ali's jaw fame, Foreman hit Norton so hard Norton looked like he needed his mama - BAD.

Foreman had an even easier time with "the second greatest of all times." I have never seen a great athlete so dominated as Frazier was by Foreman - I think it was their second fight. I remember me an mah boy Kev rollin' when recounting how hard Foreman hit Frazier. At one point, Frazier got popped and actually left the ground, then did a bunny hop in the pea patch. Kev said he got knocked the fuck back to the schoolyard and was playin' hop scotch or something. We wuz ROLLIN' cuz... well, you just have to see the fight to understand.

Kids these days... Foreman would have destroyed Tyson. Foreman would have destroyed Sonny Liston, Marciano (way too small) and any of the big lug "scary" fighters. (And lest all you Tyson bullet heads STILL wanna argue, let's remember and be clear - Tyson was a small heavyweight. 5'11". Limited skills. Never fought anyone great in their prime.)

The ONLY way to beat Foreman was strategically, surgically, and of course our hero was the man.

One journalist said that this punch was a work of art:



It's tough to argue. Like anything strategic, it was set up with brains and executed with precision. If you watch the tape, Ali lands this historic punch, Foreman spins and begins his meeting with Mr. Canvas, and Ali could have landed another punch as insurance. Instead, he held back, watched as Foreman went to his place down below.

I don't recall what happened that Rumble in the Jungle fight night, but I missed it. The following morning, I walked to school alone for some reason - usually me and 4 others made the trek. But that morning after I took an intentional detour so I could pass by the liquor store near Lito's Cork Room (the neighborhood bar and bookie joint). I went with trepidation, fully expecting to read of my hero's demise. Again, I believe Ali was a huge underdog, at least 4-1.

Then I saw it on the rack, the front page of the LA Times: ALI KO'S FOREMAN IN 8 (or whatever the headline was) complete with a picture.

My heart leaped and I felt as if I were dreaming, floating.

Those two fights, both among my top five, were great boxing matches and, unlike today's sports, cultural event markers of a decade that saw the last vestiges of "something in the air."

From great moral stands to being awestruck by the size of his nuts to making me laff poking fun at Cosell, there's so much more that I could say about what this man has meant in my life. But I remember this, and it's somehow fitting that it should come from his partner who will forever be locked in history with him; It was reported after that war of the gods I mentioned earlier called the Thrilla in Manila, that Smokin' Joe said:

Man, I hit him with shots that could take down buildings.
Lawdy, lawdy, he's a great champion.

Skillz

Let's take a break from all of the doom and gloom, shall we...?


My first taste of ballin' magic was the Globetrotters, of course; Curly Neal was the dope shit, plus Meadowlark was funny. Later, as a child of the 60's and 70's, I heard tales of Bob Cousy's trickery, and ran out to the library and got his book, Basketball is My Life; I'll never forget the two page photo spread in the middle with stop action photos of him performing his around the back move.

I was lucky as a kid to witness greatness in person in the form of Elgin Baylor, who'd do his famous hang in the air and no look passes at a time when b-ball was just hinting at the freedom of improvisation and creativity that the streets brought. I honestly thought he was a god of some sort, I just marveled at his skill and talent, and to this day, he's without a doubt one of the greatest artists I've ever seen in any discipline.


Then it was the first incarnation of showtime with a small "s" brought by Pistol Pete Maravich. Dude's legendary so there's no need for me to go on. One thing I will say when I read about him as a kid; his father would drive and he'd sit in the passenger seat and dribble out the window! Guess they couldn't have been going that fast. No less than Isiah Thomas called him the man.


During Maravich's era one guy that never gets mentioned is an Angeleno, Paul Westphal. Boy had skillz and proved it by putting on a show during halftime when (I think it was) CBS ran a HORSE competition. He's assisting at Dallas now.


Then it was on to the true beginnings of the modern era, when the game began to evolve above the rim and below as well. But the magicians were Isiah and Magic, "Showtime" with a capital "S," and even Bird who'd let loose with a no look because he simply had that sixth sense that the great ones do.


And 1 has taken it to DVD in the form of their freeform streetball theater - it's not really hoops per se, and is entertaining for a bit. So to provide a bit of entertainment, here's a white boy with some flava; truth is the kid's not really that good as a player but he's got some nice tricks; this is a triumph of editing and it's fun. Gotta say though there's a nice dish at the top when he breaks that kid's ankles.


Here's Rory Grace, aka, "Disaster," with a nice track by Arcee.