Let
it snow, let it snow, let it snow…” go the words to a popular Yuletide tune. It’s also the
hourly mantra chanted by my brother, my brother’s very own prosperous personal
injury attorney from Philadelphia, and myself, as we gazed out into the crystal
clear skies of Winter Park, Colorado.
Winter Park is an old-time ski resort, which has somehow managed to remain
quaintly underdeveloped (by the gaudy standards of today’s
created-to-make-money areas). My brother talked me into this excursion on the
strength of an extravagant description of our accommodations. It had three
luxurious bedrooms, he said, and a bathroom for everybody. It turns out my
bedroom was the living room and my bed was a pull-out sofa, so singularly
disgusting (the musty gray-yellow sheets and moth-eaten once-upon-a-time-white
blanket, looked, felt and smelled like they’d been stored since the Great
Depression), I chose to sleep on the couch.
The television dominated my (and everybody else’s) room and so, from my spot
on the divan, my companions and I developed the following theory we’ll call
The Tomorrow Directive. The Tomorrow Directive mandates: In a tourist
locale, if what you came there for — sun, calm seas, clear water, birds or, in
our case snow — is not happening, all the locals and the regional media are
required to say, over and over, “tomorrow.” There’d been a dearth of snow in
Winter Park, but everyday the Denver television stations would report, hourly
and with vigor, it would snow… tomorrow.
Finally, on the sixth day, it did. With six inches of dry Colorado powder
waiting on the slopes, I rousted my brother and his sleepy attorney out of bed.
The lifts opened at 8:30. We would be there. I was skiing along quite smartly,
showing off outstanding powder form to my companions when, in the blink of an
eye, I was face down in a large pile of fresh snow, my skis pointed toward the
blue sky, my right arm twisted unnaturally behind my back. Within an hour, with
seismic pain shooting down my ravaged appendage, I staggered off the mountain,
a beautiful day wasted. By evening, the arm was in a sling. Let it snow…
Retreating to the condo, I had the unexpected opportunity to witness an ugly
Longhorn defeat to Colorado. I don’t know about you, but I’m real sick of
hearing Tom Penders whine incessantly about his tough schedule. I’m sick of
hearing about RPI and Sagarin Ratings. I’m sick to the point of vomit of
hearing about “good losses.” If Penders schedules a game expecting to lose, but
to still win somehow by looking brave to a computer or a faceless committee,
that’s his choice. We don’t need to hear about how tough it is out there.
Most disturbing is the weak way the team is finishing the year.
Penders-coached teams always used to finish strong (the result of a SWC
schedule?). This team looked much better in January than March, which doesn’t
bode well for the short-term, tournament future.
The Colorado massacre was as bad as Texas could possibly look, but still, it
got me thinking. There’s much griping, understandably, by Colorado fans about
being seeded behind a clearly inferior Texas team in the Big 12 tournament this
week. If Texas didn’t already have the #2 seed locked up, and if they were not
so secure in knowing — at least Penders seems secure — that an NCAA bid is
already a foregone conclusion, would a different team have showed up at the
Coors Event Center last Saturday? Texas, having already clinched the South
Division and an automatic bye, had little to play for on Saturday; and it
showed. The current seeding process creates a sports nightmare: a good team
(though in this case it’s debatable) mailing in a who-gives-a-shit performance,
as they try to stay healthy for the more important games to come. In other
words, maybe teams should be seeded simply 1 thru 12, by record.
If you don’t understand
the concept of a lose-lose proposition, take a look at professional baseball.
One side are the crotchety, old baseball purists; my father being a prime
example. They are, to a man, against interdivisional play, division
realignment, free agency and Windows 95. On the other side, are those who
understand baseball is a great game, but also have no emotional investment in a
set-in-stone list of teams under the banner of, say, National League West. I’m
on that side. In the middle is the game itself; battered on one side for being
too stodgy, battered on the other side for being a runaway, liberal freight
train with no respect for its past. This is what’s known as a lose-lose
proposition.
A postscript: Baseball should postpone league realignment for five years.
Change is good, but too much is… too much. The game has been through enough
in the past decade. Let the dust settle. I like the prospect of the White Sox
playing the Cubs or the Astros playing the Rangers. Let’s see how it pans out.
Make your fans secure that the game’s here to stay. No more ugly labor
disputes. Prove changes like inter-league play are good for everybody. Then,
talk about the Dodgers playing in the American League. (Yuk!)
This article appears in March 7 • 1997 and March 7 • 1997 (Cover).