Random Stuff …

Whilst I was on hiatus, an email arrived from Gregg Drinnan whose Taking Note blog is one of the links on the blogroll here.  He was formerly the Sports Editor of the Kamloops Daily News until that paper ceased to exist.  He knows that I enjoy describing here some of the outrageous culinary offerings that show up at sports venues and he sent along one from the Canadian Football League’s BC Lions.  [Aside: The 2019 CFL season has begun as of 13 June.]  Here is something you can buy – and try to eat – at a BC Lions game; they call it The Outrageous Burger:

• 3 Beef Patties
• 3 Chicken Strips
• 6 Strips of Bacon
• 3 Slices of Cheese
• 1 Hot Dog
• All that super-healthy goodness packed inside a large bun.

I had been saving this next item for the beginning of the college football season, but it seems appropriate to place it here in juxtaposition with The Outrageous Burger.  A former colleague was a visiting professor at the University of Texas – Austin.  Last year and he sent me a description of some of the eats available at a local eatery about a half-mile from Darrell Royal Stadium in Austin.  The restaurant is known as “Fat Sal’s”; that ought to be a foreshadowing.  One of their “sandwiches” comes on an extra wide roll and is known as the Fat Texas.  On that extra wide garlic roll, one can savor:

• Barbecue Pastrami Brisket
• Chicken Fingers
• Mozzarella Sticks
• Bacon
• Grilled Onions
• Cheddar Cheese
• Mozzarella Fries
• Mayo
• Honey barbecue sauce

Pass the Rolaids, please…

With the NBA Draft nearly upon us, I need to dislocate my shoulder by patting myself on the back for a moment here.  As I noted yesterday, I did not get to watch even a moment of the NBA Finals and so I spent part of yesterday reading some of the accounts of those games and looking at some stats.  Fred Van Vleet was a significant contributor to the Raptors championship run and that reminded me that I touted him as a sleeper in the 2016 NBA Draft.  Here is what I said about him on 23 June 2016 – just before the NBA Draft in that year:

“Fred Van Vleet (Wichita State): He is not the best “fill in the blank here” as compared to other guards in this draft. There are better shooters, passers, ball handlers etc. However, Van Vleet is very good at everything you want a guard to do – and some of that derives from the fact that like Denzel Valentine, he got 4 years of good coaching in college. I think that a team in need of a point guard – a backup for the first year or two to be sure – would do well to pick up this guy tonight.”

Van Vleet was not drafted by anyone in 2016 demonstrating that talent scouting is an art more than a science.

I ran across a report that OJ Simpson has set up a Twitter account and that he intends to “set the record straight” with that account.  Another report said that OJ had acquired more than 500,000 followers in less than a week.  Here is Brad Dickson’s Twitter reaction to this “news”:

“Good: to be followed by O.J. on Twitter.

“Bad: to be followed by O.J. home from a restaurant.”

A report yesterday said that David Ortiz’ condition at Mass General Hospital had been upgraded to “Good” after he was shot in the back in a bar/club in the Dominican Republic a few days ago.  News continues to dribble out about the alleged perpetrators and about potential motivations for that shooting.  Obviously, there will need to be some sort of trial to clarify many of the points here but even at this extremely early stage of the investigation, I believe there are two conclusions I might draw:

• Allegedly, the “money man” behind all of this paid approximately $8000 to a cohort of people to pull off the shooting.
• The gunman got behind Ortiz and at close range shot him in the lower back area.
• Conclusion #1:  If you are the gunman and you are close to the back of your target in a crowded space where one shot is likely to be all you will get, why not shoot the intended victim in the back of the head instead of the lower back?  John Wilkes Booth knew he had only one shot to accomplish his end; he did not put a bullet in Abraham Lincoln’s lower back.  There was a planning gap here.
• Conclusion #2:  You get what you pay for.  What else could you expect for only $8000?

Finally, let me put the NBA Finals and the NHL Stanley Cup Finals into perspective here with comments from these two sports columnists:

“OK, so the NBA champ is from Canada and the NHL champ from the U.S.

“What everyone really wants to know is who gets to claim curling?” [Brad Rock, Deseret News]

And …

“If the Raptors win the Larry O’Brien Trophy, will Canada hold it hostage to get the Stanley Cup back?”  [Dwight Perry, Seattle Times]

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………