Muhammad Ali is 70

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”.

 

There are certain figures who are, for whatever reason, transcendent. For instance, people knew who Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan were, even if they didn’t follow baseball or basketball. Muhammad Ali was, and is, like that. In a period when the heavyweight championship of boxing still was culturally significant, before an alphabet soup of different boxing authorities stripped the championship of any lasting meaning, Ali was most noteworthy.

I remember that it was the conventional wisdom that Clay could not possibly beat champion Sonny Liston on February 25, 1964, a fight I recall hearing on the radio. Yet, Clay prevailed.

Shortly after the fight, he announced his conversion to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Ultimately, it was that conversion, scorned by some opponents who kept referring to him by what he called his “slave name”, that was the gateway to the next phase of his life: being stripped of his boxing crown and even his boxing license in 1967 for his “refusal to be conscripted into the U.S. military, based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War.” This was a momentous event, which “inspired Martin Luther King Jr. – who had been reluctant to alienate the Johnson Administration and its support of the civil rights agenda – to voice his own opposition to the war for the first time.” Ultimately, Ali won his US Supreme Court case, but not before he lost nearly four years working at his chosen profession.

This set the stage for three epic fights with the late Joe Frazier, who died late last year. In 1971, Frazier became the first fighter to defeat Ali then “lost two epic rematches including a ferocious battle known as the ‘Thrilla in Manila.'” Ali went on to have another stretch of boxing success. He has regularly been named one of the top one or two boxers of all time.

But it wasn’t just his boxing prowess. It was the poetry of his boxing style, which he described as “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”.

And it was his name change. Lots of actors have changed their name, but Ali’s action gave other athletes, such as Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, permission to do likewise. Whatever one thought of the theatrical arguing between Ali and ABC Sports’ Howard Cosell, I always liked Cosell because he always called Ali by the name he wished to be called.

I was awestruck at the 1996 Olympics when it was the Parkinson’s disease-riddled Ali who had the honor of lighting the flame at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. One of my favorite Ali memories was when he and his fourth wife, Yolanda, wife were being interviewed by the late Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes.

In 1999, Ali was crowned Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC.

Happy birthday, Muhammad.

Favorite sports (and version) QUESTION

It seems that half of the NBA gets into the playoffs anyway, making the regular season almost meaningless.

Simple query this time: what are your favorite sports? Are there versions or levels of the sport you enjoy more (or less)?

For instance, I like baseball. I like Major League Baseball, like watching it on TV, though I hate the fact that the National League has 16 teams and the American League has 14, for reasons Scott discussed here. But I really enjoy attending Minor League Baseball. College baseball’s interesting, but they still use those aluminum bats, which I find to be sacrilege at that age level. If the Little League World Series happens to be on, I’ll watch it.

I like football. I like the NFL, and particularly how the divisions are even. The league has found a way to distribute money more equitably so that there is more parity than in the college game. While I like the college game, I hate how it’s become a quasi-professional league, which in turn has caused several teams’ victories to be voided. Alabama and Ohio State (disgraced coach Jim Tressel, pictured), and several other teams have had their wins vacated in the past couple of seasons, with the expectations of it continuing in the future.

College basketball can also be subject to fraud. But the March Madness scheme, allowing teams from “weak” conferences to compete with the “major” conferences, unlike in football, makes the season more exciting. Meanwhile, it seems that half of the NBA gets into the playoffs anyway, making the regular season almost meaningless.

What are your sports favorites and dislikes?

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Those Hall of Fame Pirates must be rolling over in their graves.

Yeah, it’s Talk Like A Pirate Day. And fans of the team have reasons to go arrrrgh!


Here’s a list of players (with links) who played most or all of their careers with the Pittsburgh Pirates and who are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame:
Jake Beckley
Max Carey
Fred Clarke
Roberto Clemente
Ralph Kiner
Bill Mazeroski
Willie Stargell
Pie Traynor
Arky Vaughan
Honus Wagner
Lloyd Waner, pictured right
Paul Waner, pictured left

The Pittsburgh Pirates, a team with a long and storied history, has had 18 losing seasons – in a row. During that stretch, the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup and the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl -twice.

The team has long used the excuse that it is a “small market” team that needs to keep its payroll down, and indeed, the Pirates do have the lowest payroll in Major League Baseball. But look at the next lowest team, San Diego Padres, who spent only $4 million more and are fielding a competitive team.

This article explains it all: Joe Sheehan: Don’t blame the Pirates, blame MLB’s revenue-sharing system (08.25.2010)
There’s nothing wrong with a baseball team turning a profit. What is wrong is a baseball team that cries poor while posting 18 consecutive losing seasons turning a profit. This difference is why the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose financial data from 2007 and 2008, the 15th and 16th of those seasons, was made public on Monday, are the target of such recrimination. While positioning themselves as the victim of “the system” and trading away an entire starting lineup, the Pirates have been one of the most profitable teams in MLB, pocketing $29.3 million in 2007 and ’08 combined, years in which they cashed revenue-sharing checks for a whopping $69.3 million.

The fans have rightly charged ownership with malfeasance for failing year after year to field a competitive team. If I were in Pittsburgh, I’m not sure I would continue to support such an organization. Those Hall of Fame Pirates must be rolling over in their graves; well, except Kiner and Maz who ae still alive.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial