Dana Blankenhorn

End Football Now

This morning I watched a great football match. Although this post is not really about that football.

England fell behind, came back through an incredible individual effort by Kelly Smith (who pulled off her shoes to celebrate the goals), then was tied at the death by Japan. The game featured several hard collisions, with one goalie nearly knocked out and another player lying injured while play continued around her.

Football, or soccer, can be a dangerous game. Some great players from the past have died from the impact of repeated concussions with the hard leather balls used in the 1960s.

My Hero Falls

To a lot of kids today the fall of Michael Vick is tragic. They believed in him. They thought he was special. They are terribly saddened.

For me the loss is also personal. But it has nothing to do with Vick. It has to do with a hero from my time.

His name is Billy "White Shoes" Johnson.

In the years when I lived in Houston, from 1974-1980, Billy was my favorite player. He was mostly a punt returner, but he was also a wide receiver. He played with enormous flair, and when he scored he did this silly Charleston-like touchdown dance which sent the crowd at the Astrodome into a frenzy.  He finished his career in Atlanta, with the Falcons, and the Oilers moved to Tennessee a decade or so later.

Turns out that, in this decade, Billy Johnson was Vick's "fixer."

What's a fixer? A fixer is a guy hired by the team to back you up when you screw up. He fixes things.

In Billy's case the title was coordinator of player programs. In 2002, when Vick failed to show up on some parking tickets it was Billy who drug him to court, then told the media Vick's claim that the charge was "bogus." Two years later, when one of Vick's friends swiped the watch of a security scanner at the airport, Billy got it back, and paid the guy off.

Shoeful Mike

The coming end of the Michael Vick story has me thinking about another, similar story from the distant past, that of Shoeless Joe Jackson. (Picture from the sport gallery of Andy Amato.)

Like Vick, Jackson was a man with country origins, laid low by a Commissioner who was trying to "send a message." In the Jackson case, however, the hysteria was far more intense, a conspiracy to "fix" the 1919 World Series. Jackson actually hit .373 during the series, but he made some crucial errors, and admitted taking $5,000 from gamblers as part of the conspiracy.

Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis was brought in as Commissioner of Baseball to deal with the mess. The way he dealt with it was to throw Jackson, and the other "Black Sox" out of baseball for life. Without the conspiracy, Jackson was a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame. At the height of the furor a kid reportedly begged the outfielder, "say it ain't so, Joe." Jackson had no reply.

Vick's case is different. There is no doubt of his guilt. CNN resident legal idiot Jeffrey Toobin said today that "lots of athletes have come back from wife-beating charges," and this is just dogs, but no athlete ever abused a wife as Michael Vick did his dogs, and the breed in general.

Much Adu About Nothing

For a special treat this Sunday here's a sports story which has nothing to do with scandal, or drugs. Or even David Beckham. Although it is about soccer.

It's about Freddy Adu. Four years ago, Freddy Adu was the face of U.S. soccer. He signed with Major League Soccer at just 14, having already completed high school, and was said to be the next big thing.

Sad to say, he may turn out to be U.S. soccer's Mickey Rooney, classically trained, too famous too young, and too short. Rooney had increasing trouble getting good roles as he aged, his cute turning to dumpy, and his un-Andy Hardy lifestyle had him forgotten before TV even arrived. Rooney's story has a happy ending. He's 85 and recently celebrated 25 years of marriage. He seems happy, content, everything any of us could hope to be at that age, a role model once more.

Adu should be so lucky.

Now 18 he flew to Europe this weekend, tail between his legs, hoping to catch on with Benfica, a Portuguese team.  He had tried out with Manchester United, he was hoping to catch on with Celtic in Glasgow, so while Benfica is a big club, for Portugal, it's a real come-down.

The 1967 Game: Who's Timothy Leary Now?

I have a confession to make.

When there is bad news I try to avoid it.

I turn off the TV. I avoid the paper. And I look somewhere else. To sport. To entertainment. To my family. To you.

One hallmark of a Generational Crisis is that this stops working. During a crisis there is no place to hide from the bad news. It may surround you on the street, as in the late 1850s. It may growl in your stomach, or in the sad eyes of your children, as in the early 1930s.

In the late 1960s, it invaded the TV and radio -- the pictures from Vietnam, the hippies, and riots, the rock music -- all had a profound impact on the Greatest Generation. It re-set their assumptions, and it focused the anger of a lifetime on the culture.

Something like that is happening right now. We have built our hideouts on celebrity culture, on sports and entertainment, but there is no place to hide from the horrors:

• Baseball?
• Football?
• Basketball?
• Bicycling?
• Movie stars?

This, of course, in addition to the daily horrors on the TV. This in addition to the war our best are being lost in, the falling knife and overwhelming worry of real estate, the bizarre weather. And our leaders are not just powerless to act, they're piling on.

Michael Vick Deserves No Sympathy

My daughter has decided to make protecting animals her passion. She has learned many things along the way, and taught me many lessons, for which I am grateful. She has witnessed first-hand the cruel way we treat animals, and the inhuman emptiness found even in some animal lovers.

Her most important lesson is that, even if we eat or breed them, we have a responsibility to animals. They have souls, simpler, more basic perhaps, but souls nonetheless. Heeding this lesson is part of man's own civilizing process.

Thus there is needful cruelty and there is needless cruelty.

Raising dogs to fight, to kill other dogs, and murdering those who don't do well is needless cruelty. When the Humane Society or ASPCA breaks up a dog-fighting ring, all the dogs involved must be put down. It is needful cruelty. Their training makes them impossible to place as pets. It's not their nature which is bad, it's their nurture. And it can't be unlearned.

People who engage in dog fighting dehumanize themselves. They hold all life as cheap. They forfeit all sympathy, all claims on our emotions. They deserve nothing more than what they dish out to the animals.

Un-patriotism

What do Tom Hicks, George Gillett, Stan Kroenke (left), Malcolm Glazer and  Randy Lerner have in common?

They've all stuck hundreds of millions of dollars into English soccer teams.

Meanwhile, the MLS goes schlumping along, and by the time the season winds down in September no one will care who wins. (Oh, wait, it ends in November. See?)

All most Americans really care about is their national team, and Sunil Gulati, who runs US Soccer, finally gave in yesterday and named Bob Bradley his permanent coach.

What does this mean? It means big American money is fleeing the sport and its status is not going to change. What is big-time elsewhere will remain small-time here.

It doesn't have to be that way.

Smash and Grab

I stayed up late last night watching the USA-Mexico game, so if your idea of sport is some steroid-juiced bumpkin pounding a pea over a wall, smashing someone's head in, or swatting a basketball away bear with me. (Picture from MLSnet.)

The game was the typical smash-and-grab we've become used to since Bruce Arena became the USA coach in 1998. The team concentrated on its defense, got lucky on a set play, and then dug in deeper until Mexico made a mistake that allowed a quick counter. Another 2-0 victory. (That's Landon Donovan rounding the Mexico goalkeeper and putting the game away.)

This is sad (in a way) because Mexico plays beautiful football and they love the game so much. The tactics Arena introduced (and interim coach Bob Bradley employs) come directly from the way Germany played it for years. It's not pretty, let alone beautiful, but it's effective.

Why Mexico doesn't just find themselves a big-footed power kicker, fall down a few times and beat up anyone who comes near their box is somewhat beyond me (at least when they play us). Instead they insist on playing beautiful (Beautiful!)...believe it or not Mexico hasn't scored a goal on U.S. soil this Millenium.

Anyway, the real news was made at halftime, only no one noticed.

The Bell Grizzlies

A new study is out from Heavy Reading which tells us all you need to know about what the Bells plan to do with their new market power.

Sports.

No really, sports. These idiots think that sports are their ticket to integrated multimedia success. (Stop laughing...OK, I'll wait...)

Basically they figure that since they "control" a lot of "end-user service platforms" (cable, phone, Internet, cellular) they are in a unique position to profit from Americans' insatiable appetite for sports stuff.

No, seriously. They think they're going to work with their equipment suppliers (Cisco) to deliver the same LeBron James dunk through all sorts of wired and wireless channels, and you'll sit there enthralled enough to pay-and-pay for every view of it.

The Beckham Chimera

Like Pele a generation ago, David Beckham is coming to America.

This is supposed to grow professional soccer in the U.S. into a true competitor to baseball, football, basketball and NASCAR.

Won't happen.

It could happen, over time, but it won't under the current circumstances.

American soccer today is a travesty.

Care? Read more.