Month: October 2018

There was one point, late in UAB’s 29-21 victory over North Texas on Saturday, when I could almost see him.

Pop was sitting in his recliner in the corner of the den, legs propped up, with the index finger of his right hand tapping the transistor radio on the arm rest.

I can’t remember the brand of the radio, I just know I never saw it removed from its worn, black leather casing.

To his left would be that cheesy standing ashtray, where he’d keep his lukewarm cup of coffee, pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, and a book of matches.

My chair was the “old” recliner – the one that barely reclined at all, and then only after some major butt bouncing and contorting.

In the old days before there were 20 televised games all at once and college football could be eyeballed from noon Saturday until 1 a.m. Sunday, radio was the way to go.

And because the North Texas game was televised on beIN Sports – a network that is not part of my cable package – it was the way I went last weekend, following the audio online.

It brought back some bittersweet memories.

Long ago, Pop and I spent a whole lot of time listening to the crackling, AM-filtered sounds of John Forney calling Alabama games and Gary Sanders providing play by play for Auburn.

Now radio tends to augment events; you might have your ear buds in while at the stadium, or follow the action on your car radio while driving.

Just sitting down and making the radio the centerpiece of your three hour sports block, however, is a lost art.

But I broke out the canvas for the Blazers’ biggest game of the year and let David Crane paint the picture.

Pop would’ve loved it.

I’ve always been a “mobile” game listener, meaning I tend to pace and fidget.

It happens more during a tight game, of course, so I spent most of the second half on my feet, racking up steps on my FitBit.

Pop, on the other hand, always rode the chair from whistle to whistle, regardless of the situation.

Good play, bad play – he never got up and never allowed himself to become animated.

But what really brought his memory back to me the most was in the early going, when it looked like the Mean Green might end up running the Blazers out of Legion Field.

Pop was an enigma; in life he tended to see the best in everyone.

In sports, he expected the worst in everything.

“Well, son, this just ain’t their day,” he might say after the team we were rooting for fell behind, or made an early blunder. “They’ll never beat anybody playing like that.”

And then when things turned around and the good guys won by 20, he’d smile and say, “I’m glad they figured out what was wrong before the game got away from them.”

After North Texas moved the ball with ease in the first half and raced out to a 21-10 lead after two quarters, I could practically hear his pessimism.

And I was feeling it, too.

But this UAB team is the kind he would’ve given credit to in the end, because they figure out how to win. And I guarantee he would’ve hung on Crane’s every word Saturday, appreciating the way the voice of the Blazers was able to let him “see” the game.

And after a furious rally that saw the Blazers score 19 unanswered points to take the “W” and seize control of the Conference USA West Division, he would’ve enjoyed my histrionics.

His biggest chuckle would’ve come when UAB made a stop on fourth down that sealed the game; I leapt into the air with a clenched fist and landed a fairly solid punch to a ceiling fan blade.

Nothing broke – on the hand or the fan – but it did send two cats scurrying out of the room.

Pop died in 1994, two years before UAB began play in college football’s top division. It has now been nearly a quarter of a century since he and I were able to sit down and “watch” a game on the radio.

Last weekend, though, it felt kinda like we were able to do it again.

Oh, and as for that comment I made earlier about “bittersweet” memories, you can go ahead and strike that.

An important win by my favorite team – experienced through radio – allowed me to revisit the greatest father a kid could ever have.

That’s pretty sweet.

Once upon a time, I absolutely loved baseball.

I’d watch it on TV as often as I could, but the real thrill was seeing a game live.

Growing up in Birmingham, that meant I had the Southern League Birmingham A’s and then Barons to root for, and I was in the stands frequently when they called Rickwood Field home. During the Barons’ championship season of 1983, they set a Southern League record for most home wins (57), and I saw the vast majority of them.

There were lots of beers, lots of hot dogs, and lots of fun.

Of course if you wanted to see big league ball, all you had to do was hop on I-20 and head to Atlanta.

Back in the old days the Braves mostly sucked, so you could get great tickets at face value (or less) and sit pretty much anywhere you liked at Fulton County Stadium.

A buddy and I used to go every season when the Braves would host the Chicago Cubs, catching the Friday and Saturday night games and then the Sunday matinee.

I’ll never be able to explain it, but there was something life-affirming about watching a couple of losing teams battle it out.

It didn’t really matter who won or lost, it was just a chance to soak in the National Pastime.

But that was a long, long time ago.

The Barons left Rickwood Field for Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, and then returned to the city limits when Regions Field was built on the hip side of town.

The Braves stopped sucking, and moved from Fulton County Stadium to Turner Field to Sun Trust Park in Cobb County.

Sadly, I’ve moved, too – away from baseball. At some point, we broke up and I started seeing other sports.

I’m not sure who’s at fault or why it happened.

When I retired from working at newspapers, one of the things I vowed to do was to become a real sports fan again – someone who was free to simply enjoy the games without having to worry about chronicling those games for other people.

And I had every intention of reigniting my passion for baseball.

Although the Cubs have been my favorite National League team since I was a little boy, the New York Yankees are my favorite team overall.

Before the Braves came along they were my dad’s faves, too, and he used to tell me about the days when the Southern Association Barons were the affiliates of the Yankees back in the 1950s.

I had fully intended to rock my Yankees dad cap and Mickey Mantle replica jersey and take a deep dive in Major League Baseball this past spring and summer.

I also planned to pop over to see the Braves and go back home to watch the Barons since I haven’t been to their new digs yet.

But … it never happened.

Oh, I wore my Yankees cap plenty of times, but I was usually watching soccer or rugby when I did.

I spent the first two months of the 2018 season trying to get interested, and spent the past five months coming to grips with the fact that – for whatever reason – the game simply doesn’t appeal to me right now.

I wish there was some tangible reason, because then it would make more sense. But even though I don’t like interleague play, the designated hitter rule or games that run past three hours, none of those are deal breakers.

MLB has great pitchers, great hitters, great teams, and there have been exciting story lines throughout the 2018 campaign.

All I know about any of it, though, is what I’ve read.

During the Yankees’ winner-take-all wildcard game against the Athletics, I fell asleep in the third inning.

Worse, I never made it through an entire division series game and have yet to watch a league championship series matchup in its entirety.

I’ll put the game on TV, but I wind up playing on my iPhone or watching United States Football League videos on YouTube.

And that’s kinda sad.

I’m not going to claim that baseball was ever my favorite sport, because it wasn’t. But it was a favored sport, and one that I took great joy in for so many years.

I wish I could find that feeling again, because I really want to be a baseball fan. Yet just as people drift apart, I guess people can drift apart from sports, too.

Love is fickle, ain’t it?

Had things gone as planned, I would currently be pontificating about the future of the Pacific Pro Football League, which was set to play its inaugural summer season with an eight game schedule contested from early July through late August.

I might’ve made room to look back at the Major League Football campaign, too, which in 2016 announced a two-year television deal with American Sports Network.

Alas, there’s nothing to report – at least not from the playing field.

Pac Pro pushed its start date back to the summer of 2019, and last month started looking for a new CEO – which perhaps means there is no definitive timeline for when it plans to get started.

I subscribe to the Pac Pro email updates, and the last one I received came in February when the league announced a “founding partner” relationship with Adidas.

You can also ask questions via the website although, to date, none of mine have been answered.

Then again, they never promised to answer, so …

MLFB, on the other hand, has become something of a joke, defined by a series of missteps. It seems less like a sports league and more like a wrecked car in a locked garage; it’s never going anywhere.

It was supposed to be up and running in the spring of 2016, and then 2017, and then this past spring.

Go to its website today, and you see five players dressed in colorful uniforms under the announcement: Coming Soon, New MLFB Website.

Visit its Facebook page, and you’ll see a lot of people making fun of it.

Of course those of us who grasp at any shiny object (and by “shiny object” we mean upstart pro football leagues) don’t have to wallow in disappointment.

The Alliance of American Football – now with all its cities, coaches, nicknames and colors lined up – begins play in February.

A year later, the XFL is supposed to rise from the gridiron grave, giving fans of spring football another option.

Personally, I’m putting all my chips in the AAF basket since my hometown of Birmingham has a team and the city closest in driving distance to me – Atlanta – has one as well.

Still, before I ever heard of the AAF or XFL: The Sequel, I was enamored with Pac Pro.

Of all the leagues that have come along – spring, summer, whatever – this one appeared to have a business plan that could actually turn the league onto a viable entity.

I wrote about the league back in 2017, and am still intrigued by the concept.

“Pacific Pro is the first professional football league ever created to provide developing football players with a choice to play professionally directly from high school – a league where emerging players can hone their craft, play football, and be compensated for it,” reads the release on the league website. “Pacific Pro will be the first league to professionalize players who are less than four years removed from their high school graduation. Players will receive a salary, benefits, and even paid tuition and books for one year at community college. Players also will be able to market themselves for compensation, and begin creating a financial retirement plan if they so choose.”

Salaries are approximately $50,000 per player, which is pretty sweet money coming right out of high school.

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

Certainly, there are many “student-athletes” who are interested in getting a quality education while playing college football, but there are some who aren’t.

Whether they can’t make the grade or simply don’t want to go to college, Pac Pro would work like a trade school in the football trade.

The original plan was to start with four teams, all in Southern California, and then then expand from there.

Now, who knows if it’ll ever get off the ground?

When fledgling sports leagues delay their start, that delay often becomes permanent.

I’d still like to see Pac Pro become a reality, if for no other reason than to find out how many hot shot prep players are willing to go straight to the professional ranks.

If it doesn’t, though, that’s OK, too.

The AAF will garner my attention in the spring and come June, the Canadian Football League will be my primary football concern.

Everything else is just gravy.