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I have been obsessed with the concept of the Sports Trade ever since I was in the eighth grade.
It was back then when I'd spend the night at my buddy Mike's house. He had Showtime, which meant we could stay up late and watch things like "Emmanuelle V: Where Nobody Wears Clothes" and my parents would never know.
More important, we could watch the movie my buddy Mike told me would change my life.
We could watch "Slap Shot."
"Slap Shot" was a Showtime staple in the early '80s. They wore it out, those Showtime programmers. If they'd ever been asked by Showtime's CEO what they were doing to the network by showing "Slap Shot" four times a week, the programmers, I assume, would have answered: "Makin' it look mean!"
Anyway, the concept of the Sports Trade -- the topic today at The Cooler, after baseball's trading deadline passed over the weekend -- was never more poignant and meaningful than when the Hanson Brothers arrived, via trade, with the Charlestown Chiefs. It was then, as a young sportswriter-in-training, that I learned the art of the trade, the delicacy of the negotiations that must go into each transaction, the thought and intensity behind each trigger-pull made by a sports executive.
Or, as one Charlestown Chief said upon watching the Hanson Brothers play: "What did the old man trade for these a-holes, a used puck bag?"
I learned lessons from the Hanson Brothers Trade that help me in my job to this day. If a local team makes a big deal, it's important to remember all the options that were at the club's disposal. It's important to consider the pressures felt by management before the big negotiation. It's crucial to consider the pros, the cons, the intense study that goes into a franchise-altering move.
Or, as Paul Newman's Reggie Dunlop said to management: "You cheap son-of-a-b----. These guys are retards."
How can I expect to understand ownership's side of any other deal, without first analyzing and dissecting the move made by McGrath, the Chiefs' general manager, in acquiring the Hanson Brothers? It was critical training for a young, aspiring scribe to comprehend that management's point of view was worth a listen. There I sat at Mike's house, in the blue glow of the TV set well after midnight, listening to the reasoning of the Charlestown owner.
"I got a good deal on those boys," he said. "Scout said they showed a lot of promise."
And, of course, it was ultimately imperative that I was to get to the heart of the deal, to know how things stood, in the end. Was it a good deal for your team? Did your team give up too much? Did your team add a positive influence to your clubhouse, and to your roster?
Newman's Reggie Dunlop knew what he thought of the Hanson Brothers deal. His reaction was pure in its simplicity, profound in its succinctness. Assessing the acquisition of Jeff, Jack and Steve Hanson, Newman brought it to a head when he said: "They brought their f-ing TOYS with them!"
I'd like to think I wouldn't be the scribe I am today without those crucial lessons learned in the Hanson Brothers Trade.
And, yes. You are free now to have Maxine Nightingale's "(Get It) Right Back Where We Started From" in your head all day.
On, then, to the Weekend List of Five:
1. Trades we'd like to see
Enough with Randy Johnson's trade status. Blah, blah, blah.
Let's talk about the real trades we'd like to see.
(Remember Mad Magazine's "Things We'd Like to See" feature? Like, "Greeting Cards or TV Disclaimers or Lawsuits We'd Like to See"? Mad Magazine was it, in the mid-1970s, man. How about that Back-Page Fold-It puzzle? It would inevitably be some political comment about pollution that would sail over my nine-year-old head. But I'd go to the mat for Spy vs. Spy. At least, I would back then. Now I'm sort of creeped out by the notion of huge-beaked espionage. Was it a Cold War allegory? I digress.)
Anyway, real life needs a Trade Deadline. We need to jettison the dead weight and improve our every-day roster. I'd engineer the following deals:
2. No more No-Mah
Listen, I've officially abandoned my position that the Giants-Dodgers rivalry can match the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry.
The Giants-Dodgers rivalry is tense, taut, historic, awesome, fun, spirited and completely sates my sports jones.
The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is different.
I learned it, officially, on July 1. I sat in the Champions Sports Bar in the Springfield, Mass., Marriott and watched the Greatest Regular Season Game Ever. You remember: Jeter Into the Stands, The Would-Be Triple Play, Curtis Leskanic-Cum-Bruce Sutter, Manny Going Deep Twice and, of course, Sierra-Cairo-Flaherty. That single game eclipsed the previous Greatest Regular Season Game Ever, which was the September, 1997, Giants-Dodgers game at Candlestick: Brian Johnson, Mark Guthrie, Rod Beck-to-Eddie Murray, the 1-2-3 Double Play in the Ninth.
So anyway, it is not with any light touch that I recognize the departure of Nomar Garciaparra from Boston, and his arrival in Chicago.
I am extremely fond of the work done by my sportswriting brethren in Beantown, and wasn't disappointed by the efforts I found Sunday on the Web. It was the Yin and Yang of the Boston sports world. It was Gordon Edes in the Globe comparing Nomar to "Yaz and Bird, Bobby Orr and Ted." It was Dan Shaughnessy, in the same paper, calling Nomar "the ultimate non-team guy."
I'd quote the perceptive and wise Howard Bryant from the Boston Herald, but the Herald wants you to PAY for its columns. Pay? Say what? I think the Herald needs to understand: When it comes to the Web, we only pay for eBay items and porn.
Boston, I'll let you sort through your Nomar issues on your own. You have my sympathies.
3. Meanwhile, back on the West Coast ...
I know Paul DePodesta.
Paul DePodesta is a friend of mine.
And Paul DePodesta ... you're no Branch Rickey.
I don't want to cheap-shot DePodesta. I got to know him when I covered the A's in 1999-2000. Good guy. Extremely bright. Solid kid. (And I'm allowed to call him a "kid." He was, like, playing tiddly winks when I was trying to make a move on my prom date to Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World.")
That said ... Paul ... "DePo", as we called him ... what happened, brother?
You traded Paul LoDuca. You traded Guillermo Mota. You even traded Dave Roberts.
You traded three-quarters of the Giants' Fans Hate Quaternity.
If you had traded Eric Gagne, you could have gone 4 for 4. Which, coincidentally, is what LoDuca did every time he faced the Giants. Or what Roberts did every time he attempted four stolen bases. Or what Mota did, in strikeouts, if he faced four Giants hitters.
All over the Giants Kingdom, we say: The Giants are 5 1/2 games out. The Giants aren't very good. The Giants have no reason to believe.
Except, now, for this: Paul DePodesta just turned the Dodgers' first-place run into the hurricane from "The Wizard of Oz." Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead!
LoDuca was the Witch. Believe me.
Can't wait for these next two months, Dodger fans.
4. Iron Mike
All day on Friday, I wondered: If I wasn't married, and if I wasn't forced to watch TiVo'ed episodes of "Big Brother 5," would I pay 44 clams to watch the Tyson fight with my buddies?
I thought of watching Tyson make a disgrace of the Holyfield fight in '97. I thought of Tyson getting his lunch handed to him by Lewis in '02. And then I thought: I'd rather spend 44 bucks on a cheeseburger and eight pints of Guinness.
If it's good enough for Tyson's diet, it's good enough for me.
When I read the reports of Tyson's demise in Louisville, I couldn't help but think of the "Seinfeld" episode from 1992 -- "The Opera," when the crew goes to check out "Pagliacci" on Opening Night. Jerry initially is skeptical, and Kramer tries to convince Jerry of the worth of the Italian opera. He says: "Oh, come on, Jerry. It's opening night! Black tie! 'Pagliacci!' The great clown! The great sad, tragic clown! He's you, Jerry!"
One of my favorite moments from "Seinfeld." I enjoy that nearly as much as the line from Jean-Paul, the marathon runner, who takes a soak in Kramer's hot tub and later proclaims it, "The soak of the year" -- a phrase I used as recently as this weekend after a particularly satisfying shower.
Anyway, that's Tyson. The great sad, tragic clown.
That's you, Mike!
5. NFL training camps
It's August, and that smell you just caught is the whiff of the jock of a 300-pound man in two-a-days, appearing now at a humid location near you.
If I'm not mistaken, the following news items filtered out of camp recently:
These are what I call my "Fog-Lifting Moments."
When I covered the NFL full-time, I used to have moments where the fog lifted. I would stand on the sidelines of a 49ers practice and realize that covering the minutia of contracts and muscle pulls of pituitary cases who thought of me as something on the bottom of their shoe was a less-than-stellar way to earn a buck.
I would think: The fog is lifting. I am seeing this for the oddity that it is. These guys are making millions and millions, while galloping into each other and risking serious injury. This is a strange game.
So, Eli Manning, $20 million richer?
Fifteen million not good enough for Julian Peterson or Kellen Winslow II?
Better to let the fog settle back in. It'll make football season more enjoyable, that way.
By the way, let the record show that the Hanson Brothers never held out.
Brian Murphy of the San Francisco Chronicle writes every Monday for Page 2.