Cal.E.'s Korner

C.: Well, tonight is the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and d.c. is a big sports fan. Actually, he’s more of an average-sized guy (hee hee). Anyway, I volunteered to monitor our 119 line so he could watch the game on television.  That probably wasn’t necessary, though, because the phone rarely rings. It seems that no one is having such a good life that he or she just wants to brag about how well they’re doing. I think I’ll let my mind wander, since I’m not expecting anyone to call this line. that's why I'm just chillin' on my bed,

I wonder if d.c. will be upset if they show the baseball commissioner and brag about how good a job he’s doing. Rob (he is NOT a) Man,Fred, may be the most unpopular person in Greater Houston since Mike Fiers. Oddly, these two are tied together by the same incident. As Dusty Baker said, they had ways of dealing with people like Mike Fiers in his day. Would he have dared say anything about a teammate of Bob Gibson’s? I think not. The same goes for Nolan Ryan, even with his reputation as a gentleman. No one wants to be hit in the back or the butt by a fastball that may be traveling at 108 m.p.h.

Some other unpopular people in the history of Houston sports read like a who’s who of good (or great) players. My number one pick is Luis Pujols. He could have had a bad season until his team played the Astros. That seemed to spur him on to have a decent season, and to probably help him get into the most hallowed Hall of Fame on the first ballot when he becomes eligible.

A close number two is Terry Bradshaw. The man won four Super Bowls in six years, often spoiling a good season by the Houston Oilers by defeating them in a playoff game. Some of those games decided the AFC’s representative in the Super Bowl.

Next would be anyone who ever wore a jersey for the Los Angeles Lakers or the Boston Celtics (see above). And Tom Brady probably couldn’t buy a house in Houston, either.

What these players and teams have in common, though, is respect. Bradshaw completed fifty- and sixty-yard touchdown passes that he never saw, because he was laying on his back after being leveled by a defensive lineman or linebacker (this was legal in the 1970s). Even then, the Steelers hall-of fame middle linebacker, Jack Lambert, suggested that quarterbacks should wear dresses because of the preferential treatment they received (I wonder how Jack would feel watching a film clip of Brady in his latter years when the officials would call a fifteen-yard penalty on anyone who touched him. And how do you think Jack They Cal me Assassin Tatum of the 1970s Raiders would feel about that?) The Raiders’ safeties weren’t the cleanest defensive backs in the world, but they did earn the other teams’ respect by playing hard, not mouthing off about something they knew little about.

Fiers only stayed with the Astros for a part of one season, in which he pitched a no-hitter, with his hand covered with pine tar by many accounts. Isn’t that against the rules of baseball as well? And the commissioner bringing up the 2017 signs stealing scandal with every opportunity he gets is ridiculous, considering it’s been proven, as Reggie Jackson intimated, that at least half of the teams in MLB were using some kind of system to do the same thing (and I’ll take the over on that one, Mr. October, if we’re betting).

Respect, in my opinion, must be earned. It does not come because one is in a particular position or office, and Rob has lost it in many people's opinions. The office or position is a platform to prove that you deserve to be in that position. That is how respect is earned. That is a lesson that has been lost on this planet, in my never-to-be humble opinion.

This has been Cal.E. Katt, with one cat's (correct) opinion.