Steven F. Shundich
Good morning, Mobsters. Live! From Wrigleyville! It’s Steven Frederick Shundich, a stand-in, but never a substitute for your award-winning columnist, Paul Daugherty.
My pronoun (today) is “meh.” And that’s because in a few hours I will begin my 1,735 mile slog to Fountain Hills, Arizona. Last year, on a side trip to Pipe Organ Cactus National Monument, near Ajo, I ventured 43 miles further south to take a peek at The Wall (See “2020 Road Trip Tucson: The Wall”).
I’d like to go again – sort of a “One Year Later” kinda thing – but I hear it’s a mess down there.
Anyway, it’s Marvin Gaye’s birthday today. So, pun intended, the theme of today’s TML will be “What’s Going On?”
... WITH THOSE REDLEGS
I listened to every painful inning on my MLB.TV app, which for the fourth year running, is free if you are a T-Mobile customer. That’s a $129.99 value! Does anyone know why our third baseperson is playing short or our second baseperson is playing third? Or why our injury-prone center fielder gets up limping after a diving grab, but then play-by-player Tommy Thrall says the club reports he hurt his shoulder? Limping is a leg injury, right?
This can’t be happening. Not again. It’s only the first game. I just went out on my patio. That’s not a gunshot I hear. It’s Lance McAlister! Screaming. All the way from Cincinnati.
Final score: Eugenio Suarez 2, Reds front office shortstop signers 0.
... WITH THE FINAL FOUR
Somehow, despite an early implosion in my bracket, I still have three teams alive among the Final Four. It must be the result of that first shot I got of the COVID-19 vaccine. I mean, Baylor versus Gonzaga in the final is not much of a stretch. And I also got Houston, a No. 2 two seed. But UCLA? Other than Hep, who picks Mick? He was 1-9 in the NCAAs with the Bearcats. His teams blow 22 point leads to Nevada! But here he is in the Final Four. From a play-in game, no less. But it ends Saturday. UCLA will lose to the Zags. You just can’t have two bears fighting in the final. This isn’t Russia!
However, cougar versus bear? Perfectly natural, according to Animal Planet. And, personally, although I picked Baylor to win it all, I have become smitten with the many faces of Kelvin Sampson and the Houston Cougars. I mean, I used to utterly despise Houston guard DeJon Jarreau. He bit Mamoudou on the leg! But did you see what he did to Syracuse’s Buddy Buckets? With leg cramps? Respect. Go AAC! Go American!
... WITH EUROCUP BASKETBALL
I know all TML readers have been on the edge of their seats since I made this mention last week. But he did it! Despite scoring zero points in 18 minutes (when has that ever happened?) former UC Bearcat great Sean Kilpatrick (and former Northwestern Wildcat John Shurna) are in the EuroCup semifinals, after Gran Canaria defeated Boulogne-Lavallois 66-64. They will move on April 6 to play another best-of-three versus Monaco, who outlasted Montenegran club Budućnost 90-87. My cousins in Podgorica are definitely drowning their sorrows in slivovitz right about now.
... WITH UC COACH JOHN BRANNEN
Who knows? But a friend did forward me this nifty chart that shows a whopping 74 college basketball programs with five or more players in the transfer portal (see image below from March 26, source unknown). So, and I don’t think I’m going out of a limb here, you can’t fire a coach just because he has too many players in the portal. Just look at them all! There may be other, more diabolical reasons, of course, but the number of players in the portal can NOT be the main culprit. The rules in college basketball certainly have changed. And I’m not sure it’s for the better. Stay tuned ...
... WITH THE U-23 MEN’S SOCCER TEAM
It’s one more goalie blunder and yet another bitter defeat at the hands of Honduras, 2-1, so the U.S. U-23 men’s soccer team will not be among the 16 nations competing in this year’s Summer Olympic Games in Japan. But it’s not because there is a lack of young talent. It’s simply the fact that (most) all of it is already playing for the USMNT.
All of these U.S. players are under 23: Christian Pulisic. Sergiño Dest. Yunus Musah. Tyler Adams. Weston McKennie. Josh Sargent. Matthew Hoppe. Giovanni Reyna. If you don’t already know these names, get to know them. They’re who you will cheer at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar in 2022. And make sure to include goalie Zack Steffen on your list. Steffen, 25, is the backup at Manchester City, one of the best clubs in the world. He faces some of the top players on this planet every single day at practice.
So, it comes down to this, really: Do you want your best young players to continue to grow by facing off against the world’s top talent in Europe? Or do you want to interrupt this arc so they can attend a U.S. camp for a couple of weeks? To try and qualify for something like the Summer Olympics? Or the Gold Cup? You’d think, with nearly 330 million people in the U.S. pool, that the soccer powers that be here would be able to find enough skilled players to do both.
NOTE: The USWNT qualified for the Summer Olympic Games in February 2020. The most difficult decision here is how to cut a world-class player roster from 23 down to 18. Twelve countries play in this “mini-World Cup” in Japan.
... WITH CINCINNATI AND THE WORLD CUP 2026
Hope springs eternal. But it’s a long shot. There are 23 candidate cities for 16 spots, likely 10 in the United States, three in Canada and three in Mexico. FIFA has said they will announce the hosts in the last quarter of 2021. Cincinnati is one of 17 U.S. cities left in the running. Here’s how some fool at NBCSports.com ranks our chances. But what’s missing from his map (of course!) is the something that’s most American: a great midwestern city. Doesn’t he know we have Heather Mitts AND Rose LaVelle? And that the appetite for soccer here is rabid (see, FC Cincy, “The Nippert Years”).
Alas, my sources say, when it comes to FIFA, it all comes down to money (see, “Sepp Blatter after the fall”). Amazingly, Chicago didn’t even bother to apply. But maybe that’s not so shocking, when the powers here learned they wouldn’t get a cut – “a piece of the action.” Anyway, they’ve since moved on to the Obama Presidential Center. And FIFA doesn’t want just some of the revenue or even most of it. They want it ALL. No sales tax. No amusement tax. Every dime of ticket sales. The food and beverage take, too.
The ignoramuses ask, “Does Cincinnati even have hotels? Restaurants? And a public transportation system? To handle an event like this?” My response 40 years ago would have been, “Are you kidding? Do we EVER! Have you ever stayed at the Netherland Plaza. Or eaten at the Maisonette? Or taken the Reds express bus from Milford?” Seriously, though, we’ve got nationally known facilities such as the 21c Museum Hotel. And we still have Jean-Robert. And, with a streetcar that’s now free – FOREVER! – I say, “How could we possibly lose?”
... WITH (SIGH) CHICAGO
For those people wondering whether it’s time to create an exit plan from Cincinnati, maybe Chicago should not be on your list. The latest police statistics show there were 42 homicides this March, compared with 28 in March 2020. That brings the total to 131 through March 2021, compared with 98 during the same period last year. Astonishingly, 706 people have been shot so far this year. Last year, that number did not reach 500 until April. And did I mention, there were 352 carjackings between Jan. 1 and March 2? Or that the sales tax is 10.25 percent? But I can still get $60 for Cubs parking on Opening Day at Wrigley Field, so there is that.
TUNE OF THE DAY
It’s April 2, and there are so many interesting singers born today. Leon Russell would have been 79. Emmylou Harris will be 74. I saw her at Red Rocks with Ohio’s very own Pure Prairie League – who found their groove in Mount Adams – in the early 1980s. My sister lived in Colorado at the time, and she was into Michael Martin Murphy and Dan Fogelberg. I had never even heard of Emmylou Harris. But you know how you sometimes just really want to go to famous venue, regardless of what’s on? I really wanted to see Red Rocks, with that Denver skyline as a backdrop. And the concert? One of the best ever. Who doesn’t love “Amie”?
But because I am meh and “What’s Going On?” has been the glorious theme of today’s TML, let’s just stick with Marvin Gaye. He would have been 82 today. Indeed, does anybody really know – what IS going on? Time to drive.
Former Terrace Park resident and Mariemont High School grad Steven Frederick Shundich (All Southwest Ohio Soccer, Second Team, 1980) is a Chicago-based travel writer and humorist. Check out his blog and free monthly newsletter at www.wheresthefunny.blog.
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