Sports Talk

For literally no reason that I can possibly describe, I woke up this morning thinking about great sports figures. I love sports, but it’s not usually what I think of first. Anyhow, here’s the question I found myself asking:

If I was to give an athlete of the decade in the major sports, to whom would I give the award?

Here’s how it breaks down, though I am a bit concerned that I‘ve forgotten proper dates for some of these guys. I also haven’t given this enough thought, and reserve the right to change my picks upon further review and great discussion that I hope this creates.

Baseball--’00s, Ty Cobb; 10s, Rogers Hornsby; 20s, Babe Ruth; 30s, Lou Gehrig; 40s, Ted Williams; 50s, Willie Mays; 60s, Sandy Koufax; 70s, Nolan Ryan (shaky pick, but I am a big Nolie fan, probably should be Pete Rose or even Reggie Jackson); 80s Rickey Henderson or George Brett; 90s Tony Gwynn or Greg Maddux or Mark McGwire

Basketball--’40s, George Mikan; 50s, Bob Cousy; 60s, Wilt Chamberlain; 70s Oscar Robertson (or is he more 60s? Jerry West?); 80s Bird or Magic (impossible to justify one over the other); 90s, Jordan.

Football--20s-40s, Red Grange; 50s, Jim Brown; 60s, Bart Starr; 70s Terry Bradshaw; 80s Joe Montana; 90s Jerry Rice.

Hockey--’00s-70s, Bobby Orr; 80s-90s, Wayne Gretzky

Soccer--20s-80s, Pele; 90s, Ricardo, Roberto, Risotto, Dissolvo, whatever.

Cycling--10-80s, Greg LeMond; 90s, Lance Armstrong

Boxing--30s, Joe Louis; 40s, Rocky Marciano; 50s Sugar Ray Robinson; 60s Muhammed Ali; 70s Roberto Duran; 80s Buster Douglas, 90s Butterbean

World’s Strongest Man--All Time: Magnus ver Magnusson

8^th Grade 4^th String Football: 80s, Jim Haefele

I know I have readers with opinions on this.

Birthday Tribute:  Scott Jorgensen

I missed a birthday last week, which I think Scott Jorgensen will forgive me for, since we have been in pretty major league transit. But in June I started my Birthday Tributes, and I want to do this one, belatedly.

Happy Birthday to Scott, who turned 57 last week.

Despite his advancing age, Scott is one of the younger adults that I know. For Scott, an endless pleasure found in monkeys, gizmos, dumb jokes, techno, and GTR demonstrate a prolonged adolescence of which many of us can only dream. It is, in fact, only Scott’s exquisite taste in beer and single-malt that makes you think he’s older than fifteen. That and the hair on face and body.

My history with Scott is, relative to many of my closest friends, brief. But it’s rich and layered and at times quite intense. There was sort of a friend-of-a-friend thing going on with us in Minnesota a few years back, and we hung out with Scott and then-wife Heather quite a bit. We invited them to our wedding, and Scott accepted. Then, for some reason, we casually mentioned that we were planning an overnight hike and camping trip in Zion National Park, where the wedding was held. Whether we actually invited Scott along, or whether he invited himself along is a fact lost to the ages. But the fact was that we had family and a few very, very close friends along for this hike, and Scott.

But it went swimmingly, as Scott made us all laugh with his impressions of porcupines and jokes at the expense of the guy who drove us to the trailhead. And we really hit it off, and from there, things got better. We spent more time together, hanging out pretty regularly, kicking it old school, which is the only way Scott knows how to kick it.

In 1999, our relationship took another rich turn when Scott, Melissa and I went on a month-long hike in the Himalayas in Nepal. It was a great trip, but intense, and it’s things like six-foot high piles of human excrement, veg egg cheese noodle for every goddamned meal and yeti fears that bring people together. It’s worth mentioning that Scott actually quit his job to go on the trip with us--they wouldn’t give him the vacation at his ad firm, and so he gave them the finger, and now he’s a badass freelance guy. Or freestylist, as I prefer. Thing work out.

Scott alleged he would visit every country we live in, though he missed Tunisia. I imagine he’ll be in Dubai, though, and I can’t wait.

Happy Birthday, my man.