Chasing the Blues

Monday Morning March

Jamie Dimon sounds like the Wizard of Oz after the curtain was pulled away.  Discussions of credit default swaps and derivatives, as with explanations of the theory of relativity, I can follow for a while, but then they sound like Professor Irwin Corey's old routines. ...Too bad that Kevin Na endured such heckling at the Players' Championship and its notoriously rowdy fans, but his endless waggles had me yelling at the TV to just hit the ball. ...Good to see Matt Kuchar overcome his rep as a big money winner who cannot win championships...NBC kept hyping the 17th island hole, claiming that it's constantly on the players' minds. The goofy-golf hole has to be the most overrated in the game....If "Mad Men" is supposed to be so authentic, why haven't the men and women's hairstyles and clothing changed? I assume the show is supposed to have moved to about 1966, when the Beatles-style natural look came in for men, and women moved toward less restrictive clothing. All of the Mad Men still have their hair slicked back, and the women seem to be stuck in 1961. ...Jon Hamm's wooden acting seems more annoying this year. ...Please end the fat Betty storyline.

Dog Days Keep Barking

The PGA at Atlanta Athletic Club shows again how that once maligned, fourth-sister major, is gaining ground each year. The U.S. Open,with Congressional disgracefully weak this year, has been in freefall for at least a decade. First, the USGA folks killed the excitement with the unplayably hard courses, then swung too much the other way...The Tiger Woods-Rocco Mediate playoff in 2008 was the last memorable open.... Once the PGA had inferior courses, but now the Atlanta Athletics Club proved a much more challenging championship test than Congressional. ...The USGA held the open once at the AAC, then never again, while the PGA has held four championships there. What doesn't the USGA come back?

...Gee, hooked on the Braves again. The Giants-Braves series was a good one. Any lover of good pitching feels sympathy with Tim Lincecum, who has received no runs at all in 10 games this year. He must feel like a great football defense that keeps seeing its quarterback throw interceptions. ..Baseball, at least in the National League, has really shifted to a pitching-dominated game in which one or two runs is usually good enough to win. Baseball dinosaurs like me might like it, but pitching duels likely bore the videogame generation. No doubt baseball can be a tedious event; the other day I grew irritated when a pitcher kept looking around at a baserunner, etc. A football team would have run three plays and an NBA team scored three goals in the time it took him to at last throw a pitch.

..I'm beginning to warm up to Freddi Gonzales as manager, but I still find his batting order screwy. I like Brian McCann, and he's a good hitter, but I don't see him as No. 3. And, while Constanza's been a spark, I'd like to see Heyward playing everyday, no matter how badly he's been going.

...The GOP is screaming about Obama vacationing in Martha's Vineyard. He would be much closer to the people if only he had his own ranch in Texas. ...Government can't create jobs, the conservatives say. The old Tammany Hall Tweed gang, as well as Southern populists like Huey Long, did pretty well in crearing jobs. 

Now Steve Earle Won't Sing Anymore on "Treme?"

I was half-shocked at the end of "Treme" last week at the apparent murder of Harley, the genial, wise street musician played by Steve Earle. Guess I won't ever call a kid who's packing "son."  Too bad the sweet Annie had to witness the punk shooting her pal. ... I always wondered if Wendell Pierce's Antoine Batiste would be the one killed. ....Kermit Ruffins looked ready to do the trick last week, when Batiste pied-piper fashion stole his crowd to an adjoining Frenchman Street bar, an implausible scene. Would jazz musicians really do so things to each other? ...I was thrown off by the endless "True Blood" promos and the lack of previews into thinking that last week's "Treme" was the final one of the season. Turns out it runs a few more weeks, with "True Blood as its lead-in. Looks like the badly limping "Entourage," mercifully in its last season, will take "Treme's" slot. ... No, I'm still not tempted to try to catch up with "True Blood." Any attraction vampires had for me died with Bela Lugosi. ..

...Now Congressional Country Club leaders are turning defensive at how easy their course played at U.S. Open. Not only did Rory McIlroy take the place apart, a bunch of guys shot under par, including the second place 8 under score. ...When the graphic showed all-time great scores, Ben Hogan's 8 under at Riviera in 1948 still made the list. I think Rory's legitimately good, but think of the inferior clubs and deader ball Hogan played with, along with the fact he was still recovering from his horrific auto accident and had to play 36 holes in one day. ...I'd love for the U.S.G.A. to bring back the 36-hole final, last played at Congressional the day of Ken Venturi's near death march to the title....Call me golf lesson geek, but I've noticed Rory has something in common with Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus: the interlocking grip, instead of the conventional Vardon overlapping like most players, including Hogan. Golf lesson fanatic that I am, I looked at Rory's hands on the club, intrigued at observing his pinkies intertwined, not one overlapping the other in the missionary position, as it were. The interlocking is usually for players with small hands, as I've heard Nicklaus has. If Rory goes on to win enough majors to enter the Nicklaus/Woods realm, that'll be quite a testimony for the interlocking...Rory''s embrace of his Irish "Da" was touching enough, but his  adolescent behavior strikingly contrasted with that of Nicklaus when he beat Arnold Palmer in a 1962 playoff to win the Open at Oakmont. Nicklaus was the same age, 22, but his dad, Charlie, while still alive, was nowhere to be seen on TV. Jack, who appeared more middle aged as a young man than later, when he grew his blond locks fashionably long, was already married at age 22, and might already have been a father.  While Rory certainly showed steely maturity on the course, his behavior when finished shows how long adolescence now lasts in young men. 

Bring back the Open's Tough Test

hat's happened to the U.S. Open? Watching the tournament this year is like watching the Quad Cities Open. Easy to hit greens, low rough, shots sticking by the pin. No matter how easy the course appears, Rory McIlroy likely still would be dominating. Yet, a bunch of other guys are going low.

A few years ago, I didn't like it when the U.S. Open courses had become too punitive, especially the travesty at Shinnecock, with unplayable greens. Still, that didn't bother Retief Goosen. Now, though, the pendelum, or the putter head, has swung too much the other way.

Now the USGA is even placing the tees further up, "the reds," as Curtis Strange said with a smirk. Is this the ladies' U.S. Open?

Let's get back to the Open's great days of the 1970s, 80s and '90s, when winning the championship was a test of skill, nerve, talent and endurance. Grow the rough. Make the greens fast. Don't go crazy, like with Shinnecock, but give us back the open we loved.

"Treme" Explores Relationships

"Treme" gets stronger, with the backbone of the show our relationships: Father and son, mother and daughter, husband and wife. It's also getting a surer handle on New Orleans, especially the Indian culture. The shows last year on the subject were strained, but this year the Indian tradition is explored naturally, without forced insistence on how "vital" and "interesting" and "authentic" it all is.

...When I was in Baton Rouge recently, I bought "Earl Long in Purgatory," a play by Jason Berry. It's a one-man show about Huey Long's younger brother and just as much a political legend. "Uncle Earl" stories are part of the education of Louisiana political junkies. The play's language is stilted and artificial on the page; not all like Uncle Earl's,, but his truly unique verbal genius would be difficult to match. Perhaps it plays better on stage; the plot is also difficult to accept. Berry's introductory essay, "The Madness of Earl Long," is well-done though, and the cover painting by George Rodrique is wonderful.

...Watching the U.S. Open at Congressional on HD TV, with its vivid colors and every slope finely delineated, leads me to compare the first tournament I remember watching; Ken Venturi's victory at Congressional in 1964. I recall seeing Vernturi's win in black-and-white, he wearing gray pants, white shirt and Ben Hogan cap, staggering home across a gray landscape. And, back then, they probably only showed about four holes. Actually, I remember watching an earlier Open, when Jack Nicklaus won his first tournament, beating my hero Arnold Palmer in a playoff at Oakmont. The then beefy Jack was probably about the same age as Rory Mcllroy is today. I hope the Irish lad can hang on, but I still will be pulling for an unlikely charge from Phil Michelson. 

...I still love the New Yorker under David Remnick, but I miss the old in-depth golf pieces by Herbert Warren Wind. We still have the baseball pieces by Roger Angell from time to time, but the New Yorker has never tried to replace Wind, or even cover golf, or many other sports for that matter. Yet the magazine pays homage to its sports tradition by putting out an anthology of its classic sports pieces. Perhaps there's too much sports coverage elsewhere for the New Yorker to bother with it, but well-considered, well-written sports pieces would stand out against the ESPN and sports-talk radio bombast.

 

Dustin Johnson Runs Aground

As a longtime golfer who's never, from the age of 10 or so, grounded his club in a trap, I feel sympathy for Dustin Johnson. As a lover of golf's traditions, I salute him for upholding the standards of sportsmanship that make the game special.

Of course, he should have been more vigilant in knowing the local rules and asking for assistance. However, more and more it sounds as if the PGA official walking with him  was negligent in not going through the crowd and advising Johnson that he was in a bunker.

Also, placing bunkers beyond the fairway shows the excessiveness of Pete Dye's designs, so evident at Whistling Straits. The game's spirit of fairness and sense of proportion should not allow bunkers in areas beyond the fairway. Throughout the history of golf, bunkers have been hazards on the fairway, and around greens. Their difficulty is alleviated by raking, a fundamental courtesy of the game.

While Johnson violated one of the game's basic rules by grounding the club, the situation itself violated the spirit of the game. First, there shouldn't be a bunker in an area in which the rough would provide sufficient difficulty. Placing traps in the rough is like double jeopardy. Second, the bunker was trampled by spectators, going against the basic courtesty of having a smooth, raked bunker from which to hit. Apparently, the local rules printed for the players, which Johnson failed to read, allows this courtesy to be abandoned. That's a sad violation of the game's traditions.

Whistling Straits is a physically beautiful course, but Dye's punitive use of length, absurdly confusing inongruent designs and bunker overkill shows a disturbing trend in golf design. Why not just put a windmill with swinging arms in front of the greens?

Equipment improvements have seriously undermined the game. In an effort to boost the game's challenger to pros and others, monstrosities like Whistling Straits come into existence. The great old courses were difficult but fair, with bunkers reserved for fairways, and the rough preserved for high grass and trees.

It's time for the USGA and the others to make rules changes to uphold the challenge of traditional courses, so that grotesque designs like Whistling Straits will be a thing of the past, like those utilitarian stadiums of the 1970s.

Tiger and Obama, in the Rough

Who's had a more spectacular fall from soaring popular acclaim, Tiger Woods or President Obama?

I was never a big Tiger Woods fan, although I admired his golf prowess. But now I feel strong sympathy for him as he struggles with the game he once dominated. Once again, the old wisdom is proven true; no one masters golf for long. The game comes out ahead in the end.

While the wolves are circling, I think Tiger will eventully return to the top. Knowing the vicissitudes of golf, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see him rebound at this week's PGA; often there's a hair's difference between futility and success. One teensie swing change, one minute swift in his putting stroke, could put him back on track, although it doesn't seem likely. He looks like a man totally lost in the rough.

The CBS guys at Firestone were chirping about the success of 20-year-olds this year. With Tiger's travails, and Phil Mickelson's struggles, evidence grows that a generational shift is occurring. Which young gun will rise to the top remains to be seen. Perhaps, if the Woods era sinks to obliviion, golf will return to the era when several players shared the top.

Meanwhile, the horrible economy continues to weigh down the Obama administration like a dead oil-soaked albatross. Obama curiously keeps blaming President Bush, a strategy which no longer has wheels, if it ever did. Some type of dramatic action is needed to create jobs, if anyone can figure out what that might be.

The ill-consdered trip of Michelle Obama to Spain threatens to linger as a defining out-of-touch image of the administration, like the picture of Bush flying in his airplane over Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. The New York Times showed how out of the hot-button news loop it is by tardily reporting on the trip that was lighting up the Internet blogs and tabloids, although Maureen Dowd had a pointed column on Michelle's caper in the Sunday Times.

As Dowd pointed out, the Michelle trip was a p.r. disaster on several fronts. Not only was the trip an opulent expense at a time when Americans are forced to cutback, but it occurred during President Obama's birthday. Michelle appeared to be abandoning her husband at celebratory time. Such wifely independence is fine and is no doubt standard in most American families these days. Still, a more palatable image for public consumption would have been photos of Michelle and fellow traveler daughter Sasha at a cozy, heart-string-tugging  birthday party for the old man, blowing out the candles and whatnot. Instead, Michelle said "let him eat cake," sending Barack alone to Chicago for a visit with Oprah.

Sure, Michelle and her daughter have every right to take a Spanish vacation, but many Americans these days are not in a generous mood. The backlash is unfair, but politics is not fair.   

A Monday Morning Potpourri: Braves, "Mad Men" and PGA

Braves Limp Home: After the Braves' disappointing Sunday afternoon loss in Cincinnati, they come home to face the desperate Mets and the excellent Giants. A crucial week for the Braves' playoffs hopes. Fans will be ecstatic if the Braves can finish the two series still holding the lead in the National League East.

"Mad Men" Sags: The welcome return of a now sober Freddy Rumsen was not enough to energize the second show of "Mad Men's" fourth season. Freddy, who is as Peggy charged old-fashioned, is also the only true adult on the show.  Show creator Matt Weiner and company are off-course in turning Don Draper into a new version of the old pathetic drunk Freddy. ...Wasn't the recovering alcoholic plot pretty much exhausted by Steve Bochco in "Hill Street Blues" and other shows?...I like Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), but I don't find her as interesting nor as glamorous as Betty Draper (January Jones). Why has Betty's appearances been so severely reduced, and her lines made so perfunctory and wooden? The bratty Draper daughter had more air time than her mom did. ...The show also has worn out the device of the wild office  party.

A PGA Travesty: The Old White Course at Greenbrier in West Virginia holds a venerable place in American golf history, but it shouldn't be used for a PGA event. Each day over the inaugural tournament there, three or four players had a chance to tie or break the PGA record of 59, with winner Stuart Appleby at last hitting the mark on Sunday to take the tournament. Such an easy course hurts the competitive integrity of the PGA. Sure, each golfer played on the same course, but in golf we expect the course to challenge the players. The ridiculously low scores and freqeunt birdie/eagle chanes made for boring golf.

Lakers Show Grit in Winning Slugfest

The NBA season lurched to a close in a game more like mud wrestling than basketball. David Stern must be happy to witness Kobe Bryant receive more accolades for rebounds than shooting baskets. The broadcast looked back on past Lakers-Celtics games, all of them with scores in the 100s for both teams.

Masters of offensive grace flashed on the screen: Bob Cousy, Jerry West, Magic Johnson, Larry Byrd, Elgin Baylor. Even that defensive genius Bil Russell had 30 points in one game. Now, we have Kobe, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce clanking baskets. All too often, the game resembled the one that Lakeer superfan Jack Nicholson conducted in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next." The constant Celtics mugging led to the Lakers traipsing to the foul line in the final quarter.  To be fair, the nerve-wracking finale had a flurry of three-point baskets. Overall, though, the game reflected a turn toward brutal defense over beautiful offense. Remember when the zone was illegal? When more points were scored on 15-foot jumpshots than putbakcs on rebounds?

Give it to the Lakers for toughness, especially Pau Gasol and Ron Artest. In blowing a 13-point lead, the Celtics showed their age, and coach Doc Rivers couldn't devise a coherent offenseive strategy. If he has nothing else to do, Gasol can fly over to Johannesberg to give his countrymen a hand with overcoming the World Cup upset to Switzerland.

On to the U.S. Open, although I don't find it that interesting this year. Maybe it's having to hear Chris Berman do his tiresome name-pun routine duing the ESPN telecast. Or the prospect of prime-time golf. I never remember a West Coast U.S. Open jutting so far into the evening before. The U.S. Golf Association has at the behest of television moved up tee times. As it was, several players were going to have to finish in the dark. Even with HD, Pebble Beach looked very, very dark at the end. Speaking of dark, what was all of those ugly  spots on the greens? I've seen smoother greens on municipal courses in lower Alabama. Later, a player talked of the dreaded "poa annua." That's what Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelsen were muttering to themselves after not making a birdie between them.

Hey, Atlanta sports fans, how about those Bravos? They're showing themselves a National League team unafraid of those American League designated hitter bully boys. Winning series against the Twins on the road and then back home against the Rays, with as many athletes as an NFL team, especially the woeful Tampa Bay Bucs. Troy Glaus, the comeback player of the year.

On the worrisome front, Jason Heyward keeps struggling with strikeouts. He did smash a home run, his firtst in weeks. Is it really that aching thumb, or is the kid finding it tough to adjust to major league pitching? The other day, the color guy gave him some advice to stand closer to the plate. He does look a bit far away from it.

And Chipper, considering retirement, keeps struggling. Braves fans hope he can regain a semblance of his former hitting strength. With that pitching staff, though, the Braves might be able to overcome a few offensive weak spots.  

 

Do you believe in Magic? No, I'll take the Hawks

Congrats to the Hawks for moving on in the playoffs. I'm feeling good about their chances against the Orlando Magic, although Dwight Howard will be a daunting opponent.

My first reason for optimism is that the tough home loss against the Bucks in Game 5 turned out to be one of those unifying moments. The Hawks have played with new resolve since blowing that late lead. Second, Coach Mike Woodson has displayed strong coaching versatility, making effective defensive adjustments in game six, and handling the team well with good substitutions and steady leadership. Another positive development is Al Horford developing a good midrange jump shot and showing that his all-star game appearance was justified. Josh Smith is playing with nice discipline and calm, and Jamal Crawford is growing in confidence.

On the negative side, Joe Johnson looks a bit distracted. He's the type of guy who cares more about the game than contracts and money. However, talk about big bucks and the possibility of moving on to a team like the Knicks will seep into anyone's subsconscious.  Still, even when he's having an off shooting day, such as Sunday, he will always come up with a key basket. And, as ESPN-ABC's Mike Tirico and Hubie Brown noted, he didn't let his shooting problems hurt his defense.

So, if the Hawks can counter Howard, they might give the Magic a challenge. Perhaps their best strategy will be to let Howard play his game, and try to stop the other guys. I'm sure Woody's thinking about the problem.

Meanwhile, in other sports news, the Braves swept the Astros. I felt a bit conflicted about the Braves' resurgence, because I'm almost a lifelong Astros fan. Actually, I was a fan of the Astros when they were the Colt .45s, and saw them play in old Colt stadium before they moved into the Astrodome. The 'Stros, after a number of years of being one of the National League's most competitive teams, are in bad decline. As for the Braves, they have a significant road trip, their second after the three-game home series against the Astros. They first play in the Nationals, then head into Philly to play the world champs. At least, after that nine-game losing streak, the Braves appear back in the National League East mix.

Another interesting development: Irish golf phenom Rory McEllroy, not quite 21, wins at Quail Hollow, burning the tough course with a final round 63. That whooshing sound you hear is the train moving away from Tiger Woods. I expect Tiger will rebound from his horrible showing at Quail Hollow. Yet, golf is a mysterious, fickle muse. Many players before Tiger have seen the golf gods turn against them.