Maybe you've heard that NPR's unique sports commentator Frank DeFord is retiring after 37 years on the job. A unique voice in the sports world, DeFord brought an original perspective to a world in which I, quite frankly (no pun intended) have little interest. DeFord is also very quotable . . .
(on college sports. . . )
"If the players aren't getting paid, there's something terribly, terribly wrong, and that's true only in the United States. Everywhere else, where money is involved with sport, the players get paid. But these poor kids in college, they're doing it for free, and that's just disgraceful."
-Frank Deford
Does this possibly apply to live music now that we've reached 2017?
(from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/women-forbidden-attending-u-s-vs-iran-volleyball-game-n378356 from June 18, 2015)
". . . Women have been "forbidden" from watching Iran play the U.S. volleyball team . . . despite the government signaling it would loosen restrictions on females attending sports events. Earlier this month, Iran's Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Shahindokht Molaverdi announced that a limited number of women — mainly members of players' families — would be allowed at upcoming men's volleyball matches. In an interview with The Associated Press, Molaverdi said women could also now watch live basketball, handball and tennis. However, women would not be allowed to attend soccer, swimming and wrestling. . . And in a clear sign of back-pedaling, the state-run ISNA news service on Friday quoted an official from Iran's volleyball federation as saying "the entry of women at volleyball matches is forbidden." The issue garnered worldwide attention after British-Iranian woman Ghoncheh Ghavami was arrested last year while protesting with other women outside Tehran's Azadi Stadium during a volleyball match between Iran and Italy. . . Nonetheless, the incident resulted in the International Volleyball Federation to call for Iran to allow women to attend all games or lose the right to host international tournaments. . . And over the course of the last six months, the government of Hassan Rouhani has indicated it wants to loosen the restrictions on women attending sports events — which date back to the 1979 Islamic revolution. . . "
. . . or just spell it out in the league rules. . . "All Welcome:
OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
(from http://www.ethosreview.org/intellectual-spaces/is-college-football-profitable/)
"There’s a standard narrative fueling the big business of college football. Many of its advocates put it like this: football programs generate so much revenue for the university, while also supporting “non-revenue” sports like golf and swimming from its own budgetary excess, that college football is its own justification for the large team budgets and coaches’ salaries. Because alumni are much more generous during years when football teams win, academic programming benefits as well. Indeed, so this standard narrative goes, both the jump in admissions applications and the wider “public relations” effect that accompanies a football program cause munificent ripples throughout a university’s stream of income. Many even maintain that football helps to subsidize the obscure and non-remunerative activities of colleges—research into the reproductive biology of ducks and eighteenth-century German poetry, for example. Without a football program, scholarship money would plummet and applicants would flock elsewhere in search of universities with better “student life” opportunities. . .
. . . According to Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, authors of The System:
The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football (2013), figures from
the 2010-11 academic year show that only 22 of the 120 top-tier football
programs broke even or made a profit. That means that while these
big-time teams generate millions of dollars of revenue, the cost of
running such programs usually exceeds that revenue. To put that more
starkly, even within the so-called top tier, 82% of college football
teams actually take away money from the university’s budget, rather than
generate net revenue. Thus, the myth that college football generates revenue for universities is a lie 82% of the time among the highest grossing “tier” of teams."
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
. . . a dead horse. . . (also known as bitch, bitch, bitch) . . .
I really am an artist. In most senses of the word. I am very sensitive to everything. But I am not however, one for melodramatics. No false or exaggerated emotions and no pop-culture sentimentality. I find it infinitely amazing and entertaining how some folks can drivel on about the Emmys, Oscars or fartzies, or post endless arrays of kitten and puppy videos much the same as I marvel at the gullibility of some of the most intelligent people when it comes to Internet falsehoods, hyperbole or political hyper-spin. In this day and age when we all have an infinite library at our fingertips, there is simply no excuse to fall for such crap.
I also find no need to be a cheerleader. First, I don't have the looks or the physique. Second, I don't have the motivation. Never did. Never will. If a sports franchise happens to be based in my hometown I do not automatically feel a deep and immediate connection. Guess I've simply learned through the years that my personal time is finite and I still don't have enough to expend it upon things in which I AM interested, let alone those in which I am not. I am not begrudging or criticizing those folks who do take an interest in professional athletics. I have family members who do. But, much as in high school when the mantra of 'school spirit' was preached incessantly to my deaf ears, I simply am not feeling it (sports/pop-entertainment) and my life will be no worse off for any lack thereof.
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
"They give you a round bat and they throw you a round ball. And they tell you to hit it square."
Willie Stargell (1940-2001; former Pittsburgh Pirates left fielder and 1st baseman)
"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."
Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan in 1992's "A League of Their Own"
I'm not really a huge baseball fan. Not really a fan of any professional or college-level sports. Guess you could say not a sports fan at all.
But, two-fifths of my family are definitely sports fans, and I think it safe to say most ardently BASEBALL fans, so consequently I occasionally assume the role of a spectator, being the good 'sport' (pun intended) that I am and for the enjoyment of the company. Some aspects of of baseball I do find especially irritating though. First, and probably the most contributory to my remaining dislikes of baseball, is the size of the professional baseball players' salaries. Yes it's free market principles at work. And yes, if huge amounts of the general public (and the two-fifths of my family) refrained from purchasing tickets to attend games then the principles of supply and demand would bring those prices (and salaries, etc) down.
Next (and wouldn't you know it- it's money again) is the astronomical prices levels being charged for food and beverages at the ball park. To the supply and demand equation I (and usually the two-fifths) do not contribute. So in and of itself, the prospect of being a baseball fan simply does not provide me with an adequate return of investment both in terms of money and my valuable time.
But being the optimistic pessimist, I do enjoy aspects of my periodic jaunts to the ballpark when asked. I am fascinated by the ever-present herd mentality of humans at a large sporting event. And I do enjoy the specter of my fellow homosapiens gorging on greasy food and shouting specific instructions to young men hundreds of yards away and far out of hearing proximity. But, as I realized at a recent game, I am becoming increasingly appreciative of the complex psychology (all baseball superstition aside) of the game of baseball.
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)
My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
Everyone has been, at one time or another, out in public in a place such as the mall, a concert or show, the grocery store, a public park or even (if you're so inclined) church, and have seen a person that so closely resembles someone you know, that you're tempted to walk directly over to them and inform them of this remarkable phenomenon. But you don't. An that's probably just as well. Because for all the joy and amusement it brings to you to have had the keen observational skills to detect this wonderful resemblance, the act of sharing it with them actually brings them nothing. I don't, and I hope it's because I have never done it, recall ever having confronted a perceptive double with such edifying news. But it just so happens that as I write, in a public eating area, a lady at another table has an uncanny resemblance to an aunt of mine, who by the way, has been deceased for several years now. And maybe it's only her profile from the left but so much about her is all Aunt Helen. But, as I said, for all the joy and amusement it brings to you to have had the keen observational skills to detect this wonderful resemblance, the act of sharing it with them actually brings them nothing. It's a remarkable likeness. Excuse me . . .
No! I didn't actually go over to her. Now there's another guy with a librarian-type lady, spouting off about spiritual, spirituality, share, sharing. . . I keep hearing these words. She looks enthralled though.
The local newspaper's weekend special section mentioned the Baltimore Orioles and how, just like the last two years, they will NOT win the world series. Now I'm no sports fan for sure. But I know how I feel about my efforts, dedication, fortune (or lack thereof) and if this reporter only considered the dismal condition of the Baltimore Orioles BEFORE THAT, he/she should well give credit to the current lineup/management for being contenders these past three seasons. It's just so easy to criticize. As they say, "Those who can do. Those who can't become critics."
Pam and Harrison are the sports fans in the family and I would venture to say that their two favorite sports are baseball and football (the American one). I can understand the former much better than the latter. I would never go to sleep lulled by the mellifluous tones of the baseball broadcasters by choice but the other night. . . I did. Pam fell asleep as the Orioles and Rays began their extra innings. I slept fitfully but managed to make enough sense of the broadcast each time I awoke to know that it was still undecided. About 2:05 and 18 innings since the game began, I heard the bad news (for Baltimore fans). . . the Os lost.
(from http://www.peterga.com/baseball/quotes/the_game.htm)
Mark Twain
Baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century.
W.P. Kinsella
It is the same game that Moonlight Graham played in 1905. It is a living part of history, like calico dresses, stone crockery, and threshing crews eating at outdoor tables. It continually reminds us of what was, like an Indian-head penny in a handful of new coins.
Bernard Malamud:
The whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology.
John Cheever
The poet or storyteller who feels that he is competing with a superb double play in the World Series is a lost man. One would not want as a reader a man who did not appreciate the finesse of a double play.
Roger Angell, "Agincourt and After," Five Seasons:
It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazard flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.
8 year-old Jewish boy, quoted in "The Children's God", (Psychology Today Dec. 1985)
I don't know if this is what you're asking. But I feel closest to God, like after I'm rounding second base after I hit a double.
James Thurber
The majority of American males put themselves to sleep by striking out the batting order of the New York Yankees.
Norman Cousins
At a Dodger baseball game in Los Angeles, I asked Will Durant if he was ninety-four or ninety-five. "Ninety-four," he said. "You don't think I'd be doing anything as foolish as this if I were ninety-five, do you?"
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