Ponderable
Why does the NHL Players Association represent only the offending player in disciplinary hearings while ignoring the rights of the player who was egregiously fouled, and often seriously injured? Why could they not appoint an advocate for each side?
Things I Firmly Believe
If you’re intelligent and you’re bored, it’s your fault.
If they’re physically able, all kids should play at least one team sport.
There’s far too much sense of entitlement these days.
One trouble with most political correctness is that it’s usually counter-productive.
Three More Country Song Titles
Came across three more interesting country song titles this week:
Should I Go Home Or Should I Go Crazy
Now I Lay Me Down To Cheat
Out Of My Mind And Into My Bed
Being Late
Recently, Anne and I were having dinner at a neighbourhood restaurant. The table beside us was was reserved for six people, four of whom came in shortly after us. As time passed, and with the proximity of our tables, I couldn’t help but notice two things: first, it was a birthday celebration for one of the people already seated (the other three people appeared to be her husband and her parents); and the two absentees were ridiculously late.
After about half an hour the birthday celebrant received a text, apparently saying only that the others were “on their way.” They arrived about ten minutes after that, making them almost forty-five minutes late. The late arrivals were loud talkers and I didn’t hear an apology or explanation.
This incident reminded me that for many years I carried a card with me which I handed out whenever someone was late for a business appointment or meeting. The card was in a small envelope which I gave to the person after our meeting, lunch, dinner, or whatever the occasion. It read:
“When people are kept waiting they will always be less pleasant to deal with. Think for a moment the signals you send by being late. You’re telling other people that:
a) You’re more important than they are
b) The things you have to do are more important than the things they have to do
c) You’re not very well organized
d) You’re irresponsible
e) You’re insensitive to their feelings
f) All of the above.”
The same holds true in non-business situations.
Another Problem For Major League Baseball
(I wrote this item before last night’s freakish World Series game, so I wasn’t influenced by it. To put last night’s game in perspective, it lasted 7 hours and 20 minutes; the entire 1938 World Series, in which the Yankees swept the Cubs 4-0, was played in 7 hours and 54 minutes.)
I’ve already written about the snail’s pace of major league baseball games, and there’s another problem that I think has to be addressed, and that’s the start time of post-season games.
I haven’t seen the end of a post-season night baseball game this year. Oh, I’ve been in front of the television set when they’ve ended, but I was asleep. Granted, I’m an old man, but I’ve heard the same complaint from many young people — not that they fall asleep, but that they simply don’t want to stay up that late. The 8:09 (eastern) starting time is bad enough, but the games often don’t get under way until well after that. I don’t remember which one, but I recall that it started almost half an hour late.
At our weekly Thursday’s group lunch this week, colleague Doug Beeforth, the former president of Sportsnet, pointed out a more serious consequence: that baseball may lose a whole generation of east coast baseball fans because children will simply not be allowed to stay up late enough to get hooked on the games. This loss will not be offset by gaining additional west coast kids, because they’d be able to watch an earlier start anyway. The 8:09 start time is theoretically to allow viewers on the west coast to get home from work in time to watch the games, not for the kids to get home from school.
I love baseball, always have. But these days my interest is shifting to merely being interested in the result, not how it was achieved. Too bad.