Championship Schmampionship

By RICK RANTAMAKI http://rantamaki.blogspot.com

So you want your team to win a championship, eh? But what does that mean to you? Really. . . give it some thought. Unless you’re on the team, or somehow related to a team member, or part of team management and/or ownership, or ticket sales, or have a hand in merchandising, a championship only serves to provide you with a few days of bragging rights, maybe even a week or two, at best – especially given the ever-shrinking off-season(s).

(Of course, this argument does not address gambling, which is illegal in most states, even though it accounts for 98 percent of all gambling. . . but, since that’s illegal, I’m going to avoid that illegal-ness in this post. . . but, that doesn’t mean I won’t address it later.)

Perhaps a championship would justify that shirt, jersey, or hat, you’ve been proudly sporting around town, professing your undying love for your favorite team. (Which is merely a marketing tool for that franchise – and yes, that includes colleges. You actually pay THEM to advertise FOR them.)

But, what does that merchandise say about you? That you’re hometown team is the best (be it recently or in the past)? That you’re proud to live in, or once lived in, the team’s hometown? That you root for a winner, therefore, you are a winner? Or, does it signify the opposite, say, that you fear no ridicule for wearing the logo of a team that hasn’t even come anywhere near a championship. . . in ages, if ever. (This used to be the moniker of Red Sox fans, but now their logo has come to mean, “This bandwagon has a better view,” or “I root for a team that is willing to do most anything to outspend those damn Yankees.”)

And how about those player specific team jerseys? C’mon, think about it. Given the modern free-agency market, not many players start and finish their careers with the same team. So, that hundred-plus dollar jersey you’ve been wearing to most everything (including weddings. . . and funerals), may become obsolete by the time the trading deadline rolls around. . . then you’re left feeling like yesterday’s fool (i.e. me on the doorstep of another failed date).

But, let’s go beyond trying to justify fan wardrobe. Let’s examine the impact these championship games really have on the average fan (I'll use myself as an example. . . so you can put your hand down). I once thought they’d mean more [to me]; that somehow a championship would make my life better. Say, for instance, my co-workers (who would, undoubtedly, be impressed and inspired by my amazing ability to become a fan of a championship caliber team) would carry me around on their shoulders, while other co-workers lead the procession, shimmying their shoulders like they were in a Pat Benatar video, as we glide through the corridors in the churning fog singing “What a Feeling”. But then again, my expectations may exceed reality.

Look, I’ve been an avid (not rabid) sports fan for most of my life. I look forward to watching major sporting events. I used to even get swept up in the whole Olympics thing, but that was back when the Cold War pitted us against those evil commies. “USA! USA! USA! Do you believe in fabricated miracles?! YES!”

Today, I essentially root for teams based on two simple factors: my childhood favorites (these are my primary teams), AND I’ll root for the team of whatever town I’m residing in – an obligation as a vested tax-paying citizen.

As an Atlanta area resident, my perception of championships and what they mean to me has certainly been altered.

I’d experienced nothing quite like the Braves’ worst-to-first run in ’91. It was pure ecstasy during the closing weeks of that magically, improbable season. Atlanta was a town filled with tomahawks and war chants, messages of encouragement written in soap on car windows, and everywhere you turned folks were honking their horns in support as they rode by (or maybe they were just correcting my driving technique). Every pitch during those playoffs and the ensuing World Series had us torn somewhere between agony and euphoria. If they had actually won the World Series that year, I think the entire town would’ve exploded in delirium, and there would've been “. . . cats and dogs living together. . . mass hysteria.”

The downside of such a tremendous rush is just that, the downside. The Braves essentially owned their division for 14 consecutive seasons, and not even when they won the World Series in ’95 (ironically enough, by defeating my favorite childhood team, the Cleveland Indians) did it even come close to the magic of that worst-to-first season. Mainly because many of the players on the ’91 team were already gone and the fans had grown accustomed to the business-side of the game.

The thrill was gone. We were, in effect, simply rooting for the uniforms – the names were interchangeable and the sense of personal investment was lost.

Today’s Braves are a shadow of their former selves. The franchise is under corporate ownership and the personnel changes reflect it. The framework of success which led them through the 90’s has been dismantled and nowadays the team struggles to vie for even a Wildcard spot. On top of that, the whole ballpark experience has become a struggle to defend your life savings – with the surcharges imposed by both the stadium and the league on: tickets, parking, food, drinks, and merchandise. We feel less the fan and more the victim [of yesterday's success]. A championship today seems hardly worth the investment.

Yet another example of a championship realized occurred in 2002 when the Buckeyes (another of my favorite childhood teams) won the National Football Championship.

If you’d asked me in the mid-90’s if I thought my beloved Buckeyes would win a National Football Championship in my lifetime, I would’ve honestly said, “never.” Yes, they won it in ’68, but I was still in diapers. . . so I don’t consider that a championship in my ‘sports-aware’ lifetime. (Note: I'm not counting that controversial '70 title.)

My pessimism regarding the Buckeye's ability to compete with the premier teams was predicated on them being outmatched by schools with suspect recruiting practices and questionable student policies. My team couldn’t lure the talent, they couldn’t draw the upper echelon coaches, and they either couldn’t or wouldn’t adapt to a modern game plan. I was resigned to accepting the Big Ten Championship as their highest ‘achievable’ honor. That is, until they broke through in ‘02 (fortunately, by the time ‘02 rolled around, I was no longer in diapers. . . but virtually into Depends).

What I didn’t expect, in that mind-blowing, watershed moment in my sports world, was the empty feeling that accompanied the thrill of victory. Perhaps if I watched the game in the ol’ stomping grounds, it would’ve meant more – knocking back beers with the ol’ gang, an explosion of popcorn, chips, and hot wings showering down around us as we danced away the game’s final seconds. Instead, I watched the game some 800 miles away. . . alone. The only witness to my fist-pumping leaps about the room was Rusty, our beta fish – I can only imagine what it must’ve looked like to him from inside his bowl. (If I looked ridiculous, ol’ Rusty never said anything, and he carried it to his grave.)

Not long afterwards, though, that victory was tainted by the ensuing Maurice Clarett fiasco, and the questionable tactics I blasted other schools for committing (the recruiting violations and preferential academic treatment of athletes), came back to tarnish the Buckeyes’ championship. My sense of pride slid somberly into a cloud of shame. Oh, how I wanted to savor that victory. (Yeah, and although that crystal football remains in the Ohio State trophy case, it might as well be a lemon.)

So, experiencing a championship as a fan (for me at least) seems anti-climatic. Like when you’ve spent countless hours blasting your way through multiple levels of Doom only to realize the final battle is far less-than epic. If anything, you should have your fog machine ready and enjoy the fleeting moment with some fellow fans, so at least your high-fives and chest bumps aren’t wasted on Rusty.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think my co-workers need a little help with their "Love is a Battlefield" dance floor sequence.

Copywrite 2009 Rick Rantamaki

An Old Family Recipe - For Disaster

Hey, it's almost turkey time again! So, by popular demand, I'm re-posting my old family recipe for Wild Turkey Surprise. Now, I'm not much of a chef and, well, aside from fixing a bowl of cereal, this is the only dish I'm permitted to prepare indoors (that was, until last year's fiasco with the fire department, but your results may vary). It's an old family recipe that's really hard to screw up (you can take that as a challenge...unless, of course, you have an aversion to sharp objects).


Wild Turkey Surprise













Ingredients:

• 2 boxes of wine (the white kind)


• 1 turkey (no larger than the oven)


• 4 loafs of bread (preferably stale)


• 1 box of crazy straws


• 3 Grade A large eggs (anything lower and you’ll get sent straight to your room – without supper)


• 8 stalks of celery


• 6 maids-o-milking (strictly for the entertainment value)


• 1 large yellow onion


• 2 teaspoons of ground sage


• 2 sticks of real butter


• 1 large knife (should look lethal)


• salt and pepper


• paprika

Open wine box per instructions. Dispense into wine glass and garnish with crazy straw. Sample. Tell the kids, “It’s a juice box for grown-ups.”

Position oven rack at lowest setting and preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Sip wine.

Release turkey from vacuumed-sealed, impact-resistant packaging. Careful with that knife. Sip wine. Remove turkey neck and giblets and wave them about like puppets until your spouse tires of your “Who’s on first?” routine.

Extend crazy straw range with additional crazy straws. Test new connections. All leaks shall be repaired until the straw assembly is free of all leaks. Send kids out of the kitchen.

Find your choppy-board thingy. Chop onion into little onion pieces. Careful with that big knife! Avoid touching crazy straw with those oniony hands, cause boy that’s not a pleasant combination. Chop up the celery, too, into smaller celeries, too. Refill wine. Call the in-laws to come pick up these meddling kids.

In saucepan (did I tell you you’re going to need a saucepan, cause you’re going to need a saucepan), in saucepan, melt 1 stick-o-butter over medium heat. Add chopped up stuff. Refill wine.

Break bread and moisten with the water. Place in the place of the large mixing bowl. Replace empty box-o-wine with this box I found over here’s the box I told you to get for this recipe. Open with that knife is sharp! Get the door, will ya?

You tell your in-laws that you’re tired of them telling you how to raise their children...and their cat smells funny too. Why do they always look so mad? Jeez, I thought they'd never leave.

Rub the toilet seat with this stick of butter I found and wait for your spouse to go to the bathroom. This is going to be really funny. Do you smell something?

Remove burning saucepan from stove and swat smoke alarm with THIS THING IS HOT! You were gonna have that sofa cleaned with a slip cover anyway I found a bigger cup so we don’t have to mess with that silly glass thingy no more. Who left this turkey in the sink?

And that, my friends, is how you make wine box snowshoes. Be sure to tune in next time when my wife says, “Those maids don’t need any of your help?”

Copywrite 2009 Rick Rantamaki http://rantamaki.blogspot.com/

A Veteran's Day

By RICK RANTAMAKI http://rantamaki.blogspot.com

Did you know it took an Act of Congress to decide whether or not to include an apostrophe in Veterans Day? (And you thought they were doing something productive.) This is because inserting a comma after the ‘n’ makes it singular possessive. Though, this doesn't seem to faze some calendar printers or advertising firms. So, with that version in mind, I'll share a singular possessive slice of my initiation into the Navy during Cold War I.

(You may find many veterans don’t talk much about their military days, unless in the company of other veterans, mainly because it’s difficult for civilians to fathom its impact.)

Two weeks after graduating high school, I was on my way to the San Diego Naval Training Center. To that point, in my somewhat nomadic life, I had been no farther west than Indiana. So, when offered a choice between the Navy’s Great Lakes training facility or San Diego, well, what’s a young-blooded American boy supposed to do?

The trip to San Diego not only marked my first trip out west, but the first time I would board a plane. I had no idea what I was in for, except that the beaches of Southern California held promise (glorious golden-blonde promise), though it would be months before I’d see any beach.

Since the bus ride from the San Diego airport to the Naval base was mercilessly short (the base was literally at the end of the airport’s runway), I, and the other trepid fools on that bus, had no time to second guess our life choices.

That afternoon we became well accustomed to standing behind the white line as we were: checked-in, inoculated, had our heads shaved (it's amazing how different someone looks after their head is shaved - it only took a few brief minutes for me to fail to recognize the guy I was just standing next to, let alone myself), and issued our mothball-scented uniform long before we even got a whiff of the powdered milk awaiting us at the mess hall.

The following morning, our company commander introduced himself with a boisterous rendition of the Star Spangled Banner – accompanied by fervent clashing of a trash can and its lid (I distinctly remember thinking, “this only happens in the movies, right?”). We stood in an orderly fashion. . . well, as best as a group of confused civilians could. . . and after countless pushups and a barrage of incentive-laced profanities, we formed ranks like a group of guys willing to do anything to just to survive the morning.

By the end of our first full day, we were beginning and ending every sentence with “sir” and we’d transferred our gear into what would become our home barracks for the duration of boot camp.

I knew we were in for some fun when I entered the “head” (Navy-talk for bathroom) and discovered it was separated into three distinct areas: the sinks, the showers, and smack-dab in between were the urinals and toilets. . . toilets without partitions. Yeah, those toilets were completely exposed to just about everyone in Southern California. You might as well have placed them in the middle of Nimitz Highway. Now, I don’t know if it was the food or the shock of a new environment, but a strange phenomenon played out during our first week there – no one used the toilets.

Our company commander was an angry fellow, or so I thought, because he would show up at odd hours of the night, have us form ranks, and march us around the grinder (a large asphalt lot covered in tiny, palm-piercing pebbles) for hours on end. Every errant move was rewarded with pushups. Being unfamiliar with boot camp protocol, we might’ve thought this exercise was normal, but NONE of the other companies came out at night, ever.

By the second week, the frequency of our pushups helped us develope an immunity to them. We could do them at any time, at any rate, all while mindlessly reciting passages of the General Orders. So notorious was our routine, other companies began to affectionately call us, “The Pushup Company.”

Shortly thereafter, any doubts regarding our seemingly bizarre regiment were realized when our company commander was apprehended by the Military Police (of course, this happened during one of our pushup sessions). Turns out he was an alcoholic. . . a full-time alcoholic.

Now, many, many times during boot camp, I wanted to spit out a witty observation. I mean, c’mon, I was surrounded by unintentional comedy; I was virtually bursting with snappy remarks. But since any break from military rank was met with swift punishment, I held my tongue. (Folks I encounter today benefit from the discipline I learned during that blistering summer in California – well, at least some folks do.)

As the MP’s loaded our company commander into their van, I muttered, “Good riddance, Petty Officer 'Stoli'.” This caught the attention of most of the company, but I didn’t stop there, I finished with, “They’ll love your ‘bottoms up’ expression in the brig.”

The entire company gawked at me as if roaches were streaming from my mouth, and the silence which had overtaken that courtyard gave me plenty of time to wonder why I couldn’t taste them, but suddenly the company burst into laughter.

It was the first time in weeks we’d relaxed. Our tension, our fears, our confusion, our fatigue all came pouring out in an excruciatingly tearful bout of laughter that came as a welcome relief. I think it was the first time my fellow recruits saw me as something other than a marching uniform. Our serenity, however, would be short-lived.

To make up for the physical agony we suffered at the hands of Petty Officer ‘Stoli’, the Navy's brass was thoughtful enough to assign us a Senior Chief as our next company commander. . . who was a Navy Seal. . . who was Filipino. So, not only was he extremely militant and insanely physical, but you could barely understand what he was saying.

Let’s just say it didn’t take us long to realized the phrase “pucking recruit” was derogatory.

(I’ll share more of my military experiences in future posts.)

© Copywrite 2009 Rick Rantamaki