A few musings while waiting for the Tour de France winner to be crowned tomorrow in Par-eee.
***
About that tour…This is the first year I’ve really paid close attention to it, watching several stages on Versus, starting at 7 a.m. every day except for days of rest.
Much of it has been amazing, like Thursday’s and Friday’s stages in the Alps, with the cyclists pedaling up steep grades for an hour or more at a time, often racing wheel to wheel. It’s an incredible exhibition of human willpower and strength.
And yet, the way the race finishes strikes me as incredibly dull and anticlimactic. Today, for example, the riders are engaging in time trials, where they start individually at two-minute intervals and ride/race along a 26-mile route.
Watching these riders proceed individually, even though they are extremely fast and powerful, is about as exciting as watching cyclists cruise along the Trolley Trail.
Then, tomorrow, the race culminates with a 59-mile, ceremonial ride into Paris, along the Champs Elysees. In nearly every other sport, the finish is designed to be the most exciting part of the event, but not the Tour. My wife Patty explains it this way, “It’s French!”
Come to think of it, the only exciting finishes in France are when the sexual affairs and escapades of powerful politicians and others (see Dominique Strauss-Kahn) are exposed and turn ugly.
***
I see in today’s sports section of The Star that columnist Sam Mellingers has worked himself into a tizzy over the failure of Los Angeles-based AEG to corral an NBA or NHL team for Kansas City.
“If you still hold out any hope for a team coming to the Sprint Center, you should know the company that bragged about making it all happen for us is no longer motivated to work on our behalf,” Mellinger wrote.
I say…so what? Last I heard, Sprint Center was one of the top three or four most successful arenas in the country. In tandem with the Power & Light District, the Sprint Center literally saved our downtown. We’re back as a destination city, competing for conventions, concerts and other events, and offering facilities and entertainment venues that we should all be very proud of.
As for pro hockey and basketball…Come on! Those are the worst of the four major sports. The NBA amounts to watching mostly uneducated, overpaid, heavily tattooed individuals showing off for a couple of hours, while the NHL is often little more than boxing on ice. And, of course, both events are ridiculously overpriced.
Here’s my suggestion for making hockey a decent “game” and taking the boxing out of it: Anyone who starts or engages in a fight is thrown out of the game and is suspended for the following game. That would essentially put an end to it.
Here’s my suggestion for making NBA basketball a decent game….Let all the players go to Turkey, where they can show off for Istanbul’s 13 million people every night.
***
Some things never change at City Hall. One is the firefighters getting their way.
The headline on today’s lead editorial in today’s Star says, “Taxpayers simply got burned by pay pact.”
On Thursday, the City Council, under terms of an agreement reached with Local 42 two years ago, approved raises averaging 4.2 percent by next April 30. Lower-paid firefighters will get increases as high as 18 percent, while the highest-paid firefighters will get raises of 2.5 percent.
Backed into a corner by the overly generous 2009 agreement, some council members blamed former City Manager Wayne Cauthen for the situation.
Fourth District Councilwoman Jan Marcason, who has been on the council since 2007, was paraphrased in a Thursday Star story as saying the council would be more cautious in future negotiations with Local 42.
“We’re a little wiser,” she said.
Uh, huh. Sure…Here’s the deal with Local 42. Their leadership, i.e. Louie Wright, stays the same year after year after year. And they never waver from their goal of improving the lot of their members. They’re in it for the long haul, and their willpower and political clout is phenomenal.
Unlike many citizens, they understand the significance of elections and the importance of each and every vote.
City officials, on the other hand, come and go, and many just can’t match the endurance and tenacity of the firefighters. Cauthen’s long gone, and seven members of the current council were not around when the council approved the 2009 agreement.
Coupled with that, the council members who are most likely to win seats are those supported by Local 42. Aren’t they inclined, then, to give the union what it wants when they get in office? Of course, it’s all part of city politics and has been for at least 40 years.
So, for Marcason to say, “We’re a little wiser” is downright laughable.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Sorry, Jimmy, I like hockey.
The fighting is out of control now. It once was a way a team could send a message to the refs they were not doing their job. Then it became you couldn’t touch so and so because he was a STAR. This happened about the time Gretzky came along. Of course, there was no one who could catch him to thump him.
I was living in Philadelphia when the Broad Street Bullies won back-to-back Stanley Cups. Remember when they played the Soviet team, the Dynamos, and they left the ice after five minutes. Ed Snyder said fine but you won’t get paid if you don’t play. They came back and the Flyers were the only team (if I remember correctly) to beat them on that tour.
And nothing was more thrilling than to see/hear Kate Smith sing God Bless America. Seeing Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr skate up to her and give her two dozen roses before Game Six of the Cup.
Yeah, I agree if they want to stop fighting they could by throwing out the instigator.
Of course Bobby Clarke could carve your face like a pumpkin with the but end of his stick. He was/is an a-hole. But hey, he was our a-hole.
Agree we don’t need a bottom-feeding team from NHL/NBA. But the Sprint Center is killing this city with the taxes it doesn’t have to pay. And it was built on the cheap, won’t be long before they have to rehab all the bathrooms they used such cheap components.
AEG should have had on a mask when they signed their contract IMHO
You are right. If you get an NBA or NHL team they will suck all of the profit out of Sprint Center. It is pretty clear that Kemper needs to be demolished, as many predicted would happen if Sprint were built. Remember the people who said, “We’ll use it for horse shows.”?
I am confused (Frequently).
I read that the Sprint Center is a top flight draw for concerts etc, and Fitz repeats that here.
Is Orphan right, and the Sprint Center is “Killing Kansas City with taxes it doesn’t have to pay”?
The NBA is full of shit heels. We have enough thugs in this town already.
Mr. White, how would an NBA/NHL team suck teh profit out of the Sprint Center.
Sorry I am so brain dead.
Hard to think of a more noble job than a fire fighter.
That said, Louie has just laid the pipe to us for decades.
They have Pendergast Power.
An NHL or NBA team simply won’t agree to move to KC unless you agree to give them all of the revenues they generate and you get stuck with the operational costs. [And they typically want the right to book x number of concert dates: so there go your concert revenues.] The only reasons cities do it is they are willing to pay to have one of these franchises.
Look no further than the sports complex. Jackson County doesn’t make a profit on the Chiefs or the Royals. And NFL and MLB teams generate far more revenue than NBA or NHL teams. But we, as a city and a county consider it worth it to be major league. [I personally agree.] There are some good books on this: Google Professor Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College. I spent a lot of time talking to him during the negotiations for the renovations at the complex.
True, there are intangible benefits and multiplier effects. If we were rolling in dough and every pothole and sidewalk were fixed and our $3.5 billion sewer problem were fixed, it might be worth the cost. Otherwise we are better off looking at Sprint Center as a revenue generator and a draw for the Power & Light District.
Thanks for that explanation, Mike…Readers, Mike is a former Jackson County executive. He now is a land-use and development attorney, and he is also a member of the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority.
The Tour de France is the most physically and mentally demanding sporting event in the world. The stages/terrain are chosen to allow both the sprinters and the climbers to have a shot at winning, hence the time trials early and late with the ball-breaking Alps stages toward the end. The final day has for the most part been ceremonial. It is very rare that the time gap between the leader and second place could be made up on the final day. If the gap on the final day is ever under 1 minute, you will see a very competitive race and not the stroll in the park you saw yesterday
Deliver us from EVIL. It was Ribbon Cuttin’ Kay and Tim Lie-Weekly that virtually guaranteed an NBA or NHL team. That was the raison d’etre In an interview with Mike Hendricks, Tim said that without an anchor tenant the arena would not be successful. Anyone with one-quarter of a brain knew we would not get and can’t support an NHL or NBA team. Even The Star silenced rational and reasoned voices of dissent about that.
Like all numbers the claims made about the SC’s success have some fudge in them and are skewed due to the fact there is no NBA/NHL team there.
The P&L is a drag on taxpayers. Kemper is still a drag on taxpayers and rest assured that before the SC is paid for somebody will be pissing and moaning about us needing a new arena.
Downtown has been revitalized but in my opinion what was done was the equivalent of giving a heart transplant to a Stage 4 cancer patient. Time will tell, but I believe by the time we get to the 10 year anniversary of the district it will be deemed a massive failure.
Speaking of EVIL. Louie Wright and Local 42 continue to sodomize the city. With each anal fissure the current administration blames a previous one. Something must be done to cut those ties that bind because the liaison between Local 42 and City Hall is a dangerous one indeed.
What’s your opinion on whether or not Cindy Circo should have recused herself from the vote on the recent pay raise given her relationship, (wife), of a firefighter?
Did she not recuse herself? If not, I would think she at least should have asked the city attorney for his opinion on it — in open session, before the other council members.
There is a method to the French madness that is the tour. The time trials are the great equalizer for the bulked up sprinters who get laid to waist by the climbers in the Pyrenees and the Alps. Cadel Evans, a sprinter, made up a huge amount of time over Andy Schleck, who climbs like a mountain goat, in the final time trial. Final day is pretty much ceremonial unless there is a narrow time gap between the podium spots which there rarely is. The TDF is the most physically and mentally demanding sporting event in the world.
The raison d’etre as articulated by Barnes and Lie-Weekly for the Sprint Center was the Holy Grail of the NBA or NHL. Only a moron could believe that we could afford to support either one, but yet The Star played along and silenced dissenting voices in order to raise the value on their downtown real estate holdings. Conflict of interest? Hell, yeah!
Sing a long
Let the circle be unbroken between City Hall and 42
There’s a better city waiting when we do, Lord, when we do!
Mayor Slyme and Louie Louie Wright are conflicted souls. Slyme wants to be white and Louis’ son wants 2B Black
You wouldn’t turn bitter and cynical on us, would you, Smartman?
I guess you’ve gotta fuel that wit with something, though!
Fitz: I prefer “sardonic.” It sounds classier!
And while we’re on the subject of local politics, let me suggest a great summer shade-tree read — “The Dictionary of Bullshit,” by Nick Webb. No bullshit, it’s brilliant and funny.
I might take you up on that suggestion, Smartman. All I’ve had lately is a steady diet of newspapers.
Louie Wright is reportedly not running again in November for president of Local 42. I feel sorry for the next one. Kinda like the rebound man after a divorce. Nice guy but nice will get him nowhere. The fire guys will get screwed but more disastrous is the EMS people will get screwed with no lubricant!