The Billiken's Bluff

I've never felt comfortable being described as a liberal or a democrat. I'm more ANTI if anything.



But without the t-shirts and slogans. I could be convinced to be a card carrying Democrat if they changed a just about everything about their party. I like Elliot Spitzer but only because he seems like a little bit like Bruce Wayne, a rich citizen of Gotham, devoted to fighting crime with a Bill Cowher, granite jaw:



With that said I can't stand the center. The politically correct, say nothing offensive, nothing you believe in. Squelch all opinions that even remotely resemble a deviation from the median.



And yet my public life, my career and my comments without my mask on



are from this spineless center.



I like fantasy sports leagues, in part for the messageboard posts, the back and forth, and the team names. On WFAN sports radio there are callers who want to create small controversy. They call in this time of season and say why women shouldn't be allowed in fantasy sports leagues, or why the last caller is an idiot for taking that position. They posit that it's a boys club on the messageboards. Lewd and crude. They want to protect innocents at all costs. No casualities in this exchange of barbs. They also don’t want anyone reporting back what goes on inside.

I am the De La Brickashaws, mildly clever Jets fan's play on words (or not) in this year's fantasy football league. Nothing offensive (I've been broken politically correctly long ago),



but consider some of the other team names from my baseball league which is in its last throes:

Sure we have the SUNY frat boy boilerplate:

This League is GAY
T-Baggers

But we also have the more nuisanced:

The NY METsicans
Minaya's Gardeners


This is how people interpret the world around them.



This is what people would say without work places, and DMV’s and public spaces. Child's honesties. Everyone Mets fan would admit, if assured no repercussions, that the Mets blueprint has a decidedly Latin imprint. Omar Minaya signs the best Latin American players. People say on sports radio that it doesn't matter, which it doesn't to most people, but they also say they can't see a pattern.



call a spade a spade

I'm not sure what good it does to call out Omar Minaya for signing, Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, trading away Kris Benson. But, if the question is posed, observe honestly.

I can't care less about a players country of origin. I am a Mets fan. Jose Reyes is my favorite player. I root for him because he is small and quick and I know that whatever stats he compiles are free of any steroid/HGH accusation (i.e. Ryan Howard needs 10 clean years behind him before his fans can argue on his behalf). But, ask me and I'll tell you honestly that the Mets are the NY METsicans.

The street is correct.

The Utah Jazz pursue Arayan talent. Their GM, Scott Layden, transmutated to New York, signed Travis Knight, traded for Keith Van Horn and drafted Michael Doleac. Utah byproducts. Isiah Thomas traded Van Horn and filled the roster with his type of player.

The Celtics, were the Celtics because they had Bird, Mchale and Ainge (alongside Parrish)... three Irish-looking white guys. They appealed to their fans.



We cast our teams in our own image and likeness.

The Toronto Raptors are repositioning themselves as a foreign other. More than just the neighbor from the nook of the north. This will appeal to someone and this composition is not at random.






Everyone in NY media, and I guess every NYer by extension, wanted to know about Shawn Green's (the outlier on the NY METSicans) Wedding that his teammate and friend Carlos Delgado attended last year. Did Carlos do the hora during the party?





He's been described in the NYT Sunday Styles section (incorrectly) as perhaps the best Jewish baseball player in the MLB (Lance Berkman) come home to NYC. In 2000, when Green signed with LA, the Yankees considered bringing Green in to be a draw for New York Jewish fans.

Refusing to reveal obvious prejudices, black and white motivations.




Sports is close to Walton’s egalitarian meritocracy on the field, but in the hearts and minds of fans and ownership there are certain tangibles that are given equal consideration, but denied vehemently, outside the confines of your friends' fantasy sports league.