I Am Full of Love
By Jason Harris | Posted Under Miscellaneous | Comments (20)
It occurred to me while listening to a D.C. radio host meltdown over the Eagles beating the Redskins from pillar to post last week that there are few things I enjoy more than a good rant. The more unhinged, scatological, spittle-flecked and bug-eyed the better.
Nothing sparks a good rant like sports. Maybe politics, I imagine some of Rahm Emmanuel’s tirades left scorch marks in his West Wing office, but politicians are generally smart enough to avoid losing all contact with humanity while standing in front of a microphone.
Fortunately, the sports world is not given to such decorum. In my continuing and often fruitless efforts to achieve zen, I have tried to become less passionate, or at least less unreasonable, about sports. In his younger days, your gentle author was given to not only screaming at the television, but occasionally shattering objects of furniture onto nearby walls. As I’ve gained more perspective, and purchased more expensive furniture, I’ve endeavored to indulge my superego less often. That said, I was still standing in my living room dropping an imaginary Hammer of Thor on the heads of the hapless Redskins. Inner peace is a journey, not a destination.
Considering the love for the profane, nearly psychotic Malcolm Tucker around these parts, it’s clear I’m not alone. So in keeping with our recent move towards a kinder, gentler Pajiba, and because I didn’t have anything ready to go tonight, I’m going to to share with you a few of my favorite rants.
Bobby Knight is, as far as I can tell, a completely wretched human being. He’s been known to choke players, once kicked his own son during a basketball game and famously launched a chair across the floor. He was charged with assaulting a police officer during a dispute over the use of a practice gym while in Puerto Rico for the Pan Am Games.
Family lore has it that he once spent 45 minutes screaming at my uncle, who would go on to make the Freshman All-Big Ten team at middle linebacker later that year, for walking across the gym floor at Indiana, so hating Bobby Knight is in my DNA.
That said, tell me you wouldn’t go out and kill whatever was in front of you after listening to this:
I’m sure there is some kind of context for this completely lunatic recording of former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver. Weaver, elected to the Hall of Fame in 1996, has a career .583 winning percentage and won the World Series in 1970, so it wasn’t because the Orioles suck out loud the way they do now. Personally, I prefer to think this is how ALL of Weaver’s “Manager’s Corner” broadcasts sounded.
If Earl Weaver works better without any explanation, this truly beautiful rant by Detroit radio host Mike Valenti needs a little set up. Notre Dame was down 16 points in the fourth quarter at Michigan State in a 2006 game and, really, it should have been much worse. The Spartans were at home, the crowd was going wild and MSU was putting a boot to that ass.
But Brady Quinn threw two touchdowns in a driving rain and Spartan quarterback Drew Stanton threw two interceptions, including a backbreaking interception that was returned for a TD and another that snuffed out State’s last-ditch attempt at a comeback. The Irish won 40-37 and, well, this is the result.
Happy ranting, Pajibans.
JASON HARRIS IS YELLING AND HE DOESN’T KNOW WHY.
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Comments
Posted by: The Wanderer at November 23, 2010 8:15 PM
I can work up a good rant (usually about religion or rightist politics), but as I tend to start snarling in tlHIngan Hol or ersatz Swedish, they tend to lose something in translation.