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
As we hit the first week of July, we’ve reached one of my favorite times on the sports calendar when both the NBA and NHL drafts have been completed. Why is this one of my favs? Because now I no longer need to avoid all the clickbait articles ranking those drafts. To this day I have no idea how anyone can legitimately claim the ability to grade a draft that just happened considering none of those players have appeared in a game yet.
Yes, I have said and posted all of this before. So, I’m beating a dead horse here. Or to be cute, sort of a draft horse.
Seriously, how much knowledge is needed to give the San Jose Sharks an “A”, with or without the superlative “+”, for drafting the guy anyone with any sense of hockey knew was going to be the guy they drafted. Then they moved up, paying pretty much the standard price to do so, to get the best player available. In the second round they, get this, drafted the best player available.
Chicago had the second pick in each round and somehow managed to get an “A” for drafting the best player available each time. I can’t tell you any more about any grades from any other NHL teams because I didn’t see them. I only know the Sharks and Blackhawks grades because they were in headlines I saw as I scrolled by.
As for the NBA, I can’t tell you anything that happened at all other than the LA Lakers caved to LeBron James and drafted his kid Bronny in the second round. I guess the Lakers should get an “A” for not wasting their first-rounder on him, and perhaps some sites did give them one. I also know the senior James then opted out of his contract, so now Jeanie Buss can write an even bigger check to Lebron for ruining the salary cap situation for the team.
And as a nominal Celtics fan, Lebron gets an A+ for doing that.
TWO
Can someone tell me what is the fascination with Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest? Seriously, how can anyone see a bunch of people on a platform jamming hot dogs into their mouths and then think to themselves “I need to watch this”?
First off, Nathan’s hot dogs are terrible. I get we’re not talking filet mignon here, but even compared to other brands of hot dogs they’re just flat-out awful. Pretty much anything other than Kayem Old Tyme and Deutschmacher is lousy, but for a supposedly big-named brand, Nathan’s is especially bad. They’re not even as good as Hebrew National or Bar S, and those brands are only a couple steps up from dog food.
Nathan’s are so bad that 16-time contest champion Joey Chestnut decided to endorse a rival brand–I’d tell you what it was if I knew, and I’m far too lazy to look up what it is since that brand will inevitably be terrible anyway–and was banned from the Independence Day contest. Truth be told, Chestnut not being there actually made the gluttonous exhibition a tiny bit more interesting, if only to see that person who would have finished second to him being declared the winner. And “winner” might not be the best word to describe Patrick Bertoletti, who choked down 58 hot dogs and buns.
While the Worcester Telegram can’t be bothered to actually cover local sports in the city, despite it being a holiday they did somehow manage to get an article up on their website within 90 minutes or so of the contest ending informing their readers that Oxford’s Geoffrey Esper finished second to Bertoletti despite a personal-best 53 hot dogs.
Between the Men’s and Women’s divisions, and yes, there is a Women’s division, won by Miki Sudo’s 51, they consumed over 750 hot dogs. Now add in the number of hot dogs that were prepared but not eaten, and then ask how many hungry kids all of that could have fed as opposed to a bunch of idiots cramming food down their gullets trying to win a contest?
Gluttony should never be rewarded, much less celebrated.
THREE
This section was going to be about MLS, and I’ll get back to that subject later, but a Messenger conversation just now with good friend Bill about collectibles has derailed me a bit and I think that perhaps I’ll spout some thoughts on the subject.
Bill’s original question was “Am I ridiculous for wanting this?”, with “this” being an incredibly cool-looking Jaws Lego set. And the simple answer is, no, he’s not ridiculous for wanting that. It’s also not ridiculous that I sent the link to good friend Hokey knowing he’d want to see it too. If he replies before I mash “publish” on this post, I’ll include that.
The key to collectables in this day and age is knowing that the vast majority of them will not increase in value a whole lot. If you’re buying your standard run-of-the-mill collectibles with the intent of making money, you’ll be broke soon enough. But if you’re buying them because you enjoy looking at them and reliving some of the memories associated with the subject of the thing you bought, you’ll always make out.
My wife Trish collects Funko Pops, usually limited to the ones she likes the look of or of characters she really likes. They’re generally inexpensive, and two walls of her office are covered with the Funko Pops stacked like books. Now are any of them worth more than she paid for them? Actually, yes. But that’s not why she bought them and hasn’t once thought of selling any.
I collect lots of sports-related things. Before I got married, I spent a lot of money on some of them. Over the years I’ve sold off a lot of that stuff, mostly because of the space they took up. Did I make money on them? Overall, I’d say yes. But did a lot end up being tossed into the trash because they weren’t worth even trying to sell? That’s also a yes.
One of the things I still collect is John Olerud baseball cards. Almost none of those have any value, but my goal of having one of each from every set he was in continues, albeit at a much slower pace than years ago. Someday I’ll have it completed. Or not. Sometimes it’s about the journey and the memories, and not necessarily the item itself.
And memories take up a lot less space.
FOUR
While I’m not really into podcasts, many of my friends are. I think one of the reasons I’m not into them is my commute to and from work, which is prime listening time for podcasts and audiobooks, is about nine minutes. Plus, many of the popular ones don’t interest me in the least. If any of them has anything important to say, it’s generally all over social media so I get to hear or read about it anyway.
One of my running gags I have when people talk about podcasts is for me to mention that I’ve been on more podcasts than I’ve listened to all the way through. And without exaggeration, that’s completely true. Over the years I’ve contributed to several, and during COVID and in the months afterward I hosted one with friends called Nothing But Shenanigans. I’d point you toward episodes of that, but one of the reasons we stopped was hosting costs, so they’ve since dropped off the internet. I didn’t realize until much later that I should have been uploading them to YouTube too. So, if there’s a next time…
But anyway, this not listening to podcasts may change as I accidentally stumbled into one recently that I’ve really started to enjoy. It’s called The Rest Is Entertainment, hosted by Richard Osman and Marina Hyde. Osman is a British TV producer and personality and has written the Thursday Murder Club mystery series. Hyde writes for The Guardian, and while I was familiar with who she was I wouldn’t call myself a reader of her work.
How does one who doesn’t listen to podcasts stumble into one? Well, on Facebook, of course. The Rest Is Entertainment is also filmed for YouTube, and there was a video posted on Facebook of Osman answering a question about what goes on behind the scenes of a reality show. And that led me to look for other videos, and down the rabbit hole I went. I decided to head to YouTube and watch them all.
Despite it being centered on British TV and entertainment it’s full of some great stuff. The first one was uploaded in late November of 2023, and while some of the content from back then is a bit dated just because of the shows and people they’re talking about, they soon get into a twice-a-week posting schedule where the second episode each week is them answering questions about the entertainment industry. Those “Questions (and answers) [if you listen, you’ll eventually get the joke there]” episodes are really worth listening to.
So, will this change my podcast listening habits? I’d say it’s very unlikely. I barely have time for the stuff I do now, so squeezing in the time for more of this kind of stuff probably isn’t going to happen. But at least the door is open to maybe checking out other podcasts that are video-based.
Although it’s not open much.
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