Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

The Newtown High School swim team should be commended for running its dual meet unbeaten streak to 32.

And I will commend them … Huzzah!

The Lady Nighthawks haven’t lost a meet since 2002 and with teams like Lauralton Hall and Pomperaug and Masuk in the South-West Conference, maintaining a streak like that – no matter how good you are – takes an awful lot of doing.

But I read an item in the Waterbury Republican-American on Friday morning that really made my jaw hit the floor.

Cheshire High School defeated Lauralton Hall on Thursday to finish its 19th consecutive unbeaten dual meet season. The Lady Rams have not lost a dual meet since 1986, for crying out loud, and their streak is now at 214.

Two hundred and fourteen!

Good golly, miss molly.

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Back on Monday, October 17, Newtown High School athletic director Gregg Simon – after some consultations with his chief meteorologist, Carl Strait – came to the conclusion that rain was going to endanger the boys’ soccer game and the Senior Night festivities that night and, thus, switched the game from 7 to 5 pm.

A bit of a hue and, of course, a cry went up with the postponement of Senior Night and, hey, Mr Simon is no stranger to criticism (as much as he would like to be a stranger to it). Oddly enough, when it started raining at 6:02 (I checked my watch) and then proceeded to rain more steadily as the evening progressed no one went up to Mr Simon and said, “Hey – good call.”

I guess that’s the price you pay for being the guy who makes the tough calls – a lot of criticism and, yet, no plaudits.

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I really enjoyed the time I was able to spend with the Newtown-Sandy Hooks Vintage Base Ball team this summer (a couple of practices and a couple of games actually in uniform) and after watching what transpired in the major league baseball playoffs last month, I was able to remind myself what vintage base ball was and is all about.

Remember that call in the White Sox-Angels playoff game … the one where the pitch was supposedly in the dirt and that allowed AJ Pierzynski to get on base and, thus, led the White Sox to a win? And remember the call in the World Series where the home plate umpire awarded Jermaine Dye first base after he was supposedly struck by a pitch … although the replay clearly shows the ball caromed off the bat.

Neither Pierzynski nor Dye turned down the free base, even though both knew the call was wrong.

In vintage base ball – and this happened at least twice to the Hooks – if one team disputes an umpire’s call the captain simply asks the other player involved (and the opposing team captain) if the call was correct and if the parties agree it wasn’t, a correction is made.

Hey, umpires miss calls. They missed calls 140 years ago and they missed calls last month. But, 140 years ago, honesty and integrity were the hallmarks of the game and honesty and integrity always won out.

Can you imagine if Jermaine Dye had turned to the home plate umpire and said, “Hey, Blue, that’s okay – the ball didn’t hit me.”? First, the umpire wouldn’t change his call and, second, manager Ozzie Guillen would have some choice words to spit out in the clubhouse.

There is little honesty or integrity in sports – let alone baseball – these days.

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Is it just me, or is the public revelation of the lifestyle of Houston Comets forward Sheryl Swoopes coming at a time that seems too convenient?

At the same time she makes this announcement in a story first reported by ESPN The Magazine it is also announced that Swoopes – a three-time MVP in the WNBA – has signed an endorsement deal with Olivia, a lesbian cruise line.

It just reminds me of all these players – most recently Bill Romanowski, formerly of the NFL – who seem to be clamoring to make these tearful revelations on nationwide television … at the same time they are hawking a new book.

The minimum salary of a WNBA veteran player is $42,000 (the minimum for a rookie is only $30,000) while the average salary is around $65,000. Or course, Swoopes is at the top range of WNBA salaries. Still, it’s not the kind of money guys like Latrell Sprewell earn and an endorsement deal such as Swoopes signed with Olivia certainly helps.

Listen, everyone should be able to live their lives without hiding who they are and Swoopes should be applauded because something like this takes a lot of courage, but the timing seems bad and, unfortunately, it brings into some question what her motive was in the first place.

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It seems fans – or a fan – of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is a little bit upset about being patted down and searched before entering the stadium. Claims it’s a violation of his privacy and civil liberties or whatever.

There are A LOT of people who agree with him, but I don’t.

Not one bit.

What is he hiding? Is he ashamed of something in his pocket? Is he carrying something into the stadium he shouldn’t? If the answer to those questions is no, then what is the problem?

A friend of mine once decried that the inspectors at the Emissions Station had to get into his car to run the test. He got very upset about it, telling me, “What if they go pawing through my glove compartment?”

Okay, I admit, in that situation the inspectors have no reason, not to mention no right, to go looking through someone’s glove compartment but I still asked the obvious question, “What’s wrong – you hiding something in there?”

It’s a different world, people. I don’t mind sacrificing a little privacy if it means someone won’t be hijacking an airplane I’m on or exploding a bomb on a bus I may be riding or doing something nasty in my section at the football game.

Only someone with something to hide should be nervous.

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With apologies to Dennis Miller, but I need to go on a rant here on something that has nothing to do with sports –

Folks, when I saw the news item on Exxon Mobil reporting its largest quarterly profit ever ($9.9 billion) with a picture of the CEO or CFO with a huge smile on his face I was so mad I could have crushed my computer into fragments … saving the biggest, sharpest shards for a confrontation with that grinning idiot.

When Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana it took, like, two days for the gas to soar from $2.10 to $3.10 a gallon. Industry analysts were blaming unrivaled demand and forecasting dire warnings of fuel shortages and yet these @%&*! rake in nearly $10 billion in profit?

Everyone should make a profit; I’m not begrudging Exxon Mobil from trying to make a profit and benefit its stockholders. What I am begrudging is, to me, a clear example of infecting the marketplace with fears of shortages and then gouging the customers when they scrambled to fill their gas tanks.

Listen, a year or two ago when gas was around $1.80 a gallon you would have to travel for miles before you found another station where you could save five or six cents a gallon. Last week, all I had to do was drive 400 feet to save 15 cents on a gallon of gasoline.

What’s that? Competitive pricing … or an example of gouging?

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Since I’m still off the subject of sports –

The other day I had just slipped in my new Resident Evil 4 disc into the Playstation 2 when a knock came at the back door.

I asked my son to go answer it and, of course, he asked me to go answer it and by the time the title screen of the game came up I had pulled my bulk off the couch to go answer the door.

It was two fellows from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hoping they could speak with me about the Book of Mormon.

Now that’s what I call timing.