October 7th, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about not giving a damn about Hank Williams, Junior.
Having been fired, or quitted, by ESPN, Williams’ latest 15 minutes of fame are essentially over, and he can return to the world of country music and politics. And while a great tumult was created after his Obama-Hitler comparison, it lasted as long as most stories of this kind do.
Two days.
Except for most of us, it didn’t actually last that long. Oh, someone said something incendiary and stupid. Oh, someone got fired by a company that deals in making people like him momentarily famous. Oh, some severed head on TV is yammering on about it. Pass the beets.
You see, one of the little-known parts of the Bill of Rights is the one where it says we have the right to roll our eyes at the crushingly trivial being raised to the level of the mightily important. Hank Williams sang a song about football that long ago became background noise, then he decided to remind us of his politics by doing the one thing you can’t do in American discourse.
Using a Hitler comparison without being either Mel Brooks or the History Channel.
And now the song we stopped noticing is gone, and he is back to being a niche artist. And I cannot for the life of me give a damn.
Now Tigers-Yankees? Yeah, put me down for that. But the other? A moment of stupidity raised to a lofty place, and then forgotten just as swiftly as the nonsense it is. Only in America, and parts of Belgium.
.
October 4th, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about who needs who.
With Tiger Woods playing this week in the Fry’s Open at CordeValle, which is sometimes known as the 47th major, we will be reminded endlessly about how golf isn’t the same without Tiger.
To which we are reminded, “Oh, shut up. Tiger’s not the same without golf, either.”
Golf lived off Tiger for a long time, and everyone admits that, even Phil Mickelson. But that ended in a burst of club-fire from an angry wife, and after a good year of him becoming a Kardashian – you know, famous for being famous – he’s a golfer again.
A modest one. And Tiger without golf is, with all due respect to those who found him more fascinating as a swordsman, not all that riveting.
You see, the price of fame in the 21st century is that you get unfamous a lot faster than you used to. The next big thing is right behind you, tapping on your right shoulder and then running around behind you to your left, and then flipping you off as it runs away. And in all honesty, until and unless he gets his game back in Tiger shape, his next fame turn is likely to be on Dancing With The B-List Celebrities.
So yeah, golf may be hurting. But the opposite is also true, and never forget that.
This is Ray Ratto for KNBR 680, The Sports Leader.
September 28, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about job creation as opposed to job creation.
Governor Jerry Brown, who always seemed so adamant about not spending public money on frivolities like sports stadiums, signed two bills yesterday that would help advance the frivolity of an NFL stadium in Los Angeles.
Hey, I don’t know. Maybe he has a fantasy team.
The two bills essentially speed up the process for getting Farmers Field built in time for the Chargers and another tenant to move in – only three or four years after the Mayans have predicted the world will end.
Hey, if I were a politician in this climate, I’d probably bet against the Mayans too.
But the same sentences Jer would never utter on behalf of a ballpark project in Oakland when he was the mayor leapt joyously from his tongue at Tuesday’s press conference. Stuff like “It’s time for big thinking and big projects that put Californians back to work,” and “it is imperative for the state to cut the red tape that could delay projects like this for years.”
So apparently there’s a time for big thinking and a time for small thinking, and it is entirely dependent upon the location, the sport, and where the guy doing the talking happens to be sitting at the time. It makes your hair bleed just thinking about it.
The lesson here: Oakland isn’t L.A., being a mayor isn’t being a governor, and baseball isn’t football. My God, he DOES have a fantasy team.
September 26, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about the sun rising in the east again.
This is an indisputable fact: The Raiders are light years more developed in making football games that are fun to watch than the 49ers. Light years, I tell you. And any 49er fan who wants to dispute this needs to spend the rest of today sobering up.
Darren McFadden is far more electrifying than any 49er offensive player, and the only one who comes close to him is his rookie teammate Denarius Moore. In fact, if you extend your definition of offense just a bit, you have to conclude that Sebastian Janikowski is a clear third if only for his ability to kick 52-yard field goals off hot tar.
All three of them stole the show from the far more telegenic New York Jets Sunday, and when we say “telegenic,” what we mean is, “They’re from New York.” This was a entertainment statement game, which will be followed by another statement game Sunday against new England, while the 49ers go to Philadelphia to not play against Michael Vick. Major bringdown.
If there a way for the 49ers to catch up in this vital area? Sadly, yes. It’s called injury. It happened to Vick. Peyton Manning is done for the year. It’s a big year for high-profile inactives across the league, so for the Raiders, job one is to keep those three healthy, happy and safe.
Because as long as they’re playing, the Raiders are the new cool party in town.
September 23, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about Viking funerals.
The Giants will have their NL West crown removed from their heads in Phoenix some time this weekend, and their postseason caps shortly thereafter, by most reckonings. Or maybe that’s their heads. We play for keeps in this league.
But with the magic numbers for being former champions currently at 1 and 3, figuring out a proper sendoff for this team won’t be easy. Clothes won’t do it: nobody wants to pay $87.99 for a “No Longer World Champion” hoodies. Neither will seeking out wacky new animals to call next year’s rookies. And a season ticket campaign based on the slogan “We won 86 games with one of the 200 worst offense in baseball history, so how much worse can it get?” is just asking for it.
Frankly, what the Giants ought to do is have that Viking funeral, right there at the ballpark. Maybe at halftime of the Cal-USC game. They can burn the pennant, a full set of 2010 regalia, plus effigies of Aaron Rowand, Miguel Tejada, Zach Wheeler, Bill Hall, Buster Posey’s ankle, Freddy Sanchez’ shoulder, Jonathan Sanchez’ strike zone, a canceled World Series share check, the old bat rack and the bats therein, and of course Billy Neukom, bow-tie and all.
I mean, if you’re going out, you can go out in style, or you can go out like Droopy the Dog. I think we all know what this fan base would want. Oh, and garlic fries. Don’t forget the garlic fries.
September 22, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about athletic fraud.
It’s been three days now since the New York Giants got caught faking injuries in a game against the St. Louis Rams, raising one question in my head – you fake injuries against the Rams?
But for everyone else, it sparked a tedious debate about whether faking an injury is sportsmanlike behavior, and most football fans agree – what does sportsmanship have to do with football?
It’s hard to argue with such crystalline logic, but let’s consider this then. How is faking an injury to gain competitive advantage in an NFL game different than faking an injury to gain competitive advantage in a soccer match?
The answer, of course, is it isn’t, but you’ll still hear a lot of football fans complaining that soccer stinks because guys fall down at the slightest touch and roll about like they’ve been hit by sniper fire. And they’re right. But now they’ve approved watching football players fall down without being touched at all and claiming the cramp pixies got them, and that’s okay.
In other words, by defending the Giants, these good American football fans either acknowledged that they actually do like soccer, that they’re basic hypocrites, or they’re just imbeciles. Because in the end, they have to reconcile that acting like weenies for competitive advantage is good for everyone.
And that acting like weenies against the Rams is, well, that’s another story entirely.
September 21, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about movie-making.
Bob Melvin just got his contract as A’s manager renewed for three years, which seems unreasonably brief given that he’s been asked to make the sequel to “Moneyball.”
His job, put simply, is to restore the A’s to a level of competence, relevance, joy and buzz that helped twist the 2002 season into a book, and book into a movie, and the movie into a reason for Brad Pitt and Philip Seymour Hoffman to show up in Oakland on a Monday night.
And it can be done. Hell, it’s been done in Oakland, a lot. It was done in 2006, which really isn’t all that long ago even for those of you with drug-fueled memory lapses.
The competence, Melvin can do. The relevance, Melvin can do that too. The joy is the tougher part, because the management has flogged itself so long and so viciously about playing in inadequate digs that everyone except taxpayers and loan officers believes them. Melvin has to sell the A’s to the A’s, and make them buy it so hard that they conspire to make the really cool party everyone wants to come to even when their friends say, “Stay away. That’s where the nerds go.”
And for that he only gets three years? Hell, the book and movie took nine. Bobby Melvin, you’re getting squeezed.
September 20, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about the guest who never leaves.
I believe it was that old German philosopher Ric Flair who either coined or stole the phrase, “To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man.”
And so, with that as today’s guiding principle, we reintroduce you to Clayton Kershaw, the man who could blow this mini-comeback by the Giants back to the smithereens from whence it came.
In the last eight games, the Giants have become offensive terrors, winning all eight, averaging seven runs and even more absurdly over five extra-base hits per game.
So now they’re on the verge of being on the verge of being in the pennant races, and who is there to knock them down and stand on their groins? Clayton Kershaw, of course.
Most pitchers don’t see one team six times in a year, let alone face the same pitcher four times, so tonight’s Kershaw-T. LeRoy Lincecum match will be very familiar, especially to Giant fans who see binge-drinking as an acceptable coping mechanism. Indeed, many of Kershaw’s Cy Young credentials have been built at the Giants’ expense. 4-0, 1.03 ERA – that is serious smothered-by-throw-pillows buzz kill.
But nothing like the kill that comes tonight if Kershaw choke-slams Lincecum one last time tonight and finishes what he started on Opening Day. This is the lesson that comes from putting until September what you should have been doing now and then in July.
And this is the lesson that comes when you try to defy Ric Flair.
September 19, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about false positives.
The 49ers and Raiders are having the same season so far. They’ve both blown one big lead and come very closing to doing it twice. In a season that’s two weeks old, that’s kind of a trend.
It’s also the good news.
In fact, in an acknowledgement to those of you who don’t want your buzz killed before the bye weeks start, that’s the very best news for both local teams. They prepare and motivate well enough to start quickly, which means they want to do well, and are willing to pay attention long enough during the week to get those starts.
That they either blow those leads, as they did Sunday, or come close to doing so, as they did in Week One, is the downer, and it speaks to the problem you don’t really get yet.
That they’re not yet talented enough to run with the big dogs.
That only figures, since the 49ers haven’t changed much for their new coach, and the Raiders have lost some talent for their new coach. Throw in the lack of prep time, and what you have is what you had at the end of last year – two teams that need better players in more positions.
But at least they’re saving that news for the second half. There’s your heroin of hope for this week.
October 7th, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about not giving a damn about Hank Williams, Junior.
Having been fired, or quitted, by ESPN, Williams’ latest 15 minutes of fame are essentially over, and he can return to the world of country music and politics. And while a great tumult was created after his Obama-Hitler comparison, it lasted as long as most stories of this kind do.
Two days.
Except for most of us, it didn’t actually last that long. Oh, someone said something incendiary and stupid. Oh, someone got fired by a company that deals in making people like him momentarily famous. Oh, some severed head on TV is yammering on about it. Pass the beets.
You see, one of the little-known parts of the Bill of Rights is the one where it says we have the right to roll our eyes at the crushingly trivial being raised to the level of the mightily important. Hank Williams sang a song about football that long ago became background noise, then he decided to remind us of his politics by doing the one thing you can’t do in American discourse.
Using a Hitler comparison without being either Mel Brooks or the History Channel.
And now the song we stopped noticing is gone, and he is back to being a niche artist. And I cannot for the life of me give a damn.
Now Tigers-Yankees? Yeah, put me down for that. But the other? A moment of stupidity raised to a lofty place, and then forgotten just as swiftly as the nonsense it is. Only in America, and parts of Belgium.
.
October 4th, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about who needs who.
With Tiger Woods playing this week in the Fry’s Open at CordeValle, which is sometimes known as the 47th major, we will be reminded endlessly about how golf isn’t the same without Tiger.
To which we are reminded, “Oh, shut up. Tiger’s not the same without golf, either.”
Golf lived off Tiger for a long time, and everyone admits that, even Phil Mickelson. But that ended in a burst of club-fire from an angry wife, and after a good year of him becoming a Kardashian – you know, famous for being famous – he’s a golfer again.
A modest one. And Tiger without golf is, with all due respect to those who found him more fascinating as a swordsman, not all that riveting.
You see, the price of fame in the 21st century is that you get unfamous a lot faster than you used to. The next big thing is right behind you, tapping on your right shoulder and then running around behind you to your left, and then flipping you off as it runs away. And in all honesty, until and unless he gets his game back in Tiger shape, his next fame turn is likely to be on Dancing With The B-List Celebrities.
So yeah, golf may be hurting. But the opposite is also true, and never forget that.
This is Ray Ratto for KNBR 680, The Sports Leader.
September 28, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about job creation as opposed to job creation.
Governor Jerry Brown, who always seemed so adamant about not spending public money on frivolities like sports stadiums, signed two bills yesterday that would help advance the frivolity of an NFL stadium in Los Angeles.
Hey, I don’t know. Maybe he has a fantasy team.
The two bills essentially speed up the process for getting Farmers Field built in time for the Chargers and another tenant to move in – only three or four years after the Mayans have predicted the world will end.
Hey, if I were a politician in this climate, I’d probably bet against the Mayans too.
But the same sentences Jer would never utter on behalf of a ballpark project in Oakland when he was the mayor leapt joyously from his tongue at Tuesday’s press conference. Stuff like “It’s time for big thinking and big projects that put Californians back to work,” and “it is imperative for the state to cut the red tape that could delay projects like this for years.”
So apparently there’s a time for big thinking and a time for small thinking, and it is entirely dependent upon the location, the sport, and where the guy doing the talking happens to be sitting at the time. It makes your hair bleed just thinking about it.
The lesson here: Oakland isn’t L.A., being a mayor isn’t being a governor, and baseball isn’t football. My God, he DOES have a fantasy team.
September 26, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about the sun rising in the east again.
This is an indisputable fact: The Raiders are light years more developed in making football games that are fun to watch than the 49ers. Light years, I tell you. And any 49er fan who wants to dispute this needs to spend the rest of today sobering up.
Darren McFadden is far more electrifying than any 49er offensive player, and the only one who comes close to him is his rookie teammate Denarius Moore. In fact, if you extend your definition of offense just a bit, you have to conclude that Sebastian Janikowski is a clear third if only for his ability to kick 52-yard field goals off hot tar.
All three of them stole the show from the far more telegenic New York Jets Sunday, and when we say “telegenic,” what we mean is, “They’re from New York.” This was a entertainment statement game, which will be followed by another statement game Sunday against new England, while the 49ers go to Philadelphia to not play against Michael Vick. Major bringdown.
If there a way for the 49ers to catch up in this vital area? Sadly, yes. It’s called injury. It happened to Vick. Peyton Manning is done for the year. It’s a big year for high-profile inactives across the league, so for the Raiders, job one is to keep those three healthy, happy and safe.
Because as long as they’re playing, the Raiders are the new cool party in town.
September 23, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about Viking funerals.
The Giants will have their NL West crown removed from their heads in Phoenix some time this weekend, and their postseason caps shortly thereafter, by most reckonings. Or maybe that’s their heads. We play for keeps in this league.
But with the magic numbers for being former champions currently at 1 and 3, figuring out a proper sendoff for this team won’t be easy. Clothes won’t do it: nobody wants to pay $87.99 for a “No Longer World Champion” hoodies. Neither will seeking out wacky new animals to call next year’s rookies. And a season ticket campaign based on the slogan “We won 86 games with one of the 200 worst offense in baseball history, so how much worse can it get?” is just asking for it.
Frankly, what the Giants ought to do is have that Viking funeral, right there at the ballpark. Maybe at halftime of the Cal-USC game. They can burn the pennant, a full set of 2010 regalia, plus effigies of Aaron Rowand, Miguel Tejada, Zach Wheeler, Bill Hall, Buster Posey’s ankle, Freddy Sanchez’ shoulder, Jonathan Sanchez’ strike zone, a canceled World Series share check, the old bat rack and the bats therein, and of course Billy Neukom, bow-tie and all.
I mean, if you’re going out, you can go out in style, or you can go out like Droopy the Dog. I think we all know what this fan base would want. Oh, and garlic fries. Don’t forget the garlic fries.
September 22, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about athletic fraud.
It’s been three days now since the New York Giants got caught faking injuries in a game against the St. Louis Rams, raising one question in my head – you fake injuries against the Rams?
But for everyone else, it sparked a tedious debate about whether faking an injury is sportsmanlike behavior, and most football fans agree – what does sportsmanship have to do with football?
It’s hard to argue with such crystalline logic, but let’s consider this then. How is faking an injury to gain competitive advantage in an NFL game different than faking an injury to gain competitive advantage in a soccer match?
The answer, of course, is it isn’t, but you’ll still hear a lot of football fans complaining that soccer stinks because guys fall down at the slightest touch and roll about like they’ve been hit by sniper fire. And they’re right. But now they’ve approved watching football players fall down without being touched at all and claiming the cramp pixies got them, and that’s okay.
In other words, by defending the Giants, these good American football fans either acknowledged that they actually do like soccer, that they’re basic hypocrites, or they’re just imbeciles. Because in the end, they have to reconcile that acting like weenies for competitive advantage is good for everyone.
And that acting like weenies against the Rams is, well, that’s another story entirely.
September 21, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about movie-making.
Bob Melvin just got his contract as A’s manager renewed for three years, which seems unreasonably brief given that he’s been asked to make the sequel to “Moneyball.”
His job, put simply, is to restore the A’s to a level of competence, relevance, joy and buzz that helped twist the 2002 season into a book, and book into a movie, and the movie into a reason for Brad Pitt and Philip Seymour Hoffman to show up in Oakland on a Monday night.
And it can be done. Hell, it’s been done in Oakland, a lot. It was done in 2006, which really isn’t all that long ago even for those of you with drug-fueled memory lapses.
The competence, Melvin can do. The relevance, Melvin can do that too. The joy is the tougher part, because the management has flogged itself so long and so viciously about playing in inadequate digs that everyone except taxpayers and loan officers believes them. Melvin has to sell the A’s to the A’s, and make them buy it so hard that they conspire to make the really cool party everyone wants to come to even when their friends say, “Stay away. That’s where the nerds go.”
And for that he only gets three years? Hell, the book and movie took nine. Bobby Melvin, you’re getting squeezed.
September 20, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about the guest who never leaves.
I believe it was that old German philosopher Ric Flair who either coined or stole the phrase, “To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man.”
And so, with that as today’s guiding principle, we reintroduce you to Clayton Kershaw, the man who could blow this mini-comeback by the Giants back to the smithereens from whence it came.
In the last eight games, the Giants have become offensive terrors, winning all eight, averaging seven runs and even more absurdly over five extra-base hits per game.
So now they’re on the verge of being on the verge of being in the pennant races, and who is there to knock them down and stand on their groins? Clayton Kershaw, of course.
Most pitchers don’t see one team six times in a year, let alone face the same pitcher four times, so tonight’s Kershaw-T. LeRoy Lincecum match will be very familiar, especially to Giant fans who see binge-drinking as an acceptable coping mechanism. Indeed, many of Kershaw’s Cy Young credentials have been built at the Giants’ expense. 4-0, 1.03 ERA – that is serious smothered-by-throw-pillows buzz kill.
But nothing like the kill that comes tonight if Kershaw choke-slams Lincecum one last time tonight and finishes what he started on Opening Day. This is the lesson that comes from putting until September what you should have been doing now and then in July.
And this is the lesson that comes when you try to defy Ric Flair.
September 19, 2011
I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about false positives.
The 49ers and Raiders are having the same season so far. They’ve both blown one big lead and come very closing to doing it twice. In a season that’s two weeks old, that’s kind of a trend.
It’s also the good news.
In fact, in an acknowledgement to those of you who don’t want your buzz killed before the bye weeks start, that’s the very best news for both local teams. They prepare and motivate well enough to start quickly, which means they want to do well, and are willing to pay attention long enough during the week to get those starts.
That they either blow those leads, as they did Sunday, or come close to doing so, as they did in Week One, is the downer, and it speaks to the problem you don’t really get yet.
That they’re not yet talented enough to run with the big dogs.
That only figures, since the 49ers haven’t changed much for their new coach, and the Raiders have lost some talent for their new coach. Throw in the lack of prep time, and what you have is what you had at the end of last year – two teams that need better players in more positions.
But at least they’re saving that news for the second half. There’s your heroin of hope for this week.