BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

R-E-S-P-E-C-T the King or Bad Pizza


Lebron James special delivery

The worst that ever happened on the court to Michael Jordan was his freeze out during his first All-Star Game when a jealous Isiah Thomas and Magic Johnson conspired with other players to intentionally deny him the ball. Only Jordan never noticed not until a reporter asked him about it afterwards (after having heard about it from George Gervin).

Well, we all know that MJ torched everyone on that list all the way until his retirement. But the thing is there was never any denying his game even as a rookie.

Not with LeBron James. He's been criticized as being a pretender; anointed and handed the scepter when he hadn't won anything. He's been chided for his lack of clutch baskets, and for his own freeze out by Larry Brown on the US national team.

And he was called "overrated" by DeShawn Stevenson and a "crybaby" by Brandon Haywood. DeShawn and Brandon who?

I've been harsh on LeBron's game when every thing's on the line (anyone who calls him money ought to move to the page with the entry of one Kobe Bean Bryant), but LeBron is anything but those two.

It's kind of embarrassing that even a pizza joint got into the act. Papa John's Pizza, the third largest pizza chain in the US behind Pizza Hut and Domino's issued tee-shirts to Washington Wizards fans in the final game of the series against Cleveland. Really!

Remember "Better ingredients. Better pizza?" That slogan that Papa John's used awhile back until they got their asses sued by Pizza Hut? Well, the judge was right -- better ingredients doesn't necessarily mean better pizza.

In an absolutely tasteless act, they issued the shirts. And Bron torched them too for the nth straight year. How about issuing them Wizards a shirt of their own that says "LOSERS." Or maybe "Got game? Where?" How about "Agent Zero. Zero chances."

Now that the Cavaliers are about to face the Boston Celtics, Doc Rivers even had this to say, “He’s (LeBron) Shaq at guard. He’s big, powerful, explosive.” You have to remember that Kobe wasn't the clutch player he was early in his career. That came with time. Ditto for Reggie Miller who apprenticed under the Rifleman.

Yeah, Papa John's Pizza isn't so bad. But really, it's nothing more than a second-rate Pizza Hut.

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