It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut...is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring - caring deeply and passionately, really caring - which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete - the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazard flight of a distant ball - seems a small price to pay for such a gift.
--Roger Angell
Onto the Quack:
- Matt and I recorded an excellent podcast last night with Jeff Nusser and Brian Floyd of CougCenter. The Mike Leach hire has brought the excitement back to Pullman. To me, Washington State is the most interesting team in the conference this season, and every Cougar game will be must-DVR television.
- Softball will be hosting a regional this weekend, and George Schroeder uses the occasion to tell us about the dilapidated state of Howe Field. Its the worst facility in the conference, and the once facility on campus that isn't brand new, yet there are no plans to replace or renovate it.
- Brock Huard likes the Ducks, and not the Trojans, to win the Pac-12 and make a run at the national title (warning: Insider link).
- With a four-team playoff all but certain, Andy Staples tackles an important question: How do you avoid a situation like last year, where Stanford was ranked ahead of Oregon despite the Ducks winning the conference and destroying the Cardinal in Palo Alto?
- Finally, Avinash over at Pacific Takes looks at Pac-12 athletic revenues. Only one department is operating in the black. Guess who?
That's all the quack I have for today. Remember, its been 3,120 days since the washington huskies have beaten the Oregon Ducks in football.