BRONX, NY – Tomorrow is the NFL Draft, so let’s talk about baseball and hockey instead. Don’t get me wrong, I love football, but with Roger Goodell at the helm, the league has turned into a 24/7/365 non-stop, overdrive hype machine. So, excuse me if I pass up my chance to offer up the elevendy-billionth (Different Matt’s fave fake number) mock draft you’ve seen leading up to Thursday night. Besides, I’m kinda bummed about Oakland losing yet another of its sports teams.
For a kid who grew up during the 1970s, it was impossible to ignore the sports scene going on in Northern California. While San Francisco hogged the spotlight in sightseeing, song mentions, and just about everything else, Oakland brilliantly outshone their Bay Area brother when it came to athletics. John Madden‘s (and later Tom Flores‘) Raiders were perennial Super Bowl contenders, the 1975 Golden State Warriors, coached by the great Al Attles and led by a couple of guys named Rick Barry and Jamaal Wilkes, won the NBA Championship, and baseball’s Oakland A‘s were arguably baseball’s most formidable team, and definitely its coolest.
So, we all know what happened. The Raiders ditched Oakland once, came back again, and finally ditched for good when they f**ked off to Vegas in 2020. The Warriors left too. They moved close by, to San Fran, but they still skipped out on what was a seriously loyal and rabid fan base in Oakland. Now comes word that baseball’s Oakland Athletics will soon be leaving for Las Vegas and, I gotta say, this really sucks. I know they’ve been playing in what’s basically a seagull toilet for years now, but baseball, the city of Oakland, and A’s ownership should have figured out a way to keep them right where they are. The mere thought of the ultra-funky green and gold history of the Athletics being shipped off to that soul-sucking slot machine of a city just makes me sick to my stomach.
Naturally, MLB’s jackass Commissioner Rob Manfred is in full spin mode saying he’s sorry for the fans of Oakland but that they can be “more competitive” playing in Nevada. Give me an ever-loving break, you gap-toothed weasel! Baseball, and pretty much all the other sports, gives lip service to caring about fans, but it’s all garbage. The memories of Vida Blue and Catfish Hunter and Reggie and Rollie and Rudi and (later) Rickey, were all born by the Bay and should be able to stay there. Having no more major sports teams in the city of Oakland, California is an absolute shame.
Schmid Happens. On Monday night, as the Devils were somehow in the process of tying up a series that looked like it would be a walkover for the New York Rangers, I started texting my good bud, former MTM contributor, and monster pucks fan, Cheesy Bruin. He mentioned that Jersey switching to Akira Schmid in goal was now in the Rangers’ heads a bit. He further opined that we would find out how much around “halfway through Game 5.” More importantly, once we mentioned his name, we were off to the races with t-shirt ideas and potential back page headlines. Here’s a small sampling (most of them his): RANGERS SCARED SCHMIDLESS; SCHMIDDY ISLAND; SCHMID HITS THE FAN; DEVILS KNOW THEIR SCHMID; SCHMID OR GET OFF THE POT; SCHMIDDY SCHMIDDY BANG BANG; RANGERS IN DEEP SCHMID… anyway, you get the picture. So, we not only have a competitive series all of a sudden, we also have a ton of wordplay potential.
OK, that’s all for today. Come back tomorrow for Buddy Diaz, who’s been busy watching old episodes of Sex and the Schmiddy.
