I Guess There's Only One Thing Left to Do

My local professional footy side has been in the news lately, and it's not a good thing. 

Defender Robby Dambrot's father was
LeBron James' high school hoops coach

Loudoun United tops the USL Championship Eastern Conference table seven matchdays into the season, having won six and lost just one of their matches. This is a marked improvement for the Ponies, who've never once made the USL playoffs in their six seasons in existence. But that's not the news.

Veteran soccer journo Pablo Maurer published a piece in The Athletic with the following inauspicious headline: Bad turf, cold showers, wash your own kit: life at the top of US minor league soccer. The article detailed a litany of indignities faced by Loudoun United's players, ranging from an unfinished stadium (truly an embarrassment for the club and my county, and a legacy of D.C. United's penury and lack of leadership) to substandard investment in staff (players have to wash their own kits, as the team let its equipment manager go and didn't replace him) to indifferent and unengaged ownership.

The club just signed an agreement with Virginia Revolution, a deep-pocketed local youth club, which should inject some cash and at least stabilize things. Except that the rumors that followed the announcement suggested that Ryan Martin, the only coach in club history, would soon be sacked. Well-liked General Manager Oliver Gage was let go immediately. Half of the club's non-soccer staff have left the organization in the past six weeks. It's pretty bleak.

In the midst of all this fuckery, the team is off to a flier, with the best record in the entire division, the most goals scored, and the best goal differential. It's reminiscent of something. Said a member of the team, “We have one common enemy. Ownership. In my words? It’s ‘f— the owners.’ All we have is us, at this point. And who knows how long we have left together. A lot of us will be gone. Unless we keep winning.”

Vamos Loudoun! Up the Ponies!

GhPT

This post will make my children angry. That it will become recurring filler all the more so. 

Angry because, you see, generative AI still uses a metric fuckton of energy to work properly, taxing our resources far beyond the value of most outputs - especially those developed just for fun. That was their reaction when I sent this AI-created image recently:

And here's one I use for work-related purposes (Zoom avatars and such):

I'll be working on a GhPT gallery for all the Gheorghies, in a style and manner befitting each of your noble personalities. 

Fill 'er up. This'll keep the content bucket overflowing!

Run the Damn Ball

Spencer Hall is one of the best college football commentator in America. You won't see his work on a major network (for the most part, though he occasionally pops up on ESPN), but he's managed to build a brand around his singular combination of deep cultural insights, keen observation, lightly-breaded cynicism, and above all, a love for the uniquely American institution he follows.

This is what the best college football brain
in America looks like

We first knew him from his work at Every Day Should Be Saturday (EDSBS). That site has long since gone dormant, but you can catch Hall now at Channel 6, the multi-media empire he runs with fellow journalist Holly Anderson. He's also a frequent guest on Bomani Jones' podcast, where the two unlikely pals are as likely to talk about Steve Wonder as they are Lane Kiffin.

I say all of this as preface to a more important endeavor Hall and his Channel 6 cohorts have just completed. The team has been running an annual giving drive for nearly two decades to support New American Pathways, a refugee resettlement non-profit in Clarkston, GA. The event is called the Charitibundi Bowl, and it pits alums and fans of college football (mostly) teams against one another to compete to see who can raise the most money.

This year's event just ended, and as has been the case for the past several years, the University of Michigan and its prodigious alumni base topped the Money Cannon standings with a total $181,310 in donations. Your scrappy William & Mary Tribe came in a very respectable 29th out of 468, with just shy of $9k. Only Washington & Lee (?!?) and Virginia Tech gave more out of all of the schools in the Commonwealth, going to prove once again how much UVA people suck.

All told, the EDSBS community raised a record $1.3m this year, a remarkable achievement. In celebrating the final tally, Spencer Hall gave us some useful wisdom.

Run the damn ball. Advice for football, and for life, when life means resisting fast-running authoritarian takeover of your country. Three yards and a cloud of dust. Move the sticks. Run the clock. Riggo Drill, over and over. Make a little progress today, then a little more tomorrow, then blast your way into the end zone. Metaphorically. 

We can do this. Be like Spencer

Heartbeats, Part Next

I’ve written about my balky heart and the smart, capable people who attempt to keep it and me ticking. I’m beyond grateful for their efforts and for the fact that in many other places I might have expired by now. My heart doesn’t beat synchronously or efficiently, and I have an abnormally low heart rate, a red flag trifecta that’s resulted in numerous tests, procedures and installation of a pacemaker in June 2022. 

Recent photo of OBX Dave. 
Should get more sun.

To look at me, you wouldn’t immediately think: ‘I hope that guy has his affairs in order.’ I’m not overweight. I eat relatively well. I walk a mile or two almost daily. I do yard work and housework without issue. I’m always up for trips and outings and the occasional pub crawl. Over the past 15-18 months, however, I’ve begun to tire more quickly when I exert myself. 

When I informed my cardiac docs, they suggested that a pacemaker upgrade may be in order. Which is how I landed at the Norfolk (Va.) Heart Hospital recently, on National Tax Deadline Day for what it’s worth, for a procedure that the experts think will help. Check that: for the second time this year for a procedure that the experts think will help. 

I was supposed to have the procedure in January. The electro cardio specialist who performed two ablations on me was going to do the pacemaker upgrade. But when I was on the operating table and he opened me up, he discovered a blockage and tissue tangle that made extracting the thin wire leads and inserting new ones trickier than he was comfortable performing. So he simply closed me back up. He apologized profusely afterward, but that didn’t lessen the frustration and WTF? Factor, starting with: You geniuses had no way of determining that there was a blockage or that you couldn’t perform the operation *before* you sliced me open? 

Anyway, he referred me to a specialist’s specialist, a colleague who was comfortable and experienced with more complicated extractions and procedures. During a consultation with him in March, he said that pacemaker technology had made significant improvements, even since my first installation less than three years prior. He believed that a new device would help my heart beat more in sync and thus improve blood flow and limit fatigue. He allowed that, yes, there are ways to determine if a procedure might be more complicated than expected before surgery, but that doctors don’t employ them often enough for his liking. That said, he was completely on board with his colleague aborting rather than attempting something he wasn’t comfortable with. I was sold, which is how I ended up in Norfolk on April 15. 

A few words about my doctor, a gent named Erich Kiehl: early 40s, about 6-2 and thin, tousled brown hair, boyish face covered by about two weeks’ worth of stubble and facial hair flecked with gray; Brown University medical school; residency at the University of Virginia Medical Center; two fellowships at the Cleveland Clinic, where he studied under the guy who developed many of the techniques currently used for pacemaker extraction and installation; Master’s degree in clinical research from Case Western Reserve University; settled in Hampton Roads and said he's performed about 350 procedures similar to mine, and he and his cohorts have done more than 500; a reassuring confidence in his work and his ability; engaging and persuasive. In short, a professional badass. You want him handling your heart. 

We had hoped for a relatively speedy day that instead became a 15-hour slog, due largely to emergency situations in-house that pushed back my operation, as well as the fact that what the doc optimistically estimated would be an approximately two-hour procedure became 3½ hours. He also paved the way for me to be part of a National Institute of Health-funded clinical trial that will gauge the effectiveness of two different pacemaker install procedures. There's no compensation or costs waived, but patients in clinical trials, he said, statistically do 30 percent better than regular patients because of more diligent monitoring. 

Sure, sign me up. 

We left our house on the Outer Banks at 7:30 a.m. and didn’t arrive back home until 10:15 that night (it will forever be mind-boggling to me that a heart-related procedure can be an outpatient practice). The heart is a marvel, a mechanical pump and electrical organ and if poets and songwriters are to be believed, a wellspring of love and sorrow that makes life worth living. A lot to ask from a 10-ounce organ that’s about the size of a closed fist, don’t you think? No wonder it needs an assist from time to time. 

There’s no telling how my new little battery pack will affect me. I don’t need to run half-marathons or swim 50 laps a day. Even if it only keeps me vertical for a few more years, I’ll count that as a win.

The Worst of Us

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” -- Joseph Goebbels

Back in the earliest days of this here weblog, in a far more innocent time, we birthed the concept of an Anti-Gheorghe. If our namesake represented joy and childlike wonder, his antitheses were cynical, grasping, self-serious. Dan Snyder comes to mind. Today, we find ourselves in a hellscape of Anti-Gheorghism run amok.

I detest Donald Trump and everything he represents. I despise his grotesque coterie of racist, grifting sycophants, their number far too high and far too powerful at this dark moment in our history. But I reserve my deepest enmity for the worst of all, a morally repugnant, soulless, joyless golem of a man who seems incapable of anything other than fomenting hate and demonizing the other.

Indeed, the Trumpist who disgusts me the most, to the absolute core of my being, is Stephen Miller.

I've had a hard time writing this because the mere act of thinking about that execrable fuck angers me. His shriveled, corrupted conscience animates some of the most vile acts attributable to Trumpism. His furious unwillingness to acknowledge basic humanity and opportunistic remora-like instinct to attach himself to the emptiest of all moral vessels is a match made in sulfurous fire.

CNN's Daniel Dale has done yeoman's work across Trump's fetid time on our political scene. Here, he's barely able to conceal his fury at Miller's repeated, easily debunkable (though too rarely actually debunked) repetition of a big lie. 

I'm not here to list Miller's manifold sins. That's been done and will be done well into whatever future we get. I'm not here to offer solutions, because I fear we don't have a good one at the moment. All I really seek to do is go on record, to record for posterity my disdain at our country's failure to understand the nature of the people we chose to elevate to power, the grossest, misfigured, damaged souls that ravage our body politic.

Goebbels' fate isn't good enough for Miller. Would that he lives long enough and we recover our moral center enough to consign him to the prison he belongs in.

zPSA: Donald Trump is Fucking Up

Elected Democrats have been doing a piss-poor job communicating to the American people despite the political gifts handed to them lately.  Their first instinct is always to pussy-foot around an issue, both-sides it a little bit to avoid offending anyone, and use 5,000 words when five would do.  They're also afraid of sounding crass, or being assholes, and if they ever swore it wouldn't sound authentic.

For example, Hakeem Jefferies recently offered the opinion that “Tariffs, when properly utilized, have a role to play in trying to make sure that you have a competitive environment for our workers and our businesses.  That’s not what’s going on right now. This is a reckless economic sledgehammer that Donald Trump and compliant Republicans in the Congress are taking to the economy, and the American people are being hurt enough.”

"Utilized"?  Really?  Who talks like that?  "I utilized some toilet paper to blow my nose because we're all out of Kleenex.  Good thing we had the TP otherwise I would have utilized my finger."  Sounds perfectly normal and relatable.  And more importantly, why is he providing cover for Trump's tariffs?  Why couldn't he just say "Trump's tariffs ruined the economy"?

Everyone who reads G:TB knows that I have an inordinate fondness for Cory Booker, but did he really have to talk for 25 hours to draw attention to DJ Trump's stupidity?  He couldn't boil it down to maybe 25 minutes?  Does anyone know what Booker actually said?  I don't.

Trump is fucking up and someone needs to call him out in a way that resonates with people who were stupid enough to vote for Trump in the first place.

You know what this moment calls for?  Someone who can swear and be crass authentically, for whom being an asshole comes naturally.  Like Chris Christie, only not a big fat slob who sold out to Trump and did a 180 only after being dumped from Trumpworld.

I think the Democrats need to cut an ad with someone well-known and well-respected from outside the world of politics and run it throughout the NBA playoffs.  It needs to use short, pithy sentences.  It needs to be overly reductive and devoid of nuance so that Trump and his supporters need to babble like Democrats to try to explain it away.  The ad's point needs to be clear even if you can't hear it because you're watching in a sports bar.  It should feature someone who has represented America on the world stage, who achieved major wins, and who has fucked up epically.  This person could then say "I have represented our country on the world stage.  I know a lot about winning, and I know about fucking up.  I'm here to tell you: Trump is fucking up."  And that's the theme.  Four words.  Trump is fucking up.  Bleep the "fucking" if you have to but don't blur the speaker's mouth.

Then really quickly have them say something like "The Trump tariffs tanked the stock market.  Since he took office the market is down about 9%.  That means Trump's tariffs took one out of every eleven dollars in your savings.  Trump is fucking up."  Run video of Trump talking on one side of the screen while the stock ticker plummets on the other.

They could also say "Trump promised to deport illegal aliens.  But his own lawyers admitted that they accidentally deported the wrong guy.  So the illegals are still here and the wrong guys are in El Salvador.  Trump is fucking up."  At the same time, run video of Kristi Noem rocking her ICE cap, flak vest and Daytona.

Then they conclude with "I know a lot about winning and this isn't it.  Trump is fucking up."

My first thought was Michael Phelps.  He represented the US at the Olympics, he won more than anyone ever, and he got into a bit of a jam with a bong.  So when he says "I have represented our country on the world stage.  I know a lot about winning, and I know about fucking up," the ad would run a picture of him on an Olympic podium with the flag, then a picture of him with a shitload of medals, then the photo of him and the bong.  

Everyone knows Phelps.  Many people like him, or at least respect him.  I don't think anyone hates him.  Apparently he dislikes Trump and he strikes me as having some assholery in him, but I don't know how authentically he swears.  This seems like a good option though.

My next thought was Tiger Woods.  When he says "I have represented our country on the world stage.  I know a lot about winning, and I know about fucking up," the ad would run a picture of him holding the Ryder Cup, then a bunch of iconic pictures of him with trophies and/or fist-pumping, then ... well, there are probably a lot of fucking up photos to choose from but I'll just go with his mugshot.

But Tiger is friends with Trump so he wouldn't go for this.

I was stuck after Tiger.  I ruminated and finally struck on an amazing idea.  You know who can take on a raging asshole from Queens?  Another raging asshole from Queens, one who famously swears and acts badly but won a lot and who put representing America above almost everything else. 

Like John fucking McEnroe.  Johnny Mac viewed representing the US in Davis Cup play as a holy grail and he did more for the US Davis Cup team than just about anyone.  He won 77 titles on the tour including seven majors.  And he was famously thrown out of the Australian Open for cursing out an umpire.

Everyone knows him, I think he's generally respected, and he likes to smoke weed and shit on Trump.

And he has a great story about how his father, also named John McEnroe, sent Trump a letter in 2015 and Trump thought it was from the tennis star.

Anyway, I'm sure there are plenty of other candidates to star in my PSA.  I invite you to nominate some in the comments.  But please hurry because the Democrats can't get out of their own way.

We Want the Funk

What exactly is the funk?

"Well, it's funky," says Todd Boyd, a professor at the University of Southern California known for his expertise in race studies, cultural politics and hip hop culture. "But beyond that, I don't know if I can describe it. But when you hear it, you know what it is. And, perhaps more importantly, you know it when you feel it."

So begins a four-minute piece on NPR's All Things Considered describing a new documentary entitled We Want the Funk! from PBS' Independent Lens series about, well, the funk.

Directed by Stanley Nelson and Nicole London, Funk goes all the way back to the 1950s in search of a way to define and describe a genre that's hard to pinpoint but easy to feel. Luminaries such as George Clinton, Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson, and David Byrne lend their expertise and opinions to the project, with Clinton himself explaining how he evolved from straight-ahead Motown into turning this mutha out.

The documentary was released on April 8. You can watch the whole thing at PBS.org, and check out the trailer below. I, for one, want the funk.

Amplify

Sometimes we don't need to use too many words. Rarely, for me, as I'm wont to overwrite, expound broadly, use a paragraph when a sentence might suffice, fill the space with prose stylings. 

I digress. But we already know that. 

No, in this case, I think it better just to share a story that's really important, in hopes that by passing it along, it might find even a single someone who might need it.

Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran recently made an incredibly brave decision. In an episode of a Netflix documentary about the team entitled "The Clubhouse: A Year With the Red Sox", Duran revealed that he attempted suicide earlier in his career after the stress of trying to stay in the major leagues became too much to bear. In 2022, he put his mouth on his rifle and pulled the trigger, only to have the gun misfire and spare him.

Said Duran in a statement, "Talking about this wasn't easy, but it felt important. I knew that if I was going to share this, I had to be real about it. A few years ago, I found myself in a dark place, but I'm still here, and I'm so lucky I am. And if my story can help even one person, then it was worth telling."

Amen, young man. Glad you're still with us.

Reminder to all of us that anyone contemplating suicide can call 988 to reach the national Suicide and Crisis Hotline.

Farewell to the GOAT

Our admiration for Elena Delle Donne is long documented. Since our very first post about the then-Delaware Blue Hen in January 2012, we've featured her a dozen times in these pages. Today, perhaps our final post in her honor, at least with respect to her athletic exploits.

This week, Elena Delle Donne hung up her sneaks, retiring after a ten-season WNBA career. The two-time league MVP averaged 19.5 points and 6.7 boards per game, making 93.7% of her free throws and 39.2% of her three-pointers. In 2019, she led the Washington Mystics to the franchise's first and only league title, becoming the first player in WNBA to post 50/40/90 (field goal, three-point, and free throw percentage) season. That year, she missed three of 117 free throws. Oh, and she played most of the season with three herniated discs in her back.

Sadly, Delle Donne's final years mirrored those of Larry Bird, who spent his last seasons in Boston in perpetual pain, his back wrecked by years of pounding. Delle Donne played her entire career with Lyme Disease, and fought through a series of injuries. She missed the entire 2020 and 2024 seasons, and only played three games in 2021. 

Nonetheless, she's a first-ballot Hall of Famer. I'm sure her enshrinement in Springfield will be as important to her as her place in the G:TB Pantheon.

Economics and the Second Amendment - Redux 2025

I'm pulling a Grover Cleveland with one of my better G:TB posts because it's particularly relevant these days.  DJ Trump, who also pulled a Grover Cleveland, is not at all Gheorghe and does not read G:TB--if he did he would know that tariffs act as a tax and wouldn't have screwed up our 401(k)s.  I have Marls and Jamboni drafting a complaint right now, let us know if you want in.

DJ Trump recently announced that he will impose tariffs of 25% and 10% on imported steel and aluminum, respectively. The Dow dropped 350 points in response. Naturally, I plan to sue the President.

This isn't my idea--he had it first. Back in December 2017, Trump twat the following in response to a 350 point drop in the Dow:

People who lost money when the Stock Market went down 350 points based on the False and Dishonest reporting of Brian Ross of @ABC News (he has been suspended), should consider hiring a lawyer and suing ABC for the damages this bad reporting has caused - many millions of dollars!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

I'm not sure what the exact cause of action against the President would be. Surely not negligence. If the President can't be guilty of obstructing justice how should I expect to be made whole for acts of mere Executive stupidity?

I think my best claim is infringement of my Second Amendment rights. Let me explain.

I went to arguably the most conservative law school in the country. Before classes started I was encouraged to read "Principles of Economics" by N. Gregory Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush. I actually enjoyed the book and I dredged it up for this post.

Here's how Mankiw explains tariffs:

The increased price of foreign goods under the tariff allows domestic firms to increase their price, thus resulting in overproduction. The increased price also results in underconsumption. Consumers (i.e., everyone who isn't involved with the manufacture of steel and who isn't the government) loses the benefit of quandrangle C, D, E, and F. This because the government reaps rectangle E and manufacturers take trapezoid C. If your eyes haven't glazed over at this point, you realize that the entire market--everyone involved in this situation--loses the benefit of triangles D and F. Thus triangles D and F are a deadweight loss--absent the tariff, D and F would have been consumer surplus. Instead no one had D and F. Thus the tariff acts as a tax. And these triangles are the direct result of the aforementioned overproduction/underconsumption. This jumped out at me 15 years ago. Seriously, look at my notes in the margin.

This is important because conservatives abhor deadweight loss--when Kudlow, Laffer and Moore are against an economic policy you know it isn't conservative. And if that doesn't convince you, the fact that Democrats and unions support the tariffs should.

I personally dislike the tariffs because as Mankiw explains "When a country allows trade and becomes an importer of a good, domestic consumers of the good are better off, and domestic producers of the good are worse off. Trade raises the economic well-being of a nation in the sense that the gains of the winners exceed the losses of the losses of the losers."

Does that last sentence sound familiar? It probably does. Conservatives always say that the government shouldn't pick winners and losers. Here's what Paul Ryan has to say about this:

Elites in Washington should NOT be picking winners & losers—that’s a recipe for a closed economy—for cronyism.https://t.co/AcHJfVRwTE

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) July 28, 2016

Of course, Ryan also applauded Trump's move that helped keep Carrier's plant in Wisconsin. Cronyism indeed!

Anyway, the upshot of this tariff is that it will cost more to manufacture things that are made out of steel (and aluminum). This added cost will, of course, be passed along to the consumer. So expect to see an increase in the price of appliances, silverware, steel-belted radial tires, beer cans, cans of beer, cars and car parts, BBQ grills, BBQ grilling utensils, wire, pots and pans, foil, golf clubs, patio furniture, fencing, fencing swords, plumbing supplies, building supplies, nails, screws, brads, tacks, nuts, bolts, washers, garbage cans, bicycles, ladders, window frames, and mattress springs.

And things like guns and bullet shells. The President's steel tariff is really a tax on guns and bullets, making it more expensive for me to exercise my god-given Second Amendment right to bear arms. "Shall not be infringed" goddammit! I'm suing! And while I'm at it I'm going to claw back the money I lost in my 401(k) just like Trump said I should three months ago.

Huckleberry, Daisy, Genius

I learned this morning from the Dooger Val Kilmer had passed. And on Liberation Day of all days. 

Those that know me well are fully aware that Kilmer's Doc Holliday is my favorite cinematic portrayal, bar none. Just an absolute tour de force of charisma and confidence masking infirmity and belying the deepest of loyalties. I could go on. 

Kilmer's Chris Knight, on the other end of the thespian spectrum, is a brilliantly madcap performance, all big gestures and broad comedic glee. That role is well within my top 10 comedy performances. 

That one dude could give us both, in addition to so many other great on-screen efforts (with range from Top Gun's seething Iceman to Top Secret's giddy Nick Rivers to the brooding criminal Chris Shihirlis in Heat to melting into Jim Morrison's character in The Doors) was remarkable. In very meager tribute, here are a few of my favorite things:

Gheorghasbord

Been thinking a lot about what it'll take for us to climb out from the morass we slide deeper into with each passing day. It seem painfully obvious that so-called political elites are essentially useless, either because they stand to gain from others' pain or they lack the imagination to see how bad things might get. No, if we're getting out of this shit, it's gonna be normies hand in hand with privileged folks who take stands, sacrifice, and build movements in ways large and small. 

And, like it's often been, women are gonna sigh, roll up their sleeves, and start digging. So today we celebrate a couple of badass ladies who've made public points recently.

The first is former Skadden Arps associate Brenna Frey, who very publicly resigned from the prestigious firm after the partnership agreed to a settlement with the President* to avoid the consequences of a highly dubious Executive Order targeting it. Following in the footsteps of her colleague Rachel Cohen, Frey posted her resignation and reasons on LinkedIn, saying, 

Today the executive partner of my former firm sent us all an "update" that attempted to convince some of the best minds in the legal profession that he did us a solid by capitulating to the Trump administration's demands for fealty and protection money.  Fellow Skadden attorneys: If you agree with Jeremy London's position that the firm should not engage in "illegal DEI discrimination," should devote prestigious Skadden Fellows to the Trump administration's pet projects, and should help "politically disenfranchised groups who have not historically received legal representation from major national law firms," (taking into account the robust pro bono work that major national law firms already do), then by all means continue working there. But if that email struck you as a craven attempt to sacrifice the rule of law for self-preservation, I hope you do some soul-searching over the weekend and join me in sending a message that this is unacceptable (in whatever way you can). As one of my more eloquent former colleagues put it: "Do not pretend that what is happening is normal or excusable. It isn't."

There is only one acceptable response from attorneys to the Trump administration's demands: The rule of law matters. 

The rule of law matters. As an attorney, if my employer cannot stand up for the rule of law, then I cannot ethically continue to work for them.

A more prominent woman took a different sort of stand recently, quietly standing up to discrimination through the simple, decent act of making breakfast.

UCONN women's hoops redshirt freshman Jana El Alfy is a practicing Muslim, and observed Ramadan for the past month (it ended this weekend). During Ramadan, the devout cannot consume food or drink of any kind between dawn and sunset, making it particularly challenging for elite athletes. 

El Alfy's roommate is superstar senior Paige Bueckers. Each day during Ramadan, Bueckers woke up before dawn to make breakfast for her teammate. She told People Magazine, "So just anytime you can support somebody, especially when they're going through something. It's a lot better when you’re going through something with somebody."

Ain't that a novel concept. 

Finding somebodies to go through stuff with sounds like a recipe for positive outcomes. Let's get after it.

Earworm Filler

Rafael Devers set a major league record by whiffing 10 times in the Red Sox' first three games. To reverse that mojo, I come here to post a song that's been in my head for a minute. It's got a G:TB connection. Bonus!

Opening Day 2025

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. 

We’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside.

That’s right sports fans, it’s opening day in Major League Baseball. At least stateside, as we will ignore the fact that the Dodgers are already on pace to go 162-0 after sweeping a two game set from the Cubs in Japan. 

While Rob kicked us off with some anime hype yesterday, I wanted to make sure that we had some content for our more senior demographic - looking at you Whit. 

We will start with this banger of a jam for anybody that loved Saturday morning TV in the 1980s. 

Then we have this little ditty, which should appeal to all the fans of the ongoing Rob Lasso program. 

Teaching kids the right way to play the game long before Tom Emanski’s teams won back to back to back AAU championships with the kid who threw the ball into a garbage can from centerfield. Plus, the San Diego Chicken and an Italian-American “dugout wizard” that lived in a blackboard. Interestingly, Zman will tell you he was a dugout wizard his senior year in college. Who are we to argue?

You will also note from the video that Pete Rose was guest on the show. Clearly, they missed an opportunity by not having Pete teach Michelle and Louie the intricacies of a three team parlay, or having the chicken break Pete’s legs for not paying up. 

Finally, for the Mets fans out there, hope springs eternal at least for a few minutes…

Happy opening day!

Play Ball!

Baseball returns to our loving arms tomorrow, with the Yankees' Carlos Rodon throwing out the first pitch of the season on American soil against the Brewers at 3:00. And while we won't follow it as closely as we once did (though the Mets' contingent here has significant reason for enthusiasm), we're still romantics at heart. Which is why we offer you this traditional season-opening sentiment:

Lotta ball left. Stay on target.

If you want a different sort of wholesome season-opening content, check out this video of Astros manager Joe Espada letting a rookie know he made it to the show.

Idol Worship

Let it never be said that we lack the fortitude to admit our mistakes. Today, I stand before you chastened and more than a little bit disappointed. 

It's a cliche that one should never meet their heroes. The little-known corollary is that one shouldn't elevate a politician to hero status. The shorter version: Fucking Fetterman.

We were one of the first major outlets to boost the Pennsylvanian's public profile, offering this puff piece about the aspiring Senator's rise. Later, we endorsed him to succeed Joe Biden as POTUS. We liked his everyman shtick, his independent streak, his muscular defense of traditional liberal values. 

As it turns out, we were conned.

Since the inauguration of the current POTUS and his minions' gleeful dismantling of the Federal government, many things about the Democrats' response have been wanting. You can count the number of senior leaders in the opposition party who are publicly resisting on two hands. The hand-sitters number in the scores. And the collaborators, well we've got some of them, too.

Led, sadly, by John Fetterman.

The big doofus was the first Democrat to travel to Mar-A-Lago, calling That Fucking Guy "kind" after their meeting. He's been a reliable vote for Cabinet nominees, one of only five Dems to support 10 of the clowns who now lead agencies. Not only did he vote in support of the budget agreement that handed the GOP a win, he lashed out at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes in the aftermath, telling her to "deal with it".

Finally, in a particularly grotesque bit of political theater, the outspoken supporter of Israel accepted a gift from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the form of a silver-plated pager, like the kind that the Israelis detonated en masse to injure and kill Hamas operatives. Regardless of your stance on the tragedy in Gaza, a sitting U.S. Senator jovially celebrating death and injury is fucking disgusting.

Other Democrats are starting to get uncomfortable with Fetterman, too. Cumberland County (PA) Democratic Party chair Matt Roan wrote an op-ed yesterday calling on the state's junior senator to resign, saying, "Fetterman no longer represents the interests of those who elected him, he seems disinterested in serving in his important position, and his actions in the Senate are actively harming Pennsylvanians."

Sadly, though not reluctantly, I agree. 

U.S. Reed and the 49-Foot Memory Maker

We recently passed the five-year anniversary of the moment the country shut down and the course of our nation's future and our lives changed irreversibly. We're better off from a health perspective, I suppose, but the number of ways in which we've gone backwards are hard to count, at least without causing inchoate rage.

Rather than marinating in anger (again), we'll use this moment to once again call back to a happier time. As I type from my couch in advance of not moving and watching 10+ hours of college basketball, we'll keep this post going, celebrating an unequivocally good thing.

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

There's an ongoing political meme happening in the zeitgeist at the moment because That Fucking Guy mused aloud about whether people were better off today than four years ago. Over at The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last has been making sport of the question, pointing out that four years ago we were locked in our houses afraid to touch anything while also being told that this little viral kerfuffle was going to go away in a few minutes.

As for the Gheorghieverse, we were more focused on important things like sports. The cancellation of the NCAA Tournament meant that all we had left were the memories. So as a reminder of that bygone and damned time and a celebration of what we have back that we took for granted, today we re-up a post from March 2020. Do enjoy.

Big Besiktas fan here. Go Black Eagles.

It's increasingly likely that we'll not see anything resembling the live sports to which we're accustomed for an extended period of time. The television/radio listings in this morning's Washington Post, which usually run to eight column inches of small type, offer us a meager two entries today: a Turkish Super Lig soccer match between Besiktas and Galatasaray at noon, and the World Series of Bowling Storm XI at 1:30.

If you think I'm not watching that soccer game from Turkey that features two of the country's big three, you don't know me all that well.

But if the games must not go on, we do have the benefit of the memories of the games that did to remind us why this time of year is often such a thrill. 

Thirty-nine years ago yesterday, and I remember it as if it were, like, 20 years ago. The shot Arkansas' U.S. Reed hit to beat Louisville is one of my earliest NCAA Tournament memories. The Razorbacks, seeded fifth in the West, fell behind fourth seed and defending National Champion Louisville with five seconds to play on a Derek Smith jumper in the the lane. The Cardinals' press had bothered Arkansas all game, so coach Eddie Sutton instructed his team to just get the ball as far up the court as they could.

And then this happened:

Sports was pretty cool.

Red Flagg

It’s pretty much given that Duke’s Cooper Flagg will exercise his one-and-done rights and declare his intention to ball professionally when the season ends. The freshman is the presumptive No. 1 pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, a kid who exceeded even the lofty expectations surrounding him when he arrived on campus. 

Flagg caused a bit of a stir recently when he said in a piece in The Athletic that he might consider returning to Duke. “Sh*t, I want to come back next year,” was the exact quote. It was a lengthy story, however, and was said in the context of how much he enjoys college and competing for championships at the highest level. Add the fact that the Blue Devils have the No. 1-ranked recruiting class for 2025 on the way, which with Flagg and whomever else returns would make for an embarrassment of riches and presumably increase the fun. 

Few believe he’ll return to school, though the story and Flagg’s remarks ignited the hooperati and various opinionators about what he should do. The majority take is that he should declare for the NBA Draft, because by delaying even one year he could cost himself tens of millions of dollars in the long haul. 

Perhaps, but there’s a case to be made for returning to school for another year, precisely because it potentially benefits him over the long haul, in terms of physical maturity. No one disputes that Flagg can compete at the highest level. He demonstrated that for an entire college season and against NBA players last summer during pre-Olympic workouts. But if he declares for the Draft and turns pro this Spring, he will have jumped from high school and its four-month season, to top-tier college competition and its six-month season, to the NBA and its eight-to-nine month season and 82-plus game grind, all in the span of three years. And he’ll still be a teenager. 

Recall that he re-classified in high school to graduate a year early and enter college at age 17. He doesn’t turn 20 until Dec. 2026. He’s 6-9 and 205 pounds, but his body isn’t yet fully developed, and he’ll still be expected to compete, and excel, daily against grown-ass men. Tall ask. 

There’s no way to accelerate physical maturity, and another year of college would provide a small step in that direction. The financial argument for Flagg to turn pro immediately is compelling. I’ll spare details related to the salary cap and contract structures because 1) I don’t completely understand it, 2) it will rupture attention spans, and 3) the people who devise such systems are often those who love numbers and hate sports and should not be encouraged. The upshot is that rookie draft choices are slotted into early contracts and are not permitted to bargain for comparatively large numbers until three or four years into the league. 

If Flagg returns to Duke, he’d delay eligibility into his second, or so-called “rookie max”, contract. As a guide, last season’s No. 1 draft pick, French teenager Zaccharie Risacher, received a deal from Atlanta worth $57 million over four years, an average of a little over $14 million per season. Maximum contracts are based on a percentage of a team’s total salary cap. Projecting ahead with annual increases, if Flagg enters the NBA next season he will be eligible for an extension in 2029-30 that could pay him $67.8 million per season. 

So, by delaying one year, he could cost himself more than $50 million, the difference between the first year of a max deal and the last of a rookie contract. If his health and productivity hold, a similar dynamic could play out between the end of his second contract and start of a third deal. 

The advent of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) and player pay have somewhat mitigated the traditional argument for college players to turn pro immediately. The question used to be: “What if he gets hurt and is never the same again and torches his pro career?” But Flagg’s valuation and endorsement deals this season are reported to be in the $4-million range. If he returns to Duke, he is projected to make more than $16 million next season. The decision then becomes whether to jump into the deep end now, or hope that another year’s maturity will benefit him down the line and perhaps help extend his career. 

Implicit in that call is answering the unknowable question: Where might he more likely suffer severe injury, during a college season workload, or in the middle of the nine-month NBA season as a 21-year-old when his body is still developing? Was his recent ankle sprain in the ACC Tournament a one-off or an omen? If he begins the NBA journey this year, there’s no telling what sort of toll it may take on his body by his mid- and late 20s, when he reaches the peak of his earning power. Perhaps he’s a physical outlier and is productive and efficient into his 30s. But should that be assumed for someone at 18? (We pause for a moment to recognize LeBron James, athletic marvel and possible mutant. 

The NBA’s career leading scorer also arrived in the league as a teenager and through talent, will, genetic blessings, self-care and good fortune, elevated himself into the GOAT discussion. At age 40, in his 22nd season, he is still balling at elite level. He averages 25 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists, while shooting almost 52 percent from the field and 38 percent from 3-point range and playing 35 minutes per game. Consider, too, that he’s played 287 playoff games, the equivalent of 3½ entire seasons on top of the regular calendar payload; one might say he’s actually played 25½ seasons. Enjoy him now, because we will not see his like again.) 

Look, Flagg is going to make generational money regardless of when he turns pro. He and his progeny and extended family will be able to buy boats and bunkers and comforts to navigate our deteriorating landscape for decades to come. They can afford eggs. Any decision he makes requires financial advisors. He may choose “adult” or delay full immersion for a year, and the difference will be “wealthy” or “wealthier.” Pretty good gig.

A Brief History of Time

Eleven American lads crossed the pond last week to engage in a frank exchange of ideas and promote American values (the old ones, not the new ones) to our friends in the UK. Though this effort was disguised in occasionally drunken tomfoolery under the cover of rugby rooting, the impact on our sister people in England and Wales was no doubt profound.

Here follows a loosely chronological travelogue from my biased perspective. Most names have been withheld or changed to their Welsh equivalent to protect those who pretend to be respectable in their stateside lives.

Five of us left the U.S. on Wednesday evening for an overnight in London. Smart idea in plan, ludicrous in execution. After a few hours of napping in our luxuriously appointed hostel (78 steps up to the top floor), we did a rock and roll-themed pub tour in Soho. Our guide, a theatrically charismatic Cuban-Russian-Swedish fellow with a background in astrophysics and a current one-man show (a naked homage to James Bond) entitled "Pull My Goldfinger" took us to four different pubs with a musical connection. At the beginning, he told us that we'd only have 15 minutes or so at each stop, so perhaps we should only order half-pints. Challenge extended and challenge accepted. Friends, we did not order half-pints.

We dined that evening at The Guinea, an institution that was the local for the father of one of our number back in the 70s. Food was top notch, wine flowed like water, another of our number fell off a barstool at the neighboring pub and shattered his mug (possible that this was your humble scribe), and then we took our leave. 

After a stop at a chippy, another team member crawled up the final two flights of stairs (possible, once again, that this was the same humble scribe) and we passed an uneventful evening. Uneventful for all but one of us. We'll call him Hrrbrrt. 

At some point in the night, he awoke in the pitch dark with water pouring down on him. Terrified, he inched his way along the wall for (literally) an hour before he made his way out of the bathroom and turned on the light to the main room, soaking wet, his heart racing. We pieced it all together slowly the next morning. As best we can tell, Hrrbrrt somehow passed out in the tub, then accidentally kicked the shower mechanism and turned on the water. There were no windows in the bathroom. 

We know the timeline to be accurate, as his smartwatch captured his thrashings and elevated heartrate. As he finally calmed down, he said to another of us, "I'm 57 years old. When is this going to end?"

I don't know when it's going to end, but it wasn't to be this weekend.

Unidentified Team Member with Gws

We gathered ourselves, slowly, and caught a train to Cardiff, now numbering eight. Reached our well-appointed flat on Penarth Road, in the shadow of the train station, by the early afternoon. Among the appointments, several cases of Guinness thoughtfully provided by our host. Right back into the breach, then, lads.

Also in the apartment, this sign:

In the grand scheme of things, that Friday was probably the least eventful evening. We split into groups for dinner, one going for takeaway Indian food, another to Welsh Applebee's, as the chain pub came to be derisively known. Chrrlyy and I split off looking for proper whiskey, failed at that, but did find The City Arms in the shadow of the Principality Stadium, which would become a bit of a home office for the lads.

It was there we met a pair of young Welshmen who worked in Parliament and began our learning journey. One of them had studied at The College of William and Mary. Good school. Hard to get into. Small world. 

Proper pub, The City Arms

The night closed with what turned out to be one of the mini-themes of the weekend. The last four of us standing in Cardiff's nightlife district (a too-convenient .3 mile walk from our flat) stopped into KFC (yes, that's correct) because Hrrbrrt and Whytttny (The Welsh eschew vowels with abandon) wanted a snack. While they waited for the food, a young Welsh lass came up to me and one other and asked, "Are you Americans?"

I responded in the affirmative and she said, "Can I ask you a question?" To which I said, "Yes, we hate him, too". 

Turns out that wasn't her line of inquiry. Instead, she said quizzically but not unkindly, "Why are you here?" When we explained the nature of our quest to see a rugby match in all six of the Nations, I do believe she was impressed. Right up until Whttnyy made a vulgar display of the relationship between Kentucky and West Virginia, which was her cue to ride off on her bicycle.

The Welsh ladies, you see, seem to be besotted by yours truly. [Did he say besotted? Do you think he meant 'bemused'? Or befuddled? Ah, fuck it. Let a fella dream.]

On that night, as each of the next two, I struck up lengthy conversations in multiple venues with Welsh gals, to the great glee and confusion of my mates. I learned a ton, friends, about the Welsh language, culture, geography, and I perhaps gave a good account of Americans at the same time. I don't think I've talked to that many women in bars in the past decade combined. Could be I was born in the wrong nation. Cymru am byth.

Saturday was match day, and as we took a few trips up to the city center for coffee and breakfast, one could sense the energy rising, the red of the Welsh mixing with England supporters' whites, the hum of a big-event day growing slowly but inexorably.

Same species, allegedly

Took us a while to get rolling after breaking our fasts, which turns out to be a bit of a metaphor for the match. First bar we went to was packed, so we headed away from the arena. Second spot, an outdoor garden, blew out their nitrogen lines and only had flat beer. On we went, undeterred, to another too-crowded place. Finally back to a bit more of a posh spot where we found purchase and a video screen showing the Italy/Scotland match - the first of the day's three Six Nations contests.

To the arena, then, bang downtown, looming over all of the pubs, standing guard over a plucky people. As we reached our seats (in three groups spread across the stadium), two young Welshwomen sat down next to me. Whattyaknow about that? The streak continued! A pair of Emilys, friends through their fathers, and lovely to chat with.

Top to bottom:
Chrrlyy, Clyffy, Jyssyn, Rwb, The Emilys

Less lovely, the performance of the home side. Wales are in a bit of drought on the international level. Understatement, that. They've lost 17 consecutive international matches. Their squad is young and inexperienced, and they fired their manager in the midst of this Six Nations cycle. Nonetheless, their enmity for the English is never far from the surface, and this correspondent expected the red side to make a go of it.

Friends, they did not. First, though, a bit about the atmosphere. The Principality is the largest retractable roofed stadium in Europe. It seats 75,000, and with the roof closed, it was a bubbling cauldron, complete with pre-match pyrotechnics so massive one could feel the heat of the flames from 75 meters away. A choir sang a medley of rousing local tunes, and the anthem gave this American goosebumps. 

And then the match started. England took a mere 150 seconds to score their first try, then followed that with another seven minutes later. Wales looked to have drawn one back in between those tries, only to have the score ruled out by video review. On 31 minutes, Welshman Ben Thomas scored the first of his two tries (that bright moment captured below), which made the score 14-7 after a conversion. Wales' resurgence was short-lived, however, as England restored the 14-point margin two minutes later and added two more tallies before the halftime break to lead, 33-7.

And that, gentle reader, was that. After England scored to make it 40-7 15 minutes into the second half, we adjourned to The City Arms to try to beat the post-match traffic. At least we were able to get in. 

England kept its foot on the gas, even scoring a try in added time to try in vain to catch the French to win the tournament. The 68-14 final was Wales' worst-ever home defeat in Six Nations play. Our group of intrepid travelers fell to 0-3 in backing the home side on our sojourns. England are not happy to see us coming in 2027.

We spent the rest of the evening at The City Arms, where I chatted with a pair of young Welsh lasses (21 year-olds, as it turns out, which...yeeps) for 45 minutes or so, again to the glee of the rest of the lads. One was named Ffion, and she gave me an extended tour of the Welsh language. You learn something every day. Headed home amidst the carnage of a big event in a city centre.

Sunday was meant for taking it easy, as we all had to catch early trains back to London to catch flights home on Monday. We were meant for ignoring that direction.

After a bit of edification at Cardiff Castle (the keep you see in the photos below was built in 1130), Jyssyn and I made our way to The Elevens (so named because its owner, Welsh soccer legend Gareth Bale, wore number 11 throughout his storied career). We went to watch The Old Firm match between Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers, one of the legendary fixtures in world football. The rest of the lads joined us a bit later.

The lads. Behind us, Cardiff Castle and The Principality Stadium

Classy pub, The Elevens. A large contingent of Rangers fans lived and died on every kick, their exhortations and angry recriminations fun and funny at the same time. They left happy after their side overcome blowing a 2-0 lead to win, 3-2 at their rivals' stadium. We left, too, for a calm afternoon of winding down.

Ha! No we didn't. We stayed to watch Arsenal/Chelsea. We stayed still longer to watch the Carabao Cup final between Liverpool and Newcastle in the company of a number of supporters of both. Newcastle famously hadn't won a trophy in 70 years, and it was a blast to see the joy erupt from their backers when they held on for a well-deserved 2-1 win. And then we left.

To go around the corner to Temple 7 Bar to listen to live music and drink more beers. I chatted up the lady bartender for while, closing out my account with the distaff Welsh. Got a couple of free shots of whiskey for the boys because of my repartee.

Finally, back home to get some rest before early-morning wakeup calls. After we had a nightcap and told stories.

All of us made our trains back to time, and spent a lonnnng day flying back to parts American. I left Dulles at 6:15 and headed directly to coach a high school soccer team. Once I got home and the adrenaline wore off, I felt exhaustion like I can't really recall. Today's a bit better, but it's weird to be hungover after not having had a drink.

It's not weird to feel the afterglow of time spent in fellowship, joy, and love with a bunch of one's besties. While there are parts of the trip I won't remember for long (in the case of our evening London, I didn't remember parts of even the next morning), the overall experience will take up a prominent chapter of my life's story for some time to come.

Love you, boys. Yma o Hyd.

Tree Goats

Argan trees grow in Morocco, where people eat the trees' fruit and press the seeds for oil (don't tell RFK!).  And where goats climb them to eat the fruit and leaves.  

I know a thing or two about goats.  They'll eat anything.  They can climb anything.  They can herd up to make it through anything.  You can put one in a goatapult and it will cling for dear life, no matter how hard you actuate the device.  But climb a tree?  That's news to me.

It might be news to you too, so here's a video featuring someone channeling her inner Margaret Jo McCullin and herds of rascally goats hoofing it up and down some argan trees.  Starting at 5:47, you can see some goats that have been herded into the equivalent of caprine hell, a Bummingdome if you will, forced to stand in one uncomfortable place for an extended period of time.  As the narrator says, "Those goats standing in one spot are, unfortunately, unhappy goats."

May all the goats in your collective lives be happy goats.

Postcards from Abroad

Rob and I are headed to Wales!

By the time you read this, we will be will on our way to Cardiff... if all has gone well. You never know with air travel. We will be draped in these:

I mean, as national flags go, there are way worse, right?

Here's what else you need to know about Wales:

• a country that is part of the United Kingdom
• bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west
• bordered by England to the east
• population: 3.16 million
• size: 8,000 square miles (roughly the size of New Jersey)
• Languages: Welsh and English
• Food: Welsh rarebit, lots of lamb dishes

Famous people from Wales:

• Richard Burton
• Dylan Thomas
• T. E. Lawrence
• Anthony Hopkins
• Terry Jones
• Catherine Zeta-Jones
• Henry Morton Stanley
• Christian Bale
• Laura Ashley
• Henry (Captain) Morgan
• Rob Brydon
• Timothy Dalton
• Desmond Llewelyn
• Jonathan Pryce
• Matthew Rhys 
• Charles Rolls
• Ian Woosnam
• Gareth Bale

And, relevantly...

Sir Gareth Owen Edwards CBE (born 12 July 1947) is a Welsh former rugby union player who played scrum-half and has been described by the BBC as "arguably the greatest player ever to don a Welsh jersey". Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Swansea, Wales.

Generally speaking: Wales is a poor, coal-mining country, the Welsh loathe the English, and they didn't quite understand why Yanks would bother to come see their rugby team when I was there (2000). 

How about music?

Iechyd Da!