As of this writing, we have exactly RSS subscribers, plus those folks who dip their toes in each week, so breaking 50,000 shouldn’t be too far off.

THANK YOU!  (Or have I said that?)

Alas, your reward for your loyalty is a rebaked piece from two years ago, when George Carlin died, because I’m goin’ fishin’. Or, at least, not writing a new piece until next week.  The main motivation is so many Michigan Radio listeners head up north — or somewhere else, anyway– this weekend, reducing the broadcast to the proverbial tree in the forest.  But I can assure you I am fully aware of recent press conferences in Ann Arbor, and I will have plenty to say about this down the road.

George Carlin Safe At Home

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Comedian George Carlin died two years ago this spring, at the age of 71. Almost every elegy for him said, “He is remembered mainly for his skit on the ‘Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Radio.’” But I remember Carlin for a better bit.

I’m not going to discuss his Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Radio – because, I’m ON radio, and you still can’t.  And besides, it seems shame to have your life’s work reduced to seven profanities. Carlin was better than that. 

I believe Carlin was not only one of our funniest comics – which is, after all, the point of his profession – but also one of the most thoughtful, even insightful. I still use his comparison of baseball and football – and what they say about our society — when I teach my class on the history of college athletics.  

Carlin not only breaks down two of our most popular sports, he deftly demonstrates how they define fans as liberal or conservative, dove or hawk, Prius or Hummer.

But I’ll let the man speak for himself.

“Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.

Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

“Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.  The baseball park!

Football is played on a gridiron,in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

“Baseball begins in the spring! The season of new life!

Football begins in the fall, when everything’s dying.

“Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness. Baseball has… the sacrifice!

“Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.

“Football has the two minute warning.

“Baseball has no time limit. We don’t know when it’s gonna end!  We might even have extra innings!  Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we’ve got to go to sudden death.

“And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

“In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun.With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.

“In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! I hope I’ll be safe at home!”