St. Louis Cardinals – The River City Renegade

Let’s talk about sayonara, Sara…a salute to Scotty…greatest Oilers vs. Jets…failing the sniff test…gay golden girls and role models on the ice and hardwood…a clown act on court…balls and strikes and robots…park it, Cam…goodbye Queen Liz…and other things on my mind

Top o’ the morning to you, Sara Orlesky.

Gonna miss watching you do your thing on Rouge Football sidelines. Truly enjoyed your yadda, yadda, yadda during Canadian Football League broadcasts on TSN. Very professional, with a nice blend of knowledge, insight, good-hearted banter, and girl-next-door charm. That’s role model material for little and big girls everywhere.

And, hey, I don’t suppose there are many better ways of going out than working the Banjo Bowl in front of a packed ballyard of Melon Heads and blue-and-gold beer-snakers in Good Ol’ Hometown. Hope you didn’t let them drag you up to the Rum Hut while you were still on the clock yesterday.

Best of luck at your new gig with the Winnipeg Jets. I’m not sure the local shinny side deserves you, Sara, but hopefully you can help Captain Cranky Pants find a personality.

Speaking of guys who wear/wore the ‘C’ with the Jets, so sad to learn of the passing of the uncranky captain Scott Campbell. Scotty lost his battle with cancer (screw cancer!) at age 65, and let it be known that he was one of the truly good guys. Or, as legendary squawk box Friar Nicolson would say about salt-of-the-earthers like Scotty, he was “good people.” Always obliging, always a good sound bite, always quick with a smile and a giggle, forever genuine, Scotty took whatever life threw at him and kept swinging for the fences.

Always loved this story about Scotty: Drill sergeant Tom McVie became bench puppeteer of the Jets in the back half of the World Hockey Association’s final fling, and he made a habit of working the lads like rented mules. During one punishing session, Scotty, who had a broken jaw, could take no more and began upchucking. Unmoved, McVie snarled, “Get sick on your own time!”

Nice tribute piece on Scotty by Mike Sawatzky in the Drab Slab, with commentary from former teammates Terry Ruskowski, Morris Lukowich, and Jimmy Mann. Alas, Scotty’s death didn’t warrant a mention on the sports pages of the Winnipeg Sun, because the suits at Postmedia in the Republic of Tranna decided the rabble in Good Ol’ Hometown would rather read a full page on a golfer from The ROT than a guy who wore Jets linen in both the WHA and National Hockey League. It’s ultra disappointing that the local tabloid continues to be the Torontopeg Sun.

I note the Edmonton Oilers have established a franchise Hall of Fame and will induct this Class of 2022 at a gala in early November: Wayne Gretzky, Grant Fuhr, Al Hamilton, Jarri Kurri, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe, Glen Sather, Glenn Anderson and broadcaster Rod Phillips. Hmmm. Powerful lineup. But let’s compare that group to the Jets Hall of Fame—Teemu Selanne, Teppo Numminen, Thomas Steen, Randy Carlyle, Ab McDonald, Lars-Erik Sjoberg, Dale Hawerchuk, Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson, Bobby Hull—and let’s imagine they played a game of pond hockey. Conclusion: The Jets wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in Fiji for one basic reason—no goalie.

Come to think of it, who would be the Jets all-time best masked man? Old friend Joe Daley, that’s who.

This is how brilliant B.C. Leos QB Nathan Rourke was prior to an owie aborting his 2022 Rouge Football crusade: In nine games, he flung the football for 3,281 yards; it took Macleod Bethel-Thompson of the Toronto Argos 12 games to pass Rourke, and Winnipeg Blue Bombers QB Zach Collaros is still trying to track him down after 13 skirmishes.

I always thought Dave was the wingnut of the CFL’s coaching Dickenson brothers, but it turns out it’s Craig, sideline steward of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and official apologist for the dumbest players in the three-downs game. They were ticketed for another 13 felonies and 141 yards in yesterday’s 54-20 paddywhacking by the Bombers. They should be clad in orange jump suits, not green-and-white football togs.

In terms of nose-holding optics, I can think of few things more odious than Hockey Canada CEO Scott Smith doling out gold medals to members of our national shinny side at the world championship in Denmark. The sight of Smith smiling like Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat as the Canadian women skated forward to receive their just rewards last Sunday at the KVIK Hockey Arena in Herning was rotten eggs kind of foul. It’s like getting your law diploma from Rudy Giuliani.

Tessa Bonhomme, Jayna Hefford and Sami Jo Small did a lot of yakkety, yak, yakking on TSN during the Ponytail Puck tournament in Denmark, but I wish they had told us why Melodie Daoust was MIA. Melodie has been a Team Canada mainstay for years, and if they explained her absence I missed it.

The TSN talking heads, which included Kenzie Lalonde on play-by-play and Cheryl Pounder flapping her gums faster than a scofflaw fleeing a crime scene, kept insisting that U.S.A. vs. Canada in women’s shinny is the “best rivalry in sports.” Hmmm. I think the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees and their faithful might have something to say about that. And, hey, the E-Town Oilers and Calgary Flames don’t exactly play “friendlies.” Nor do Man U and Liverpool.

Nobody asked me, but I like Kenzie Lalonde’s play-by-play. Bigger and better gigs await that young lady.

Julie Chu, Caroline Ouellette and the kiddies, Liv and Tessa.

Did you know or do you care that the woman whose two goals staked Canada to its 2-1, gold-medal win over the Yankee Doodle Damsels, Brianne Jenner, is a lesbian? Ditto one of the True North coaches, Caroline Ouellette. True story. Both are gay, both are married, and both are moms. Brianne and bride Hayleigh Cudmore have a daughter, June, while Caroline and bride Julie Chu are moms to Liv and Tessa. Chances are you don’t care about this sort of thing, but I believe we should all care about inclusivity, especially in sports, which if often slow on the uptake. LGBT(etc.) youth need role models like Brianne and Caroline. It matters.

On that note, it’s adios to Sue Bird, among the finest female athletes of any sport, any era. Sue, who’ll have 42 candles on her birthday cake next month, played the final game of her WNBA career with Seattle Storm last week, and she leaves the hardwood with more decorations than a Christmas tree: 4 WNBA titles, 5 Oly gold, 2 NCAA crowns, 4 FIBA World Cup titles, 5 EuroLeague championships. And did I mention she’s lesbian and her main squeeze is yappy Yankee Doodle soccer star Megan Rapinoe? Can you say “role models,” kids?

I don’t know about you, but after watching and listening to mainstream jock journalists lather Serena Williams with the highest hosannas at the U.S. Open, I’m now convinced she’s the only female athlete in history to continue competing after giving birth, she’s the planet’s foremost fashion designer, she’s the first person to ever slice a loaf of bread, and now that she has some spare time on her hands she’ll probably swan off to Moscow for a tete-a-tete with Vlad the Bad Putin and bully him and his KGB butt out of Ukraine. As if.

Chrissie Evert told her ESPN audience that “no man” could do what Williams has done at age 40. Oh, for gawd’s sake. I mean, what did Williams do? She won two matches, bringing her W/L tally on the year to 3/4. That’s it. Full stop. By comparison, a year ago at age 39 years, 11 months (let’s round it off at 40), Roger Federer won four matches to reach the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. So stick a sock in it, Chrissie.

Why is it that whenever someone suggests Queen Hissy Fit is sub-saintly they’re immediately branded a racist or a misogynist? Before S. Williams came along, my least-favorite tennis players were John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase, all male, all white and all off-the-chart boors. That didn’t make me anti-white or anti-male. It made me anti-jerk. So it isn’t always about race and gender. It’s okay to not worship at the S. Williams shrine simply because you think she’s a self-absorbed jerk.

Another question: Why is Nick Kyrgios so popular among the tennis mob? Ya, I know. The guy has immense skill. So do circus clowns. And the Kyrgios shtick is the same sort of carnival sideshow. I swear, Nick the Carny doesn’t sign autographs for kids after his matches. He makes them balloon animals instead. All that’s missing are the big, floppy shoes, clothes that look like something Don Cherry would wear, and a big, round, red nose that goes honk-honk.

After being vanquished in a quarterfinal match vs. Iga Swiatek at the U.S. Open, American Jessica Pegula was observed sipping on a tall can of Heineken during her post-match natter with news snoops. “I’m trying to pee for doping,” she told them. The marketing geniuses at the brew giant promptly launched an ad campaign, resurrecting an old Heineken tagline but changing it from “It’s All About the Beer” to “It’s All About the Pee Bottle.”

On the subject of brewskies, wasn’t that golfer John Daly tossing out the ceremonial first pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals-Washington Nationals rounders game last Wednesday at Busch Stadium? Sure was. Long John looked like Santa on vacation, and he threw a stee-rike! Apparently he then retired a six-pack of Budweiser before the home half of the first inning.

Two animal rights activists interrupted the L.A. Rams-Buffalo Bills NFL lid-lifter on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium in Tinsel Town. Apparently their squawk had something to do with abuse of hogs, but after a brief interruption those two little piggies went wee, wee, wee all the way to the hoosegow.

I don’t care what anyone thinks or says. If Aaron Judge swats 62 home runs to surpass the 61 dingers Roger Maris clouted in 1961, he’ll hold the Major League Baseball single-season mark for most round-trippers. What about Barry Bonds, you say? Sorry, it doesn’t count if you had to stick a needle in your butt cheeks to do it.

How do I know Judge isn’t also on the juice? Because, unlike Bonds, his head hasn’t grown to the size of a prize-winning pumpkin at the county fair.

The lords of Major League Baseball will put in a hurry-up-and-throw-the-damn ball pitch clock and outlaw infield shifts next season. Big changes. If they keep this up, baseball will start to look like baseball again.

There was also talk of replacing the home plate umpire with a robot to call balls and strikes, but the notion was nixed when seven-times ejected New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone protested, saying, “Oh no you don’t. If I’m going to toss a temper tantrum and kick dirt on anyone, it’ll be Angel Hernandez, not that cute, little R2-D2.”

The PGA Tour-LIV Golf Series war continues, and the latest casualty is Cameron Smith’s parking space outside the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. As Players Championship titleholder, mullet-boy Smith had earned the right to park his ride in the prime location, but then he had the bad manners to accept $145 million in Saudi blood money and become persona non grata in the Sawgrass parking lot. I’d feel really bad for the guy, except I can never find a decent parking spot when I go to the mall, and I don’t have $145 million to buy my own mall.

This from Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail: “Few professional athletes are likeable any more.” I wonder if that’s true, or has Kelly become jaded? I mean, I had natters with hundreds (thousands?) of play-for-pay jocks during my 30 years in the rag trade, and there might have been five whom I found to be flat-out unlikable. The jock-news snoop dynamic has changed since my exit, stage west, 23 years ago, but has it soured that much?

Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna tells long-time shinny scribe Ken Campbell that he was “too young” to understand the Us-vs.-Them political backdrop of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union. Campbell was eight years old at the time. Well, let me say this about that: When I was a sprig growing up in Good Ol’ Hometown in the 1950s and ’60s, the Cold War and the accompanying air raid drills scared the hell out of me. Whenever I heard those sirens wail, I’d either duck for cover or look to the sky for nuclear bombs, because I understood that Nikita Khrushchev was one push of a button away from blowing us all the hell up. Even at a tender age, I understood that Dwight Eisenhower/JFK were the good guys and Khrushchev was the bad guy. Us vs. Them. And, believe me, no one ever mistook me for a political science savant. All of us kids understood. But, sure, tell us more about what we were “too young” to know back in the day, Grandpa Simmons.

And, finally, I’ll leave you with this because it seems like the right thing to do…

Let’s talk about the Untouchables and Winnipeg Jets…horse racing in a Bizarro World…Hee! Haw! It’s the Bradshaw Bunch…open season on anything wearing green-and-white…Steve Nash and Robin Hood…Strat-O-Matic Baseball…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday morning smorgas-bored…and it’s another long weekend until the next long weekend…

Okay, let’s get this out of the way right off the hop:

Babe Ruth was sold. Wayne Gretzky was traded. The New York Mets told Nolan Ryan to get lost. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wanted out of the U.S. Midwest and the Milwaukee Bucks obliged. Three husbands dumped Marilyn Monroe.

So don’t talk to me about untouchables with the Winnipeg Jets.

I mean, untouchables? You’re talking untouchables? Tell that to Peter Pocklington.

Peter Puck’s the dude who dispatched Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings, then sat in a flashy convertible during a Stanley Cup parade in downtown Edmonton less than two years later.

It doesn’t always work out that way, of course, and we need look no further than Fenway Park in Boston for evidence. The Red Sox peddled the Bambino to the dreaded Evil Empire in New York for the kingly sum of $100,000, the first of four $25,000 payments made on Dec. 19, 1919.

“I do not wish to detract one iota from Ruth’s ability as a ballplayer nor from his value as an attraction, but there is no getting away from the fact that despite his 29 home runs, the Red Sox finished sixth in the race last season,” Bosox bankroll Harry Frazee harrumphed. “What the Boston fans want, I take it, and what I want because they want it, is a winning team, rather than a one-man team which finishes in sixth place.”

Well, the Red Sox didn’t celebrate another World Series championship until 2004. Ruth and the Yankees, meanwhile, sprayed each other with bubbly after seven American League pennants and four WS victories by the time the Sultan of Swat bid adieu to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium in 1934.

So, ya, parting ways with a young blue-chipper can blow up in your face like a Wile E. Coyote scheme gone wrong, but the value is in the return. Always.

Frazee accepted paper money in barter for Babe Ruth. Poor return. Pocklington, on the other hand, insisted on live bodies (Jimmy Carson and Martin Gelinas) in exchange for Gretzky, plus first-round picks in 1989, ’91, ’93, plus $15 million of Bruce McNall’s bankroll. The Oilers won a title sans No. 99, the Kings had a sniff in 1993 but never won with him.

Which brings us back to the Jets and untouchables.

Let’s suppose, for the sake of discussion, that general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff answers the phone one day and it’s Joe Sakic on the line. The Colorado Avalanche GM is offering Cale Makar. He wants Patrick Laine in return. Is Chevy supposed to say “Sorry Joe, but Patty’s an untouchable,” and hang up? Maybe Jim Benning will call and offer up Quinn Hughes, asking for Nikolaj Ehlers in barter. You don’t really believe Chevy would decline because “Nik is an untouchable” do you?

Sorry, kids, but there hasn’t been an Untouchable since Eliot Ness and accomplices went after Al Capone’s booze dens in Chicago.

Certainly there are players you’d like to keep in Jets linen, but if the right offer falls onto Chevy’s lap, damn straight he has to pull the trigger. (Assuming, of course, that the Puck Pontiff, Mark Chipman, gives it the official okie-dokie from on high.)

This, remember, is an outfit that failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup tournament. A side that hasn’t won a post-season skirmish since skating to the National Hockey League’s final four more than two years ago. So it doesn’t matter if we’re talking Rink Rat Scheifele, Twig Ehlers, Puck Finn, Josh Morrissey or Kyle Connor.

If the right deal comes along, you do it.

What about goalkeeper Connor Hellebuyck, you ask? Same thing. In case you haven’t noticed, with the exception of Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning, teams still alive in the current Stanley Cup runoff are doing it without Vezina Trophy-winning puck stoppers. The Colorado Avalanche were one Michael Hutchinson save away from advancing to the final four. Ditto the Vancouver Canucks and Thatcher Demko. The New York Islanders won Game 7 vs. the Philly Flyers with backup Thomas Greiss in the blue paint. And don’t get me started on Anton Khudobin. So repeat after me: There should be no untouchables with the Winnipeg Jets.

The Kentucky Derby: Big hats and mint juleps.

In this, the strangest of years, the first leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby, became the second leg, and the second leg, the Preakness Stakes, will be the third leg, and the third leg, the Belmont Stakes, became the first leg. I swear, there hasn’t been this much confusion about legs since Joe Namath did that pantyhose commercial in the 1970s.

No horse had better legs than Authentic on Saturday at Churchill Downs in Louisville. The Kentucky-bred bay colt showed 14 other ponies his heels in the Run for the Roses, which means his four legs now have one leg. And if that sounds like some kind of a Zen koan, blame it on the Dalai Jocklama.

Normally, of course, the Kentucky Derby goes to the post the first Saturday in May, and the pews at Churchill Downs are full of fashionable ladies trying not to spill their mint juleps while bumping into one another with their big hats. Not so on the first Saturday in September 2020. The grandstand was basically barren before and after Authentic stuck his nose under the wire, and it just didn’t feel right without the Derby day buzz. Then again, is there anything about 2-aught-20 that feels right?

Come to think of it, were I a horse breeder, I’d have named my first foal this year Bizarro World. You know, as a salute to a time in history when up is down, over is under, right is left, and Terry Bradshaw gets his own reality TV show.

For real. Bradshaw has a show on the telly to call his own. The concept for The Bradshaw Bunch on E! Channel seems simple enough: The former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback surrounds himself with a bevy of beauties (his wife and three daughters), and cameras follow them about the ranch in Oklahoma while they discuss such urgent family matters as one of the girls getting a boob job. In other words, it’s the Kardashians do Hee Haw.

Hey, it’s the Labor Day weekend. The Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers should be grabbing grass and growling this very afternoon in the annual Labor Day Weekend Classic on the Flattest of Lands. Not happening, though, because Canadian Football League coffers are as empty as a politician’s promise and its line of credit is worse than the COVID curve stateside. But that doesn’t mean the true tradition need end—taking cheap shots at Flatlanders and their football team. Which brings to mind a Matty-ism from a Jack Matheson column in the Winnipeg Tribune after a trade sent Tom Clements from the Ottawa Rough Riders to Saskatchewan in 1979: “Mrs. Tom Clements is said to have been the push behind her QB husband’s recent move because she felt ‘Ottawa’s a hick town,’ so you have to wonder how Regina will grab her.”

Premier Scott Moe has declared this Saskatchewan Roughriders Day on the Flattest of Lands, and he’s encouraged the rabble to adorn themselves in green-and-white garb. To which every citizen in the province said: “Huh? Ya means to tell us they makes tank tops and ball caps in other colors?” Seriously, a melonhead needs urging to wear green and white like a priest needs a reminder to say prayers on Sunday.

I haven’t watched a great portion of the NHL’s made-for-TV frolic in the Edmonton and Republic of Tranna bubbles, but my sampling has been sufficient enough to know that Sportsnet’s Chris Cuthbert calls a terrific game. He’s going to be missed in the TSN blurt box once the CFL is back in business, whenever that is.

I agree, the hiring of Steve Nash as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets is a peculiar bit of business. I mean, he’s a scrawny white guy in a league full of large Black men, he’s Canadian in a league of mostly Americans, and he has zero experience. We haven’t seen anyone that miscast since a movie mogul put Kevin Costner in a pair of tights and told him he was Robin Hood.

Speaking of media, cheering in the press box is supposed to be taboo, but news snoops in the Republic of Tranna must have missed the memo. Just watch the sports highlights shows on TSN and Sportsnet and you’ll hear them openly swooning and unabashedly root, root, rooting for the Toronto Jurassics in the National Basketball Association playoffs, and the same must be said of the boys on the beat at the daily newspapers. They don’t give the Maple Leafs, Blue Jays, Tranna FC or Argonauts a similar amount of sugar, which leaves me to wonder what it is about the Jurassics that has won over such a normally hard-scrabble lot.

Got a kick out of Gregg Drinnan’s piece on his time at the Winnipeg Tribune, a tour of duty that included a case of mistaken identity. No spoilers here, though. I’ll let Gregg tell the story. I’ll just say it involved the Greaser (that’s Gregg), Knuckles Irving, Cactus Jack, Kenny Ploen, Blue Bombers GM Earl Lunsford and a fancy, shmancy hotel suite in Calgary (don’t worry, it’s not X-rated). Gregg also confirms that some of the Trib tales I told last week might actually contain a morsel of truth.

One of the things I didn’t mention in my remembrances of the Trib folding 40 years ago was Strat-O-Matic Baseball, a board game based on the actual stats of Major League players. We’d play it during our down time, waiting for late copy or phone calls to come in, and the death of Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver last week reminded me of the year we held a Strat-O-Matic player draft. Seaver was among my starting hurlers, and one night he spun a no-hitter against the Ian (Caveman) Dutton Nine. A few years later while with the Calgary Sun, I had occasion to interview Tom Terrific and, as an ice-breaker, I mentioned the no-no he had hurled v. the Dutton Nine. He looked at me like I was speaking Casey Stengelese, but chuckled. “Don’t laugh,” I told him, “that board game no-hitter will probably be the deciding factor that gets you to Cooperstown some day. The Hall of Fame voters won’t be able to ignore it.” Sure enough, the great New York Mets righthander was elected in 1992, and you can only imagine my disappointment when he failed to mention that Strat-O-Matic perfect game in his acceptance speech.

I’m not sure if Ed Willes left the building by choice or if he’s the latest victim of Postmedia buffoonery, but he’s done after 38 years in the rag trade, the last 22 at the Vancouver Province. Some of you might remember Ed’s time with the Winnipeg Sun, where he detailed the daily goings-on of the Jets and wrote a column during the 1990s. It was always high-end stuff. The guy can flat-out scribble. Ed turns 65 in November, so perhaps this was the end game all along, but I’m always suspicious whenever quality writers walk away from Postmedia, which has destroyed newspaper competition everywhere west of Winnipeg. If it was his call, good on him. He’s earned his warm corner. If he was nudged by the suits in the Republic of Tranna, shame on Postmedia.

The Willes adios brings to mind a quote from Trent Frayne, the finest jock essayist in my lifetime: “It is an axiom of sports that the legs go first. For sportswriters, it’s the enthusiasm.”

Once upon a time, I officiated kids sports, so I speak from lived experience when I tell you it can be a thankless, often intimidating experience. Some coaches, parents and officials are at odds with acceptable behavior in mixed company, which is putting it politely. So what in the name of Pele was the Manitoba Soccer Association thinking when it instructed its game referees to play the role of rat fink and virtually red card fans who fail to observe physical distancing protocol at kids’ matches? Expecting whistle blowers to be, well, whistle blowers isn’t just unfair, it’s stupid.

Last week we mentioned that Jennifer Lopez and her main squeeze, Alex Rodriguez, had failed in their bid to buy the New York Mets. If successful, JLo would have joined a short list of female owners in Major League Baseball. The first was Helene Britton, who inherited the St. Louis Cardinals from her uncle, Stanley Robison, in 1911, when women still hadn’t won the right to vote in the U.S. This is how the St. Louis Post-Dispatch described the Redbirds’ new lady owner: “She is small and round and trim, with decided chic. Her mourning costume (for her uncle) failed to subdue certain lively touches that indicate a love of life and gayety…her attitude is ever alert.” Other National League owners, all men, tried to bully the small, round and trim Helene into selling the Cardinals “for the good of the game,” but she held out until 1917, finally accepting $350,000 for the club and ballpark. Among other things while bankrolling the Redbirds, she introduced Ladies Day providing free attendance to women. But only if accompanied by a male escort.

And, finally, today marks the 20th anniversary of Major League Baseball’s first Pride-themed night. It took place at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, mainly because a lesbian couple had been escorted out of the ballpark a week earlier by eight heavy-handed security guards. The crime? The women shared a smooch in the bleachers. Who could imagine back then that two lesbians, Billie Jean King and partner Ilana Kloss, would be part-owners of the Dodgers today?

About Paul Romanuk’s Where’s Wheeler? gaffe…Brooke Henderson, national treasure…Les Lazaruk’s a beauty guy…Bob Cole is silenced…take me out to the brawl game…god and golf…on bended knee and beating women…he’s sorry but not really…and other things on my mind

I cannot survive in a 140- or 280-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Okay, Paul Romanuk had himself a serious “D’oh!” moment on Friday morning when, in a media scrum, he called out to Blake Wheeler by shouting, “Mark! Mark!”

Major blunder. It shouldn’t happen because, as Paul Wiecek correctly points out in his Winnipeg Free Press column that exposed the incident, Romanuk’s one job is to “tell the players apart.” He’s a play-by-play guy, for cripes sake. He has the call for Wheeler’s Winnipeg Jets in their Stanley Cup skirmish with the Minnesota Wild on Sportsnet.

So, ya, he ought to know. I mean, this isn’t a Where’s Waldo? kind of thing. Wheeler is easily recognized: He’s the guy with a ‘C’ on his Jets jersey and scowl on his face.

But here’s my question for you, dear readers: Did Wiecek cross an ethical line?

That is, should he have used his platform to embarrass the veteran broadcaster in a front page piece guaranteed to attract the attention of the rabble, if not incite them? Isn’t there some sort of unspoken honor-among-thieves code with the sports media?

Apparently not.

Personally, I have no problem with jock journos calling each other out. I’d prefer they do it more often. But where I think Wiecek went wrong, was in using the Romanuk affair as (shocking and damning) anecdotal evidence to prop up his ongoing case that no one east of Falcon Lake and west of Elkhorn gives a damn about Winnipeg and its Jets. Not only does the rest of the country not give a damn, Wiecek submits, they don’t even know who they don’t give a damn about.

“And so it still goes for a team that had the second-best record in the NHL this season, but apparently still needs to pin ‘Hello, My Name Is…’ stickers on its players,” Wiecek writes.

Romanuk’s astonishing gaffe would be the smoking gun in that argument.

But I believe it’s at this point that I’m obliged to point out that, hey, brain farts happen. Wiecek, for example, once referenced the 1991 and 2006 Grey Cup games in Winnipeg, scribbling, “both of those games were played at the downtown stadium.” Oops. Totally wrong. The closest thing River City has had to a downtown football facility, Osborne Stadium, lost an argument to a wrecking ball in 1956. But somehow Wiecek had two Grey Cup matches being contested there, 35 and 50 years after the walls came tumbling down. So there’s that. Last year, meanwhile, he described Wally Buono as a “former” coach, even as Buono stood on the sideline coaching the B.C. Lions. So there’s also that.

None of that excuses Romanuk, but there’s something to be said about pots calling kettles black.

I’ll tell you something else Wiecek and his newly expressed “we” and “us” homerism is wrong about—the Jets and national attention. When I hopped on the Internet surfboard at 2:30 Saturday morning (yes, I’m mobile at that hour), here’s what I discovered on various websites:

Globe and Mail—two Jets stories at the top of the page.
National Post—four Jets-related stories at the top of the page.
Sportsnet—three Jets stories and two videos at the top of the page.
TSN—top of the page story and five of the top six videos.
Toronto Star—one of the five stories at the top of the page.

It was much the same after Game 1 of the Jets-Wild series and, frankly, some might think of that as Jets overkill. But not Wiecek and the Freep. It isn’t enough to satisfy them.

“The rest of the country is still struggling to pay attention to a team—and a city, for that matter—they’ve grown accustomed to ignoring for so long,” he writes.

Oh, pu-leeze. What Wiecek and the Freep are serving up is Fake News 101.

Sorry, but I simply do not understand this desperate, irrational need for the love of outriders. Somehow I thought Winnipeg was comfortable in its own skin since the National Hockey League returned in 2011. It was running with the big dogs again. So, when did River City require the “rest of the country’s” acknowledgement, approval and endorsement? For anything. And what exactly do Wiecek and the Freep expect from “the rest of the country?” A parade? Pep rallies from Tofino to St. John’s? A gold star like the teacher gives to the kid who wins a Grade Three spelling bee?

Look, the story that Pegtown and les Jets are authoring in their Stanley Cup crusade isn’t some zen koan about a tree falling in the forest. It’s happening. In real time. It’s loud enough that anyone with a pair of ears can hear. And the national media are reporting it. In depth.

Using Paul Romanuk’s misstep to suggest there’s nationwide snubbery at play is not only inaccurate and misguided, it’s dishonest and stupid.

Brooke Henderson is a national treasure. There’s no other way to put it. Just 20, she has six victories (including a major) on the Ladies Pofessional Golf Association Tour, her latest success a wire-to-wire romp in the Lotte Championship in Hawaii. She has won in four consecutive seasons. Did I mention she’s only 20? If one of our male golfers had won six times in four seasons before the age of 21, surely there’d be a statue. And Brooke’s always struck me as a delightful, young person, a notion supported by her post-event remarks in Hawaii. “It’s extremely sad, a terrible tragedy what happened up there,” said Henderson, dedicating her victory to victims and survivors of the Humboldt Broncos bus accident. “I know it kind of affected my whole country. Everybody really took it kind of personal. For all the survivors that are still fighting through it all and the ones who have passed away, I want to show them that we’re here for them and we’re supporting them. They’re always going to be in our thoughts and prayers.” Beautiful kid, our Brooke, who, I hasten to add, is the same age as some of the kids on that bus.

On the subject of beauties, a major tip of the bonnet to old friend Les Lazaruk. Ronnie has come up with a boffo idea to honor Tyler Bieber, the Humboldt play-by-play voice who was among the Fallen 16 on the team bus involved in the fatal crash nine days ago. Now the mouthpiece of the Saskatoon Blades of the Western Hockey League, Ronnie has volunteered to sit in the play-by-play seat for one game during the Broncos 2018-19 Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League season, as a tribute to Bieber. No fee. No expenses. He’s suggested other broadcasters do the same, and look who’s on board with the idea—Chris Cuthbert, Gord Miller, Dave Randorf, Kelly Moore, Rob Faulds, Brian Munz, Jamie Campbell, Roger Millions, Darren Pang and Peter Young, among many other notable voices. It truly is a beautiful thing that Ronnie is doing. No surprise, though. He’s one of the genuinely good guys in the biz. (If you wondering, those of us who worked at the Winnipeg Tribune call him Ronnie because back in the day he had a head of hair just like Ronald McDonald’s.)

On the matter of hockey broadcasters, you might have noticed that the voice of Bob Cole has been silent during this spring’s Stanley Cup tournament. NHL rights holder in Canada, Rogers, has shut down the 84-year-old. “The decision sure wasn’t mutual,” Cole tells Michael Traikos of Postmedia. “It was right out of the blue. Rogers decided to go with other teams and I have to live with that. But it was their decision—not mine.” Oh, baby! No question Cole has lost a step, but his ouster is sad, nonetheless.

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet refers to the Ted Lindsay Award as the “NHLPA vote for MVP.” Not true. The Lindsay trinket goes to the NHL’s “most outstanding player,” as determined by members of the players’ association. If the media can’t get these things right, why are they allowed to vote for seven award winners?

Last Wednesday night in sports: NHL teams toss everything but hand grenades at each other as the Stanley Cup tournament begins. Number of bench-clearing brawls: 0. Major League Baseball teams throw baseballs at each other. Number of bench-clearing brawls: 3. Yet hockey still gets a bad rap for being a goon sport. Go figure.

Yogi Berra-ism of the week comes from Nazem Kadri of the Tranna Maple Leafs, suspended three games for his predatory hit on Boston Bruins Tommy Wingels: “I certainly wasn’t trying to hit him when he was down like that, I just felt like he, uh, I was already committed to the hit.”

Tweet of the week comes from Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun, following a media exchange with Jets head coach Paul Maurice:

Media: “If Jack Roslovic was the Beatles and (Mathieu) Perreault was the Rolling Stones, what song would you be humming this morning?”

Maurice: “It’s all Led Zeppelin. It usually is.”

Masters champion Patrick Reed on fighting off challenges from Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler at Augusta last Sunday: “It’s just a way of God basically saying, ‘Let’s see if you have it.'” Question: If God was at Augusta National watching golf last Sunday and helping Reed win an ugly green jacket, who was watching over my church?

So let me see if I’ve got this straight: The Seattle Seahawks cancel a workout for outcast quarterback Colin Kaepernick because he might take a knee during the national anthem, yet Reuben Foster is still a member of the San Francisco 49ers after punching his girlfriend eight to 10 times, dragging her by the hair and rupturing her eardrum. Foster is charged with felony domestic violence, inflicting great bodily injury, forcefully attempting to prevent a victim from reporting a crime, and possession of an assault rifle. He faces up to 11 years in the brig. But, unlike Kaepernick, he’s good to go. So that’s your NFL: Take a knee, go home; beat the hell out of a woman, play on. And they wonder why people aren’t watching anymore.

Today is Jackie Robinson Day in Major League Baseball, so it’s worth noting that there were only 63 Blacks on opening-day rosters this year. That’s 8.4 per cent of all players. And for pure irony, consider this: The Kansas City Royals were one of two teams sans a Black player—K.C. is home to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

Mark McGwire tells The Athletic that he could have swatted 70 home runs in the 1998 MLB season without the benefit of steroids. “Yes. Definitely,” the former St. Louis Cardinals slugger says. Right, Mark, and Rosie Ruiz would have finished the 1980 New York Marathon without riding a subway for 26 of the 26.2 miles. And she would have won the 1980 Boston Marathon if she had run all 26.2 miles, not just .2 miles.

Marc Savard, right, on the set with Daren Millard and John Shannon.

When is a mea culpa not an apology? When Steve Simmons delivers it. The Postmedia Tranna columnist last week expressed a callous disregard for Marc Savard’s mental health issues, slamming the freshly minted Sportsnet commentator for failing to make time for media while dealing with post-concussion symptoms. And now? “What I wrote about Savard had nothing to do with concussions or his personal battles. But what I wrote about him was improperly worded and far too harsh. For that, I apologize. For not welcoming new media members who have treated the industry disrespectfully, I don’t apologize.”

And, finally, this week’s Steve-ism from Steve Simmons: “I’ll never understand the NHL. Playoff series starts tomorrow. Patrice Bergeron not available for 50 or so media members, many of whom just flew into Boston this morning.” The poor dear. Marc Savard wouldn’t take his phone calls and now Bergeron of the Bruins is unavailable. Oh, the humanity.

About drinking the Winnipeg Jets Kool-Aid…a pity party…size doesn’t really matter…beer-league hockey and a bean counter…a losing MVP…Nathan MacKinnon for MVP…Shaq’s still PO’d about Steve Nash…women in the broadcast booth…and Le Grand Orange bids adieu

I cannot survive in a 140- or 280-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

I didn’t think anyone would buy the “everything goes under the radar when you play in Winnipeg,” bunk that Jets captain Blake Wheeler was selling last week. Other than the gullible, fawning faithful, that is.

But along comes Paul Wiecek and he’s actually swallowing that cup of Winnipeg Jets Kool-Aid.

Right to the very last drop.

Here’s what the Winnipeg Free Press columnist wrote about Wheeler’s “under the radar” malarkey: “That might have been true before this season. In fact, it almost certainly was true.”

In fact, it almost certainly was not true.

Which National Hockey League outfit, the Jets (versions 1.0 and 2.0) or the mega-market Tranna Maple Leafs, do you suppose has produced more individual regular-season award winners and more all-stars since River City was invited to join the fun for the 1979-80 season (excluding, of course, the years when Winnipeg was dark)? I’ll give you a hint: It isn’t the team that skates in the shadow of the CN Tower.

Here are the facts, ma’am…just the facts (they aren’t hard to find):

Winnipeg Jets 1979-80 to 1995-96; 2011-12 to 2016-17

Calder Trophy: Dale Hawerchuk 1981-82, Teemu Selanne 1992-93
Jack Adams Trophy: Tom Watt 1981-82, Bob Murdoch 1989-90
King Clancy Memorial Trophy: Kris King 1995-96
All-star teams (1st or 2nd): Hawerchuk 1984-85, Selanne 1992-93, Keith Tkachuk 1994-95, Phil Housley 1991-92, Alexei Zhamnov 1994-95
Rookie all-star team: Selanne 1992-93, Bob Essensa 1989-90, Iain Duncan 1987-88, Boris Mironov 1993-94, Patrik Laine 2016-17
Total: 5 individual awards, 5 all-star teams, 5 rookie all-stars—15.

Tranna Maple Leafs 1979-80 to 1995-96; 2011-12 to 2016-17

Calder Trophy: Auston Matthews 2016-17
Frank Selke Trophy: Doug Gilmour 1992-93
Jack Adams Trophy: Pat Burns 1992-93
All-star teams: Borje Salming 1979-80
Rookie all-star team: Felix Potvin 1992-93, Wendel Clark 1985-86, Dan Daoust 1982-83, Kenny Jonsson 1994-95, Jake Gardiner 2011-12, Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews 2016-17
Total: 3 individual awards, 1 all-star team, 7 rookie all-stars—11.

We all know les Leafs fly “under the radar” like Donald Trump is subtle on Twitter, yet voters have ignored them season after season after season.

Consider the Calder Trophy as an e.g. Until Auston Matthews was anointed the NHL’s leading freshman last spring, do you know how long it had been since a member of les Leafs won the top frosh bauble? Fifty-one freaking years! Half a century! When Brit Selby accepted the trinket, Lester Pearson was Prime Minister of Canada. Neil Young had just joined Buffalo Springfield. Hockey Night in Canada was still televised in black and white.

But two Jets—Dale Hawerchuk and Teemu Selanne—copped the Calder after Selby and before Mathews. And a third, Patrik Laine, was runnerup last year.

Go figure.

This whole Winnipeg is “under the radar” thing is a total copout. It’s such a lame lament. It sounds like the theme of an “Oh, woe are we” pity party. I can hear Leslie Gore singing “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” as I type. Rodney Dangerfield should be their poster boy. No respect, I’ll tell ya…no respect. Look, I get the drill. Winnipeg is mocked, maligned and ridiculed as a backwater burg. It’s so remote, you have to drive 500 miles just to get to the Middle of Nowhere, also known as Regina. But I invite anyone to provide evidence in support of the notion that a Jets player or coach has been cheated out of an award due to locale.

Wiecek didn’t stop at one swig of the Jets Kool-Aid. He doubled down on the conspiracy theory in a follow-up essay: “There has been some loose talk in recent weeks about Winnipeg Jets captain Blake Wheeler having an outside shot at taking down this season’s Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player,” he wrote. “That’s not going to happen for a lot of reasons, beginning with the fact the Hart Trophy is voted upon by the media and Wheeler plays in the smallest media market in the entire NHL.” He wants to talk about size? Like size matters? Okay, let’s talk size. If Winnipeg is the nail on your little toe, Edmonton is the nail on your pinky finger. Yet the Oilers won 30—count ’em, 30—individual awards that are voted on (mostly by the media), 10 of them going to players not named Wayne Gretzky (in the years Winnipeg wasn’t dark). There were also 32 first- or second-team all-star selections, including six chosen to the rookie team. In the National Football League, tinytown Green Bay can boast of eight Associated Press MVP awards from five players, dating back to the early 1960s. The Goliath known as New York City, with two teams since 1970, has had just two NFL MVPs. Size doesn’t matter, performance does.

Scott Foster shuts the door on Paul Stastny.

So, the mighty Jets juggernaut couldn’t put a puck past a bean counter who plays goal in a beer league at Johnny’s Ice House West in Chicago. They tried for 14 minutes and one second. They tested him seven times. Nada. Scott Foster, the Blackhawks backup goaltender to the backup goaltender, was perfect on Thursday night at the United Center. His NHL career goals-against average is 0.00. I swear, there hasn’t been a better emergency replacement story in sports since Lou Gehrig took over at first base for Wally Pipp and the New York Yankees. Difference is, Gehrig hung in there for another 2,130 consecutive games. Bean Counter Foster didn’t quit his day job. He went back to his spreadsheets the following morning, knowing he’s the NHL’s feel-good story of the year. Brilliant stuff.

Speaking of Chitown goaltenders, does the name Al Rollins mean anything to you? Didn’t think so. Well, he tended goal for Chicago in 1953-54. The Blackhawks occupied the cellar in the NHL that season. They won just 12 of 70 assignments, missing the playoffs by a whopping 43 points. Rollins’ 3.23 goals-against average was worst in the league. Guess who was NHL MVP. Yup, Al Rollins. So don’t tell me Connor McDavid shouldn’t be considered for the Hart Trophy simply because his Oilers teammates suck and didn’t qualify for this spring’s Stanley Cup tournament. History records that numerous outriders have been MVP, in all leagues. Andre (Hawk) Dawson, for example, was MVP on a Major League Baseball bottom-feeder. Ditto Alex Rodriguez. Here’s a partial list of non-playoff MVPs: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Los Angeles Lakers,1975-76; Larry Walker, Colorado Rockies, 1997; Barry Bonds, San Francisco Giants, 2001, 2004; Alex Rodriguez, Texas Rangers, 2003; Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies, 2006; Albert Puhols, St. Louis Cardinals, 2008; O.J. Simpson, Buffalo Bills, 1973; Johnny Unitas, Baltimore Colts, 1967; Andre Dawson, Chicago Cubs, 1987; Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals, 2015; Giancarlo Stanton, Miami Marlins, 2017; Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels, 2016; Robin Yount, Milwaukee Brewers, 1989; Cal Ripken, Baltimore Orioles, 1991; Ernie Banks, Chicago Cubs, 1958-59; Mario Lemieux, Pittsburgh Penguins, 1987-88; Andy Bathgate, New York Rangers, 1958-59.

If I had a vote, I’d be inclined to give serious consideration to Brad Marchand as MVP in the NHL, because the Boston Bruins would be in Nowheresville without him. But I’d have to hold my nose if I included him on my ballot, because he’s a skunk. A total dweeb. People say Marchand plays “with an edge,” but I disagree. He plays dirty. He’s also a diver. Ultimately, I’d have his name on my ballot, but not at the top. I’d put Nathan MacKinnon and his 93 points/11 game-winning goals for the Colorado Avalanche first, followed by McDavid. Yup, possibly two non-playoff participants one-two. I’d have Blake Wheeler of les Jets third (he plays an honest game as opposed to Marchand’s shenanigans), then Sidney Crosby (Evgeni Malkin has marginally better numbers, but Sid the Kid still makes the Pittsburgh Penguins tick) and Marchand.

I’m not a hoops fan. Never have been. But it’s boffo that Victoria’s Steve Nash will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, in part because he was a two-time National Basketball Association most valuable player. Mind you, his former sidekick with the Phoenix Suns, Shaquille O’Neal, figures Nash’s two MVP awards were a rob job. “(I should have won) three, easily. (I should have won) the two that Steve Nash got over me. It pisses me off. (Nash) knows,” Shaq once told SI.com. Get over it, Shaq.

How unusual, also refreshing, to hear an all-female broadcast team work a hockey game. Sportsnet pulled it off with Leah Hextall handling the play-by-play, Cassie Campbell-Pascall providing the backup vocals in the booth, and Nikki Reyes standing at rink-side for the Clarkson Cup, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League title match between the Markham Thunder and Kunlun Red Star. Wonder how long it will be before we hear three women working an NHL game? No doubt the very thought will make a lot of men cringe and feel like they’ve been gelded. Well, it’ll happen one day. Deal with it, boys.

Le Grand Orange has left the building. That would be Rusty Staub, who died Thursday, three days before his 74th birthday. I have one vivid memory of Staub—he stole a base in the first Major League Baseball game I witnessed live. An original member of the Montreal Expos, Staub was with the Detroit Tigers at the time and I was sitting in the first base bleachers at old Exhibition Stadium in the Republic of Tranna. Because he had the foot speed of an ATM, the Blue Jays thought it unlikely that Staub would bolt. Yet away he went. It was like watching a man pull a milk wagon. I could have poured back three pints by the time he arrived at second base. But he got there safely. Standing up, no less. Staub stood there, smiling, like a schoolboy who’d pulled the perfect prank. A nice memory.

And, finally, this week’s Steve-ism from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: Not so long ago, he described the induction of Pedro Martinez to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame as a “ridiculous choice. He spent four seasons in Montreal. That’s all.” Apparently, that made the Hall “look cheap.” And “Do you honestly believe a player with four years service belongs in a Hall of Fame? Any Hall of Fame?” Ah, but now he writes glowingly of Staub as “the baseball player in Canada so many of us cared about. The first who mattered across the country.” Staub actually spent less time with the Expos than Martinez, just 3 ½ season with the Expos, but he was inducted into the CBHF in 2012 and I don’t hear Grandpa Simmons shouting that it was a “ridiculous choice.” Nor should he. So shut up about Pedro, Steve.

So, who gets the sports columnist gig at the Winnipeg Free Press?

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Okay, who’s next at the Freep? Paul Wiecek? Ed Tait? Paul Friesen? Some new kid on the block? Some recycled old coot on the block?

If it were up to me, I’d anoint Wiecek to replace the departing Gary Lawless as sports columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press. He’s got the stones for the job. He’s cheeky, irreverent, a top-drawer scribe and not afraid to get in your face. Question is: Is he content where he is, covering curling, horse racing and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers?

The Freep wouldn’t go wrong with Tait. I’m a huge fan. Terrific reporter, solid writer. I’m not convinced he has the right temperment for that full-time gig, though. Eddie is such a nice guy. He’s Mike Riley and Brian Dobie nice. A columnist has to have a bit of bad-ass in him, and that ain’t my boy Eddie. But he’d still do a boffo job.

Poaching Paul Friesen from the Winnipeg Sun would be an interesting gambit. He’s got some bad-ass. Trouble is, given that the Freep is in bed with the Winnipeg Jets, it wouldn’t be a good fit. Paul is no True North toady.

Another option would be to bring in a fresh face. Seems to me the Freep—and the Sun, for that matter—could use some new blood. It’s been too much same old, same old for too long.

Whomever, I just hope the newbe spends more time writing than talking on TV/radio.

As much as I used him as a whipping boy, I hope the TSN gig works out for Gary Lawless. He joins a long list of newspaper jock sniffers—Dave Naylor, Stephen Brunt, Damien Cox, Jeff Blair, etc.—who’ve gone over the wall to the other side, and it brings to mind something that longtime jock columnist Tony Kornheiser once wrote about sports scribes appearing on TV: “There’s a reason print journalists work in print. It’s because they look like bridge trolls. They have bags under their eyes the size of hero sandwiches. They wear lounge-lizard suits and shiny ties spotted with marinara stains. They have $8 haircuts and foam flecks form at the corners of their mouths as they stare creepily into the camera. Their pallor suggests they’ve just climbed out of a sarcophagus. And these are the women! The men are unspeakable.”

That’s big of the Canadian Football League to admit one of its skunk shirts screwed up royally on Friday night, perhaps costing the Winnipeg Blue Bombers a victory over the Calgary Stampeders. In offering a mea culpa, the league assures us that the official in question will be “disciplined in accordance with the gravity of the situation.” Given that the guy’s basically a volunteer, that likely means he’ll be sent to his room without dinner.

I see where the disgraced Pete Rose got together with Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred for a chin-wag last week. Rose, the all-time hits leader, met with the commish to plead his case for the lifting of his lifetime ban for gambling while skipper of the Cincinnati Reds. Apparently, Manfred will make a decision before the year’s out. Good grief, why does it take four months to say no?

I enjoy watching the Toronto Blue Jays. Exciting team. High likeability quotient. But if I don’t root, root, root for the home team once the Major League Baseball post-season commences, that doesn’t make me unCanadian. I’m a St. Louis Cardinals fan. If my Redbirds were to meet the Toronto Nine in the World Series, color me Cardinals red.

Anyone looking for proof that Michael Sam is all messed up between the ears? Give a listen to his recent gum-flap with host Dan Patrick on the aptly named Dan Patrick Show. Among other things, the first openly gay man to play professional football tells Patrick that he “never really wanted to go to the CFL” and that those inconsiderate Montreal Alouettes had the bad manners to employ a defensive system unlike anything he’d seen. The Als didn’t do it the St. Louis Rams way, don’t you know. Or the Dallas Cowboys way. Yo, Mikey! That might have something to do with the fact there are 12 men on the field, not 11. Whatever, rather than learn and adapt, Sam quit the Als. Not once, but twice. And now he’s delusional enough to believe an NFL outfit will make room for him on its roster next year. Ya, and I’ll be the Dallas Cowboys head cheerleader. Time to go, Mikey. Your 15 minutes have expired.

Actually, I’m not sure which is stronger evidence that Michael Sam is living in a fantasy world, the fact he’s convinced he can still play in the National Football League or his stated goal of getting into broadcasting. A times during his tete-a-tete with Dan Patrick, I wasn’t convinced that English is his first language.

Have they already presented the Calder Trophy to Connor McDavid, or will they actually make him play some games before handing him the silverware as top freshman in the National Hockey League? I can’t recall the hype being this frenzied for Sidney Crosby, perhaps because Sid the Kid went to Pittsburgh whereas McDavid is in hockey’s heartland, Canada.

I’m old enough to remember Yogi Berra, the Hall of Fame baseball player who died last week. Yogi, of course, is known as much, if not more, for what he said as for what he did on the ball field with the New York Yankees. Among the many classic Yogi quotes, my favorite is this gem: “Home openers are always exciting, whether they’re at home or on the road.”

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

All about the Blue Jays trading binge, Jose Canseco in stilettos, Tom Brady’s balls and other items of interest…

News and views on the world of sports…

NEWS: Alex Anthopoulos, the man who generally manages the Toronto Blue Jays, goes on a trading binge and delivers Troy Tulowitzki, David Price, Ben Revere and Mark Lowe to skipper John Gibbons scant hours before the Major League Baseball trade deadline.

The GM’s tinkering has positioned the Jays to make a serious run at a wild-card playoff position, if not the American League East Division pennant.

VIEW: Is it too late for Brendan Shanahan to redo the Lou Lamoriello thing and hire Anthopoulos as GM of the Maple Leafs instead?

NEWS: Jose Canseco is going bowling with the boys. He’ll be playing poker with the boys. And he’ll be wearing a frock, lipstick and a wig while doing it. Oh yes he will.

Canseco, you see, has joined the Cult of Cait. Not only is he sipping the Cait Kool-Aid, but the former Major League Baseball juicer vows to go all Ru Paul on us by adorning himself in female garments in a declaration of support for Hollywood glam trans gal, Caitlyn Jenner.

And, don’t you know, the one-time Bash Brother is so thoughtful that he plans to share the charade with the rest of us.

“I can’t say exactly how it’s going to be done yet,” he told the New York Daily News. “It will be done for about a week—and it will be on my Internet show called Spend a Day with Jose.”

VIEW: Sigh.

NEWS: Toughest dudette on the planet, Ronda Rousey, wasted little time in ridding herself of a potty-mouth pest named Bethe Correia in their UFC women’s bantamweight championship bout. It was over, save for the post-fight trash talking, in 34 seconds.

VIEW: Hmmm, 34 seconds. About the same amount of time Jose Canseco will last walking in a pair of stilettos.

NEWS: The Arizona Cardinals have hired a lady coach, Jen Welter.

Not surprisingly, her appointment as an intern coach of inside linebackers (she’ll work at training camp and pre-season matches) has been greeted with much skepticism because, well, the NFL is a man’s world where women are sometimes used as tackling dummies or punching bags (see: Rice, Ray; Hardy, Greg; McDonald, Ray; etc.). So, her hiring is seen by some as a public relations gimmick.

VIEW: If Jen Welter is a gimmick, give us more of her. I mean, her answer to a question about Tom Brady and Deflategate during her first day on the job was classic:

“I really am tired of hearing about Tom Brady’s balls,” she said. “I’d rather move on. It is kind of serendipitous, though, or funny or God’s irony that the same day we announce a woman coach in the NFL, we can’t get off Tom Brady’s balls.”

NEWS: National Football League outfits have commenced training exercises and soon shall be engaged in dress rehearsals, but we still don’t know if Tom Brady is persona non grata.

The New England Patriots quarterback is, of course, under suspension for allegedly letting the air seep out of game balls last season, yet he is in full frolic with his mates at training camp. That, however, is no guarantee he’ll be behind centre when the real fun begins next month. Brady must first do the chin-wag thing with a federal judge in mid-August, as will NFL lord and master Roger Goodell, and only after those Deflategate discussions will we know his status.

VIEW: What Jen Welter said.

NEWS: So, we soon shall discover if Michael Sam is a football player who happens to be gay or a gay man who happens to play football.

To date, it has been all about Sam’s sexual orientation, because the wannabe rush end has yet to grab grass and growl with the Montreal Alouettes. That is about to change, though. Tom Higgins, head coach of the Canadian Football League outfit, assures us that Sam will play a game sometime this month. Honest. He’s good to go.

VIEW: Unless, of course, Sam has a more-pressing engagement, like Dancing with the Stars or sitting on Oprah’s couch. Or perhaps he’ll just want to go home for two weeks again.

NEWS: There were reported, and confirmed, sightings of the “Tiger Woods of old” at the Quicken Loans National golf tournament in Gainesville, Va., where he carded three rounds in the 60s, including a 68 and a 66 on the first two days.

VIEW: Trouble is, the rest of the field doesn’t see the “Tiger Woods of old.” They see an old Tiger Woods.

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