The Bacon Blog

Hemingway's Michigan

John U. Bacon — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:24:00 GMT

August 27, 2010

Dear Loyal Readers,

Although I was officially on vacation this week, because I spent a few days retracing Ernest Hemingway's haunts in Northern Michigan, I decided to take a couple hours - more than I intended! -- to combine two pieces, one that ran in the Detroit News in 1998, and one that Time commissioned in 1999 but didn't run, due to JFK Jr.'s tragic plane crash the same week.

I was inspired by meeting again with Ernest H. Mainland, Hemingway's nephew, whom I first met 12 years ago pursuing these pieces. He has become a good friend. Then, after a round of golf, I coaxed another old friend, Jeff Johnson, into joining me for an impromptu tour of nearby Horton Bay. While telling Jeff about some of the stories Hemingway based there, a man named Robert walked down the road and joined us, then invited us for a drink with his girlfriend at his rental cabin just up the road -- which turned out to be Shangri-La, where the Hemingways honeymooned in 1922.

Needless to say, when I returned to Chicago on Thursday, I felt compelled to combine my pieces on Hemingway into one narrative, and deliver it to you.

Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed researching, writing and revising it.

See you next week.

-John

HEMINGWAY’S MICHIGAN

HORTON BAY -- Ernest Hemingway gave the world novels that are still treasured 49 years after his death, but he gave the folks in Michigan something extra.

Before Hemingway earned wealth, fame and a Nobel Prize for his books about Europe and Africa, Key West and Cuba, he wrote short stories about life in Petoskey, Charlevoix and tiny Horton Bay.

Hemingway's highly autobiographical stories celebrate the kind of rustic northern living thousands of us have enjoyed since. Written more than eight decades ago, stories like "Summer People," "Three Day Blow" and "The End of Something" still resonate with Michigan readers.

In 1922, Hemingway made his last visit to the family cabin on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey. A few years after that, he wrote his final piece about the area. But the short stories' clear, uncomplicated writing introduced a style no one had seen before, and his first tales have proven to be as enduring as the beauty of the region he wrote about.

FIRST LOVES

Like many wealthy Chicago families at the turn of the century, the Hemingways escaped the Second City’s muggy weather by migrating to northern Michigan each summer. (This is why Michigan’s west coast was settled not by Detroiters, but Chicagoans.) Ernest Hemingway saw Walloon Lake, about 90 miles northeast of Traverse City, for the first time as a six-week-old baby in 1899, and every summer thereafter through 1921.

At the turn of the century, just getting there required the Hemingways to board a train ride from their home in Oak Park to Chicago, a horse taxi to the Lake Michigan pier, a steamer to Harbor Springs, a narrow-gauge train to Petoskey, another train to Walloon Lake, and a smaller wood-burning steamer to the Hemingway's cottage.

It was there, and not in the family's stuffy hometown, that Hemingway first learned about fishing and drinking, romance and writing -- the very things that continue to define his legacy.

The people who introduced Hemingway to these pleasures appeared a few years later as characters in his highly autobiographical short stories --often by their real names.

In "Three Day Blow," Hemingway's alter ego, Nick Adams, gets drunk while discussing baseball, fishing and women with Bill, a ringer for real-life summer friend Bill Smith. In the unfinished "Summer People," Adams and Katy -- named after Bill's sister, a real-life flame of Hemingway's -- make love in the forest surrounding Lake Charlevoix. And in "The End of Something," Nick ends an affair on the beach of Horton Bay with Marjorie, inspired by a local waitress named Marge Bump.

Naturally, in some of these stories Hemingway took reality and twisted it. A few women named in the stories later said they never consummated their relationships with Hemingway. But they were still so accurate, one biographer described Hemingway's recollection of the area as "photographic."

But Hemingway did not sit down to write those stories until after he was married and living in Paris. He could have written about the big cities where he had lived in North America and Europe, but he chose instead to devote his energies to the small towns of northern Michigan. He followed his famous advice -- write about what you know -- and what he knew best was Michigan's woods and waters.

SINGING A NEW SONG

On the back of his novels, it says Hemingway’s “tough, terse prose and short, declarative sentences did more to change the style of written English than any other writer in the twentieth century.” A lofty claim, perhaps, but probably true.

When Hemingway started writing, he borrowed not only Horton Bay’s scenes and people, he also its voice. When Hemingway's readers fell in love with his character’s direct dialogue – so unlike the sophisticated speaking style of Oak Park or the baroque sentences of Key West -- few realized they were hearing the clear, clipped phrases of northern Michigan. And it wasn’t Sherwood Anderson or Gertrude Stein who first told Hemingway to reveal his characters through their own words. It was Bill Smith, a Michigan fishing buddy. From these gifts Hemingway built the foundation of his deceptively simple style.

Hemingway sought to “describe without frills, without the imposition of attitude,” wrote Anthony Burgess, who, in addition to writing, “A Clockwork Orange,” also produced a brief biography of Hemingway. “This sounds easy now, chiefly because Hemingway has shown us how to do it, but it was not easy at a time when ‘literature’ still meant fine writing in the Victorian sense, with neo-Gothic decoration.

“The Hemingway tune is in the ears of all young people who set out to write.”

Hemingway picked up that tune in northern Michigan, and sang it his entire life.

A SENSE OF PLACE

In Paris and Pamplona, Oak Park and Key West, the locals shamelessly sell their connection to Hemingway to gullible tourists. The annual running of the bulls in Spain, an event known to only a few Americans before Hemingway described it in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, is now televised live each year on ESPN. And Hemingway’s favorite Key West watering hole, Sloppy Joe’s, has plastered his likeness on everything from key chains to condoms to a web site, complete with a 24-hour “bar-cam.”

While other towns have sold off their Hemingway history piece by piece to gullible tourists, the place Hemingway loved the most -- northern Michigan-- has exploited his legacy the least.

Despite the locals’ fierce protection of the Hemingways’ privacy, however, some Hemingway buffs manage to find the secluded summer home anyway. One stranger once walked in, uninvited, and was happily poking around the home when Mainland emerged from the shower. “What the hell are you doing here?” Mainland asked.

“Well, it wasn’t locked,” the man said.

"We still have a chance of keeping tourists away,” Mainland says, “because so far they haven't banned land mines.”

Although he sells insurance in Petoskey, Mainland doesn't use his middle name on his cards nor on his door. He says even most of his friends in town don't realize he’s Hemingway's nephew, and he likes it that way. Mainland's son, Ken, has read only one Hemingway work, "The Old Man and the Sea," simply because it was required reading a tPetoskey High School. "It was all right," he remembers. "I wrote my report on it and moved on. I think I got a 'B.'"

The Hemingways’ cozy cottage is now dwarfed by million dollar homes, but Walloon Lake is just as cold, clear and captivating as it was one hundred years ago, with the cool morning mist burned off by the sun each afternoon, exactly as Hemingway described it in a high school poem.

A few months before his wedding to Hadley Richardson in 1922, he confessed his fear that married life would keep him from his boyhood paradise. “Guy... loves a girl and the god dam (sic) streams can dry up for all he cares,” he wrote a Michigan friend. “Only the hell of it is that all that country has as bad a hold on me as ever ... and you know how it’s always been... At night it comes and ruins me -- and I can’t go.”

His fears proved correct. After their honeymoon at the family cabin,Hemingway never returned to his favorite place.

He should have.

STILL THE SAME

If Hemingway traced his old footprints today, he would have no trouble finding his familiar haunts.

To escape his overbearing mother, Hemingway thought nothing of rowing a mile across Walloon Lake, then walking three miles along roads that are still quiet, dusty and scented by the pine trees that line the route, into the tiny town of Horton Bay. Upon arriving in the two-road town of Horton Bay (which sits on the shore of a cove of the same name) Hemingway would discover the white clap board church where he and Hadley were married burned down decades ago, but he’d easily recognize the Horton Bay General Store, which has the same facade, the same wooden floor and the same fare of ice cream, candy and fresh bait. He might notice a small revolving rack filled with his paperbacks, and a guest book with entries from Syria and Argentina, Germany and Japan, but he would not see his face staring back at him from tacky t-shirts and trinkets.

Reassured by the familiarity of his former hamlet, he’d probably be willing to brave a walk down Lake Road to the water. On the way he’d see Dilworth’s boarding house, which provided him refuge in the low-ceilinged room off the kitchen when he didn’t feel like making the long trek back to his parents’ cabin, is no longer open for business, and the extra room off the kitchen, where Hemingway’s old bunk bed used to be, is now used for storing rusty croquet sets and barbecue grills. But he’d be relieved to see the current owners have refrained from posting a sign saying “Hemingway Slept Here” -- although he did, many times. And unlike the Lincoln Bedroom, this one’s never for rent.

Next door, above the porch, he’d see an old board with “Shangri-La”engraved on it, identifying the place where Ernest and Hadley held their wedding reception 78 years ago. When Debby and Jeff Hutchison decided to buy the home years ago, they weren’t aware of the Hemingway connection. "We just bought it because it was a nice house," she said. “And it has been.” The people in Horton Bay generally talk about their famous resident as a former neighbor, not a Nobel laureate.

If the locals are nonchalant about their Hemingway connection, Hemingway was unabashed about his devotion to the area. In 1924, while living in Paris, Hemingway started “Summer People,” the first of his highly autobiographical Nick Adams short stories. "Halfway down the gravel road from Hortons Bay... to the lake there was a spring,” he wrote, “flowing away through the close-growing mint into the swamp."

Three decades after “Summer People,” Hemingway started, “The Last Good Country,” in which he wrote, “There was a tin cup on a forked stick that was stuck in the gravel by the spring and Nick Adams looked at it and at the water rising and then flowing clear in its gravel bed beside the road… He could see both ways on the road and he looked up the hill and then down to the dock and the lake, and the wooded point across the bay...”

The same tin cup Hemingway wrote about in 1951 hung from the same forked stick, undisturbed for decades, until the road was paved a few years ago. No one wanted to steal the cup, or memorialize it. They just wanted to use it.

The swamp, the spring and the close-growing mint are all still there, as they were. These days the bay’s natural calm is occasionally broken by the wail of jet-skis, but the dock’s right there, and the point across the bay remains heavily wooded, haunted by the ghosts of Hemingway and his friends.

Hemingway led a glamorous life filled with travel, adventure and famous people, but he always reserved a special place in his memory for the simple summers he'd spent up north.

In 1960, Hemingway finished "A Moveable Feast," his memoirs of 1920s Paris. Even then, Michigan was still on his mind. Just a few months before he killed himself, he wrote, "The best sky was in Italy or Spain and in Northern Michigan in the fall."

It still is.

Major Fun in the Minor Leagues

John U. Bacon — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:30:00 GMT

August 20, 2010

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If you're sick of the big leagues, but not baseball, check out your backyard.

Here in Michigan you can watch the Beach Bums in Traverse City, the Lugnuts in Lansing, the West Michigan Whitecaps near Grand Rapids, the Great Lake Loons in Midland, and the Kings in Kalamazoo. Michigan fans can see six minor league teams if you count the Toledo Mudhens; and seven if the Tigers start slumping again. Michigan baseball fans haven’t had it this good in decades.

In 1949, the U.S. boasted almost 500 minor league teams, supported by forty-two million fans. But their ranks shriveled when major league baseball expanded, TV blossomed and air conditioning made staying at home much cooler. In just three years, attendance dropped almost 80-percent.

But when major league baseball turned its back on its fans with strikes and lockouts, the minor leagues aggressively courted them. Almost every fan-friendly custom you see at major league stadiums today they stole from the minors, including fancy food, daily promotions, pop music and endless stunts to keep the fans coming back, win or lose. As a result, the minors have grown back to a robust 176 teams nationwide.

Visit one, and you understand why. You park your car for a couple bucks, and in a couple minutes, you’re in your seat. Every employee you meet seems to be working overtime to keep you fat and happy. They remember the season ticket holders’ names, and welcome them back each night.

The workers shower the fans with free frisbees, candy bars and bunched-up t-shirts fired from sling-shots. Between innings, they sponsor the usual potpourri of minor league gags, including the dizzy bat race, the hula hoop contest and a sumo wrestling match -- always involving fans pulled from the stands.

A minor league baseball park is no place for the self-conscious. You should expect to let your hair down and join the show.

Kids play on the grass embankments, stand on the dugouts and sing "Take me out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch -- while waving to their parents -- and get to run around the bases when the game's over.

Fans don't leave minor league games early, because they’re enjoying the whole experience, not just the outcome.

In the minors, even the players aim top lease. Unlike the lolly gaggers in the majors, the bush leaguers take their at-bats as if they're being timed, they don't whine about the umpire’s calls and they actually run all the way to first base on hopeless ground balls. Of course, they’d better, or they’re gone.

The players put their hearts in their work for less than they could make flipping burgers at McDonald's. So, why do it? Because after four or five years of flipping burgers, McDonald’s will never give you a big league contract. Do any of these guys really have a chance? As one manager told me, "If you got a uniform, you got a chance."

These guys are doing what they've dreamed about all their lives: playing baseball.

Some dreams are a little more modest. I met two brothers who had good jobs at Oldsmobile, but asked the Lansing Lugnuts if they could walk around the park with trash cans. They only got minimum wage – and all the cans they could find. "If it wasn't fun,” one told me, “we wouldn't be here."

He then picked up his trash can, turned toward his buddies in the stands and bellowed, "Get yer trraaaaaash. Cold trash here! Get yer trash!"

And that, in a peanut shell, is the difference between the majors and the minors: Everyone in the minors is making less money, and having more fun.

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Bonus Bacon Blog

John U. Bacon — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:11:00 GMT

Here's a bonus Bacon Blog, on a Wednesday no less.

Meet the NFL's Most Interesting Man, Zoltan Mesko, in today's WallStreet Journal. (It's free today. After that, I won't charge you, but they will.)

>View Article Here

Of course, you can always get the paper paper, where they gave it a full back page.

Now, to get back to this week's Bacon Blog, on minor league baseball. (Little tease for you.)

Enjoy your, um, middle of the week, I guess. (Why not?)

As always, thanks for reading!

-John

Bullfighting: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

John U. Bacon — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:31:00 GMT

August 13, 2010

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When I read the Spanish province of Catalonia voted to outlaw bullfighting, I was not surprised. A few years ago I traveled through Spain to write about bullfighting. Along the way, I met Barcelona’s director of tourism, and asked her why bullfighting was much less popular in Barcelona than the rest of Spain. She replied, “It is because we are civilized.”

Bullfighting’s biggest opponents ,in fact, have always been Spaniards. Even bullfighting’s fans don’t brag about the 13,000 bulls killed every year in the ring, or claim they deserve to be killed.

But I’m not sure we’re in a position to judge bullfighting too harshly. We kill more than 35 million cows every year, and 100 million pigs and eight billion chickens. Not even Birkenstocks grow on trees.

The Spanish bulls might have it better than your average American bull. They’re not castrated or stuck in a veal pen but roam freely on the range and mate for life. Whether it’s better to die by a cattle prod and a knife to the throat or a sword to the back, after being allowed a few swipes at the swordsman, is debatable. But if you’ve never seen a bull killed outside of a bullring, you might be just as appalled by an Omaha slaughterhouse.

No one claims a bull fight is fair. But it would be a mistake to think the whole thing is just a mere contest. The aficionados don't go to the bullfights to see who "wins” any more than music critics go the opera to see who finishes first.

It’s not a game, but a performance. Done poorly, bullfighting is humiliating and revolting, diminishing everyone involved. One bad bullfighter I saw named Jesulin kept shuffling his feet as if he was standing on a frying pan. He had no poise, no control. The bull ran when he wanted it to stop; it stopped when he wanted it to run; and then it simply ignored him altogether and walked away, leaving him standing there like a suitor trying to look brave after being slapped in public. When he drew his sword to end the bull’s life, I had to look away. It was that bad.

But seeing it done well was just as memorable. Francisco Ordonez is one of Spain’s best bullfighters. His grandfather was the inspiration for Ernest Hemingway’s Pedro Romero in The Sun Also Rises. Unlike Jesulin, Ordonez planted his feet as if they’d been nailed there. He was fearless, and exuded complete control, like a conductor who could create exactly what he wanted with the slightest gesture – and knew it.

In just seconds, he and his four-legged partner were dancing like they’d been doing it for years– first slowly and separately, then quickly and closely, but always in concert, with Ordonez leaving the bull in position for his next pass the way a good pool player leaves the cue ball poised for his next shot.

After a flurry of passes, Ordonez nodded respectfully to the mesmerized bull, then strode confidently away from him, trusting the bull with his back. He did not work to impress the crowd, but the bull – and he did.

When the dance was over, Fran guided the long sword directly over the bull’s horns, and thrust downward into the bull’s back. He then walked away, certain he had done it right. Two beats later, the bull fell on its side.

Hemingway wrote, “From amoral point of view, the whole bullfight is indefensible. But whoever reads this can only truly make such a judgment when he, or she,has seen the things that are spoken of here.”

Bullfighting might be many things, but only a person who has never seen it done well could claim it lacks courage, skill and art.

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The All-Star Next Door

John U. Bacon — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:09:00 GMT

August 6, 2010

DEAR LOYAL READERS

Well, turns out teaching in Chicago on Thursdays can mess up your schedule a little bit -- and more so when you throw in the Big Ten media days Monday and Tuesday this week. That means I didn't go home between Thursdays, and that means Michigan Radio has to pay for studio time here to knock out the weekly commentary. They have done it a few times, God bless 'em, but not this week, partly because there aren't any truly hot topics that beg to be addressed. And that means, this week at least, that no, we don't have a fresh commentary for you, but are-run of a piece about Brandon Inge from last summer.

The good news is it's still as relevant today as when I wrote it, and second, because YOU amazing folks have expanded the subscriber rolls to over 70,000 (holy mackeral!) that most of you probably missed it the first time around. So act like it's new, and I will too.

I'm coming home on the train today, though -- can't miss the UM hockey alumni weekend! -- and will have fresh goods for all of you next week. Scout's honor.

Hope you're all enjoying the rest of this hot hot summer while you can! Sure beats the cold cold winter!

And, as always, THANK YOU!

-JUB

THE ALL-STAR NEXT DOOR

Three years ago, a few folks in Dexter, Michigan – a small farming town just west of Ann Arbor– were buzzing with rumors that the only house for sale in their neighborhood might finally be sold.

I found out from my mom, who found out from her hair-dresser, Chantel Williams, who lived next door to the vacant house, that Shani Inge and her husband, Brandon, had bought it. They moved to Dexter even though it’s a full hour from his office. He works at Comerica Park, in Detroit, playing third base for the Tigers. In fact, he just played in his first All-Star game. But you’d never guess it from the way he looks – and certainly not from the way he acts.

A friend of mine I’ll call “Fred Fragner” – because that’s his name -- is a home inspector. When Fragner knocked on the Inge’s door to do his job, the guy who answered looked so young, Fragner figured he was probably the family’s kid back from college.

Inge gave Fragner the full tour of the house, ending in the basement. There, Fragner noticed more baseball memorabilia than even the manliest of man-caves typically has.

“You play ball?” Fragner asked.

Inge looked at him, to see if he was serious. “Yeah, I do.”

“For who?”

“For the Tigers.”

“The Louisiana State Tigers?” Fragner asked, still refusing to believe the guy was old enough to be a major leaguer.

“No, the Detroit Tigers!”

“The Tigers?!? You’re not big enough!”

Inge chuckled, and took it right in stride.

Before Inge left for the park that day, he asked Fragner if there was anything he could do for him. Fragner asked for an autographed baseball card. No problem, Inge said. After Fragner finished his work, on the way out he saw, on the kitchen table, a baseball card signed by Brandon Inge – and five more, just for him.

In fairness to Fragner, a lot of folks can’t believe the 5-11 Inge is a major leaguer. Inge is so inconspicuous, a local softball team daringly put him on their roster, called him “Charlie” -- and got away with it for weeks.

The kids at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital have been quicker on the uptake. Brandon’s wife Shani had worked there, and both their boys were born there. But what hooked her husband was meeting the patients.

Inge has been a frequent visitor ever since, and didn’t need to be prodded to donate $100,000 to build a new play area for the young patients. Instead of naming it after themselves, the Inges have asked the kids to come up with a name for it.

Inge was scheduled to meet one of those kids, eight-year-old Tommy Schomaker, this spring. But Inge missed him because Tommy had to be rushed that very day into surgery to receive a heart transplant. When Inge came back a few weeks later, Tommy asked for an autograph. Inge agreed, on one condition: Tommy had to give him one, too – right on Inge’s right forearm.

When Inge stepped into the batter’s box that night, he looked down at Tommy’s autograph –then knocked the ball over the wall for a two-run homer.

I’ve never met Brandon Inge. I’d like to, but I don’t need to. I feel like I already know him.

He’s the All-Star who lives next door.

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The Wheels of Justice Grind Slowly -- But They Do Grind

John U. Bacon — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:54:00 GMT

July 30, 2010

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The gears of justice grind slowly, but they do grind, and sometimes they actually get their man– or woman, as the case may be.

The sports world saw its share of slow-moving justice this week, from the global to the local.

New York Yankees’ third basemen Alex Rodriguez has already admitted he used steroids, but only after his tests were leaked to the press. He’s still playing, and is now one just home run away from hitting 600. Twenty years ago this would have been big news – but since suspected steroid users Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds crossed that threshold, the luster is lost. About half of those polled said they simply don’t care – and they polled New Yorkers. If they don’t care, why should we?

Rodriguez cheated himself out of his own celebration. Seems about right to me.

Overseas, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong dropped from the leader board for the first time in years. He’s long been suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs, too, but he’s never failed a drug test. Still, the circumstantial evidence is mounting. Greg Lemond, the first American to win the Tour in 1986, publicly wondered years ago why Armstrong had worked with a dirty doctor in Italy known to traffic in steroids. But the blow back hit not Armstrong but Lemond, who felt compelled to apologize for his comments.

In 2006, Floyd Landis pulled off one of the greatest finishes in Tour de France history, then tested positive for drugs. He denied it, he denied it and he denied it– until this spring, when he ‘fessed up. But, he said, Armstrong took them too.

It was a gutless act from a gutless man, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t telling the truth –for once. Armstrong brushed it off, and given Landis’s record for integrity, it wasn’t hard to do. But it seems the noose is slowly tightening, and we’ve not heard the end of this story.

We’re also missing the story in golf. Yes, Tiger Woods’s love life made great tabloid fodder, and has cost him millions in endorsements and probably his marriage– but not his career. No, the real story, the one few seem to be pursuing, centers on his mysterious Canadian doctor. Dr. Tony Galea has been linked to a number of drug-using athletes, and is currently facing charges. Woods says he’s never taken any performance-enhancing drugs, but if so, why would you ever call a doctor like Galea? Best case scenario: it was an extremely stupid decision.

Golf is the only sport where you’re expected to call penalties on yourself, even when no one’s watching. So if Woods is found guilty, he should not expect his sport to be very forgiving. He will be stripped of every tournament he has ever won. Mark my words: Watch this one carefully.

And now to our own backyard.

You might recall Kimberly Knight, the woman who appeared in court a year ago to face charges she’d embezzled almost a million dollars from the kids who play in the Ann Arbor Amateur Hockey Association. Judge Melinda Morris gave her a shockingly light suspended sentence, requiring Knight to return only a small fraction of the money, with no jail time.

Well, Knight showed her first collision with the law was no fluke when she failed to produce court-ordered tax records, and faced unrelated fraud charges. Morris gave her a minimum two-year sentence. Though I’d still like to see Knight forced to give far more of the stolen money back to the kids who need it, it was good to see a little accountability, at least.

These examples remind me of a quote from Winston Churchill. When he was asked about democracy– including our ideas of justice – he said, “It’s the worst system in the world – except for all the others.”

So it was nice to see the worst system in the world have a pretty good week.

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The Camp Director

John U. Bacon — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:31:00 GMT

Dear Loyal Readers,

I'm traveling this week so I didn't get a chance to tape a new commentary, so I hope you will enjoy this updated version of one from last year, about former Camp Director Pat Rode -- one of the more popular ones we've done.

In the meantime, we are also working to transfer the site to a better host, so we can get rid of the typo-glitches many of you experience, make it easier to comment, and ensure that you can get all the taped commentaries in full through the archives. In other words, it should be just plain better.

Don't forget that you can listen to all these commentaries, thanks to the fine folks at Michigan Radio who work hard to make them sound professional!

I'll be back next week. I look forward to connecting with you again, then!

-John

THE CAMP DIRECTOR

Press play to listen

With the weak economy, and high school coaches urging their players to attend “voluntary” work outs, enrollment for summer camps is down nationwide about 10-percent. But if the choice is between team workouts and summer camp, I say, summer camp wins hands-down.

Let me explain.

I didn’t want to go to summer camp.

I spent my summers growing up at our family cottage near Traverse City. The idea of going to Camp Hayo-Went-Ha– a YMCA camp on the lake -- didn’t interest me. I liked playing baseball, riding bikes and going to hockey school with my best friend. I figured the kids who went to Hayo-Went-Ha either couldn’t play baseball or didn’t have many friends.

But by my sixteenth birthday, thanks to the curveball, I couldn’t play baseball either. Far sadder, my best friend had been killed in a car accident.

With nothing else to do, I went to Camp Hayo-Went-Ha. I discovered the kids there were tougher than most of my hockey teammates. And they got to go on exotic trips from the Rockies to Nova Scotia.

The camp has the rustic, tidy look of the "Swiss Family Robinson" movie set, but camp sessions play out more like episodes of Fantasy Island. The anxious newcomers hope that special place will help them find what they’re missing.

The man who choreographed those life-changing experiences for me and 10,000 other brave souls stepped down 11 years ago. Pat Rode, now 80, worked hard to give bored kids some adventure, forgotten kids some attention and just about everyone -- campers and counselors alike -- a sense of belonging.

Rode based camp on his belief that we can’t get through life alone, but there are plenty of people willing to help. As a child Rode was sickly, his father was often gone, and his mother was buried on his 12th birthday. "But,"he told me, "so many people went out of their way to help me that, well, you've got to give back."

He did. In addition to his time and energy, Rode gave former campers money to pay for rent, college tuition, plane tickets and even bail. All but one has paid him back. Rode believes in second chances.

At camp I learned how important it is to be needed. When a young camper lost his mother in a car accident, I could only tell him what it felt like when my best friend died. I was surprised this helped him -- and even more surprised how much this helped me.

That’s why, when my brother was searching for direction 27 years ago, I suggested he join the camp staff.

He says it absolutely changed his life. Being responsible for the kids made him think about what's important. It made him realize his abilities. And he made lifelong friendships there.

That's what summer camp did for him.

After camp, my brother climbed Mt. Ranier, earned his bachelor’s and launched his career. And when he got married, Pat Rode was there.

When Rode announced that 1998 would behis last summer, his old campers and counselors flooded his office with letters, calls and visits. At his final farewell ceremony, a dozen alums flew in just to thank him.

As always, Rode lit his candle and those of his staff members, who then lit their campers' candles, too, until the once dark hall was bright enough to see the tears on the faces of Pat Rode's campers, his counselors, and the old camp director himself.

Then everyone blew out their candles,returning the big room to its original darkness, and listened to Pat Rode say goodbye. My brother draped his right arm around his wife, and his left arm around me. After all those years, I still felt part of something special – and I still do.

That’s what summer camp did for me.

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Goodbye, Mr. Brown

John U. Bacon — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:29:00 GMT

July 16, 2010

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It was a beautiful summer morning. I walked from my home in Ann Arbor, down State Street, to St. Thomas Church. A crowd had already gathered outside, waiting to pay respects to our old friend, Mr. Brown.

No one told us to call him that. We just did.

In 1937, Mr. Brown’s father and grandfather opened a store called College Shoe Repair. Mr. Brown took over the business in 1951, the same year he married Dorothy– or Mrs. Brown, to us. They worked together every day. They had seven kids, and all of them worked at the store at some point.

When the shoe repair business slowed down in the seventies, Mr. Brown started selling hockey equipment and sharpening skates. That’s how most of us got to know him.

Mr. Brown was gruff and sometimes grouchy. He had a temper, and he didn’t suffer fools too gladly. But if he was no glad-hander, he was no pretender, either. There was not a phony bone in that man’s body. If he got to know you– and he seemed to know everyone who visited his place more than twice– you soon discovered he was as loyal as a hunting dog, and good company.

Mr. Brown never played hockey himself, but he knew more about the local hockey scene than just about anyone in town. His store served as the nerve center for everybody who played or coached or reffed or drove their kids to some freezing rink at six in the morning. When I coached the Huron high school hockey team, he never had to ask me how we were doing, because he already knew – and on some days, he seemed to know better than I did.

Most of all, Mr. Brown cared. He cared about the quality of his work, whether he was resoling a pair of shoes or re-palming a pair of hockey gloves. He cared about his customers, and the people who played the game, from Mites to Masters. Mr. Brown often grumbled about the homeless people around his store, but then you’d catch him slipping one of them a few bucks just for washing his windows.

I wonder who will care about all those people now.

After the service, I walked back from St. Thomas, right up State Street, to take another walk around Mr. Brown’s block. I strolled past Hank at Van Bovens, Jerome at the Diag Party Store, Dave at White’s Market, Marizio at New York Pizza Delivery, John at Gold Bond Cleaners and right next door, Pete at Frank’s Restaurant. I know them all by name, and they all know me – and hundreds of other customers, too, because they’re not customers to them. They’re friends.

When I coached the high school team, each fall we had to raise money to keep our team going. We learned pretty quickly that there was no point asking the franchise stores on that block, or anywhere else. They have no idea who you are, they don’t care, and they’ll tell you to call the people at corporate – who care even less.

But every one of those Mom and Pop stores bought an ad in our program, even though they’re all fighting for survival. That’s what friends do.

I fear their days are numbered. The rent on that block is astronomical, as much as $10,000 a month. The chain stores come in, and if it proves too much for them, what do they care? They just pull out – and leave behind a higher rate for everyone else, and an empty storefront, some times for years.

But that’s capitalism, and if you believe in the free market, there’s not much you can say. But you’d have to be blind not to see the cost.

We’re losing our community. We’re losing our sense of belonging. We’re losing our friends.

My last stop on my tour was Mr. Brown’s store. I looked down at my shoes, which Mr. Brown had shined himself a half-dozen times, and re-soled once. I looked up at the door, and read a hand-written sign that said, “Death in the Family. Closed Saturday. Open Monday.”

I hope it always is.

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Where it Started -- and Almost Ended

John U. Bacon — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:21:00 GMT

July 9, 2010

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Whenever I drive up US-23, I can’t resist gazing at two structures on my right: The Whitmore Lake high school stadium press box, where my writing career started, and the big red ski jump on Whitmore Lake, where it almost ended.

I once volunteered to visit the Whitmore Lake Ski Club, the oldest in the state, to try water ski jumping. The problem is, this is not something you can gradually work up to. It's your basic all-or-nothing proposition.

Take our coach, Hal Baker. On several occasions he had cleared a hundred feet, the sport’s main milestone, but he one time he hit the side of the jump so hard, he embedded white paint in his skin. A few times, he leaned back too far, causing him to fall backward into the water – at 50 miles-per-hour.

“I’ve been pulled out unconscious a few times,” Baker said, with a reassuring maniacal cackle. This was a man who knew the thrill of victory, and the unconsciousness of defeat.

Jumpers face four basic obstacles. First, the jump about 20 feet long and ten feet high, and covered in wax and water, so it feels like you’re hitting ice. If you’re not ready for it, your skis will shoot out from under you, and you’ll get dragged over the jump on your backside -- or your head. Second, the boat pulls you diagonally across the jump. If you fight it, you’ll be – you guessed it -- dragged over the jump on your backside -- or your head. See a pattern here?

But wait! There’s more. Because the jump is, well, a jump, as you slide up the incline, your knees get shoved into your chin. This is called "crushing.” When you see people flying off the jump in that state, you understand why.

To combat these forces, you have to squat down, lock your knees and lean forward, holding the handle hard against your right hip. In other words, do whatever feels the most unnatural.

If we actually made it over the jump, Baker said, "Don’t look down, or you’ll go down." He told us to focus on the shore line instead.

Yeah, right. That happens. I made a deal with myself right then and there: If I got over the jump without ripping my face off, I could look anywhere I damn well pleased.

I hopped into the water, and they threw me a hockey helmet. Note this well: If you find yourself hopping into the water and someone throws you a hockey helmet, you might think twice about what you're about to do.

When I grabbed the rope, Baker asked, “Ready?”

“Ready!” I yelled. It wasn’t true – just protocol.

I popped up, and the driver sent me right to the jump. I squatted down, locked my knees, and pulled the handle hard to my right hip – all textbook.

No matter. When I hit that jump,I crushed like a house of cards under a steamroller. But, just for fun, I also crossed my skis. I went flew over the jump with all the grace and style of Wile E. Coyote.

Despite my efforts, I did not hurt myself. So, my confidence grew. But my ability did not. My second attempt was just as bad. At this rate, I realized, the eleven-year-old kid going next would embarrass me. Focus, Bacon. Focus!

On my third attempt I finally avoided crushing, but everything else was still a mess. My fourth and final attempt, however, proved to be the charm. I looked so good I couldn’t resist admiring my skis flying over the edge, thus committing the final sin: "If you look down, you go down." No joke,turns out. I plunged straight into the water face first like,okay, Wile E. Coyote again. But I neglected to let go of the rope,and got dragged underwater for about a hundred feet or so.

Well, I came, I saw, I had lake water pounded into every hole in my head. It took me days to get the stuff out of my ears.

The eleven-year old kid, by the way,nailed it on his second attempt.

And so, I became a sports writer.

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World's Greatest Game?

John U. Bacon — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:53:00 GMT

July 2, 2010

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The 2010 World Cup is in full swing – even if the U.S. was eliminated in the second round. I’ve played soccer, coached it and covered it, and there’s a lotto like about the sport.

First, soccer players are great athletes. The pros run about six miles a game. They can settle the ball down from any direction in a split second, play keep away with it for days, and then blast it right on target, with either foot.

For TV viewers, it’s a pleasure to see the great expanse of green on your screen, with no TV timeouts interrupting play. And, unlike the World Series, the world is actually invited to play in the World Cup. It’s almost every nation’s favorite sport. And you can play it anywhere, with anything.

I’ve seen soccer played in the streets of Bangkok, the alleys of Buenos Aires, and the wide-open fields of British public schools. I’ve seen them play under the lights of Tokyo’s fenced-in asphalt courts, and during dusk on the Canary Island’s empty beaches, with just two sandals for a goal.

It is, truly, the world’s game. That’s why Time magazine contributor Daniel Okrent concluded the best athlete of all time isn’t Babe Ruth or Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan, but Pele. Because, he said, everyone plays soccer.

But you don’t have to be a xenophobe or a philistine or just a knucklehead to find fault with this game. Take the start. I counted the Germans passing the ball at midfield 17 times before they even considered advancing forward – which is, after all, where the goal is located.

When they finally do try to score, there’s an excellent chance the play will be called offside, which is determined by an imaginary line that goes back and forth with the last defender. Yes, it’s hard to tell, which might explain why the refs blow the call half the time. Or perhaps it’s because they are the worst officials I’ve ever seen – in any sport.

As a result, a goal in soccer is as rare as Halley’s Comet. The World Cup’s first nine matches featured a grand total of seven goals. That’s about one goal every two hours – and games are only 90 minutes.

Or, about that. No one can tell for sure, because whenever a player is injured, the referee tacks on extra time. But only he knows how much. It’s the only game in the world where just one guy knows when it ends.

What’s worse than the Official Pretend Clock are the unofficial pretend injuries. When you see a player jump in the air, fall to the ground, and spin like a lathe, you start looking for a sniper in the stands, until the replay shows he wasn’t touched by…anything. Every sport in the world celebrates toughness –mental or physical – except this one, which celebrates athletes acting like wimps.

Add it all up – and it all adds up to a one-one tie, soccer’s favorite score. This is not a problem just for Americans suffering from ADD, but for anyone who cares about competition. The whole idea of keeping score, after all, is to see who’s better. But in this year’s first round of 48 games, about one-quarter ended in ties – usually one-to-one.

But in the second round, even the World Cup needs to pick a winner. If 30 minutes of overtime can’t settle it, they go to a shoot-out, where players from each team take turns shooting directly on the helpless goalie, who has to guess if the shooter will kick it to the right, or the left. It has all the strategic intrigue of rock-paper-scissors – without the scissors.

So they spend two hours playing a game in which it’s virtually impossible to score – then settle it with an unrelated contest in which it’s virtually impossible not to score. And that’s how the world’s favorite sport picks the world’s best team.

So, yes, soccer is the World’s Game. It’s just not the world’s greatest game.

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Gone Fishin'

John U. Bacon — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:31:00 GMT

June 25, 2010

Dear Loyal Readers,

Thanks for your -- yes -- loyalty, and your reading and writing. I've been having a blast with this, and hope you have too. The response has been more than I could have asked.

Having made six stops in the last three days, on my way to Northwestern's downtown newsroom to teach my first summer class, I didn't have time to convert my outline into a decent column -- and we needed to find somewhere to tape it, in any case. The good news is,it's about -- yes! -- the World Cup, and all the pros and cons thereof, so I'll be able to update it and get it to you next week, when it's still current.

I'll be back next week -- promise!

Again, THANK YOU!!!

Hope you can enjoy the great outdoors, wherever you are.

-John

Copyright© 2010, Michigan Radio

It's All About The Benjamins - Except When It Isn't

John U. Bacon — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:27:00 GMT

June 18, 2010

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For college coaches and athletes,June is supposed to be reserved for easy chores like conducting camps, fixing tackling dummies and replacing nets.

Well, so much for the lazy, hazy days of summer. This has been one of the craziest Junes of all time.

The NCAA finally completed its four-year investigation of the cesspool that is the University of Southern California’s athletic department. The NCAA was shocked-- shocked! – to discover USC’s boosters were giving tens of thousands of dollars to their star players. (The NCAA officials must have been the last folks to know.) But, to its credit, the NCAA actually came down with some consequences: a two-year ban on bowl games, and the loss of 10 scholarships for the next three years. The school cheated for wins and for money, and their punishment will cost them wins and money – though probably not as many wins and as much money as they gained by cheating.

That would have been pretty big news by itself. But then the Big Ten started talking about expanding, which sent every major conference into a paranoid frenzy, trying to keep their leagues intact. Rumors started flying about this school and that conference. Some said the Big Ten might expand to as many 16 teams, including Notre Dame, and the Big Eight, the Big East and maybe even the venerable ACC would collapse.

Well, at the end of this national game of musical chairs, with schools scurrying to secure a seat, exactly two schools have changed conferences: Colorado to the Pac Ten, and Nebraska to the Big Ten. And no conferences are close to collapsing.

Now, if you ask why the Big10 now has twelve teams, and the Big Twelve has ten teams – I’d say, you’re not very familiar with the logic of college football,such as it is. If you’re not a college football fan, for example,you might not know the answer to this riddle: What does the ‘N’ on Nebraska’s helmet stand for? Knowledge, of course.

So what was that whole dance all about? Not knowledge. Not student-athletes, either. But money, pure and simple. And lots of it.

And that brings us to the next big college sports subject this month: Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo, who is rightly regarded as a living legend, a man whose success and character have stamped his school indelibly. So when the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers came calling, offering a 30 million dollar contract, and the possibility of coaching LeBron James, Spartan fans shuddered. As Izzo said, “Sometimes there are opportunities that come about that must be thoroughly examined… This one was uniquely intriguing.”

Izzo, a born competitor, was tempted by the challenge of coaching at the highest level, and one of the game’s greatest players. He’s also sick of the recruiting madness that has taken over the college game – witness USC -- which makes it harder and harder for an honest coach to succeed.

But, unlike the folks who run USC’s athletic department and the Big Ten conference, Izzo decided making the most money wasn’t the most important thing.

“It’s been an agonizing week,” he said. But, “I’m pleased to say I am here for life at Michigan State.”

That’s not just good news for Michigan State, but for the State of Michigan – and the state of college athletics.

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The Original Six is Neither

John U. Bacon — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:23:00 GMT

June 11, 2010

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Hard-core hockey fans – and really, are there any other kind? – are all pumped up this week because on Wednesday night, the Chicago Blackhawks scored in over time to win their first Stanley Cup since 1961. And that harkens back to the era of the so-called Original Six.

But if you’re not a hard-core fan, you probably don’t know what Original Six means. The Hard-Cores will be quick to tell you the Original Six is code for the first six NHL teams. They’re easy to remember, if you think of them in pairs: New York and Boston, Montreal and Toronto, Detroit and Chicago.

Hockey fans revere the Original Six the way basketball fans gush about the Celtics-Lakers rivalry and classical music buffs go on about Bach, Brahams and Beethoven. The Original Six has become such a popular catch-phrase, it’s now on a baseball cap, featuring all six team logos. It outsells the caps of most individual teams.

I’ve always suspected The Original Six is such a hot catch-phrase because, for the Hard-Cores,it doubles as a secret password. If you know what the Original Six is, you must be Hard-Core. And if you don’t, you ain’t.

The elusive dream of all Hard-Corehockey fans is another Stanley Cup Final between two Original Six teams. That hasn’t happened since in 1979.

That’s why, when the Red Wings got knocked out of the playoffs by the San Jose Sharks, the Hard-Cores figured, Hey, no problem, the Blackhawks will win the West – which they did.

Now all the Hard-Cores needed was an Original Six team to make it through the Eastern Conference, where four Original Six teams play. But the Philadelphia Flyers came from behind to upset the Boston Bruins, and then took out the legendary Montreal Canadiens, too. And that left just one Original Six team left standing: The Chicago Blackhawks.

It was no small consolation to the Hard-Cores that the Blackhawks beat Philadelphia in overtime Wednesday night, to notch another Stanley Cup for the Original Six this year. But there’s a catch: The Original Six weren’t original,and there weren’t even six of them.

As George Will once wrote, the best cure for nostalgia is a little history.

When the NHL started in 1917,the league had just five teams, including Montreal and Toronto – the Original Two, if you will. But they also had teams like the Quebec Bulldogs, which became the Hamilton Bulldogs, which became… extinct.

All told, in the NHL’s first25 years, the league launched 12 teams, but had to move four and kill six, including such bottom feeders as the St. Louis Eagles, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Quakers – who, I’m guessing, we’re not allowed to fight.

Finally, in 1942, the NHL had boiled the league down to what we now call The Original Six. And that’s how it stayed for the next 25 years, until the NHL expanded again in 1967, ultimately building the current 30-team league.

So the next time you hear some Hard-Core fan gushing about the Original Six, you can one-up the poor guy by saying, “Original Six, eh? Pretty cool. But do you know what would be even cooler? If the Original Six were either.”

While your hockey pal is trying to figure out what you just said, you can walk away with the smug satisfaction of knowing you just bested a Hard-Core – and you didn’t even have to buy a hat to do it.

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Better Than Perfect

John U. Bacon — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:51:00 GMT

June 4, 2010

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I’d just finished writing my commentary Wednesday night, when a friend tipped me off that I should be watching the Tigers game. He didn’t say why, because there’s a code in baseball against jinxing a pitcher who’s throwing a great game. I turned on the TV, and saw the Tigers were beating Cleveland, 1-0, in the eighth inning. Then I finally realized Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga wasn’t just working on a no-hitter, but a perfect game.

What’s the difference? A no-hitter means just that: A pitcher can’t give up any hits. But he can still let a runner get to first base on a walk or an error, and keep his no-hitter. But to throw a perfect game, the pitcher can’t let a single batter reach first base for any reason. He’s got to get 27 straight outs.

How rare is that? In the 135-year history of Major League Baseball, only twenty pitchers have done it. Twenty. It’s ten times rarer than a no-hitter--so rare, in over a century of Tiger baseball, not one pitcher had ever thrown a perfect game. Ever.

But there he was, Armando Galarraga from Venezuela, pitching a perfect game. In the ninth inning, with everybody in the ballpark well aware of the stakes, Cleveland’s lead off hitter smashed the ball to deep center field. The Tigers’ Austin Jackson thought it was going to fly over his head. But he chased after it anyway – running full-speed to the fence to make one of the best catches of the year.

After a ground out, Galarraga was just one out from baseball immortality. That’s when Cleveland’s Jason Donald hit a groundball to first baseman Miguel Cabrerra. He scooped it up, and threw the ball back to first base, where Galarraga had run to cover the play. Galarraga caught the ball, and stepped on the bag – a half-stride before Donald did.

Galarraga had done it – or so everyone thought. Everyone, that is, except the one person who’s opinion mattered: Jim Joyce, the first base umpire widely considered one of the best in the business. He had a clear view of the entire play – then he signaled, Safe!

The replay showed Joyce was dead wrong. The fans were screaming, the Tigers were outraged, and even the Indians looked embarrassed. The only guy who was not screaming at Joyce was Galarraga himself – by all accounts, one of the most decent men in baseball.

But if there’s no crying in baseball, there’s no replay, either. Even the lawyers whose ads run between innings are, thankfully, out of place between the lines– no matter how much everyone wished they could fix it.

After the Tigers won, manager Jim Leyland came busting out of the dugout to give Joyce an earful –and to Joyce’s credit, he stood there and took it like a man. Back in the locker room, instead of spouting or pouting, Galarraga said, in his slightly broken English, “I really respect [Joyce], because he say, ‘I need to talk to you. I really say I’m sorry.’ His eyes were water. He don’t have to say much. His body language say more. He probably feel more bad than me. Nobody perfect. Everybody human.”

What do you do next? “You come back and play tomorrow,” Leyland said. “That’s what makes this game great.”

There’s already a great hue and cry to use instant replay in baseball. But if they had used replay that night, we would not have known what a stand-up guy Jim Joyce is, just moments after making a mistake he knows will reappear in the first paragraph of his obituary. We would not have known what a fair-minded person Jim Leyland is, expressing respect for Joyce’s professionalism and compassion for his plight just minutes after the game.

I already knew what a great game Galarraga pitched. A rose is a rose, after all, by any other name– and his might go down as the most famous “perfect” game of them all. But I didn’t know what a great man he is.

We don’t need instant replay. We need more men like these.

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Thank You!

John U. Bacon — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:01:00 GMT

As of this writing, we have exactly 47,182 RSS subscribers, plus those folks who dip their toes in each week, so breaking 50,000 shouldn't be too far off.

THANK YOU! (Or have I said that?)

Alas, your reward for your loyalty is a rebaked piece from two years ago, when George Carlin died, because I'm goin' fishin'. Or, at least, not writing a new piece until next week. The main motivation is so many Michigan Radio listeners head up north -- or somewhere else, anyway-- this weekend, reducing the broadcast to the proverbial tree in the forest. But I can assure you I am fully aware of recent press conferences in Ann Arbor, and I will have plenty to say about this down the road.

George Carlin Safe At Home

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Comedian George Carlin died two years ago this spring, at the age of 71. Almost every elegy for him said, “He is remembered mainly for his skit on the ‘Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Radio.’” But I remember Carlin for a better bit.

I’m not going to discuss his Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Radio – because, I’m ON radio, and you still can’t. And besides, it seems shame to have your life’s work reduced to seven profanities. Carlin was better than that.

I believe Carlin was not only one of our funniest comics – which is, after all, the point of his profession – but also one of the most thoughtful, even insightful. I still use his comparison of baseball and football – and what they say about our society -- when I teach my class on the history of college athletics.

Carlin not only breaks down two of our most popular sports, he deftly demonstrates how they define fans as liberal or conservative, dove or hawk, Prius or Hummer.

But I’ll let the man speak for himself.

“Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.

Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

“Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!

Football is played on a gridiron,in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

“Baseball begins in the spring! The season of new life!

Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.

“Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness. Baseball has… the sacrifice!

“Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.

“Football has the two minute warning.

“Baseball has no time limit. We don't know when it's gonna end! We might even have extra innings! Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.

“And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

“In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun.With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

“In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! I hope I'll be safe at home!”

No sportswriter or professor or deep political thinker ever said it better.

I thank him for that. And I’d like to assume that George Carlin himself is now safe at home.

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Michigan Man Meets His Moment

John U. Bacon — Fri, 21 May 2010 13:35:00 GMT

March 21, 2010

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Michigan first baseman Mike Dufek stepped up to the plate in the tenth inning. The bases were empty, which in this game was rare.

Northwestern had shot out to an early 14-0 lead. We’re not talking football here folks, but baseball. Then, incredibly, the Wolverines clawed back, run by run, until they tied the game with a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth. That brought Dufek up in the tenth inning, with the game in his hands.

That Dufek had even gotten that far was a story in itself.

His genes surely helped. Mike’s grandfather, Don Dufek, Sr., played football for Michigan. In the 1951 Rose Bowl, against undefeated Cal-Berkeley, Don Sr. ran for two touchdowns in the final six minutes to win the game and the MVP award.

Mike’s uncle, Don Jr., played both hockey and football at Michigan – the last guy to do that. The Red Wings drafted him, and so did the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, where he played for nine years. Mike’s other uncle, Bill, also played football for Michigan, and signed with the New York Jets.

Mike’s dad, Joe, turned down Michigan for Yale, where he became an All-American as an outfielder and quarterback. He started eight games for the Buffalo Bills, and played several years in the Canadian Football League. Clearly, Mike had the DNA.

He grew up in Scottsdale, where he played quarterback, too, but excelled in baseball. He wanted to play for Michigan in the worst way, but Michigan wasn’t that wild about him. They finally let him walk on – making Mike the first Dufek athlete not actively recruited by the University of Michigan.

Mike’s freshman year, he barely played on the field, and was barely eligible off it. Butthen Dufek caught fire. Last year, he led the team with 17 homeruns – and he’s carried a B-minus average in sociology. This season, his teammates and coaches named him co-captain. He got it.

But Dufek’s home run total dropped from 17 to just five going into Sunday’s game – the game in which they fell behind by a staggering 14-0. If that was absurd, what happened next was positively crazy. The Wolverines scored 14 straight runs to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, and force extra innings.

So the score was 14-14 when Dufek came to the plate in the bottom of the tenth. A teammate’s father told him “We need you to end it with a homer” – then his coach said the same thing.

The pitcher threw a change-up. Dufek swung – and missed. He moved up a foot in the batter’s box, in the hopes that the pitcher would throw him another change-up– and he did. “As soon as I saw that pitch, I knew I could hit it,” he told me. “And after I hit it, I knew it was gone.”

Boy, was it. It sailed more than 400 feet, far over the fence in centerfield, deep into the pine trees. The Northwestern outfielder punched the fence, incredulous that they had blown a 14-run lead. It finished the biggest come back in Michigan baseball history, it was bigger than the biggest come back in Major League history, and it might just be the biggest comeback in the history of college or professional baseball. Anywhere.

Dufek didn’t know all that as he rounded the bases, and he probably wouldn’t have cared. Coming around third base, he threw his helmet away, then jumped into the mob surrounding the plate. He got so many hugs, he was out of breath.

Mike Dufek might not ever play a single game of pro baseball. But he’s got his degree – and at least one memory none of the famous Dufek men can match.

Could be worse.

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The Red Wings’ Record Deserves A Little Recognition

John U. Bacon — Fri, 14 May 2010 13:29:00 GMT

March 14, 2010

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The Red Wings bowed out of the Stanley Cup playoffs Saturday, in just the second round. It was disappointing for Red Wings’ fans – okay, crushing.

But it’s worth remembering the Red Wings have made the playoffs for 20 consecutive years – the longest active run of any team not just in hockey, but in baseball,basketball and football. The last time the Red Wings didn’t make the playoffs, George Bush was just getting started – George H.W.Bush, that is.

That 1990 team was decent,but nobody thought it would spark a streak of twenty straight playoff seasons. To do that, the Red Wings have stayed at the top of their game with four different coaches, 25 goalies and hundreds of players. Not one has spanned the entire streak. But the team has been led during the entire stretch by just two captains: Steve Yzerman and Niklas Lidstrom – and no team has ever had better leaders than those two.

Detroit was a playoff team when the Edmonton Oilers’ wide-open offense ruled the game. They made the playoffs when the New Jersey Devils’ oh so boring defense dominated. But then the Red Wings developed a style of their own:a wonderful hybrid of hardcore North American hitting, and European-style skating and passing. They can play with anyone, any way you like– and they’ll beat you doing it.

The Wings were on top ten years ago when the referees didn’t call anything – like clutching, grabbing, and hooking – and they’ve stayed on top after the refs started calling everything, like coughing and sneezing.

The Wings’ streak survived the lockout of 1995 and the lock out of 2005, and they didn’t miss a beat.

The Wings won three Stanley Cups before the salary cap was put in place five years ago. Everyone said would be the end of their dynasty, until they won another Cup in 2008, with not a dime more than everyone else had.

The Wings play in the NHL’s Western Conference, despite the fact that Joe Louis Arena is a few miles east of the Piston’s home, and they play in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. Go figure.

No team in the four major sports has traveled more than the Red Wings have over the past twenty years. They’ve had to play conference rivals in Dallas and Denver, Edmonton and Anaheim, Phoenix and Vancouver. They don’t complain about it. They just win, get on the plane, and go do it again.

The Red Wings have done all of this with zero – zero – off-ice scandals. They’ve played through the Minnesota Vikings’ sex boat escapades, Pete Rose and Mark McGwire’s ‘confessions,’ Ben Roethlisberger and Lawrence Taylor and Tiger Woods. They’ve earned a reputation for being genuinely good guys. They even take pay cuts to keep their teammates on board.

In his autobiography, comedian Steve Martin said the hardest thing to learn was not how to be great. On a given night, almost any comedian can do that. No, the hardest thing, he said, was to learn to be good, night after night, no matter what they throw at you.

The Red Wings have not only been good, night after night, they’ve been great. And they’ve been doing it for almost 2,000 nights. They are the honest accountants,the loyal employees – the guys who do their jobs so well for so long,you barely notice.

Well, hockey fans, you should. Because teams don’t come along like this – ever.

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Ernie Harwell: 1918-2010

John U. Bacon — Wed, 05 May 2010 13:31:00 GMT

May 5, 2010

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This past September, the Detroit Tigers’ beloved broadcaster, Ernie Harwell, announced that he had contracted an incurable form of cancer, and would not seek treatment.

For everybody who knew him, or felt like they did – which, really, is just about all of us – it hit hard. We were losing our baseball buddy, our grandfather, our friend.

The only person who didn’t seem shaken by the news was Ernie Harwell. He said, “Whatever's in store, I'm ready for a new adventure. That's the way I look at it."

Harwell was a deeply religious man, buthe never wore it on his sleeve. He simply lived it. He was, truly, at peace.

But I was not. Like just about every sports writer who knew him, I felt compelled to write about him.

I wrote about our family trips up north, which were always accompanied by Harwell’s comfortable cadences filling our station wagon. Harwell didn’t simply broadcast baseball games. He turned them into stories. In Harwell’s world, a batter didn’t merely strike out. He was "called out for excessive window shopping," or "caught standing there like the house by the side of the road.”

Unlike today’s announcers, who prattle on with mindless patter and pointless stats, Harwell treated his listeners to healthy doses of "companionable silences," something Zen masters refer to as the delicious “space between the notes.” Harwell often said the quiet allowed the listeners to enjoy the sounds of the ballpark itself, which he felt was richer than his own voice. When Harwell called the game, you not only heard the crack of the bat, you heard the peanut vendors.

Harwell was born in Georgia in 1918, a time and a place that valued relaxed conversations on the porch. He grew up listening to Atlanta Crackers games on a crystal radio set. The power of those broadcasts probably hit Harwell more than most. His dad suffered from multiple sclerosis, and rarely left his wheel chair. The highlight of his day was listening to those ball games.

At age 29, Harwell became the Crackers’ play-by-play man. Just two years later, in 1948, Harwell caught the ear of the Brooklyn Dodgers. They were so impressed, they traded their catcher for Harwell, making him the only broadcaster in baseball history to be traded for a player.

Harwell went on to set the record for most games broadcast, including 41 seasons for the Tigers. When Sports Illustrated picked its all-time baseball dream team a few years ago, they included a spot for their favorite radio announcer. They bypassed some real legends – like Mel Allen and Vin Scully and even Red Barber – to tap Harwell, a true Hall of Famer.

He told me Willie Mays was the best player he’s ever seen, that Jackie Robinson was the most courageous, and that a lovable Tigers pitcher named Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, who used to get on his hands and knees to groom the mound, "was probably the most charismatic guy we’ve ever had here in Detroit. A real breath of fresh air."

In 1997, I was lucky enough to cover spring training for The Detroit News. My first day I was sitting on a bench, watching infield practice, when Ernie Harwell sidled up next to me. We sat there, watching baseball, and chatting like old friends – just the way everyone one of us imagined we already were, listening to him on the radio all those years. He invited me for dinner that night with his wife Lulu. We enjoyed a long talk, and he picked up the tab.

I wrote a story about him nine years ago. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I woke up to the phone ringing. It was Ernie Harwell, calling to thank me for the article. Who does that? That day, of course, soon turned tragic, but Harwell’s little act of humanity will always stand in my mind as such a poignant contrast to everything that followed that day.

A few times over the years, I invited him to call in to a talk show I was hosting. “Just ask,” he always said, “And I’ll come running.”

Eight months ago, I closed my piece by saying, I wish there was something I could do for him now. If he just asked, I’d come running.

I had to deliver that line in the studio a few times before I got through it without getting too choked up. The next morning, after the piece ran, an old friend called to thank me. Who does that? Ernie Harwell, that’s who.

It’s a strange sensation, knowing it’s probably going to be the last time you’ll talk. I kept it short – I didn’t want to be greedy with his time – but I had to tell him how much I appreciated hearing from him. He said, “Well, John, we go back a loooong way. Thanks for the wonderful story. God bless you. Good bye.”

After we hung up, I sat therefor a few minutes. We went back about 13 years – not really that long for a man who had friends going back more than a half-century– and I’m sure he read better stories than mine that week alone. But he still took the time to call.

So, thank you, Mr. Harwell,for all the wonderful stories.

God bless you.

Good bye.

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Only in America A Draft Story

John U. Bacon — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:33:00 GMT

April 30, 2010

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The wonderfully named Zoltan Mesko was born and raised in Timisoara, Romania, right on the Hungarian border. Like his parents, Mihai and Elizabeta, Zoltan speaks both languages fluently.

When the Berlin Wall came downin 1989, life improved dramatically for most people living behind the Iron Curtain – but not much for Romanians. His parents, both engineers, could not leave the country until they won Romania’s Green Card lottery -– yes, they had one – in 1997, when Zoltan was ten.

They quickly discovered Hollywood’s depiction of America didn’t quite match their apartment in Queens. It was dirty and cramped – even for just three people -- and too expensive,so they moved to Twinsburg, Ohio, right outside Cleveland.

Zoltan learned English in about two months. His parents took two years, but understanding American culture took a little longer.

When Mesko’s eight-grade class played kickball inside the gym one day, he boomed the ball so high it shattered a ceiling light. The teacher gave him a choice:“You’re either paying for that light, or you’re playing football.”

It was an easy decision. At Mesko’s Thursday night soccer games, only the parents watched. But the Friday night football games were sold out, every time. And football had cheerleaders.

During warm-ups for a game his first year, Mesko’s coach casually mentioned that the other team’s punter had just gotten a college scholarship.

“Excuse me?” a mystified Mesko asked. “A scholarship -- for punting?”

“Yeah, for punting,” thecoach said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

When Zoltan told his parents,they didn’t believe him. Who’d heard of such a thing?

But Mesko knew they couldn’t pay for college any other way, so he devoted himself to the singular skill of kicking a football as high and far as he could. Before his senior season, he’d become him the nation’s top punting prospect. Indiana offered him a full scholarship, then Harvard, Yale and every other Ivy League school offered him admission and financial aid. It still didn’t make sense to his parents, but they were no longer goingto question it.

Mesko grew up a Buckeye fan,but when his mom researched his options, they quickly dismissed the home state team. The Columbia coach told him, “We can’t guarantee you the NFL, but we can guarantee you Wall Street.” Mesko wanted a shot at both, so he enrolled at Michigan.

He graduated from Michigan’s business school in four years with an A-minus average, and will be awarded a master’s degree in sports management tomorrow. He also got the attention of NFL scouts, but almost blew it at the Senior Bowl in January, where he was distracted by the gifts and the interviews and the atmosphere, and kicked badly.

A month later, at the NFL combine in Indianapolis, Zoltan focused on just one thing: Kicking the football. In a one-hour work out with four other punters, he re-established himself as the best prospect.

On Saturday, he watched the NFL draft with his friends and his parents, who drove up for the day. During the fifth round, Mesko’s cell phone rang. “Unknown Caller,” it said. When he picked it up, he found himself talking to the New England Patriots’ head coach, Bill Billichick, who’s won three Super Bowls, and the owner, Robert Kraft. While they talked,ESPN announced that, “With the 150^th pick, the New England Patriots select Zoltan Mesko of Michigan.” The room erupted.

This spring Mesko will sign a contract for the minimum wage. But, in the NFL, that’s not $7.25 an hour, but $320,000 a year. He will be the poorest player in the NFL, but probably the richest kid from Timisoara, Romania.

Taking it all in, Mesko said,“What a difference a decade makes.”

Only in America.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

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Dear Loyal Readers,

Good news -- we are now up to some 42,000 subscribers! (And yes, I'm as surprised as you are.) Thanks for your patronage!

Thanks also for your comments. They're always appreciated and alwayswelcome, just so long as you remember to sign your name and keep itreasonably civil. Beyond that, all's fair!

Again, Thank You!

-John

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Taking Money from Students for Sports Stars

John U. Bacon — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:23:00 GMT

April 23, 2010

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With tax day just past, it’s a good time to ask where our money should go – and where it shouldn’t. I don’t have all the answers, of course – but I’m convinced one expenditure should end immediately: stadium subsidies.

Two years ago, the New York Yankees signed third baseman Alex Rodriguez to a contract that will pay him $275 million dollars in exchange for ten years of catching, throwing and hitting a baseball. That puts him ahead of his teammate, Derek Jeter, who has to get by on a mere $189 million for his decade of duty. Sucker.

Whenever teams sign contracts like that, the player’s agent always justifies it by saying, “Well, that’s what the market will bear.”

If that were true, it would still be insane, but at least there would be a logic to it. After all, if any team is dumb enough to pay someone that kind of money, and if a family of four wants to pay $200 to see that guy play – well,then, so be it. That’s how free markets work.

But the free market doesn’t come close to paying these guys’ salaries. Who picks up the gap? You do – every time you pay your taxes. When teams spend money like that, they suddenly realize they need a fancy new stadium with luxury skyboxes to generate the kind of revenue necessary to pay hose ridiculous salaries. So, they demand state and local governments build them one – and most of the time, that’s exactly what those states and cities do.

The United States is home to 99 major league baseball, football, basketball and hockey arenas and stadiums. According to Judith Grant Long’s research at Rutgers University, the teams that play in those places have received subsidies totaling 21.3 billion dollars. That’s billion, with a ‘b.’

To pay for the Silverdome, the Palace and Comerica Park, Michigan taxpayers have coughed up $616 million dollars – which is about average.

Rodriguez’s team, the New York Yankees, just built a shiny new stadium for 2.3 billion dollars– and had the nerve to ask the tax payers to pony up half of that, over a billion dollars. But the Yankees get to keepall the team’s profits, which is how they pay guys like Rodriguez hundreds of millions of dollars to do something your kid does in the backyard for free.

What do the taxpayers get? The bill, that’s what. New York City’s school system is facing a $4 billion deficit, and a massive layoff of 15,000 teachers.

It doesn’t have to be this way. And, just across the border, it isn’t. Canada is home to eight major league teams. But Canadian taxpayers don’t pay for their stadiums. Their teams do – just like they should– and the taxpayers spend their money on their schools. It’s a novel concept.

Somehow, Canada ranks second worldwide in student literacy, and the U.S. ranks 15^th. Fine. But we lead the world in sports salaries. U-S-A! U-S-A!

More good news: Rodriguez is doing just fine, thank you -- except for the steroid scandal, that is. He’s already hit two home runs this season, and since he gets paid about $800,000 per homer, he’s already made more than thirty New York City school teachers will this year – combined. Provided, of course, they don’t get laid off.

Taking candy from a baby maybe immoral – but taking money from students, and giving it to sports stars, should be illegal.

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The Man Behind Jackie Robinson

John U. Bacon — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:38:00 GMT

April 16, 2010

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The first quarter of this year has been filled with endless sports stories about salaries and steroids and sex – and pretty much everything but sports. So I welcome a look back at a time the stakes were real, and the men were equal to the moment.

Well, we’re in luck, because this week marks the anniversary of the most important day in sports:April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson made his major league debut.

Even people who don’t know about sports know about Jackie Robinson – and they should. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, "Jackie Robinson made it possible for me in the first place. Without him, I would never have been able to do what I did."

But, without a much less famous man named Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ president, Robinson might never have gotten his chance.

At first glance, Rickey wasa very unlikely candidate for such an important mission. He was a staunch conservative who hated Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal and welfare in equal measure. But if you look a little closer, it makes more sense.

Rickey was born in 1881 in Lucasville, Ohio, a hotbed of the abolitionist movement. He went to Ohio Wesleyan, where he coached a baseball team that had a black catcher. When Rickey took his team to South Bend to play Notre Dame, the hotel clerk would not give the catcher a room. After lots of arguing, Rickey told the clerk the player would stay in his room.

Fifty years later, Rickey recalled,“When I got to the room, here was this fine young man sitting the recrying and pulling at his hands. I asked him what was wrong. ‘Oh,Mister Rickey,’ he said, ‘it’s my skin. If only I could pull it off everything would be all right.’ All these yearsI have heard that boy crying.”

After Rickey tried pro baseball-- hitting a lukewarm .239 – he enrolled in the University of Michiganlaw school. But he couldn’t shake the baseball bug, so he managed Michigan’s team on the side.

He tried practicing law, but hated it, and returned to baseball as an executive. Rickey once asked, "why a man trained for the law devotes his life to something so cosmically unimportant as a game?"

One thing is certain: Rickey never treated baseball as just a game. He didn’t just return to it. He reinvented it, twice – first by creating the modern minor league system, which produced the St. Louis Cardinals’ famous Gashouse Gang that won four World Series. Then Rickey moved to Brooklyn, where he finally hatched his plan to change the game – and the country – forever. He still heard that catcher crying.

A few years ago, I had the chance to interview baseball legend Buck O’Neil, who told me, “It took a big man to do what Rickey did. It could have killed Rickey in baseball if this thing had blown up.”

But whom could he find to take on such an incredible task? There were better Negro League ball players than Jackie Robinson, and certainly more passive ones. But Rickey said, "I don't like silent men, when personal liberty is at stake." Rickey didn't make the safe choice. He made the bold one – and the best one.

In 1965, Branch Rickey died at age 84. When a reporter called Robinson to pass on the sad news, Robinson fell silent. Finally, he turned to his wife Rachel and said, "Rae, take this call. Mr. Rickey has just died."

Later, Rachel said, "Rickey needed Jack as much as Jack needed Rickey.”

Baseball great Buck O’Neil agreed. "Don't ever forget," he told me. "When you say Jackie Robinson, to say Branch Rickey too, see, because you couldn't have one without the other.”

We were lucky to have both.

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NCAA Threatens to Trade MarchMadness Perfection… for Just a Little More

John U. Bacon — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 02:49:00 GMT

April 9, 2010

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March Madness is one of thebest sporting events of the year, every year, on a very short list withthe Super Bowl, the World Series and the Olympics. But March Madnessis the most inclusive – and, in some ways, the purest.

The tournament’s 65 teamscame from 31 states this year. Schools like Gonzaga and Winthrop,Lehigh and New Mexico State all got to play.

What separates March Madnessfrom the other events is that we get to play, too. Every officeruns a hoop pool, and the winner is never the ESPN-addicted sharpiein sales, but the receptionist who picks her teams based on her favoritecolors. It’s a beautiful thing.

This year’s March Madnesshad it all – early round upsets, like Northern Iowa over Kansas; traditionalpowers like Michigan State and Kentucky advancing to the Elite Eight;and a title game for the ages.

In this corner, you had thethree-time champeeens: The Duke Blue Devils, whose coach wondered whyhis school wasn’t more popular. Yes, why aren’t obnoxious rich kids from New York more popular? Got me, Coach!

And in this corner, you hadthe upstart Butler Bulldogs from Indianapolis, who had never been tothe Final Four. They play their home games in the very arena wherethey filmed the movie “Hoosiers” in 1986, and where Milan High Schoolplayed that actual game, in 1954.

All the experts said Duke wasgoing to blow out Butler, but the game went back and forth all night.In the final seconds, Butler’s wonderboy, Gordon Hayward, dashed downthe court to launch a last-second half-court shot -- but it bouncedoff the rim, just off the mark. Duke won by two – the closestfinal since Michigan’s overtime victory in 1989.

It was one of those rare gameswhere both teams came out the better for it. For the fourth time,Duke earned a national title, and for the first time, Butler earnednational respect.

The TV ratings were the bestin eleven years. So the NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, was notcontent to say, “It is good.”   No. That’s forsuckers. It said, Gimme gimme gimme.

Instead of leaving perfectionalone, the NCAA is poised to add 31 teams and another week to the tournament.If you wonder why, you have to remember the NCAA’s holy trinity: Greed,Hypocrisy and Stupidity.

March Madness is already thebiggest money maker in the history of college athletics, by far.Every year, CBS pays out $700 million to the NCAA, in exchange for tendays of basketball. The coaches are millionaires, and the playersare students. Where’s Karl Marx when you need him?

But $700 million is not enough.Why? Because, to the NCAA, it is never enough. Itreminds me of an exchange between Homer Simpson and his boss, MontyBurns. When Homer says, “You’re the richest man I know.”Burns says. “Yes. But you know, I’d trade it all forjust a little more.”

Some things in sports are perfect:90 feet from home plate to first base. 100 yards on a footballfield. And three weeks for March Madness.

If the NCAA adds a fourth week,they’ll give us a lot of bad teams playing bad basketball, and ruinthe rhythm of the tournament for everyone. How are you going tofit 96 teams on a single sheet of paper to fill out your bracket?

None of this will stop theNCAA, because nothing -- not billions, not perfection, not fair play-- has ever stopped the NCAA.

March Madness might be thebest sports event of the year. But the NCAA is going to tradeit all, for just a little more.

Now that is madness.

Copyright © 2010, Michigan Radio
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Finding What They Were Missing

John U. Bacon — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:43:00 GMT

April 2, 2010

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Tom Izzo’s best coaching job

From the outside, it looked like a typically dominant Michigan State basketball team. By the end of January, the Spartans were undefeated in the Big Ten, and ranked fifth in the nation. That record hid some problems the public couldn’t see, but Coach Tom Izzo could.

It wasn’t talent. The Spartans returned four starters, including Big Ten player of the year Kalin Lucas, from a team that had already reached the NCAA finals the previous year. The problem was simpler, but more serious: the players just didn’t care enough about each other.

The coaches did. In January, Izzo, his trainer, his video guy and Dave Pruder, his long-time equipment manager, all lost close relatives. And every time, they were therefor each other. In the middle of the season, Izzo drove down with his trainer to South Bend for his father’s funeral. Pruder told me, “We knew we could rely on each other. But the players didn’t.”

The team’s problems came to the surface in February, when the Spartans dropped three straight games, and five spots in the rankings. They were able to right the ship, and grind out five wins in their last six games to earn a share of the Big Ten title – Izzo’s sixth. But they still hadn’t solved their central problem.

“Every team has got to learn to come together,” Pruder told me. “Some seasons, it takes longer than others, and some times it never happens. We kept winning,but something was still wrong. Even when we won the Big Ten title,something didn’t feel right.”

Izzo pushed them, and they pushed right back. He didn’t give in to them, but he didn’t give up on them, either – not a bad description of good parenting. But they just didn’t seem to understand that if you don’t care about each other, you will not play the way you should for each other.

Izzo’s concerns were validated when the Spartans lost to a mediocre Minnesota team in the first round of the Big Ten tournament. The NCAA selection committee punished the Spartans with a fifth-seed, almost unheard of for a Big Ten champion.

This time, it wasn’t Izzo,but the players who sounded the alarms. They held a players-only meeting to clear the air, and underscore what a great opportunity they had, if they could just come together in time to seize it.

Their new found unity was tested in the second round against Maryland, when their star, Kalin Lucas,went down with a torn’ Achilles’ tendon. Izzo told his team Lucas was done. “So,” he said, “you’ve got to step it up. You owe it to him.”

They responded by beating Maryland at the buzzer. In the next game, they came from behind to beat Northern Iowa, and they took Tennessee on Sunday by shooting a free throw with eleven seconds left. They were not dominant, but for the first time all season, they were unified.

On their way down to Indianapolis Wednesday, the team bus stopped by Lucas’s apartment, where he’s recovering from his surgery with his mom’s help. He’ll join his teammates Saturday, when they play Butler in the Final Four –Izzo’s sixth in the last 12 years, the most of any coach over that stretch.

This is not Izzo’s best team. Far from it. But it might be his best coaching.

And it’s nice to know, as complicated as the game has gotten, that caring for each other is still the most important thing.

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LIttle Man Comes Up Big

John U. Bacon — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:07:00 GMT

March 26, 2010

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It’s been a dismal year for Michigan fans. The football team and the men’s basketball team both failed to make it to the post-season, and together they lost to Michigan State three times.

The men’s hockey team was supposed to be the saving grace. Entering this season, the Wolverines had made it to the NCAA tournament a record 19-straight seasons. That streak started in 1991, before many of the current players were even born.

The Wolverines were picked to finish first in their league – but they finished seventh, unheard of in Ann Arbor. The only chance they had to keep their streak alive was to win four straight rounds of their conference playoffs. Nothing else could save their season.

It was a tall order. No team had ever come from that far down to win the league playoffs. And it got a lot taller when the Wolverines lost their starting goalie, Bryan Hogan, leaving them with the shortest goalie in the league, a five-foot-six back up named Shawn Hunwick. In his three seasons at Michigan, Hunwick had not started a single game.

Hunwick isn’t even the best player in his family. His older brother Matt had captained the Wolverines, and now plays for the NHL’s Boston Bruins.

They grew up in Sterling Heights, where Matt beat Shawn in just about everything, including daily fights. But Shawn was feisty, and always came back for more. When Shawn wanted to play hockey, Matt shoved him in net – like older brothers do -- and made him play goalie.

But Shawn took to it immediately, and tried to convince his parents – a grocery store manager and a school maintenance man -- to buy the expensive equipment needed to play the position. They initially refused, but Shawn persisted until they couldn’t say no. Shawn’s like that.

It’s not fair to say he looks like your paperboy – because he looks like your paperboy’s baby brother. When Hunwick’s in his stance, he barely reaches the cross bar, and looks like he has to jump for the high shots.

He paid his dues in places like Alpena, and Petrolia, Ontario, before he became Michigan’s “practice goalie.” These guys pay full tuition – brother Matt pays Shawn’s -- and they don’t even dress for the games. All for the honor of having future pros fire slapshots at their heads two hours a day. There’s a reason why practice goalies are called “targets.”

In almost three years at Michigan, Hunwick played exactly 18 minutes of college hockey. But he never complained, he never skipped, and he never badgered his coaches for playing time. He just kept his mouth shut, and did his job, day in and day out.

In his first start, four weeks ago against Notre Dame, he got shelled for four goals in ten minutes, and Michigan lost. But the next weekend, the first round of the do-or-die playoffs against Lake Superior State, he gave up only two goals the first night, and none the next, to earn his first shut out.

The Wolverines then faced second-place Michigan State, which had already beaten Michigan three times. But with Hunwick in net, the Wolverines swept their arch-rivals, 5-1 and 5-3. Head coach Red Berenson realized he had pulled out a plum.

Next up: the Miami Redhawks, which finished first in the league, and second in the nation. But they were no match for Shawn Hunwick, who led Michigan to a 5-2 victory. The next night, with Michigan’s 19-year NCAA tournament streak on the line, Hunwick held off Northern Michigan, 2-1. Their season, and their streak, had been saved.

When the game ended, the Wolverines threw their gloves and sticks into the air and raced to hug their hero, like they’d won the Stanley Cup. Hunwick’s parents cried. Even Berenson, who’s about as expressive behind the bench as Mt. Rushmore, was caught smiling, on camera – twice. And when they called up his surprising savior to receive the MVP award, Berenson actually got a little choked up.

Back on the team bus, Shawn made his first call to brother Matt, and tried to give him the credit, but Matt wouldn’t hear it. “You made the saves,” he said.

And that’s how little brother earned one trophy big brother never did.

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Spring Training's Longest Marriage

John U. Bacon — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:33:00 GMT

March 19, 2010

Dear Loyal Readers,

Thanks once again for your continued, well, loyalty. First, acorrection: I cited 33,000 subscribers last week, but in fact, we're well over 38,000, because the stats I looked at only covered the past12 months, and we're in month thirteen now of the Bacon Blog.

Second, as I wrote before, if you're willing to sign your full name toyour letters, and keep it reasonably civil, we'll print every one of them.

Third, no audio this week, because Michigan Radio is on a pledge drive.

Again, THANKS!

-John

Spring Training's Longest Marriage

Almost all of the major league baseball’s 30 teams have moved their spring training camps in the past three decades, and fully half of them now play in Arizona. Stay-at-home stalwarts like the Cincinnati Reds trained in Tampa for 52 years before moving to Plant City in 1988, then to Sarasota a decade later, then finally to Goodyear, Arizona, last year. Even the Los Angeles Dodgers, who created Dodgertown 62 years ago in Vero Beach to provide a safe haven for Jackie Robinson and other black players, also bolted for Arizona last year.

Baseball teams have been city-swapping their spring training sites like swingers in a – well, a bad movie about swingers, I guess.

In this permissive environment, the Detroit Tigers stand as a pillar of fidelity. Except for three years during World War II, the Tigers have trained in Lakeland every year since 1934. That's 74 seasons, by far the longest marriage in the major leagues.

But why Lakeland?

It’s not the nightlife. Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell told me when he first started going to Lakeland in 1941, “nothing happened there but morning, noon and night -- and sometimes they skipped one of those."

One important consideration for a major league club is the quality of the training facilities. On that score, Lakeland’s have always ranked among the best in baseball -- maybe the very best. And the city treats the team well. When the Tigers need a new bulletin board, it’s the city park workers who install it. The city even celebrates the Tigers with an annual barbeque blow out.

But the real cement behind this rock-solid bond was the relationship forged years ago by former Tigers' president Jim Campbell and a guy named Joker Marchant. You might have heard of Campbell, but even Tigers fans only know the other name because the Tigers’ spring training site is called Joker Marchant Stadium.

Officially, Joker Marchant was the director of Lakeland's parks and recreation department for 35 years. Unofficially, he was the "Boss Hog" of the city, getting things done that no one else dared to do.

Marchant was a small guy who walked tall, with a big white Stetson on top. He had a taut body, leathery skin and a deep Southern drawl. He always drove a pick-up truck. His only indulgence was leaving work every day at 5 p.m. to go home and watch re-runs of "Gunsmoke." Then he'd hop back in his pick-up truck and work some more.

One of his employees told me Marchant would never let you down. He said Marchant’s word was his bond, and Campbell was the same way.

Despite their differences in background, Campbell and Marchant both saw in the other a kindred spirit.

A couple decades ago, the Tigers had a minor league pitcher who brought a huge boa constrictor to spring training. When one of Joker’s workers came to him with the problem, Joker told him to put the snake in an extra room in the cafeteria.

When Campbell heard about the snake he was hotter'n a firecracker. The worker told me Campbell gave him the business up one side and down the other, every expletive in the book and he even threatened to fire him.

Finally the worker said, “Joker said it was ok." At that, Campbell stared at the young man, clenched his jaw, and simply walked away. The worker had said the only thing that would get him off the hook: Joker said it was okay. That is how close those two were.

Near the end of their long careers, and longer lives, Jim Campbell and Joker Marchant -- a famous guy from a big northern city, and a small town parks and rec guy from the south – would sit together every morning in the team’s cafeteria, eat breakfast, and talk about old times.

They had become close of friends. As unlikely a partnership as the one they left behind, between the Detroit Tigers and little Lakeland, Florida.

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How to Talk Sports, the Coach Bacon Way

John U. Bacon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:28:00 GMT

March 13, 2010

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In America, you’re “behind the eight ball,” if you will, if you can’t “Talk Sports." Jay McInerny once wrote that sports fans constitute the largest fraternity in America, and not knowing how to talk about them will put you on the outside of every airport and elevator conversation you encounter.

Now, normally, that’s a wonderful thing – but on the rare occasion you actually need to make small talk in such situations, Coach Bacon is here to cut through the clichés so you can bull with the best of them.

First, you’ve got to see through the silly semantics. They love to talk about the “respective captains from each team,” which means “the captains from each team,” because “respective” adds nothing to that clause. And, of course, the “ensuing kickoff,” which means “next.”

So far, so good. Now you’ve got to master the pseudo-psychological phrases, like this old chestnut: “Check out the character of this man, in the face of all this adversity.” That usually means the guy’s playing when he should be in the hospital, and what you’re looking at is not character but a compound fracture. Or when they gush: "Would you look at that concentration!" No, they can’t see concentration, either. All they're saying is the receiver is watching the ball – I mean, really watching it -- which, after all, is his job.

Announcers also like to use pseudo-scientific phrases, to make the simplest of actions sound like quantum physics. So, when you hear some color man say, "Note Nagurski's 'low center of gravity' as he totes the pigskin." All he means is: "Nagurski is holding the football, and his knees are bent." Not that complicated.

Then they start saying things like, “The ball was clearly in the cylinder,” or “It definitely broke the plane,” which mean, respectively: The basketball’s directly above the basket, and the football has crossed the goal line. Keep your slide rule in your holster, folks. You won’t need it here.

Sometimes sportscasters are simply awed by commonplace events. For example, sportscasters like to say-- with tear-jerking admiration-- that "This guy comes to play everyday." Which -- I guess -- means that he consistently wears the correct attire at the correct location at the correct time. In other words, he’s doing what a Wal-Mart greeter does every day of the week. Which is not a lot to ask, it would seem, of a high school drop-out making a million bucks to play a spirited game of catch.

Here's another popular expression, especially among coaches. "We're just gonna take 'em one game at a time." What the coaches are forgetting here is that you're not allowed to play two games simultaneously. Imagine a coach saying: "Well, we figure we'll take on both the Blackhawks and the Bruins this Saturday, playing alternate periods, and we’re gonna keep it up the entire season. That way we’ll be done by March, and take April off to rest up for the playoffs.”

Now that you understand the basics of balderdash, it's time to master a couple catch phrases that you can use on your friends and family. These are the gems of gibberish, the Hall of Famers of hot air, the all-stars of asinine assessments. To wit, they are: "Mistakes really hurt," and it’s corollary, "Turnovers'll kill ya.”

These phrases are so powerful, you often hear sportscasters say things like, "Well, you know Howard, whoever makes the fewest turnovers is gonna win this game." No, Howard, whoever scores the most points is going to win that game, and every other game - except golf, of course, where the player with the most ridiculous outfit takes top prize. If all else fails, just blurt out, every ten minutes: "Oh, man! You gotta be kidding me!"

If your friends like sports, they’ll think you’re some sort of super genius.

Sports talk can be confusing, so don't get frustrated if you don't learn it over night. Just remember: you've got to take ‘em one game at a time, and come to play every day. Oh yeah, and turnover’s’ll kill ya.

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The Olympics' Real Winners and Losers

John U. Bacon — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:55:00 GMT

March 5, 2010

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It was the best of Olympics, it was the worst of Olympics. For some, it was the season of hope; for others, the winter of their discontent. But to heck with all that. I’m just here to give you Coach Bacon’s Winners and Losers of the Winter Olympics. So, here we go.

WINNER: Vancouver

Great city, great people, great Olympics. Well done, my Canadian friends.

LOSER: Vancouver

In the opening ceremonies, the flame apparatus failed to rise, launching a thousand Viagra jokes. But the real joke was the speed skating oval, where the Canadians failed to manufacture decent ice. That’s like Jamaicans failing to manufacture decent sand. What’s up with that?

WINNER: Olympic Hockey

With the best players in the world, and six nations with an equal chance of grabbing the gold, the Olympics gave us hockey at its very best. The US-Canada overtime final, with NO TV time-outs, made for an unforgettable finish – some say the best ever.

LOSER: NHL Hockey

Only the NHL can take this singular moment and blow it. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said the NHL might skip the next Olympics. Now you know why he’s considered the dumbest commissioner in all of sports. He did it the old-fashioned way. He earned it.

WINNER: The Medal Count

The U.S. set a record for most Winter Olympic medals ever, with 37, and the Canadians set a record for most golds, with 14 -- redeeming themselves for being the only host nation to win no golds, twice, in Montreal and Calgary. Kudos, North America.

LOSER: The Medal Count

It took 20 Canadian men seven games of skating, passing and shooting to earn a single gold medal in hockey. Meanwhile, Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjorgen had only to repeat the same basic motion in the sprint, the 10K, the 15K, the 30K, and the relay, to get five medals. Is cross-country skiing really five times harder than ice hockey? What’s up with that? I say all distance sports should be reduced to a short run, a long run, and a relay—that’s it. And hockey should count 20. There. That’d do it.

WINNER: Curling

Watching curling proved oddly compelling, like gazing at a lava lamp. And it gives all of us hope that – yeah, sure, I could be a world class athlete. Look at that slob! He’s on the Olympic team?! Oh, yeah. I could do that.

LOSER: Curling

I’m sorry, it’s still just shuffle board on ice. And spare me your emails. My grandfather was a proud member of his New Brunswick curling team, but he didn’t expect to get a medal for it. He preferred beer, anyway.

WINNER: Ryan Miller

The former Michigan State star let in the overtime goal against Canada, but he was still the best player – by far – in the tournament, and rightly won the Most Valuable Player trophy.

LOSER: Mikka Kiprusoff

The Finnish goalie said he’d only join his national team if they named him the starter. He got what he asked for – then went out and let in four goals on seven shots against the U.S. He sucked at 400 pounds-per-square inch. Then he didn’t even wait for his coach to pull him, before skulking back to the bench. I have just two words for you, sir: Loo Zer.

WINNER: Ann Arbor

With seven players from the US National Development Team on the Olympic hockey roster, and two pairs of ice dancers all training at Ann Arbor’s Ice Cube, A-Squared was downright Olympian.

LOSER: The Biathlon

Making someone ski several miles, then stop to shoot at targets for no apparent reason, makes as much sense as making swimmers finish four laps, then get out and bowl three frames.

So I say, let’s spice it up a little. Each time the biathletes miss their marks, they should have to ski behind the targets before they’re allowed to shoot again. That would increase the stakes, and focus the mind.

Too much for you? Okay, how about giving them all paint ball pellets to fire at their fellow competitors as they traipse through the woods? That way, no lead would be safe, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, and the leader would be forced to ski in a zig-zag pattern down the stretch while the trailers try to pick him off from behind.

Or we could just kill this silly sport altogether.

WINNER: NBC

NBC gave us fewer taped fillers, and more live action.

LOSER: NBC

Still too much fireplace, and not enough first place. Oh, give me the CBC!

WINNERS: Us

Yes, the Olympics are over-hyped and over-packaged, but they’re still the best thing on TV. We see it all – the bratty skiers, the bodacious boarders and the inspiring skaters, like Joannie Rochette, who took to the ice just two days after her mother died of a heart attack – and delivered the single best short program of her life.

That is reality TV. And that’s why I can’t wait for 2012.

Note to loyal listeners

Hello Loyal Readers,

Thanks once again for reading, for writing, and for spreading theword. Thanks to you, we will break 33,000 subscribers this week.

As the site's gotten bigger, I realize it's probably time to add a bit of -- gasp! -- professionalism to comment section. So, like most respectable publications, I will seek to keep the comment section completely open to all civil contributors -- whether you like the latest piece or not -- without excising letters. All you have to do isbe willing to sign your name, as you do for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine and the rest --a good idea I should have put in place from the start.

As one of my on-line outlets says, You keep it civil, we'll keep it open.

Great thanks -- and keep 'em comin'!

-John

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Miracle on Ice Architect Herb Brooks: A Personal Thank You

John U. Bacon — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:21:00 GMT

February 26, 2010

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The surprising United States Olympic men’s hockey team will play Finland today in the semi-finals, inspiring some to compare them to the last U.S. men’s team to win the gold 30 years ago, Lake Placid’s “Miracle on Ice.” Sorry, even if the U.S. wins it all, it will not qualify as a miracle. We are not likely to see anything quite like it again. And there will never be another coach like Herb Brooks.

I will never forget the impact the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team had on our country – or the impact the coach, Herb Brooks, had on me.

On December 13, 1979, my best friend was heading home from hockey practice up north, when he was killed in a car accident. I found out the next morning, seconds before my high school hockey teammates and I walked out onto the basketball court for our first pep rally. What started out as one of the happiest days of my life, had suddenly become the saddest.

I didn’t come out of it for months. But when the 1980 Olympic hockey tournament started, I watched every second of every game – I was transfixed by this team and their coach -- and that’s what brought me back.

Fifteen years later, as a sports reporter for The Detroit News, I decided to write a story about Mike Ramsey and Slava Fetisov, who were bitter rivals in Lake Placid Games, before becoming great friends playing together with the Red Wings. To round out the piece I knew I had to call Herb Brooks, who was famously impatient with sports writers.

When I reached Brooks at his home in Minnesota, he spent the first ten minutes chewing out my entire profession, from our lack of credentials to our lack of accountability, before he answered any of my questions. I stayed calm throughout, but after I hung up the phone, I looked down, and saw that my hands were shaking.

When the story came out, I sent Brooks a copy, then nervously called him a week later to get his response. I talked to his wife, Patti – a warm and generous soul -- who told me, “Well, he didn’t throw it against the wall, like he usually does. So that’s a good sign.”

A year later, I called Brooks for a story on Russian hockey, and when that one came out, he asked if they could reprint it in a hockey magazine in Minnesota. After that, we talked every few months, and we would occasionally meet up in rinks from Ann Arbor to Nagano.

Our relationship deepened in 2000, when I took over my old high school hockey team, which had not won a game in a year-and-a-half. Making matters tougher, I was the worst player in school history. (I am not bragging. These are facts.)

But I had the best group of assistants in the state, plus a secret weapon: a world-class mentor in Herb Brooks. I stole from him shamelessly – and it worked.

In our second year, we got to the regional finals – but we had to face our Soviet Union, Trenton high school, which has won twelve state titles. Three weeks before the regional finals, they had smoked us, 10-1.

I knew we were better than that, but I also knew we needed a boost. So, the day before the game, I called Herb Brooks. He said, "Johnny, just tell 'em this: Above all, you have to believe. If you don’t, you don’t have a chance. But if you do, anything is possible.”

I passed on Herb’s words to our players, who had heard me talk about Brooks many times. Our guys played like they were on fire, without any fear whatsoever, but we fell short, 3-2. Still, their fans gave our players a standing ovation. Back in the locker room, I told them, “We might have lost, but you did something more important: You dared to believe you could do it.”

The next year, Herb and I started working on his autobiography. But three months later, Herb died in a car accident.

The next season, my last in coaching, we traveled to Trenton and we beat them in their building, 4-3.

On the bus ride home I wanted to call Herb Brooks in the worst way, just to tell him: We believed.

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Our National Anthem is Not Our Nation's Best Tribute

John U. Bacon — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:58:00 GMT

February 19, 2010

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The modern Olympics started in 1896, but it took 28 more years before the winners would hear their national anthem during the medal ceremony.

The Vancouver Games will conduct 86 medal ceremonies, during which any of the 82 countries present could be serenaded with their national anthem. But not all are created equal -- including ours.

You probably knew the melody for our national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, came from a popular British drinking song, and that Francis Scott Key added the words during the War of 1812. But you might not have known the Star Spangled Banner didn’t become our national anthem until more than a century later, in 1931. And we didn’t start playing the song before ball games until World War II.

The Star Spangled Banner may be two centuries old, but its status as our national anthem is relatively new – and, I think, not beyond reconsideration.

True, the song can be strong and moving. But who can forget Carl Lewis’s version, which sounded like a feral cat in serious pain, or actress Roseanne Barr’s rendition – which put the “f” back in “professionalism”?

In their defense, the Star Spangled Banner is notoriously difficult to sing – or even remember.   Raise your hand if you really know what a “rampart” is? That’s what I thought. Thank you.

That’s just another reason why I think we should consider adopting a different national anthem, like “America, the Beautiful.” In 1895, a Wellesley College professor, fed up with the greed of the Robber Barons – sound familiar? -- took a train to Colorado, and was reminded along the way what a great country this truly is. When her poem was coupled with Samuel Ward’s melody, a classic was born.

For my money, Ray Charles’ version is the best. When I hear him sing, “America, America, God done shed his grace on thee. And crown thy good, with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea,” there aren’t too many things I wouldn’t be willing to do for my country.

Just a few years after “America, the Beautiful” came out, Irving Berlin composed “God Bless America” to inspire victory in World War One. Twenty years later, he revised it to respond to the Nazis’ rise to power.

From the opening, “God Bless America, Land that I love.,” to the close, “My home sweet home,” Berlin doesn’t give you much to quibble about.

If Ray Charles stamped “America, the Beautiful,” as his own, surely “God Bless America” belongs to Kate Smith. But in the aftermath of Viet Nam, the patriotic standard’s popularity was slipping -- until the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team started playing it before crucial contests. They’ve won some 80-percent of those games – and all three when Kate Smith arrived to sing it in person. Her first appearance, on May 19, 1974, preceded the Flyers’ 1-0 victory over Boston, for the Flyers’ first Stanley Cup. Many credited Smith for lifting the crowd and the team to new heights. Even the famously tough Philly fans could not boo Kate Smith.

When the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team pulled off the greatest upset in sports history, the players spontaneously broke into a chorus – not of “The Star Spangled Banner,” but “God Bless America.”

They couldn’t sing it quite like Kate Smith, but they understood what they were singing, they understood why, and they meant every word. I think they were on to something.

Please Show Us The Athletes Competing, Instead Of The Announcers Talking

John U. Bacon — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:01:00 GMT

February 12, 2010

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Twelve years ago I covered the Winter Olympics in Nagano. It was exhausting – and exhilarating.

Every day, right in front of me, I got to savor the skill and the speed of the skiers and the snowboarders, the hockey players and the figure skaters. But what I remember most is the energy generated by the athletes and the audience, who seemed to feed off each other. I didn’t get to merely see it. I got to feel it – an experience shared with thousands of people from around the world, right as it happened.

So that’s why I was stunned when I called my friends back home, breathless about the drama stirring all around me, only to learn they had no idea what I was talking about. They weren’t impressed by the Nagano Olympics, or the coverage of it – take your pick. And that’s when I realized the Olympics I was experiencing had nothing to do with the one they were watching – or not watching at all. (Nagano had the lowest ratings in 30 years.)

Now I realize TV can’t compete with being there, especially 12 time zones away. But it can come a lot closer than it usually does. American networks spend so much money on the Olympics -- 2.3 billion dollars for the rights alone this year – they feel compelled to protect their investment with too many safe, soft feature stories filmed months before the Games even begin.

Yes, I’m talking about those ubiquitous “Up Close and Personal” segments, about the cross-country skier from Eveleth, Minnesota, who became world class fast while being chased by dogs on his after-school paper route. And that’d be a fine story – if it didn’t keep us from watching the former paper boy competing in “The Actual Olympics” segments.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation does much better, with much less. Or they did, until they lost the Canadian rights to CTV. And that’s a crying shame, because the CBC consistently showed you the most interesting athletes, even if they weren’t Americans, and they showed them competing, live.

Why does that matter? Because sports is one of the few things on TV nobody knows how it’s going to turn out. You just can’t get you a preview of tonight’s game. So when we see a classic competition unfolding before our very eyes, we become participants in that event. We share it with family, friends, even strangers – or tell them, Awww, man! Ya missed it! And we remember it forever.

I’ll never forget watching the ’76 Winter Olympics on a school night with my brother and my dad. We saw skier after skier cut the leading time, until the last skier, world champion Franz Klammer, came flying over the hill in his skin-tight yellow suit in a reckless attempt to claim his title – and he did it. We jumped and cheered as if we were there – and we were, in our living room, sharing it with millions of people around the world.

The list is long. Think of Tonya and Nancy, right down to Tonya’s broken skate lace. Or speed skater Dan Jansen’s repeated heartbreaks before winning the gold. Or the Miracle on Ice medal ceremony, when captain Mike Eruzione spontaneously called his teammates up to the medal stand with him, and they all managed to fit, just barely – a scene no one who saw it can ever forget.

If you witnessed those events, when they happened, you’re probably nodding right now. It’s something we share, because, “We were there.”

And that’s why I wish NBC would be kind enough to get the heck out of the way, and let us watch the athletes, not the announcers, do what they’ve been preparing to do for years.

Only that way can we have a few more memories.

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Amid Super Bowl Silliness, A Couple Stories Worth Telling

John U. Bacon — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:04:00 GMT

February 5, 2010

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It’s hard to think of too many endeavors that receive more overblown attention than do sports. And within sports, nothing’s more overblown than the Super Bowl.

This time around, we’re getting endless stories about President Obama picking the New Orleans Saints – because… that matters? – a preview of the ads scheduled to run during the game, and several hundred articles analyzing the recuperation of Dwight Freeney’s sprained right ankle, and how that might affect national security. Or some such.

But in the midst of this morass are two stories worth telling.

The first is Kurt Warner. After graduating from Northern Iowa in 1994, not one NFL team drafted him. In other words, the NFL determined there were at least 222 players better than Kurt Warner that year alone.

Warner was tempted to pack it in. Instead, he started packing groceries in Cedar Falls, Iowa, while living in his girlfriend’s parents’ basement, serving as a graduate assistant coach for his alma mater, and working out in the hopes of getting another chance. He had to settle for the Iowa Barnstormers, a team that played in the doomed Arena Football League. But, what should have been a dead end, proved to be a launch pad.

Arena Football’s funny rules required Warner to speed up his decision-making and his delivery – skills you need to succeed in the NFL. Three years later, one of the NFL’s worst teams, the St. Louis Rams, hired him as a backup. The next season, incredibly, the Rams won their first Superbowl, and Kurt Warner won the league’s MVP – his first of three.

Last week, Warner retired with a pile of records, a pile of money, and a well-earned reputation for playing his best in the biggest games. He said he didn’t want to be known for being a clutch player, but a hard worker. He’ll have to settle for both.

Warner left the stage with quiet dignity – two qualities not often associated with NFL players – just as a younger quarterback was taking his place.

Drew Brees was one of the most celebrated high school quarterbacks in Texas, a state that celebrates high school quarterbacks more than it does Supreme Court justices. But Brees blew off the hometown Texas Longhorns to head north to Purdue, where he set just about every school record for passing. He took the Boilermakers to their first Rose Bowl in over three decades, and was named not just an Academic All-American, but the Academic All-American of the Year.

But in the NFL, Brees struggled his first three seasons. Soon after he finally found his rhythm, he also found a new city to play in: New Orleans, which had been ravished by Hurricane Katrina the year before. The Saints’ home, the Superdome, had become the very symbol of the disaster, and the owners were considering moving the team for good.

Enter Drew Brees, who not only led the historically pathetic Saints to the playoffs, he spent his money and his time creating his own foundation, which restores schools, parks and playgrounds, in a city desperate for all three. A recent Sports Illustrated cover story said Brees was “as adored and appreciated as any [athlete] in an American city today.”

It’s hard to argue with that, and even harder to root against Drew Brees.

So, if you missed Kurt Warner, enjoy Drew Brees while you can. Players like this don’t come along very often.

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How Berenson and Beilein Put Values Before Victories

John U. Bacon — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:59:00 GMT

January 29, 2010

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The Michigan basketball team recently lost to Michigan State by one point, all but ending the Wolverines’ chances to return to the NCAA tournament. The Michigan hockey team faces Michigan State this weekend, and they need a sweep to improve their fading chances of getting back to the tournament themselves.

For Michigan fans, this is the Winter of Their Discontent. Provided, that is, only wins and losses count. But the head coaches of both teams did notch a couple moral victories last week. Yes, they’ve lost some battles this season, but they’re still winning the war.

On Thursday, the general manager of the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, Dean Lombardi, had some sharp words about legendary Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson and his program. Lombardi – no relation to the great Vince Lombardi in any way, shape or form, as you’ll see -- said, “Red Berenson doesn’t coach. It’s ‘Do what you want.’ Michigan is the worst.”

Now, Berenson doesn’t need me or anybody else to defend him or his record – but I can’t resist.

Forget, for a moment, Berenson’s two NCAA titles, 18 league titles and record 19-straight NCAA tournament appearances, not to mention the 20 All-Americans he’s produced.

The crux of Lombardi’s claim that Michigan doesn’t develop players can be refuted simply by looking at guys like Mike Stone, a walk-on who rose to become the team’s Most Valuable Player, on a team loaded with future NHLers; Mike Knuble, who arrived a lightly regarded freshmen from East Kentwood, Michigan, and left an All-American, a U.S. Olympian and now a 12-year NHL veteran, who skates on a line with the best player in the game, Alexander Ovechkin ; and John Madden, who wasn’t even drafted as a freshman – which is rare at Michigan -- before he came to Ann Arbor, and is now in his 11^th year in the NHL, where he's served as a captain, and has won two Stanley Cups. For the record, that’s two more than Lombardi has won in over two decades as an employee of three NHL teams.

It was such a stupid comment, Berenson did not bother to dignify it with a response. As they say in politics, if your critic is busy firing bullets into his own foot, don’t grab the gun.

But when the player who inspired Lombardi’s remarks, Jack Johnson – a former Michigan star who now plays for Lombardi’s L.A. Kings – heard about them, he told his coach he wasn’t getting dressed for their home game that night until Lombardi came down to apologize to him in person. Lombardi did just that, 15 minutes before warm up, and Johnson got dressed.

You’ve got to admire Johnson’s conviction. He’s a great player, but Lombardi can send him any time he wants to any team he wants, including the minors. Johnson’s courageous stand, with little to gain and a lot to lose, tells you something about the kind of players Michigan’s coaching staff develops.

At the same time this was playing out, Michigan basketball star Manny Harris mistakenly thought one of his teammates had taken a cheap shot at him during practice. Harris started a fight. When head coach John Beilein tried to break it up, Harris only made things worse. Beilein decided to leave Harris at home when the team traveled to play a crucial game the next day against 13th-ranked Purdue. With their star player out, Michigan lost by ten.

Harris apologized to his coach, his teammates and the fans. He returned Tuesday night to play a great game against fifth-ranked Michigan State, but the Wolverines fell just short. Michigan lost – but Harris grew up.

I’m just old-fashioned enough to believe that still matters.

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Why Pond Hockey Beats Indoor Hockey

John U. Bacon — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:06:00 GMT

January 22, 2010

Hello Loyal Readers,

Thanks for reading, listening (for those of you who prefer the audio version below) and writing in with your comments.

For you Michigan types, you might be interested in my column for Michigan Today, which I write every month, on the Wolverines’ Top Ten Moments of the Decade. http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2010/01/

And again, thank you!

-John

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WHY POND HOCKEY BEATS INDOOR HOCKEY

“I think we have too many AAA, Showcase and elite camps for the kids today, and as a result, we are creating a bunch of robots. We need to make it fun for the kids and let them learn to love the game the way we did.”

-Herb Brooks, coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

Pond Hockey: A Documentary Film

Just over half a million kids play organized hockey in the United States, as I did – but trust me, they’re missing out.

We’re deep in the dead of winter. And for most of us, there’s not a lot to do, and not much to look forward to for the next couple months. But if you’re a hockey player – scratch that, if you’re a pond hockey player -- this is the best time of year.

When I was growing up – not that long ago – we’d come home from school, slip our skates onto our sticks and throw the stick over our shoulders like hobos carrying their knapsacks, then trudge through the apple orchard behind our neighborhood to a pond in the middle of the woods. We’d lace ‘em up and play until it was too dark to see, then put our boots back on and head home for dinner.

On weekends, we;d spend all day down there. Friends of mine who lived near Burns Park and Thurston Pond would come home, eat dinner with their skates on, then go back to the ice for more.

We got more ice time in a single day on those ponds than we got in weeks of indoor practices and games. And it was more fun, too. No try-outs, no scoreboards, no whistles, no drills, no lines, no benches, no coaches, no refs – in fact, no adults at all – and no nets. Just a pair of boots at each end.

I don’t recall once coming back from the pond upset that we’d lost. That’s because we played about a dozen games a day, and whenever one team lost too many, we’d just change teams. I also can’t recall much about the hundreds of indoor practices I endured as a kid, but I can remember those long, happy days on the pond like they were yesterday.

But when you drive by those very same ponds today, you won’t see any kids. They’re all packed in vans, being dragged to some tournament two hours away. And when they get back, they’ll be inside playing video games.

So when my old high school teammate, Pete Read, put together his third annual Michigan Pond Hockey Classic at Whitmore Lake last weekend – one of the nation’s biggest – it was no surprise that almost all of the 500-some players were over thirty.

Read laid out 15 rinks, separated only by snow banks. We played four-on-four, with no goalies or fancy nets – just a flat box of two-by-sixes. Everyone got dressed in one big tent, and sat on hay bales. A hockey locker room is one of the few places on earth where the smell can be improved by fresh hay. The guys getting reading to play could see their breath, while the guys coming back in could watch the steam coming off their pads as they stuffed them back into their bags.

My team, consisting of a bunch of former high school teammates, got our butts kicked in the first two games by margins like 21-14 – football scores. In our last two games, however, we staged heroic rallies to lose by a little less.

But we had a blast all weekend. Until our last game, that is, when the volunteer score keeper – god bless ‘im – decided to play full-time ref, and rule on every out of bounds play and every goal. Before we realized what we were doing, we started sniping and hacking at each other, and the once friendly match quickly devolved into – well, a little league hockey game. Once we told the would-be ref we could handle the game ourselves, we got back to playing pond hockey – and that’s what we love.

One of my friends brought his son along, but he couldn’t play with us because his travel team had a game later that day.

Poor kid doesn’t know what he’s missing.

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McGwire's Confession Risks Nothing, Gains Nothing

John U. Bacon — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:36:00 GMT

January 15, 2010

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On Monday, former home run hitter Mark McGwire talked to sports broadcaster Bob Costas in an attempt to restore his good name.

He had a lot of restoring to do.

McGwire was one of those super-sized sluggers who were knocking out home runs at a record rate in the nineties. And, like his peers – Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa – McGwire was widely rumored to be taking steroids.

In fact, the FBI gave the commissioner of baseball a list of 70 players they discovered were taking steroids, including McGwire -- two decades ago. The commissioner, of course, promptly did absolutely nothing, because he was too hooked on the home runs that were saving baseball from itself after he had canceled the 1994 World Series.

And the hits just kept on coming. In 1998, McGwire broke one of the game’s most revered records when he shattered Roger Maris’s old mark of 61 home runs in a season by smashing 70. He was a national hero.

But the gig was up five years ago when McGwire’s former teammate, Jose Canseco, published a tell-all book in which he named names – including McGwire. You know you’re in a cesspool when the only guy telling the truth, Canseco, is a convicted felon.

Canseco’s book led to a Congressional hearing the same year. When it was McGwire’s turn to testify, he famously said, “I am not here to talk about the past.” Unfortunately, “the past” is usually what Congressional hearings are all about.

It was a public relations disaster. When the Hall of Fame voters turned their ballots in the next year, less than 25-percent voted for McGwire. A player needs three times that to get in. He’s not done any better since – and now he’s going to help coach the St. Louis Cardinals. He wants a clean slate.

Thus, Monday’s “Hail Mary” interview, in which McGwire said, “It was a mistake.” No, picking the wrong restaurant for dinner is a mistake. Injecting yourself with illegal steroids for fame and fortune is a deal with the devil.

He also said, “I regret I played in the steroids era.” That’s like Bernie Madoff saying, “I regret I was an investor during the Ponzi Scheme era.” Sorry, it doesn’t cut it.

But then, even more absurdly, McGwire said, with a straight face, that he didn’t take steroids to hit more home runs – no! -- but for “health purposes.” In other words, we should ignore the fact that his season-high home run total skyrocketed from 49 to 70 – or that he played with the faith of 300 million people, to update The Great Gatsby’s take on the Black Sox scandal.

It seems to me a real confession is marked by sincerity, not self-interest. Its value is directly related to how much the confessor risks by making it.

In McGwire’s case, he fudged so much that it’s hard to call it a confession at all, and he was risking absolutely nothing. Everybody already knew he took steroids, and his chance to be brave about it came and went years ago. We knew he was a fraud as a player. On Monday we learned he’s also a fraud as a person, as well. McGwire’s just trying to scam us -- again.

If we can apply Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief to McGwire’s mess, we can see he’s gone from stage one, denial, to stage three, bargaining – but he’s still a long way from the final stage, honest acceptance.

And he is just as far from the front doors of Cooperstown.

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Former Third-Stringer Named Leader of Michigan's Athletic Department

John U. Bacon — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:34:00 GMT

January 8, 2010

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On Tuesday, the University of Michigan announced Domino’s Pizza CEO David Brandon would succeed Bill Martin as the athletic director. It marked a personal high point of a great career – one you wouldn’t have predicted when Brandon played for Michigan as a third-string defensive back.

14 years ago, I wrote a big feature on Bo Schembechler for the Detroit News. Bo liked the story and, out of nowhere, gave me his papers. When I tried to interest him in writing a book, he told me to ask him later – much later, it turned out. About nine years later. So, in the summer of 2000, I started without him.

The first person I sought out was Dave Brandon, who was in his second year as the CEO of Domino’s Pizza. He probably didn’t know me from Adam, but he gave me an hour of his time anyway. And he didn’t spend it gushing about his greatest day, either, but confessing his worst one.

Brandon had been an All-State quarterback at South Lyon High School, and Schembechler offered him a full ride to come to Michigan in 1970.

Problem was, Michigan already had three quarterbacks who would play that position – Tom Slade, Larry Cipa and Dennis Franklin -- so Brandon switched to defensive back. But that only made his situation worse, because the Wolverines were stocked with four future All-Americans at that spot. Brandon could have been the fifth-best defensive back in the country and not gotten any playing time on that team – they were that good. So, after a couple years of hard work, he was still languishing on the depth chart, and getting frustrated.

At a Monday practice in the middle of the 1972 season, Brandon’s junior year, Schembechler decided to work with the guys who hadn’t played that Saturday by making up a scrimmage they called the Toilet Bowl. Well, Brandon apparently responded with something less than complete enthusiasm. He just muttered a few words under his breath, across the field from the old general, but somehow Schembechler was in his face in about eight nanoseconds. Creating the illusion that his eyes and ears were everywhere was part of his genius.

“Brandon! I hear you’d rather not partake in our little scrimmage,” he barked. “Well, I can solve your problem, son. You’re going straight into that locker room, and cleaning your locker out. You’re done playing football for the University of Michigan.”

Brandon sat in his empty stall, dazed and despondent, wondering what he would tell his father, who loved Bo, his teammates, his girlfriend, and, one day, years from then, his kids.

Needless to say, Brandon didn’t sleep a wink that night. The next morning, he put on a dress shirt and went straight to Bo’s office, scared, nervous, and worn out. He apologized – as Bo knew he would -- and Bo took him back. But he never heard Dave Brandon complain about any scrimmages after that.

Fast forward to 1989, the first reunion for all of Bo’s players. Brandon is already an All-American businessman by now, and a millionaire – but that incident still bothered him. Brandon figured it was time to confess his sins, so he told his teammates at his table about it – and everybody started laughing.

Brandon was stunned. What are you guys laughing about? I’m spilling my guts! One by one, they confessed, at one time or another Bo had kicked all of them off the team.

Brandon had a good laugh, too -- but the lesson stayed with him: Don’t take what you’ve been given for granted, or you’ll lose it.

And that’s one reason why the guy who’d been kicked off the team is now not only responsible for Michigan’s football team, but for all Michigan’s teams.

Bo would be proud – and I’m sure he would agree: That’s a hell of a story.

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He Loved the Game, Even When the Game Didn't Love Him

John U. Bacon — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:21:00 GMT

December 18, 2009

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Old Man Winter is back with a vengeance. That’s okay. I like the snow – and I love the hockey.

You can play pond hockey, drop-in hockey or beer league hockey, but for me, the best hockey is the pick-up game at Michigan’s Yost Arena on Tuesday nights.

The game features some of the best players in the area, most of them former Michigan players, many of whom played pro hockey. But a few wannabes, like me, have gotten regular spots. It’s by invitation only, and I only got invited because I knew the guy started it. Jeff Bourne -- known as “Tiny,” thanks to his 5-6 frame -- cared as much about attitude as ability. As he said: If you don’t pass, you’re an ass.

Tiny’s dad was Canadian. So it was only natural that he and his younger brother, Roger, grew up playing hockey in the Bourne’s back yard.

Tiny wasn’t a great player, but he loved the game. Every year, Tiny tried out for the Ann Arbor Pioneer high school team, and every year he got cut. Every year, that is, until his senior year, when his brother Roger – a freshman who was already bigger and better – tried out too.

As expected, Roger made the team. But so did Tiny. When Tiny was driving them home, he told Roger he knew why the coach finally took him:

So he could drive his younger brother to the rink.

But Tiny didn’t feel slighted. He was thrilled to finally make the team, and watch his brother play, even while Tiny rode the bench. Tiny liked to point out that they were one of the most productive pair of brothers in Pioneer history, totaling 201 points. Roger got 200 of those, and Tiny added the one.

Roger went on to play at Michigan. His biggest fan, by far, was his big brother, Tiny. Roger returned the favor by introducing Tiny to Lauri, one of Roger’s classmates. They hit it off immediately. She said, “You’re just like Roger!”

“No,” Tiny said. “Roger is just like me!”

They had two kids. Tiny coached his son’s teams, he coached his daughter’s teams, and he organized our skates on Tuesdays. And that’s where I got to know him best.

On paper, Tiny and I had almost nothing in common, from our passports to our politics. But none of that seemed to matter. Tiny had a way of drawing people to him, and the game he loved – me included.

Six years ago, between Christmas and New Year’s, Roger was skating the puck down the ice, and Tiny, playing defense for the other team, stopped him cold. It was a great play.

It was also Tiny’s last play. He returned to the bench, sat down, and fell forward. He was just 47 – and he was gone.

At Tiny’s funeral, you’d have thought it was a service for a Hall of Famer. The standing room only crowd included Jeff Daniels and Red Berenson, Michigan’s hockey coach; Tiny’s teammates at Pioneer; and the girls on his daughter’s hockey team, sitting together, wearing their blue jerseys.

Tiny might have loved hockey more than the game loved him. But that never stopped him. Every year, he got better, and every year, he drew more people to the game.

What did Tiny get out of it? To answer that question, all you had to do was look around that church.

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Notre Dame's rep rises while football falls

John U. Bacon — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:25:00 GMT

December 11, 2009

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The Michigan Wolverines might have the most wins in college football history, and the highest winning percentage, but the Wolverines have never captured the nation’s imagination like the Fightin’ Irish of Notre Dame.

Notre Dame’s success is partly the Wolverines’ fault. Knute Rockne wanted to get his Fightin’ Irish into the Big Ten in the worst way – but Michigan’s Fielding Yost wanted to keep them out even…worser.

Yost probably expected Rockne to take his team and go home – but Rockne had other ideas. He took his team to Chicago and Boston, which had large Catholic populations, and built a following. He also scheduled games in Yankee Stadium – in front of the national media – and in Los Angeles, in front of Hollywood hot-shots.

And that’s why Notre Dame didn’t shrink without the Big Ten, but grew into the only college team with a national following. The sports writers told tales of The Four Horseman, while the movie makers immortalized the Irish with films from “Knute Rockne: All American” – starring young Ronald Reagan as the Gipper -- to “Rudy.”

It took Father Ted Hesburgh, Notre Dame’s president from 1952 to 1987, to figure out how to leverage Notre Dame’s success in football to success in academia. What started out as a Podunk private school that would accept live cattle for tuition – I am not making that up -- is now among the most respected universities in the world.

But, while Notre Dame’s academic reputation has been steadily rising, the reputation of its football team – which made it all possible – has been steadily falling. The Irish earned at least one national title every decade from the twenties to the eighties – eleven total -- but haven’t won another since 1988. Worse, Notre Dame has fired three head coaches in the last eight years – including Charlie Weis, just last week.

Part of the problem is Notre Dame’s tradition – which makes them think they can hire just about anyone and he’ll succeed, because it’s Notre Dame. How else can you explain the hiring of Gerry Faust in 1981 from Cincinnati – Moeller High School in Cincinnati, that is? Faust had not coached a single college game, and it showed. He flamed out in five years.

Faust’s successor, Lou Holtz, left the Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish for the South Carolina Gamecocks, under a cloud of suspicion.

After firing two more coaches, Notre Dame had to go searching again in 2005. But, to their surprise, the coach they really wanted, Urban Meyer -- who was named after Pope Urban, fer cryin’ out loud -- didn’t really want to work for a school that fired its last coach after just three seasons.

Michigan fans, take note.

So, they hired Charlie Weis, a Notre Dame alum whose reputation was built more on hope and hype than any actual accomplishments – a man who had never played or coached a down of college football. His greatest victory at Notre Dame, the joke goes, was a loss to top-ranked Southern Cal by just three points. The Irish were so impressed by this close call, they signed Weis that month, in the middle of his first season, to a ten-year extension worth tens of millions, to make sure he couldn’t go anywhere else. Well, be careful what you wish for.

But there is good news for Notre Dame: U.S. News and World Report just ranked Notre Dame the 18th best university in the country – a higher ranking than the football team has enjoyed in years.

Coach Rockne must be spinning – but Father Ted must be thrilled.

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Woods Whiffs Twice

John U. Bacon — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:17:00 GMT

December 4, 2009

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From the day Tiger Woods was born, his parents groomed him to become the best golfer in the world.

Incredibly, it worked. Woods’s uncommon ability to hit a golf ball landed him on the Mike Douglas show – when he was two. He got his first hole in one at six, and two years later he won his first international tournament. Tiger Woods has been the best golfer in the world for his age every year of his life.

Woods’s unequaled ambition also earned him a few bucks – about a hundred million of them last year alone, almost all of it from endorsements.

Perhaps more surprising, the guy seems normal. He’s got brains – he went to Stanford – he has a sense of humor, friends, a beautiful wife and two kids. If anyone had it all, it was Tiger Woods.

And that’s why the stories this week about marital fights and car accidents and affairs with California cocktail waitresses are so surprising. Not that such things are unusual among athletes. On that scale, the week’s events barely wiggled the Richter scale. What -- no drugs, no guns, no bankruptcy, or no dog fights? You call that a scandal?

No, the stunning thing is that it all happened to Tiger Woods – the single most self-disciplined man in sports. Before this, his only apparent vice was swearing after a bad shot. And if that’s a sin, every golfer is going to hell.

But there he was, zipping out of his Florida mansion at two in the morning, with no shoes on, with his gorgeous wife chasing after him with a two-iron. When Tiger ran his car into a tree, she caught up to him – and proceeded to hack at the windows, with a complete disregard for basic golf etiquette.

Now, one of my favorite things about American society is our ability to turn any horrible situation into a half-dozen one liners by Tuesday. What’s the difference between a car and a golf ball? Tiger Woods can drive a golf ball 300 yards.

I imagine neither Woods nor his wife are laughing right now. There are some serious issues here, starting with privacy. The unwritten code among sports writers is this: if an affair is between consenting adults, no one reports it. Take Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, whose private lives didn’t become public until other factors made them impossible to ignore. Tiger Woods would probably get the same treatment – but once the police got involved, the story changed.

Woods often gets in trouble on the golf course because he takes so many chances. But when he does, he displays perhaps his greatest skill: an uncanny knack for getting out of trouble quickly. Tiger Woods, the man, did exactly the opposite, taking a bad situation and making it much worse.

Whenever a celebrity screws up, his lawyers invariably tell him to keep his mouth shut – not realizing that the courts are the least of his problems. His case will be tried on ESPN every hour on the hour, and silence only breeds suspicion – and interest. As a character on the Simpsons said: “What is your fascination with my forbidden closet of mystery?” What, indeed.

But Woods’s “apology statement” was even worse, less concerned with apologizing to his family than venting about the media. Woods values his privacy so much he bought a $20 million yacht, and named it, “Privacy.” But it wasn’t privacy that paid for that boat – it was publicity. Lots of it. And you’d have to be pretty naïve or dumb – and Woods ain’t either – to think you can direct the spotlight to shine only on your good sides.

Woods seems to have gotten about what he deserved: a public embarrassment, though perhaps not as bad as his wife’s, who did nothing to deserve it. But Woods will recover, the money will keep flowing, and he’ll sail off on the good ship Privacy – though he might consider renaming it.

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Michigan-Ohio State Rivalry's Roots Run Deep

John U. Bacon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:20:00 GMT

November 20, 2009

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They’ve hated each other since before football was invented

Michigan plays Ohio State tomorrow, for the 106th time. The Buckeyes have already wrapped up the Rose Bowl, while the Wolverines are fighting to secure a bowl bid. But ESPN viewers still consider this rivalry the greatest in American sports. What most sports fans don’t know is, this one goes back before football even existed.

In 1833, Michigan was still a territory, while Ohio had already been a state for three decades. When Michigan started making its pitch for statehood, the surveyors had to figure out exactly where Michigan ended, and Ohio began. They soon discovered they’d gotten it wrong the first time: Toledo should have belonged to Michigan all along.

No big deal, you say? Well, don’t forget: at that time, the main thoroughfare between the Northeast and the Midwest was the Erie Canal -- and Toledo was a major stop.

When Michigan claimed it for its own, Ohio blocked Michigan’s bid for statehood. Former president John Adams, who had returned to Congress, wrote, “Never in the course of my life have I known a controversy of which all the right was so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other."

So, Michigan was right – but weak. What recourse did the Wolverines, as they were called, really have?

And thus began the War of Toledo. More than half a million dollars were raised for troops on both sides. They marched into the city, and then… nothing happened, except for a few bar fights. That’s when Monroe County Deputy Sheriff Joseph Wood decided to travel south to do him some arrestin’.

This is where things get a little murky. Some say Wood road to Perrysburg to arrest Benjamin Franklin Stickney for the treasonous act of voting in an Ohio election. Others say he traveled to a Toledo tavern to arrest one of Stickney’s sons – creatively named, I’m not kidding, One Stickney, and Two Stickney. Well, that’s one way to keep track of your kids, I suppose – and to bolster stereotypes.

One thing all historians agree on: when Wood stepped forward to arrest one of the Stickneys, Two Stickney stuck ‘em – right in the thigh, with a pen knife. And that marked the only casualty of the great Toledo War.

President Andrew Jackson, tired of the silliness, offered Michigan a deal: IF you guys give Toledo back to Ohio, we’ll give you statehood. And we’ll even throw in the Upper Peninsula to boot. They took it, but one Michigan politician complained: “I wonder why they didn't give us a slice of the moon? It would have been more valuable.”

Their attitude toward the UP changed a few decades later when they discovered iron and copper – but their attitude toward Ohio did not.

The differences between them deepened during the migration to both states. Michigan was settled by upstate New York industrialists. Ohio was settled by Virginia farmers -- two very distinct groups of people, which only adds to the differences between the schools. Ah, the conceit of small differences.

How do you handle such hostility? With a good old-fashioned football game, that’s how. Michigan started playing Ohio State in 1897, but it didn’t count for much. Michigan won or tied all of the first 14 games, and Ohio State wasn’t even in the Big Ten anyway.

But things started getting interesting in 1907, the year Michigan left the Big Ten over a rules dispute. Ohio State took Michigan’s place in 1912, so when Michigan returned to the league in 1918, the rivalry was for real.

Since then, the Wolverines have beaten Ohio State 45 times, and the Buckeyes have returned the favor 42 times – about as close as you can get.

No matter who wins tomorrow, there will be blood, sweat and tears – but it still beats taking a pen knife in your thigh.

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Stevie Yzerman: All-Star, Stanley Cup Champion, Hall of Famer – and Captain

John U. Bacon — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:33:00 GMT

November 13, 2009

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Dear Loyal Readers:

Thanks to your loyal readership, and spreading the word, we broke 30,000 subscribers last week. Great thanks!

-JUB

STEVIE YZERMAN: ALL-STAR, STANLEY CUP CHAMPION, HALL OF FAMER – AND CAPTAIN

When the Red Wings drafted Steve Yzerman in 1983, he was 18 years old, but he looked even younger – less a Boy Scout, than a Cub Scout.

But his baby face didn’t prevent him from notching a stellar 91 points his rookie season. Two years later, the coach named him team captain – the youngest in the Red Wings’ history – though he hadn’t really earned it yet.

Oh, he could score. In his twenties, Yzerman rattled off six seasons of 100 points or more – including 155 points in 1988-89. In the history of the game, only two players have ever surpassed that mark: Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. Not bad company.

Scoring will get you individual honors -- that year, Yzerman’s opponents named him the league’s most outstanding player – but it won’t get your name engraved on the Stanley Cup. For that, a team’s best players have to do all the grimy little chores that don’t show up on a score sheet, only the win column – like playing defense. But defense was not Yzerman’s thing, and that’s why the Red Wings usually had good teams, but never great ones.

That all changed in 1993, when Scotty Bowman became the Red Wings’ head coach. Bowman had a remarkable record for coaching winners: He’d taken teams in St. Louis, Montreal and Pittsburgh to the Stanley Cup finals nine times, and won the Cup six times.

But Detroit hadn’t won the grail since Gordie Howe ruled the rink, almost four decades earlier. Bowman had his work cut out for him.

Bowman also arrived with a well-earned reputation for inscrutability. The legendary coach was so enigmatic, some reporters took to calling him, “Rainman.” But there was method to his madness: his headgames kept everybody on edge, which usually brought out their best.

No sooner had Bowman settled in Detroit than he started speculation that he was willing to trade the team’s star center. This shocking news sent ripples through the locker room, the city and even the state.

Bowman ultimately backed off, but Yzerman got the message. He started doing all those things that don’t win headlines, just games – like backchecking, grinding, and blocking shots. This shift in priorities cut his scoring in half – but doubled his value to the team.

He became a complete player – and a complete leader. He didn’t say much in the locker room, but when he did, everybody listened. And whenever new players wondered what it took to be a Red Wing, all they had to do was watch the 38-year old captain, one of the most skilled players in the league, take a knee to block a shot.

His younger teammate Kirk Maltby said, “When you see him blocking shots night after night, you can’t help but do the same yourself. Given all the things he’s gone through, you can’t ask for a better motivation to win the Cup.”

And those are just a few of the reasons why Yzerman’s name is engraved on the Stanley Cup, three times. That’s why his jersey is one of only six that hangs from the rafters at Joe Louis Arena. And that’s why he walked into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

You can call him an All-Star. A Stanley Cup champion. A Hall of Famer. But the most appropriate title is one he received early in his career, but grew into over two decades: Captain.

No one in league history has served longer – and no one did it better.

Copyright © 2009, Michigan Radio

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Michigan's "Secret Weapon"

John U. Bacon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:11:00 GMT

November 6, 2009

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Fifty years ago, Michigan football looked a lot different from what you see today. Most Saturdays, the stadium was half-empty. Freshmen were not allowed to play, and sophomores rarely did. The starting players on offense also served as the back-ups on defense, and vice versa. So, most of the better players got tuckered out pretty fast.

Michigan started the ‘59 season right where it left off the last one, by losing two games to extend their losing streak to six. The last of those was an embarrassing loss to Michigan State, 34 to 8.

Desperate, head coach Bump Elliott took a chance: he created a “third unit” of young back-up players to give the older guys an occasional rest. Elliott had no idea what he had created.

These third-stringers made their mark not with their experience or expertise but their wild, hellbent style of attacking anyone wearing the wrong color jersey. They called themselves “Raeder’s Raiders,” in honor of their spiritual leader, sophomore Paul Raeder.

Elliott deployed his secret weapon for the first time against Oregon State – and the Wolverines finally won, 18-7. Encouraged, Elliott kept putting them in, and they kept disrupting the other team’s offense.

Raeder’s Raiders didn’t always follow the script the coaches gave them. They blitzed without provocation, knocked off helmets and broke up plays and blocked punts. They created havoc and fumbles and interceptions, and they flipped All-American running backs head over heels to the turf.

They also captured the hearts of the fans. Whenever Bump Elliott pulled Raeder’s Raiders to put the starters back in, the crowd booed.

Led by these also-rans, the 1959 Wolverines won four of their last six games, including a stunner over Ohio State, 21-14.

The next year most of the Raiders were promoted to starters themselves – but they all say they never had more fun than they did being sent in as super subs the year before.

They graduated, then became employees, husbands and fathers. Of the 12 Raiders, three became doctors, and a surprising seven became teachers and coaches. Even one of the doctors won awards for his teaching. They all seemed to remember what a difference it makes when somebody believes in you, and gives you a chance.

Almost all of them are retired now. They spend their time with their wives and their children, and their grandchildren.

Four of them have passed away, including Paul Raeder. Shortly after he died two years ago, his widow, Wendy, received a difficult diagnosis herself. Life is not easy for Wendy these days, but like a true Raeder’s Raider, that didn’t stop her from getting the gang back together this fall for the 50^th anniversary of their great season. They served as the honorary captains for the Delaware State game, the first group of Michigan players so honored.

Wendy collected their stories in a binder, and gave me a copy. At the end of it, she wrote, “That’s the story of the Raiders. No big moral or heavy lesson, just Be Prepared, have a Great Attitude, have Fun, and Seize Your Moment.”

Fifty years later, nobody can remember the starters on that team, or even their back ups. No, it’s the third-stringers, Raeder’s Raiders, and their relentless spirit, that we recall today.

Copyright © 2009, Michigan Radio

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Bill Martin Legacy

John U. Bacon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:15:00 GMT

October 30, 2009

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Last week, Bill Martin announced he would step down as Michigan’s athletic director, effective right before next fall’s first football game.

I was a little surprised Martin announced his retirement in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in the middle of the football season. But, as surprises go, it wasn’t much of one. Martin has already put in a decade as the Wolverines’ athletic director, which is about average by contemporary standards. And he’s accomplished more during that time than anyone could have reasonably expected -- perhaps including himself.

The big surprises happened years ago.

The first occurred when former U of M President Lee Bollinger tapped his old friend to fill in for a few months while the school searched for a full time replacement. Martin – an avid sailor who never played or coached any school sports -- did the job so well that Michigan’s coaches asked Bollinger to keep him. And it was perhaps a bigger surprise that Martin, who had already made millions building First Martin Corporation into the largest property owner in the city, took the job – for a dollar a year.

He had no idea what he was getting into.

For almost a century, Michigan had arguably the most innovative, successful and stable athletic department in the country. Michigan needed only five A-Ds for its first 90 years – and five more just to get through the 1990s.

When Martin took over in 1999, the department labored under a $3.9 million dollar deficit and the specter of an investigation by both the NCAA and the FBI into illegal payments made to basketball players – which proved to be true.

Martin should have asked for more than a buck.

The first order of business was to clear Michigan’s name. Martin did that by cooperating with the NCAA – even though they always make you regret it.

He then created a huge budget surplus, revamped the aging facilities, and hired coaches. He did great work on the first two tasks, and a pretty good job on the third.

He hired a few duds, most notably basketball coaches Cheryl Burnett and Tommy Amaker. But when he hired them, there was good reason to believe both would succeed. They just didn’t, so Martin let them go and replaced them with much better coaches.

Martin’s search for a new football coach, however, was undoubtedly the low point of his tenure. Lloyd Carr had already told Martin he would not be coaching much longer, but Martin seemed to be genuinely caught off-guard by Carr’s retirement after the 2007 Ohio State game.

Les Miles, a former Michigan player and assistant coach who was in the process of leading Louisiana State University to a national title, wanted the Michigan job – but Michigan did not even return his calls. Instead, Michigan offered the job to Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano – who publicly turned Michigan down. Martin then reassured people that he had a list of twenty candidates, which is the kind of list you put together a year before you actually need to pick one.

Martin and U of M President Mary Sue Coleman had to scramble. They got lucky when Rich Rodriguez became interested only after his West Virginia team got knocked out of the national title chase by lowly Pitt. But the damage had been done to the Michigan football family, which remains fractured.

It will be up to the next AD to bring the family back together. The question is: should Michigan hire someone with an athletic background, or a business one? The race is on.

But whomever they pick, the next AD will no doubt make some mistakes and some enemies. Martin did both, and some might have been avoidable. But Michigan will be lucky if its next athletic director improves the department as much as Bill Martin did.

Gone Fishin'. Back Next Week.

John U. Bacon — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:12:00 GMT

October 23, 2009

Dear Loyal Readers,

Thanks to the Michigan Radio pledge week, and slightly more than theusual amount of madness in my own schedule -- augmented by MichiganAthletic Director Bill Martin's announcement that he'd be stepping downby September 4, 2010 -- I did not write a commentary this week, butwill have plenty to write in the weeks to come.

Thanks for your patience, and your continued interest.

-John

Some May Hate The Luxury Boxes, But Yost Would Have Loved Them

John U. Bacon — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:07:00 GMT

October 16, 2009

Dear Loyal Readers,

This week Michigan Radio is running their fund-raiser, so I didn't tape this piece this week. Instead, you'll have to be content with the text, which is how most of you digest these weekly commentaries.

As always, great thanks for reading, and responding.

-John

Some May Hate The Luxury Boxes, But Yost Would Have Loved Them

At the dedication game of Michigan's new 84,401-seat stadium in 1927, the Wolverines sent new rival Ohio State home with a 21-0 thumping. In that informal era, it was perfectly natural for athletic director Fielding Yost to walk back to campus with the game’s star, Bennie Oosterbaan.

"Mr. Yost was feeling pretty good," Oosterbaan told author Al Slote. "We'd won, and the stadium was completely filled. He turned to me and said, 'Bennie, do you know what the best thing about that new stadium is? Eighty-five thousand people paid five dollars apiece for their seats -- and Bennie, they had to leave the seats there!'"

While no one can be certain what Yost would think of the luxury boxes (and no matter what the University is calling them, that’s clearly what they are) that are going up right now, the record suggests he would approve it – and for the very reasons he pushed to build the Big House in the first place. As Michigan’s athletic director from 1921 to 1941, Fielding Yost worked tirelessly to elevate the profile of Michigan athletics -- and along with it, his own. When someone asked famed sportswriter Ring Lardner if he ever talked to Mr. Yost, Lardner replied, “No, my mother taught me never to interrupt.”

Given Yost’s massive ego, it’s no surprise he was obsessed with massive stadiums. It galled him that Ohio State, Illinois, and other rivals built theirs before Michigan got around to it. After years of lobbying, Yost finally overcame the objections of the faculty, the students, The Michigan Daily and the Regents – who twice vetoed the plan before passing it – to build his Big House.

Michigan Stadium originally boasted a permanent capacity of 72,000 -- including hundreds of pricier box seats – plus 12,401 temporary bleachers. All this, to serve a city of just 35,000 people. It’s hard to argue Yost was anything but a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist who fully intended to maximize the profitability of his football team.

Yost also installed footings for a balcony of some 70,000 seats -- which strikes me as a pretty clear invitation to future generations that Michigan Stadium was not to be regarded as a sacred mausoleum, but an organic building designed to meet the changing needs of the athletic department and its fans. As proof, Michigan Stadium has undergone 21 major renovations, expansions and improvements, starting in the building’s second year, when Yost added 13,753 permanent seats.

The Big House helped pay for Yost Field House, the baseball stadium, and -- for all students – the golf course, the Intramural Building and the Waterman Gym, arguably the best women’s facility of its time.

Fielding Yost invented the linebacker, the no-huddle offense, and the quick kick. But his most important innovation, by far, was the financially self-sufficient athletic department – a tradition worth protecting.

While it’s undeniably true that the arms race in college sports – for bigger and better practice facilities, weight rooms, arenas and coaches’ salaries – seems almost completely out of control, it’s an arms race that seems impossible to stop unilaterally.

When Michigan opens its luxury boxes in the fall of 2010, the only Big Ten schools without them will be Indiana and Northwestern – hardly Michigan’s football peers. Michigan’s proposed luxury boxes won’t require anything from the University’s general fund nor its students, which is how most schools’ pay for a healthy portion of their athletic departments’ budgets.

The luxury boxes will help fund 25 varsity teams -- 13 of them women’s -- all but three of which cost millions every year. And, it must be said, they are infinitely more tasteful than the abomination that was the “Maize Halo” a decade ago.

The luxury boxes will also keep ticket prices down for the average fan. In the early seventies, the average tickets cost $120 per season. Those exact same seats now cost $1266, an increase of over 1000-percent. The luxury boxes will serve as a progressive tax on the wealthiest Michigan boosters, effectively subsidizing both non-revenue sports and tickets for the average fan – the very traditions Yost established in 1927.

The athletic department needs more money to fund its teams, and if I have to make a choice between extracting more from starving students or corporate fat cats, I’ll take the fat cats, every time.

And the best part is, when the game is over, they’ll have to leave the luxury boxes there.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

2009 A Long Way from 1968 - For Better and Worse

John U. Bacon — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:07:00 GMT

October 9, 2009

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And so, it’s done. The Detroit Tigers’ once promising season ended Tuesday in a cataclysmic collapse.

In the American League’s Central Division, Sports Illustrated had picked the Tigers to finish next to last. But by September, they had built a seemingly insurmountable seven-game lead. The team was a tonic for a troubled town in a troubled time. Some pundits even claimed the Tigers season was a metaphor for a Motown renaissance. They started comparing this team to the 1968 Tigers, and the role they played in healing a city that had been torn apart the summer before.

On July 23, 1967, the long-simmering tensions between the police and the people finally boiled over into a full-blown race rebellion – or riot, depending on whom you ask -- that lasted five days, the worst in American history.

Enter the 1968 Tigers.

They jumped out in front of the pack early on, and stayed there the rest of the season. That might sound boring, but they won almost a third of their games in their last at bat.   Even better, the hero could be almost anybody, on any given night, from big stars to no-names.   The team had character, and captured the city’s imagination.

It helped that many of the ‘68 Tigers had grown up dreaming of playing for their hometown team, guys like Bill Freehan, the All-Star catcher from Royal Oak, and the entire outfield of Jim Northrup, Mickey Stanley and Willie Horton, who won a city baseball title playing for Detroit’s Northwestern High.

Even transplants like Mickey Lolich, “Stormin’” Norman Cash and Gates “Gator” Brown would all make Michigan their home long after their careers were over. The love affair between the 1968 Tigers and their town was as real and deep as it was needed.

When the Tigers faced the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, however, few gave them much of a chance. After they lost three of the first four games, almost no one did.

But the cornered Tigers clawed back, game by game. In game five, Bill Freehan blocked Lou Brock from touching home plate. In game six, Jim Northrup hit a grand slam. And in the deciding game seven, Mickey Lolich, one of the fattest pitchers ever to take the mound, gave up only one run– his third complete game victory of the series.

The Detroit Free Press headline read, “WE WIN!” And that’s how it felt. This split city had come back together that summer – all over a baseball team.

The years since have not been kind to the Motor City. It now suffers from severe segregation, a dying auto industry and almost four decades of stunningly cynical leadership. You can say Nice Things About Detroit all you want. This town needs far more help than any baseball team can provide.

Still, this year’s Tigers were a pleasant distraction. They played hard and they had great chemistry, thanks to good guys like Brandon Inge and Placido Polanco. But over the past month they suffered a breakdown of historic proportions, capped by Miguel Cabrera’s drunken Saturday night that ended in domestic abuse.

It was an ugly end to a buoyant beginning.

In 1968, the Detroit Tigers did more than you could ask of any team. Yet Detroit’s leaders couldn’t match their effort.

This year, the Tigers fell short – but if the current leaders can finally begin to rebuild Detroit, that would be a trade worth making.

Copyright © 2009, Michigan Radio

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Sibling Rivalry-Arguably the most emotional rivalry in the game

John U. Bacon — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:47:00 GMT

October 2, 2009

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In their century-old rivalry, Michigan holds a commanding advantage over Michigan State. But since 1950, the margin is much closer. Michigan has won 34 games, and the Spartans 23. The rivalry is special not just because of the many Big Ten titles it’s determined or the national coverage it attracts. What sets it apart from other long-running feuds is the relationship between the schools, which fuels this duel with more emotion than any other.

The Spartans will tell you it’s their biggest game of the year. The Wolverines will tell you no loss is more painful. Unlike Michigan’s other rivalries against Notre Dame and Ohio State, this duel depends not on the teams’ records but on a constant regional turf war. It is a sibling rivalry, not subject to change. That’s why, even when one team is down, the tension is still high.

Chris Hutchinson, one of Michigan’s former All-American defensive tackles, once said, “Ohio State and Notre Dame were rivalries, but Michigan State was a war, almost a civil war, a real hatred.” He explained that most of the players on both teams were recruited by both schools. Once they pick one, they become polarized. “We just out-and-out didn’t like each other.”

The dislike – okay, genuine hatred – undoubtedly started in 1947.

That was Fritz Crisler’s last year as Michigan’s head coach, and Biggie Munn’s first year leading the Spartans. When Crisler had coached at Minnesota, Biggie Munn was one of his captains. He Crisler came to Michigan, he hired Munn as one of his assistants. So you’d think they would have been close. But for reasons I’ve never been able to determine, they hated each others’ guts.

In that 1947 game, their only contest against each other, the teacher made sure the student remembered the game by sending the Spartans home with a 55-0 pasting.

Crisler got his wish: Munn never, ever forgot that game – nor Crisler’s attempts to keep the Spartans out of the Big Ten. And he vowed to avenge both dastardly acts.

He did – many times over. During the fifties and sixties, the Spartans dominated Michigan, losing only four games over those two decades.

The Wolverines have since regained the upper hand, thanks mainly to Bo Schembechler’s 17-4 mark against State, but only Ohio State has beaten Michigan more often than have the Spartans. In the entire history of college football, only the Michigan-Ohio State games have attracted more fans. And no one, not even the Buckeyes, have upset the Wolverines more often than the Spartans have.

It’s an underrated rivalry – but not to the players.

Almost everybody who’s played in it, on either side, would agree with former Michigan defender Ian Gold: “That was truly the hardest hitting game we played every year."

Whoever wins tomorrow, it’s a safe bet that both teams will never be as sore all season as they will be on Sunday. But it’s just as certain that, whoever wins, will feel a hell of a lot better about it.

Copyright © 2009, Michigan Radio

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Greatest Play I've Ever Heard - Audio

John U. Bacon — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:39:00 GMT

The Greatest Play I've Ever Heard

John U. Bacon — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:44:00 GMT

September 25, 2009

Let’s be honest: the Michigan-Indiana rivalry is no rivalry at all. Of the 59 games they’ve played, Michigan has won fully 50 of them, including all but one since 1967.

But 30 years ago, this game produced one of the most memorable plays in Michigan history.

The Wolverines entered the Indiana game ranked tenth, with six victories and only one defeat -- to Notre Dame, on a last-second field goal. They knew if they kept winning, they’d get another chance at a national title.

But in the last minute of Michigan’s homecoming game – which had been as dreary as the weather -- the Hoosiers did the unthinkable, and tied the game at 21.

A few plays later, the Wolverines found themselves with only six seconds left, enough time to run just one more play – but they were still 45 yards away from the endzone, too far for a field goal. They had no choice but to try one last gasp at a touchdown.

Now, this was 1979, four years after the Wolverines had begun their string of consecutive 100,000-plus crowds. So if you were a 15-year old kid like I was, you couldn’t get a ticket. But this was also before every Michigan game was televised, so you couldn’t stay home and watch it on TV, either.

Whatya do? You kill some time downtown with your friends at the two-story McDonald’s on Maynard. So it was that when Michigan set up for its final play, I was in line at McDonald’s with maybe forty other folks, listening to the radio broadcast spilling out of the kitchen.

I will never forget it. Everyone stopped what they were doing – the cooks, the customers, even their kids. All you could hear was the french fries bubbling and the burgers sizzling – and Bob Ufer’s one-of-a-kind delivery.

What we didn’t know was that Ufer had been diagnosed with cancer two years earlier. His son Dave worried how much those games took out of his dad – who did the entire broadcast himself, the color commentary and the play-by-play -- but Dave knew he could never talk his dad out of it.

When you listen to his dad call this play, you’ll understand why:

“Under center is Wangler at the 45, he goes back. He’s looking for a receiver. He throws downfield to Carter. [Carter makes a great cut and outruns another defender to get into the endzone untouched.]

“Look at the crowd! You cannot believe it! Michigan throws a 45-yard touchdown pass. Johnny Wangler to Anthony Carter will be heard until another 100 years of Michigan football is played!

“You’re listening to it. I hope you can hear me -- because I’ve never been so happy in all my cotton-picking 59 years! I have broadcast 347 ball games.

I’ve never had one like this. Meeeshigan wins, 27-21. They aren’t even going to try the extra point. Who cares? Who gives a damn? (http://www.ufer.org/sounds/Wrangler_Carter.mp3)

Michigan Stadium erupted – but so did the McDonald’s. Everyone started yelling, screaming, jumping up and down, and hugging people they didn’t even know.

I’ve seen that play a hundred times on TV since then – but never more vividly than I did that day, standing in line at McDonald’s, and listening to Bob Ufer tell me the story.

Ufer died two years later, at age 61. He broadcast 362 consecutive games, and thousands of plays – but he called that one the greatest play he’d ever seen.

Me, too.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Going Mad over Mascots

John U. Bacon — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:07:00 GMT

September 18, 2009

Dear Loyal Readers,

I hope you enjoy this week's commentary. It's in text form only, however, so you listeners need to be readers for a week. Hope that's not too great an inconvenience.

In the meantime, we have crossed the 27,000 line for subscribers. Thanks for your continued support! And have a good weekend, no matter what teams you're cheering for.

-John

Going Mad over Mascots
Mascots are supposed to inspire those who play for the team, but just as often they provide amusement for those who don't.

On college campuses nationwide there are no fewer than 107 teams named for Lions, Tigers and Bears - oh my - but only the University of Idaho dares calls its teams the Vandals. I only wish the Vandals of Idaho could engage in macho combat with, say, the Ne'er Do Wells of Nevada.

With some teams, it's hard to tell just whom they're trying to scare. Take the Centenary College Ladies and Gentleman - the actual mascots. Are they intended to intimidate the ill-mannered? Or, how about the Brandeis University Judges, named after Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Who's afraid of the big bad Judges - the Parolees of Penn State?

And what are we to make of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons? What are they, Demons or Deacons? I think they should pick one, and stick to it. Their oxymoronic mascot reminds me of a chant I once heard at a Friends School in Pennsylvania, where the uninformed cheerleaders broke into the classic mantra: “Fight, Quakers, Fight!”

This otherwise silly subject takes a serious turn when we start talking about Native American nicknames. Some 600 high school and college teams have dropped such names, but over 2400 still use them.

It seems pretty obvious to me such pejoratives as Braves, Blackhawks and Redskins need to be replaced - and hundreds have been. But that shouldn't mean all team names should automatically be changed.

There is no better example of good intentions gone awry than the mascot mess Eastern Michigan University stirred up a few years ago. The athletes there called themselves, at various times, as the Normalites, the Men from Ypsi and, from 1929 to 1991, the Hurons.

Despite the fact that the Hurons are an authentic tribe indigenous to the region, and that the school created no offensive logos or rituals, a movement arose to change the name. Many of the arguments for doing so were of the “How would you like it?” variety.

This position ignores the many teams named for groups such as the Hoosiers and Cornhuskers, the Sooners and Aggies, not to mention the Midshipmen, the Mountaineers and the Minutemen. Believe it or not, Notre Dame's teams used to be called the Vagabonds, but school officials felt that name would only reinforce negative stereotypes, so they changed it to the Fightin' Irish. adopting a logo depicting a leprechaun with his dukes up. Problem solved.

In the professional ranks you have the Celtics and the Knickerbockers, the Canucks and the Yankees. Atlanta's former minor league team was called -- get this -- the Crackers. That's right: the Crackers. And don't get me started on the Minnesota Vikings - named after my people - whose sideline mascot walks around wearing that silly horned helmet, which comes not from Nordic custom but a Wagner symphony.

Well, whatever.

I realize there is a fundamental difference between a bunch of white students deciding to call their squad the Minutemen, and a group of, say, African-Americans deciding to call their team the Crackers. Something tells me that wouldn't go over so well.

But it's also true that when we eradicate all group names - no matter how respectful or accepted they may be, we lose something. If we are to get rid of the Hurons, should we also rename Lake Huron, Port Huron, the Huron River and Huron High School? The vast majority of states adopted their Native American names, including Michigan, Mississippi and Minnesota, for starters.

Here's another consideration - which too often seems to be an afterthought: What do the Native Americans think? Believe it or not, according to a Sports Illustrated survey, when asked if school teams should stop using Native American nicknames, 81% of Native Americans said no.

Shouldn't that matter? It seems to me it’s almost as arrogant to assume Native Americans shouldn’t be insulted by the Redskins as it is to assume they should be by the Hurons – even if they’re not.

The officials of the University of Utah Utes did something almost revolutionary: They actually asked the members of the Ute tribe what they should do. The Utes said, please keep the name. And then, more incredibly, the university listened.

Eastern Michigan officials could find only two actual members of the Huron tribe, one in Oklahoma and the other in Quebec. When asked, they urged the school not to change its name because they felt it reflected well on their tribal heritage.

So the school changed it anyway. Worse, in my opinion, they didn’t change it to the whimsical (and obvious) Emus, but to the utterly bland Eagles - the single most common nickname in college sports - a mascot picked mainly for its inability to file a class-action lawsuit.

Go Hurons.

Saying Good Bye To An Old Friend

John U. Bacon — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:54:00 GMT

September 11, 2009

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If you grew up in Michigan in the seventies, as I did, Bob Seger sang the soundtrack to your summers, and Ernie Harwell provided the voice over.

When I think about our family trips up north, they’re always accompanied by Harwell’s comfortable cadences filling the car. He didn’t simply broadcast baseball games. He turned them into stories. In Harwell’s world, a batter didn’t merely strike out. He was "called out for excessive window shopping," or "caught standing there like the house by the side of the road.”

Unlike today’s announcers, who prattle on with mindless patter and pointless stats, Harwell treated his listeners to healthy doses of "companionable silences," something Zen masters refer to as the delicious “space between the notes.” Harwell said the quiet allowed the listeners to enjoy the sounds of the ballpark itself, which he felt was richer than his own voice.

Harwell went on to set the record for most games broadcast, including 41 seasons for the Tigers. When Sports Illustrated picked its all-time baseball dream team a few years ago, it tapped Harwell as the radio announcer -- a true Hall of Famer.

He’ll tell you Willie Mays is the best player he’s ever seen, that Jackie Robinson was the most courageous, and that a lovable Tigers pitcher named Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, who used to get on his hands and knees to groom the mound, "was probably the most charismatic guy we’ve ever had here in Detroit. A real breath of fresh air."

In 1997, I was lucky enough to cover spring training for The Detroit News. My first day I was sitting on a bench, watching infield practice, when Ernie Harwell sidled up up next to me. We sat there, watching baseball, and chatting like old friends – just the way we all imagined we already were, listening to him on the radio. He invited me for dinner that night with his wife Lulu. We enjoyed a long talk, and he picked up the tab.

Harwell is a deeply religious man, but he never wears it on his sleeve. He simply lives it. This week, Harwell announced that he had an incurable form of cancer, and would not seek treatment. “"Whatever's in store,” he said, “I'm ready for a new adventure. That's the way I look at it."

I wrote a story about him eight years ago. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I woke up to the phone ringing. It was Ernie Harwell, calling to thank me for the article. Who does that? That day, of course, soon turned tragic, but I will never forget how Harwell’s little act of humanity stood as such a poignant contrast to all that followed.

A few times I invited him to call in on a talk show I was hosting. “Just ask,” he said, “And I’ll come running.”

What's Going On

John U. Bacon — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:29:00 GMT

September 4, 2009

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Last Sunday, the Detroit Free Press ran a front-page story on the Michigan football team that created a national stir. The newspaper said Michigan football players exceed the NCAA rules on the amount of time student-athletes can work at their sport. It prompted Michigan to launch an internal investigation, but it leaves some important questions unanswered.

But before I try to answer those questions, I want to tell you in the interest of full disclosure that I teach at the University of Michigan, and I write books about their teams. I’m not involved in this story, but I’m close the people who are.

The story quotes ten players, most of them former, and most of them anonymous. They all agree that Michigan football players put in a lot of time and effort. Some boast about it, others complain. But the important thing to understand is what constitutes an NCAA violation, and what doesn’t.

The NCAA needs two pages and 35 bullet-points just to cover a small section of this convoluted rule. Boiled down, student-athletes can spend only eight hours a week on their sports during the off-season, and 20 hours a week during the season.

Sounds simple, right?

It is – until you get into what the NCAA calls “countable” hours, and “uncountable” hours. Under “countable” hours the NCAA lists eleven core activities like practice, games and team meetings.

Under “uncountable” hours, they list just about everything else, 16 items total, from stretching and taping to team meals and travel. In other words, the 20 hours a week the NCAA counts is probably about half the actual time student-athletes put in every week. It’s not an adventure, it’s a job.

It gets even messier when you count mandatory activities, which count, and voluntary ones, which don’t. Weight lifting, for example, is considered mandatory – except when it isn’t.

How can you tell the difference? Good question. If you write for the Michigan Daily or play in the Michigan Marching Band, you probably have to put in extra hours if you want to become the editor-in-chief or the drum major. Does that make it mandatory? Who knows? The NCAA isn’t watching them, of course.

Even voluntary weight lifting can be tricky. If several strength coaches are in the weight room conducting the session, it’s considered mandatory, and it counts. But if only one strength coach is in the weight room, monitoring the players for safety, that’s considered voluntary, and does not count.

The main motive behind these rules is to make sure the student comes before the athlete. In this case, at least, it does not appear to be a problem. The Michigan football team just notched its highest grade point in 20 years. But that will have no bearing on the investigation whatsoever.

The Criminal, Not the Court, Calls the Tune

John U. Bacon — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:14:00 GMT

August 28, 2009

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Last week I wrote about the case of Kimberly Knight. She’s the treasurer who pleaded guilty to embezzling almost a million dollars from the Ann Arbor Amateur Hockey Association. Knight effectively wiped out the organization’s savings – including its scholarship fund, its down payment for a new rink, even its operating budget. And now the Association is fighting for its very existence.

For most crimes, there are shades of gray, and two sides to the story. Not this time. On one side you have an all-volunteer organization that’s helped 20,000 kids play hockey since 1951.

On the other side you have a corrupt treasurer who methodically emptied almost a million dollars from the pockets of those kids who paid to play hockey. She pulled this off over a two-year period – hardly a spontaneous act. Then she gorged herself on diamond earrings, Escalades and expensive trips.

Knight claims she’s already paid back almost a quarter million. The Association says she hasn’t paid back a cent. Hm. Whom do you believe?

Before Knight’s sentencing, the probation department recommended she pay back $160,000 immediately, to keep the league afloat. Judge Melinda Morris agreed, but Knight asked for two more weeks to get the money together. Judge Morris said, Sure.

On Monday, Knight asked the judge if $75,000 – less than half of what the Judge had asked for upfront -- would be enough. Judge Morris said, Sure. But Knight still hasn’t paid a dime of even that amount, because she’s still “waiting for checks to clear.” I’m sure we can safely assume the checks are in the mail.

Am I the only one who gets the feeling the criminal is calling the tune here?

The rest of the sentence wasn’t much tougher. Instead of prison -- or even work release or house arrest -- Knight got parole. Instead of paying back all the money, she needs to write a check for only $1500 every month. At that rate, with a meager 2.5 percent interest and no inflation, she will send in her last check when she’s 116 years old. Let’s hope she’s not a smoker.

The rationale for this is simple: if they put Knight behind bars, she can’t pay the money back. But given Morris’s sentence, she’s not going to anyway.

Which brings us to a central problem with embezzlement cases in general – and this one in particular. The old joke goes, if you owe the bank ten thousand dollars, they’ve got you. But if you owe the bank ten million dollars, you’ve got them. Apparently, the more you steal, the more power you have, the softer you can make your sentence.

You don’t have to be vengeful to expect more. It’s a question of whom are we looking out for: the criminal, or the kids? Since Knight became treasurer in 1999, enrollment has dropped dramatically from 1200 players to just 500 now. The scholarship program is history, as is the league’s “learn to play” programs. The kids who used to get the most help, now get the most hurt.

Another judge in town takes a different approach. Tired of deadbeat dads not paying their child support, he decided to call their bluff and put them in jail, every time, until they paid. It was amazing how quickly they all seemed to find the money they owed their kids. Problem solved.

Something tells me it’s pretty hard to burn through a million bucks with nothing to show for it. And if Judge Morris had the backbone to put Knight in jail, I bet you’d see Ms. Knight cutting a rather large check by lunch.

In coddling the criminal, Judge Morris sold out the kids. Which is a shame, because it’s from hockey kids learn things like fair play and honor.

Obviously, Kimberly Knight never learned those lessons. Thanks to Judge Morris, she’ll never have to.

But the kids will – the hard way.

Copyright © 2009, Michigan Radio

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Little League Embezzler Deserves Big League Time

John U. Bacon — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:13:00 GMT

August 21, 2009

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On Monday, Kimberly Knight will appear before Judge Melinda Morris to discuss a little financial matter. It seems the Ann Arbor Amateur Hockey Association is missing a few bucks – actually, its entire operating budget, almost a million dollars -- and Judge Morris would like to ask Kimberly Knight where it is.

Kimberly Knight should have a pretty good idea. From 1999 to 2007, Knight served as the Association’s treasurer.

Those were heady years for the organization. Enrollment was strong, with a high of 1200 boys and girls playing hockey. The league was bringing in enough money to pay for kids who couldn’t afford to play hockey, and start saving for a rink of their own.

By 2007, it looked like the league’s dream might be within reach. Today, it’s closer to folding altogether.

To appreciate what’s at stake here, it helps to understand that the Association started way back in 1951. Its first director, John MacInnes, had played goalie for Michigan and went on to coach Michigan Tech, where he won three NCAA titles and a record 555 games. A true legend – and a good guy.

Many Association alums have gone on to play college hockey, and one, Teddy Speers, once scored a goal for the Detroit Red Wings. But that’s never been the point of the league. The goal has always been to get more kids playing hockey, making them a little healthier and happier, and keeping them out of trouble. If you ask any of the league’s 20,000 alums, including yours truly, you’ll hear just how successful the league has been.

More impressive, to me, is the fact that the league’s always been run entirely by volunteers – people with day jobs and families who still devote tons of time to an often thankless task. I think about my coaches like Roy Bolles, who didn’t even have kids on the team. We’re still in touch. I think about referees like Ken Westerman and Jeff “Tiny” Bourne, who not only got up at 5:30 to make sure we didn’t kill each other -- for peanuts -- but would take the time between whistles to teach us about the game.

But what I remember most is going over to see the Childs, who ran the league in the seventies, and seeing the piles and piles of jerseys – hundreds of them – in their basement, where Mrs. Childs was sewing the names of the sponsors on the back of every single sweater. You don’t forget that.

When her husband Ross stepped down as the league director, the crowd gave him not one, not two, but three standing ovations. You don’t forget that, either.

What makes non-profit groups so good – the volunteers -- is what makes them such easy targets for dark souls like Knight, who did her damnedest to reverse over a half-century of good deeds by pilfering close to a million dollars. She spent it on watches, diamond earrings, and a Cadillac Escalade. They should investigate her husband, too. It’s hard to imagine he had no idea what was going on.

That’s bad enough. But what’s unforgivable is that she took all of it from little boys and girls – many of whom depend on scholarships from the league just to play the game. Even worse, Knight might not pay for it – or very much, anyway. For some reason our system of justice tends to go easy on embezzlers. I have no idea why. If she had robbed a million dollars from our homes, and not our kids, she’d be gone a long time. But Knight is currently negotiating to minimize her jail time – and she might not get any, which is not unusual in Washtenaw County.

Kimberly Knight should be forced to produce every penny of the money she stole from the kids, even if it means selling her home, her land, and her Cadillac Escalade. Better she goes under than the league. And she should do prison time. Real time. Hard time.

Judge Morris, I urge you to do the right thing, and protect eight-year old kids from con artists like Kimberly Knight.

Webmistress Gone Fishin'

John U. Bacon — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:36:00 GMT

Okay, sounds a lot more intriguing than it really is. Brandi Scharrer, the brains behind this blog, is on vacation this Friday and therefore will not be available to post this week's commentary.

But she'll be back next week, as will I. I hope you will be too -- or at least close enough to a computer to join us again for a little sports talk.

See you soon.

-John

Umpires and Catchers

John U. Bacon — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:11:00 GMT

August 7, 2009

Press play to listen

Ken Kaiser, who umpired 23 seasons in the major leagues, once wrote, “ “Two things nobody grows up dreaming about being are broke and an umpire. Thanks to baseball, I got to be both.”

In 2004, Major League Baseball tried to replace the judgment of umpires with a computer, with disastrous results. They’re trying it again this season.

This is a horribly misguided idea, not only because baseball umpires are by far the most accurate officials in any sport, but also because they are by far the most entertaining. Officials in other sports make news only when they blow it, but a good umpire gets our attention with a good strike call, “steeee-rrrike!”, a fist pump “Out!” on a bang-bang play at home, or a spirited shouting match with a manager – which inevitably ends with the umpire tossing the manager with a good, old-fashioned heave-ho.

But the most interesting part of the umpires’ job you might not even notice unless you’re looking closely: the special relationship they’ve developed with catchers over a century, complete with their own etiquette. At the end of a major league umpire’s first game behind the plate, for example, the catcher hands him the baseball to welcome him to the big leagues. That often marks the last pleasant exchange between them.

Ken Kaiser, who worked 23 seasons in the major leagues, said, “Catchers can help you or bury you. If you don’t get along with the catcher, you can end up with the whole world against you.”

The catcher’s most common anti-umpire tactic is a maneuver called “pulling pitches,” which works like this: When the pitcher throws the ball just outside the strike zone, a skilled catcher can catch the ball while moving his glove toward the strike zone, which can make a ball look like a strike. Then he holds his glove still as if to ask, “What’s wrong with that one?” His teammates get it, and so does the crowd.

Another famous umpire, Ron Luciano, once wrote, “By pulling a few pitches every player or coach will believe the umpire is having a bad day. Then they will spend the rest of the day 'helping' him," with “suggestions” on how to do his job.

This helps explain why, when umpires brush off the plate between innings, they always turn their back side to center field. No need to give the fans a nice target.

One day, famously angry Baltimore manager Earl Weaver was giving Luciano the business on every single pitch, even the ones that went for Baltimore. Weaver was getting to him, when Luciano got back in his crouch and asked catcher Elrod Hendricks, “What’s Earl’s deal? Why is he always all over me?”

Hendricks calmly threw the ball back to the pitcher, and said, “Ron, you’ve got to understand.Earl’s not happy unless Earl’s not happy.” It’s a lesson for us all, whenever someone is giving us a hard time. Remember, that person probably won’t be happy until they’re not happy. Give them their wish, and throw them out of your game.

Luciano admitted he learned to trust certain catchers like Hendrick so much, he actually let them umpire for him on bad days -- which usually followed good nights. If it’s a strike, he’d tell them, hold your glove in place for an extra second. If it’s a ball, throw it right back. And please,no yelling! Luciano said no one he ever worked with ever took advantage of the situation, and no hitter ever figured out what they were doing.

Yogi Berra once asked umpire Red Flaherty why he called a good-looking pitch a ball. “Hey, Yog,” Flaherty said, “I’m not infallible.”

Yogi asked, “What the heck does that mean?”

“It means every once in a while I miss one.”

Yogi smiled. “In that case, you’re the most infallible umpire in the league.”

Still better than a computer. Much better.

Gone Playin'

John U. Bacon — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:42:00 GMT

Dear Loyal Readers,

Given the Big Ten Media days Monday and Tuesday and teaching at Northwestern's Medill School on Tuesdays -- all in Chicago -- plus full-day meetings the rest of the week and the UM hockey alumni meeting and -- well, I'll spare you my sob story, if it isn't too late to do so. Long story short, it's a week off at the Bacon Blog. I'll probably be able to take one more before the summer's done and we all dig in for a busy fall.

In the meantime, if you want to see former NHL players make me look stupid on the ice (and possibly off it), the Michigan alumni hockey weekend starts tonight at 5:30 at Yost. The first game is 35-and-over (that's me, off the alternate alternate list, for those who didn't play for Michigan and really have no business being on the ice), and the second game featuring current NHLers is at 6:30.

Again, thanks for reading -- we just topped 25K subscribers! -- and I look forward to writing more next week, and the weeks to come. I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am. You've been great!

-John

p.s. If I don't return from tonight's game, avenge my death.

Almost the Greatest

John U. Bacon — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:34:00 GMT

July 24, 2009

Press play to listen

At the British Open on Sunday, 59-year old Tom Watson stood over his putt on the 18^th green.

It was just eight-feet long – a gimme compared to the bombs Watson had been draining all week. But he took his time lining it up, and for good reason: If he could just knock the ball into the hole one more time, he would win the British Open, his ninth major championship, ranking him behind only Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Walter Hagen.

Watson would also become the oldest player ever to win one of the four major championships – by more than a decade. And, in accomplishing all that, Tom Watson would become the greatest golf story of all time.

It was a long way from Kansas City, where Watson grew up, and Walloon Lake, where he spent his summers. He graduated from Stanford with a degree in psychology, then joined the pro tour. They called him Tom Sawyer, for his home state, the gap between his teeth and his aw-shucks manner.

But in a blistering seven-year stretch, golf’s Tom Sawyer captured eight major titles, and became the top-ranked player in the world. After Watson won his last major title in 1983, however, he all but disappeared – until he resurfaced this week.

Watson finished the first round in first place, and held the lead after the second round, too – and the third, shocking the golf world. Meanwhile, Tiger Woods missed the cut in a major tournament for only the second time in his career. If you had bet ten bucks on Woods getting cut and Watson getting the lead at this year’s British Open, you would never have to work again.

Watson still had a one-stroke lead when he teed off on the 18^th hole Sunday. He hit it perfectly – and then, just as he had done 32 years earlier on the same course, he walked up the fairway, with the lead, basking in the fans’ standing ovation.

“That warmth makes you feel human,” he said. “It makes you feel so good.”

Half a lifetime after reaching his prime, Watson had the chance to roll back the clock, return to the game’s biggest stage, and beat the best in the world –players who were now half his age. Life doesn’t often give us chances like that – and golf, almost never.

All he had to do was knock in the eight-foot putt. But he hit it short and right -- his only truly bad stroke of the entire tournament. The instant Watson struck the ball, he dropped his shoulders. He already knew what the rest of us would soon find out: He was finished.

The clock had struck midnight on Watson’s dream. He suddenly looked 59, and in the playoff with Stewart Cink, he played like it, getting blown out by six strokes.

At the press conference, a choked up Watson said, “It’s a great disappointment. It tears at your gut. It’s not easy to take.”

Legendary theater critic and sports writer Heywood Broun put it best in 1921, when he said, “The tragedy of life is not that man loses, but that he almost wins.” Eighty-eight years later, it still rings true.

To his credit, Watson managed to smile and say, “Hey, this ain't a funeral, you know.” Watson’s 59-years might have prevented him from prevailing in the playoff, but they also gave him the wisdom to withstand it.

Watson couldn’t resist adding, “It would have been a hell of a story wouldn’t it?”

It still is -- one of the best sports stories ever told.

Brandon Inge: The All-Star Next Door

John U. Bacon — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:03:00 GMT

July 17, 2009

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Three years ago, a few folks in Dexter, Michigan – a small farming town just west of Ann Arbor – were buzzing with rumors that the only house for sale in their neighborhood might finally be sold.

Inge gave Fragner the full tour of the house, ending in the basement. There, Fragner noticed more baseball memorabilia than even the manliest of man-caves typically has.

“You play ball?” Fragner asked.

Inge looked at him, to see if he was serious. “Yeah, I do.”

“For who?”

“For the Tigers.”

“The Louisiana State Tigers?” Fragner asked, still refusing to believe the guy was old enough to be a major leaguer.

“No, the Detroit Tigers!”

“The Tigers?!? You’re not big enough!”

Inge chuckled, and took it right in stride.

When Inge stepped into the batter’s box that night, he looked down at Tommy’s autograph – then knocked the ball over the wall for a two-run homer.

I’ve never met Brandon Inge. I’d like to, but I don’t need to. I feel like I already know him.

The King of Pop no match for the Queens of the Court

John U. Bacon — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:24:00 GMT

July 10, 2009

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Perhaps you heard: Michael Jackson died last week.

Yes, he was a talented entertainer, and his sudden passing was undeniably sad. But in the midst of the endless, breathless coverage – I heard an Ivy League professor gush that Jackson was an incredibly hard worker, a “musical genius,” and even a transcendent figure -- I began to think perhaps we’d crossed a line.

I wanted to hear an actual journalist point out that Jackson didn’t write most of his hits, and they wouldn’t have been hits in the first place if not for the real genius of his producer, Quincy Jones. Consider the lasting impact of Scott Joplin, Louis Armstrong and Paul McCartney – who not only could write music, they could play it on a number of instruments – and you have to conclude we might be overestimating Jackson’s genius.

I heard hundreds of pundits make the claim, however, but precious few who seemed capable of remembering Jackson repeatedly praise the virtues of grown men sleeping with young boys. Instead, we in the media chose to abdicate our role as watchdogs to devote all our energy toward hagiography.

While we were busy promoting the Jacksons, we missed a much better story: Venus and Serena Williams played each other in the Wimbledon Finals.

Like the Jacksons, the Williams sisters owe much of their success to a hard driving father. But unlike the abusive Joe Jackson, Richard Williams raised his children not merely to be successful, but happy.

Williams, a former Louisiana sharecropper, brought up Venus and Serena in L.A.’s toughest neighborhood, Compton – about as far from Wimbledon as Gary, Indiana, is from Hollywood.

Every day, Richard Williams would take his two daughters and a shopping cart full of tennis balls down to their neighborhood’s cracked up tennis court. When gang members showed up to taunt them, warning there was no way any girls from Compton were going to make it in tennis, their dad shooed them away. When gunfire broke out, the girls kept playing.

Richard stuck to his unorthodox teaching methods – and they worked. The girls got good, and fast. When the stuffed shirts who run junior tennis caught wind of the Williams girls, they warned them that if they didn’t get professional coaching and joined their circuit, like all the other phenoms, there was no way any girls from Compton were going to make it.

Richard ignored them, too. He kept his daughters in school, sane, and safe from burning out – like so many Jennifer Capriatis. When he felt they were finally ready -- physically and emotionally -- he let them loose on the tennis world, and they quickly cleaned up.

They have now won 18 major singles titles between them, and 22 more in doubles. They are already the best of their generation, by a long shot. Their only real competition is each other. They both rank in the top ten all time, and they are far from done. No other family comes close, in any generation.

The sisters have achieved perhaps their greatest triumph off the court. Venus and Serena are happy and healthy, with full lives outside of tennis. They’re involved in acting, fashion and dating adults. And even for this, they’ve been criticized for treating tennis as a part-time pursuit.

If that’s part time, we should all be part timers.

Just a few hours after Serena beat Venus in the Wimbledon final, they teamed up to win another Wimbledon doubles title. Too bad we missed it.

Copyright © 2009, Michigan Radio

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Gone Fishin'

John U. Bacon — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:18:00 GMT

Dear Loyal Readers,

Like most of America, I'm taking today off -- even though I'm itching to say something about the hyperbolic coverage of Michael Jackson's untimely passing.

Sad as it is, and as talented a singer and dancer as Jackson was, I am getting a little weary of TV anchors claiming he was a "musical genius" and an "incredibly hard worker." I would love to hear a TV pundit point out: Jackson didn't write most of his songs; his producers (including Quincy Jones) deserve much of the credit for his success; and as for hard work, yes, he was industrious, but how would his efforts stack up against those of a coal miner, a steel worker, a farmer or a teacher, on any given day? As my brother pointed out, all those folks sing and dance for fun - but no one goes down a coal mine for kicks.

And, last, any middle-aged man in the habit of inviting young boys into their bed should not be confused with a saint. Just sayin'.

But I don't have time to say any of those things, because I'm goin' fishin'!

Hope you enjoy your weekend, too.

And as always, thanks for reading!

-JUB

We Can't Get Through Life Alone

John U. Bacon — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:26:00 GMT

June 26, 2009

Press play to listen

With the combination of the weak economy, and strong high school coaches arm-twisting their players to attend “voluntary” work outs, enrollment for summer camps is down nationwide about 10- to 15-percent. But if the choice is between team workouts and summer camp, this former high school hockey coach is telling you it’s a no-brainer: send your kid to summer camp.

Let me explain.

I didn’t want to go to summer camp.

I spent my summers growing up at our family cottage on Torch Lake, near Traverse City. The idea of going to Camp Hayo-Went-Ha – a YMCA camp on the lake – simply wasn’t for me. I liked playing baseball, riding bikes and going to hockey school with my best friend. I figured the kids who went to Hayo-Went-Ha either couldn’t play baseball, or didn’t have many friends.

But by my sixteenth birthday, thanks to the introduction of the curveball, I couldn’t play baseball either. Far sadder, my best friend had been killed in a car accident.

With nothing else to do, I finally went to Camp Hayo-Went-Ha. To my surprise, I discovered the kids there were tougher than most of my hockey teammates. And they got to go on exotic trips, hiking in Rockies and sailing off Nova Scotia.

The 640-acre camp has the rustic, tidy look of the "Swiss Family Robinson" movie set, but camp sessions play out more like episodes of “Fantasy Island.” The anxious newcomers arrive hoping this special place will help them find what they’ve been missing.

Rode based camp on his belief that we can’t get through life alone, but there are plenty of people willing to help. Rode learned this the hard way. As a child Rode was sickly, his father was often gone, and his mother was buried on his 12th birthday. "But," he told me, "so many people went out of their way to help me that, well, you've got to give back."

He did. In addition to giving his time and energy, Rode gave former campers money to pay for rent, college tuition, plane tickets and even bail. All but one has paid him back. Rode believes in second chances.

That’s why, when my brother was searching for direction 27 years ago, I suggested he join the camp staff.

“Absolutely changed my life,” he says today. Being responsible for the kids made him think about what's really important. It made him realize his abilities. And he made lifelong friendships there.

That's what summer camp did for him.

After camp, my brother climbed Mt. Ranier, earned his bachelor’s degree and launched his career. And when he got married, Pat Rode was there.

When Rode announced in 1998 that it would be his last summer running the camp, his old campers and counselors flooded his office with letters, calls and visits. At his final farewell ceremony, a dozen alums flew in just to thank him.

Then everyone blew out their candles, returning the big room to its original darkness, and listened to Pat Rode say goodbye. My brother draped his right arm around his wife, and his left arm around me. After all those years, I still felt part of something special – and I still do.

Monster Eats Writer

John U. Bacon — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:22:00 GMT

June 19, 2009

Monster Eats Writer

Note: After the many letters from you Loyal Readers and the exchange following last week's commentary, I realized I had more than enough new material to write an update of that story for Michigan Public Radio, which runs Friday mornings. But, since you've already lived it, I thought I'd spare you, and instead serve up a little light-hearted fare tied to the US Open. (The audio was recorded last year, so the first paragraph doesn't quite jibe, but you can handle it.)

If you do want to read or hear the latest on the MHSAA situation, you can find it on michiganradio.org.

As always, thank you for your loyalty!

-John

Click play to listen

The U.S. Open is back, and with it, the endless complaining from the players about how impossibly tricked up it all is, followed by the equally predictable backlash from the media and fans, telling them to suck it up and quit crying. But you won’t hear any criticism from me. No sir.

You see, I’ve played the U.S. Open course at Oakland Hills, under the exact same conditions the pros faced this weekend. I hit from their tees – located about three miles behind the normal ones – I putted on their superfast greens, and I tried to hit out of their rough, so thick that when you stand in it, you can’t see your toes. That ain’t rough, brother. That’s a tropical rain forest.

Why did I subject myself to such punishment? After covering the U.S. Open 13 years ago, I was so sick of these so-called professional athletes whining about how tough this course is – they call it The Monster – that I wanted to prove that even a hacker like me could finish a round without collapsing into tears.

Monster, Schmonster, I thought. It's just grass, man. How tough can it be?

Well, I don’t say that any more.

On the first hole, I teed the ball up high and smashed it. But I smashed it just three inches off the ground – and the rough was six inches high. My shot died twenty yards from the tee box – about a hundred yards short of the Ladies Tee, fer cryin’ out loud. It took ten minutes to find my ball.

That’s when I took out my three iron, like I normally would, and aimed at the green four hundred yards away. I took another mighty swing. But not mighty enough to cut through all that grass and actually hit the ball. The grass stopped my club three inches short of making contact.

To get a feel for what the rough is like in a major golf tournament, let your lawn grow for three weeks, then try cutting it with a three iron.

I had to change my strategy. I pulled out a pitching wedge, swung it like a farmer working a scythe, and tried to rip up enough grass in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, my ball might be in the middle of that flying pile of hay and make it to the fairway.

It worked. From there I had no problem scoring my first ten of the round.

And I kept it up all day. Near the end of my round my head was such a mess I put the lit end of my "lucky cigar" to my lips. Twice.

Believe it or not, I actually played pretty well -- but all I had to show for it was a pride-swallowing score of 120.

That's right, a mere fifty over par – after one round. Imagine the leader board on Sunday if I had played. Padraig Harrington finished at four under, Garcia and Ben Curtis at one under, and -- who's this? -- some schmo named Bacon came in at plus 200.

Monster, I surrender.

Good Intentions Gone Wrong

John U. Bacon — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:10:00 GMT

Click play to listen

June 12, 2009 (updated June 14, 2009)

Eleven years ago, Diane Madsen and Jay Roberts-Eveland, two mothers in Grand Rapids, complained that their daughters were harmed because the state’s high school volleyball teams played in the winter. Every other state played in the fall. They felt this made it harder for their daughters to get college scholarships.

They said the solution was to move the girls’ volleyball season from the winter to the fall. But that meant women’s basketball would also have to be moved from the fall to the winter, when the boys play. In fact, they said, all boys and girls sports should be played in the same seasons.

At first blush, it seems impossible to argue. Fair is fair, after all.

But the leaders of the Michigan High School Athletic Association did disagree. They liked having different seasons for boys and girls basketball, swimming, golf, tennis and soccer. That way, coaches and especially referees – all in short supply -- could work both the boys and girls seasons. Smaller high schools didn’t have to build more swimming pools or soccer fields or basketball or tennis courts, or have one team practice at nine at night.

And the old schedules didn’t seem unfair. More Michigan girls participated in basketball, tennis and golf than boys. Female volleyball players, including the plaintiffs’ daughters, played a third more games than teams in bordering states. Even recruitment, the cause of the original lawsuit, didn’t seem to be suffering. Michigan’s female athletes ranked among the very top of scholarship recipients in the nation. Several college coaches said they preferred Michigan’s system, because they could recruit the girls before their own seasons began. And let’s not forget: less than two percent of high school athletes get scholarships. If that’s the point of playing, we might as well cancel all high school sports right now.

So who wanted this change? Not the schools. A vast majority voted to keep it the way it was. Not the girls, either. They voted the same way.

But the moms persisted in pushing their case in court, and the MHSAA persisted in resisting it. For a decade. In a classic battle between self-righteousness and stupidity, self-righteousness won every case, right up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

So, last year, the seasons finally changed. The result? It looks like participation in girls sports is down. Attendance and local press coverage are WAY down. Inconvenience is way up – Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard now has six basketball teams and one court, so someone has to practice at ten p.m. on school nights -- and the MHSAA’s debt is even greater: this spring the judge ruled the MHSAA had to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees, which comes to $6 million – which is exactly than the entire non-profit organization is worth. So they’re considering bankruptcy. If that happens, they might not be able to pay for the state tournaments they sponsor for 28 boys and girls sports.

When the plaintiff’s attorney, H. Rhett Pinsky, heard about the MHSAA’s financial straits, he said, “Yeah? So?”

Well, yeah, so, indeed.

It seems to me the two moms weren’t really interested in expanding opportunities for all the girls. They were concerned about a few scholarships for elite athletes, like their daughters – who, by the way, got them anyway, under the old system. And the lawyers seem happy to sacrifice state tournaments to collect their millions.

The letter of the law was apparently on the plaintiffs’ side. But the spirit, they missed entirely.