During this time of year, there are a hundred traditions and thousands of variations that come from those core traditions.
You have them, even if you don’t think you do.
One of them is that, at some point, you are going to be invited to and will attend a carry-in meal.
Chances are you have a “go-to” carry-in dish that you make—a green bean or corn casserole, mashed potatoes with a secret ingredient added, and some sort of dessert that people will be talking about for weeks after.
Consider today’s column a carry-in meal of sports stories and thoughts, and like any good holiday meal, you are welcome to pick and choose which ones you want to add to your plate.
The appetizer is the biggest free agent signing in Major League Baseball history, Shohei Ohtani, who inked his name to a 10-year, $700 million deal to stay in Southern California and play for the Dodgers.
As a Cubs fan, of course I was disappointed that he wasn’t coming to play for the Cubs. But when I saw the price tag the Dodgers were paying to get him, the thought went through my head “do you know how many players the Cubs could add to their roster for that kind of money?”
Ohtani would have been the mighty left-handed bat the Cubs need in the middle of their lineup to make opponents afraid. But for that money they could afford to bring back Cody Bellinger to play center field and first base and go get a new third baseman and a couple of top-shelf starting pitchers and have money left over.
This is one time I am glad the Cubs lost.
The main course is a little tough to swallow but let’s try.
I am a fan of women’s sports. I think my record of covering girls sports every day on our radio stations is all the evidence you need as proof of that.
I say that to comment on the Angel Reese situation.
Reese is the LSU women’s basketball player who missed four games earlier this season, and no one knew exactly what was happening.
She just disappeared.
Well, nothing goes unnoticed when someone of her magnitude is MIA, and the traditional media outlets and the social media armies were out in full force to get to the bottom of the story.
Unfortunately, Coach Kim Mulkey and the athletic department at LSU chose the “it’s none of your business” option on how to deal with her absence. Twenty years ago, that would have been fine because a lot fewer people cared about women’s sports then.
The problem is this: women have been demanding that they are treated the same as men when it comes to athletics. They want to be paid the same and they want to be looked at the same as their male counterparts.
Cool! I am in for that for the most part (the pay thing we can go back over later).
But here is an example of how some women clearly don’t want that treatment at all.
America handled Angel Reese exactly how they would any male star athlete who went missing from their team for four games—they went looking for the story and when no one would help them, they made up their own. I don’t like that last part any more than you do, but that’s what happens in the 21st Century.
Cowboys fans, how would you react if Dak Prescott just left the Cowboys for a month and no one would say where he was?
It’s a lesson for all public relations departments on how to handle a crisis: get ahead of it! Don’t wait and cover up what’s happening. Give the media and the public enough to satisfy their needs and they will move on to the next crisis somewhere else.
As it turns out, Reese admits that her mental state was not good. She says she needed to be away from the team so that she didn’t cause problems. Why keep that a secret? Can’t we all relate to her situation? We wouldn’t think less of her, we would embrace her!
LSU’s handling of this made that impossible, because we don’t know whether or not to believe her.
And for dessert, how about a sampler platter of goodies.
My favorite Christmas movie is It’s a Wonderful Life, but the Grinch (the old cartoon narrated by Boris Karloff) is right there close behind.
Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. It’s a great movie, but it’s not a Christmas movie.
And also…wait, I hear a noise outside…someone’s knocking on my door. Who could that be? Oh wait…I bet I know who it is—it’s our friend from the north back to have a chat.
I’ll tell you how it goes next week.
Happy Holidays!