Welcome to another edition of “Friday 4”, where I talk about the four things I’ve been thinking about the last week and the upcoming weekend in sports and the world.
ONE
Baseball lost a legend this week with the passing of Willie Mays. It would not be overstating it to say that Mays, the “Say Hey Kid”, was one of the five greatest baseball players of all time and was the greatest living player for the last 70 years. He was the 1951 Rookie of the Year and won two MVPs (1954 and 1965). He finished in the top five in MVP balloting seven other times, finishing second to Ernie Banks in 1958 and Maury Wills in 1962.
His career WAR, 156.2, is third all-time for non-pitchers behind Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth. Heck, counting pitchers Mays is fifth behind Walter Johnson and Cy Young. Mays’ 660 home runs currently rank 6th all-time, with two steroid babies in front of him.
Defensively he won 12 Gold Gloves in a row, tied with Roberto Clemente for most by an outfielder for a career. Mays would have likely had more, but the Gold Glove didn’t start being given out until 1957, Mays’ sixth season in MLB. His 24 All-Star appearances tie him with Henry Aaron and Stan Musial for most by a player.
Perhaps more telling about Mays’ career was the opinion of my father, who thought that Ted Williams was a god who walked amongst men. He said Mays was the second-best ball player he ever saw. I remember as a kid, knowing he had Williams as number one and Mays as number two, who was number three. “There is no number three,” he replied.
High praise, indeed.
TWO
As I mentioned in last week’s post, the weekend was full of US Open golf. While I didn’t watch every single second of the coverage, I easily saw 75% of it and thoroughly enjoyed seeing Bryson DeChambeau kicking Rory McIlroy in the junk late Sunday afternoon. DeChambeau’s up and down out of the bunker on 18 is exactly what a champion needs to do, unlike what Rory did. McIlroy held a two-shot lead with five to play and couldn’t even force it to a playoff. They could hear him choking all the way in Northern Ireland.
But this isn’t really about that.
It’s about DeChambeau taking advantage of a rule that shouldn’t exist in its present form. The rule is Rule F-23, which grants relief from a “temporary immovable obstruction” along a player’s line of play. In this case, the “temporary immovable obstruction” was a ShotLink tower, which is about six inches wide. Because it’s possible DeChambeau’s shot might hit it, he gets free relief.
Now it’s not cheating to take advantage of this rule. It’s black and white, and he’s entitled to relief along his line of play. And of course, if something that isn’t usually on the golf course is there because it’s a tournament, a player shouldn’t be penalized because of it. But wouldn’t it make more sense to give a player free relief if they actually hit it with their shot, as opposed to only potentially hitting it?
Rules for this already exist. It’s under the “Local Rules” section of the rulebook and involves overhead power lines. If you’re playing on a course that has power lines running over it, and your ball hits those power lines, you are required by the local rule to replace your ball and replay your shot without penalty. It should be the same in tournaments for most things designated as a “temporary immovable obstruction”.
I would have no issue with line-of-sight relief being continued for tents, bleachers, etc. that block access to the green. But in general, you should only get relief from most temporary obstructions if you actually hit it.
To make sure I wasn’t out of my mind on this, or perhaps more correctly, out of my mind more than usual, I asked some of my former podcast co-hosts for an opinion, and Paul Hokanson, who golfs more than the rest of us combined, quickly jumped in to answer. “If Happy Gilmore has to play the ball where it lies that idiot can to…”, said Hokey. “That’s objectively nowhere near being an obstruction.”
He quickly added, “The more important thing is I can see losing a match this year because someone is ‘behind’ something by 85 yards and wants a free lift.”
I think we can guess the two-word answer Paul would give if an opponent asked for relief because of a flagpole in the way.
THREE
A few of my friends got worked up last weekend over something incredibly silly, and I’m going to mention what it was just so I can continue to poke fun at them. I figure any time you can make fun of your friends you should do so, especially when the reason for their angst is something so dumb making fun of it is essentially grabbing low-hanging fruit.
It seems Taylor Swift was voted as the eighth-best guitarist of the last two decades.
I’m not going to argue for or against that supposition, mostly because I can’t recall ever hearing a Taylor Swift song. That shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who knows me, I don’t listen to modern pop music. I probably couldn’t name five current pop stars no matter how much of a prize you offered me. People should listen to what they like and not be bothered by people who put down one type of music or another. Odds are if you’re reading this you don’t listen to a lot of the stuff I listen to now. That’s cool, I’m fine with it.
OK, so back to my angry friends. Swift wasn’t named “the eighth best guitarist of the last two decades” by a group of so-called experts, she finished eighth in a poll by Britain-based guitar retailer Guitarguitar. Again, eighth. In an online poll. In case you’re wondering, the dude from Blink-182, Tom DeLonge, finished ninth. Keith Urban finished 12th.
I at least have listened to John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers who “won” the poll, and I’m also a fan of sixth-place finisher Chris Shiflett of the Foo Fighters.
But in the end, nothing about that poll is anything but clickbait. And when you consider how many Swifties there are out there, people should be shocked that Swift ranked as low as she did. You’d have thought once word got out about that poll, she’d have had millions of fans rushing to vote for her. So, in reality, it’s just a dumb list.
And, by the way, Joe Bonamassa is the best guitar player of the last twenty years. He finished first in a poll of one.
FOUR
I know saying that I’m going to post something without a comment kind of defeats the purpose of having a blog and making a post that’s entirely about my opinion, but I’m literally at a loss for words about this. If this were a made-for-TV movie people would laugh at how unbelievable it is. And yet it seems it really happened.
Poisoned trees gave a wealthy couple in Maine a killer ocean view. Residents wonder, at what cost? (Wealth and hubris fuel the tale of a politically connected Missouri couple who allegedly poisoned their neighbor’s trees to secure their million-dollar view of Camden Harbor.)
I think I need to see that made-for-TV movie now.
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