Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

It didn’t really shock to me to read reports of the Kansas City Chiefs superfan called “ChiefsAholic” being sentenced to 32 years in prison for a string of robberies.

After all, fan is a term derived from the root word fanatic.

While the ChiefsAholic story is the extreme example, I’ve seen a lot of bizarre fan behavior in spending more than three decades covering the sports world.

I admit to having become something of a fan myself, choosing teams for which I root now that professional concerns no longer preclude that. And I’ve gone to a game or two as a fan wearing a team’s jersey.

Never, however, have I painted my face, or body in team colors, taken off my coat and shirt in sub-freezing temperatures to show (drunken?) support, used social media to issue death threats to underperforming athletes, or indulged in any of the other extreme behaviors exhibited by fans gone wild.

ChiefsAholic, the guy who showed up at games dressed as a gray wolf, with Chiefs boxer shorts, had a sideline as a bank robber. Reports indicate he needed the cash to finance his travel, not to mention having a gambling problem.

It would seem to me that fanaticism, be it sports, politics, religion, is a Petri dish for extreme behavior. In the sports example, people who are not content merely to root for the home team, and instead turn their homes into temples of memorabilia, and often also turn themselves into human billboards, are people you might think would be vulnerable to other extreme behavior.

In the case of ChiefsAholic, that would be a presumption proven to be correct.

Some of our most extreme homegrown fans are those of the Steelers. Recall about 20 years back the story of the guy who died and had as his funeral home display with him sitting in a recliner watching a loop of Steelers highlights on television, remote on hand.

I was covering the Steelers-Raiders game in 1990 at the LA Coliseum when a Steelers fan was nearly beaten to death by Raiders counterparts for the unpardonable sin of wearing a Steelers T-shirt while he traversed their section of what the Los Angeles Times called “low-priced seats.”

Steelers medical staff attended to the victim before he was taken to the hospital, in critical condition.

Perhaps the greatest example of mass fan misbehavior I witnessed personally came Dec. 10, 1983, at New York’s Shea Stadium.

The Steelers playoff hopes were slipping away with each Cliff Stoudt interception in a season he was called upon to replace injured Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw.

Stoudt, as was his wont, blamed his lacklustre wide receivers.

But Bradshaw returned to bail out the Steelers, throwing two touchdown passes, one each to Greg Garrity and Calvin Sweeney, in just over a quarter of work before blowing out his elbow for good.

The Steelers won, 34-7, but it was Bradshaw’s final game. It also was the final Jets game at Shea Stadium, which primarily was the home of baseball’s Mets.

Fans were into taking home souvenirs. Late in the game, fans in one end zone were ripping up bleacher boards and swinging them like swords. Other bad behavior was common.

The stadium’s jail cell, located along the tunnel to the dressing rooms, was jammed with misbehaving fans when it was time to talk to Steelers coach Chuck Noll after the game.

Back then, postgame interviews tended to be informal affairs, often conducted in such tunnels or other unsuitable locations.

Twice, Noll’s postgame remarks were interrupted by a pack of police pushing past and then coming back again, trying to get medical aid for a fellow officer who had failed to compensate for the December breeze and sprayed himself with some sort of pepper spray.

Noll just shook his head, flashing a bemused smile.

Steelers fans treat their good luck talisman, the Terrible Towel, with reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. One such fan had a Terrible Towel at the Vatican after the new pope was named.

A humorous towel anecdote, from the Steelers’ Super Seventies decade, saw a fan run onto the field during a Steelers-Oilers playoff game at Three Rivers Stadium wearing two Terrible Towels as loincloths, over a pair of shorts. As I recall, he drank a ceremonial toast at midfield and ran off the field.

You may not be surprised to learn that the guy later in life reportedly ended up in legal trouble, for transgressions that included loan misdeeds and giving the appearance of looking to commit suicide by leaping off one of Pittsburgh’s bridges.

Typical fan stuff.

President Donald Trump had a huge Mother’s Day weekend, fitting in a perverse way since so many potty-mouthed Democrats like to refer to him as a mother(something).

While most celebrated their mothers in recent days, Trump and his people were busy negotiating the framework to a trade deal with China; producing a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, a couple of nuclear powers shooting at each over their border; getting Hamas to free an American hostage; and, just for the icing on the cake, Trump signed an executive order to reduce drug costs.

Also, Trump has Qatar offering him a free replacement Air Force One, since Boeing can’t seem to get its act together on the plane it is contractually obligated to deliver for this purpose.

Predictably, the media and Democrats are having a cow over the Qatar plane, interrupting their current mission of grandstanding outside ICE detention facilities, or even interfering with ICE arrests on the street, to gripe about this gift and lament its appearance of Trump being bought off.

Funny, none of them had problems about Hunter Biden’s “jobs” seemingly on the strength of Daddy Joe’s political office.

As one text message on the Monday night Jesse Watters program asked, does this mean we need to give the Statue of Liberty back to France?

It’s got to be tough to be an anti-Trumper. Oh, were there long faces on CNBC Monday. You’d think a business channel would be giddy on a day the Dow Industrials were up 1,100 points or so with similarly large gains in the NASDAQ and S&P 500 indices, owing largely to the China trade progress.

But, no, these Cassandras were caught with their pants down after predicting doom since Trump came out with his tariff plans in early April. Surprise, the initial negative kneejerk reaction, resulting in large losses in the stock markets, has been largely recaptured, with interest.

Truly CNBC’s Steve LiesMan had a bad day.

As noted on this blog last month, the only way to lose during the tariff overreaction was to panic sell. If you kept your wits – and your positions — you are fine today.

Trump told people not to be Panicans. Did they listen? Some, perhaps.

I lost some of my net worth Monday due to the collapse of the gold price by about $100 an ounce. But the metals and mining stocks have run up hard in recent weeks — one of my IRA’s hit a multi-year high Friday — and this pullback likely is little more than a pause that refreshes.

Regardless, I’m glad to take one for the team, that being the United States. Funny, I don’t see similar sentiments emerging from the cabal of leftist freaks that now makes up the Democrat party.

And the anti-America domestic crowd figures to have a tough few days coming as Trump embarks on a Mid-East trip that likely will produce more good news. Already, some pundits are trying to get ahead of it, saying Trump had things lined up in advance to be announced on the trip.

But, even one of these naysayers offered that just maybe there will be something huge. After all, that’s Trump.

Trump famously has said during his campaigns that his supports will get tired of all the winning his terms produce. His first term was notable, until COVID-19 was weaponized to hamstring him. Now, this second term is producing at a much higher tempo.

But, no, I’m not nearly tired of winning yet.

Last week much was made of a study that found the defund police movements in 2020 led to an increase in crime, said crime rate falling when the push to hamstring police failed in the face of public backlash.

Surprise, people of all races, creeds and colors don’t want to deal with more crime in their neighborhoods. Imagine that.

But that’s only half the story. Punishment for convicted criminals matters greatly, too. And on that front there is a clear movement towards coddling criminals.

From the Tesla terrorist being set free due to a lack of gender-bender care in prison, to various protesters getting away with carnage all in the name of free speech, to many jurisdictions putting revolving doors on jails, to the much-cited Maryland man, we have a wave of people commiting misdeeds and expecting to pay no price – often being proved correct in that ridiculous belief.

This helps explain rogue judges believing they, too, are above the law and not bound by the very dictates they might chose to use to punish you.

It helps explain waves of shoplifting, which now has escalated to stealing trucks and train cars of goods to be resold.

Whatever is up in price is fair game. Witness thefts of huge shipments of eggs when those prices spiked briefly as we got rid of Clueless Joe and put in Donald Trump.

A lot of academics will argue that punishment is not a deterrent to crime. It is an absurd assertion from the same people who routinely insist criminals have been rehabilitated by the system, only to have those same criminals revert to their bad behavior upon release back into the general population.

I’ve long thought a simple test of the faith of these leftist apologists would be a basic rule: You certify a prisoner is safe to be placed back in society at large, and if said criminal runs afoul of the law again, you get to share the cell with him/her/it for as long as the sentence runs.

I’m pretty sure that would result in a severe drop in experts telling us the convict is safe to mix again with the rest of us.

Along that line, it is obvious that if we had capital punishment readily dispensed for the worst offenders, they at least would not be around to relapse.

And I think if the criminal public was aware such punishment was a very real possiblity, the crime rate would reflect a certain reticence to be fried, shot, or given a lethal injection.

Consider the case of the protesters who last week took over the library at Columbia, then were horrified when the doors were secured and their only option for being allowed to leave was to show identification.

These cowards, and others like them, rely on anonymity, hence the masks and other efforts at disguising themselves.

If they truly were warriors, they would not worry about being identified. Recall John Hancock’s intentionally oversized signature on the Declaration of Independence.

That the chickenheart protesters do worry about their identify being known indicates a certain level of fear. This tells us that if we want to limit such acts going forward, the solution is greater enforcement and stricter penalties, not less of either.

A main problem is these scofflaws tend to operate in the leftist sanctuary dens, secure in the knowledge that even if the police arrests them, some socialist prosecutor, judge or politician will move heaven and earth to have them released to commit more affronts.

Until citizens of such leftist strongholds change things through the ballot box and throw out the socialists, they are doomed to suffering from ever increasing disregard for the law by a growing number of their fellow residents.

The Pirates have fired manager Derek Shelton. Let the puns begin.

Shelton walks the plank.

Shelton sent to Davey Jones’s locker.

Shelton set adrift.

Bottom line, Shelton is the latest scapegoat for a franchise that just won’t/can’t compete until someone spends serious money on player payroll.

Want a catchy nautical-themed phrase to sum up all this? Try this one: Pirates changing managers is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Managers make the difference of a few games during the season and just might swing a close playoff series. Beyond that, they are at the mercy of the rosters they are given.

Ownership provides the money and general managers are supposed to spend it wisely to build winning rosters. Only then can a manager produce. You need all the ingredients to be successful.

This is a recurring story for the Pirates. Back in November 1985, the Pirates hired Syd Thrift as general manager, taking over a team that had lost 104 games that season.

Three seasons later, the Pirates won 85 games. Some see Thrift as setting the foundation for three consecutive division titles from 1990 through 1992. But it wasn’t enough back then for Pirates ownership and Thrift was fired.

Thrift left with a quote that rings true today: “It ain’t easy resurrecting the dead.”

The Pirates field manager during Thrift’s tenure, Jim Leyland, is the quintessential example that even Hall of Fame managers need talent to win.

When Leyland had such top-line talent, people like Bonds, Drabek, Bonilla, Van Slyke, Smiley, Walk, they won. When those players left because the Pirates couldn’t or wouldn’t pay them, the winning stopped.

Leyland saw a similar fate after his Pirates tenure, winning a World Series title with Florida in 1997, then seeing his team dismantled and lose 108 games the next season. Did Leyland get incredibly stupid during the course of one offseason, or did Florida simply lose its talent base?

Bottom line, it really doesn’t matter who the Pirates settle on as the replacement for Shelton, unless ownership decides to spend money.

According to the ESPN story on Shelton’s firing, the Pirates began the season with the 26^th lowest payroll of 30 Major League teams.

Check the standings and the Pirates have the 28^th worst record. Cheapskate owner Bob Nutting really can’t complain much about what he’s getting for his money – or lack thereof.

PNC Park, which opened in 2001, was proclaimed to be the cure for what ailed the Pirates. The new playpen would attract fans, provide more money and help the team become competitive again.

At the time PNC was being built, I worked for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and wrote a series looking ahead. The Cleveland (then Indians) were a supposed model of how a new ballpark brought a franchise back — to use the Thrift reference – from the dead.

Here’s the dirty little secret I exposed way back then. Even with the new stadium, the Pirates were looking to spend less on payroll than any competitive team of the time. Fast-forward to today and nothing has changed.

Barring a minor miracle, the Pirates were relegated to being irrelevant. Oh, they might slip into the postseason as a wild-card on occasion, perhaps even win the division if a lot of bad things happened to other teams. But they were no threats ever again to make, or win, the World Series.

All these decades later, that has been proven correct. Shelton is just the latest guy to get slapped in the face by the reality.

Bravely risking the charge of cultural appropriation, my gringo family observed Cinco de Mayo today by eating tacos. Someone had to do it.

Reports abound on the internet of outright cancellations – a Cinco de Mayo parade in Chicago was called for fear of ICE (immigration folks, not frozen precipitation). Events elsewhere are being held, but going low-key. Someone should have shared this low-key strategy with the frequenters of the MS-13 nightclub in Colorado before last week’s raid.

The usual outlets, CNN.com for example, told heart-wrenching tales of Cinco de Mayo events being canceled in Philadelphia and Central Oregon.

Organizers are quoted citing “safety” and putting anxiety regarding deportation over celebrating.

Cry me a river.

No doubt, some leftist organization will rush to find a sympathetic, radical, low-level judge and implore that he/she/it issue a nationwide restraining order on deportations, that those of Mexican heritage might party.

Several points beg to be made here.

First, Cinco de Mayo has become yet another opportunity for Anglos to justify alcohol abuse, such as how so many non-Irish celebrate St. Patrick’s Day as though it were a combination of Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Second, and more important, no matter how many tacos we consumed today, I wasn’t worried about ICE showing up at my door. Understand, I’m a citizen, from birth, here absolutely legally, as is my entire family.

If you’re not here legally, celebrating or not celebrating Cinco de Mayo should be low on your list of priorities.

Perhaps returning to the land where you hold citizenship would be a good start. Come back legally, and celebrate some future Cinco de Mayo with impunity.

I am surprised that nowhere in the CNN screed on all this did I read of a Maryland dad, father, alleged domestic abuser, victimized by the ICE men coming.

Dare we dream that this sad, pathetic exercise in propaganda deifying an illegal of questionable repute, has passed its best-by date?

But, the CNN post did note Juneteenth celebrations are being scaled back, too, implying the end of the DEI grift has put a damper on contributions from “major sponsors.”

Again, it’s about time.

Still, the far-left crowd did score a minor victory today.

Word has come that the controversial 60 Minutes interview with Cackling Kamala, notable for serious massaging to make Kamala seem coherent, has been nominated for an Emmy for – wait for it – Outstanding Edited Interview.

I think I’ll have another taco.

I noted a headline the other day that about 20 percent of Americans are illiterate, a number I suspect might understate the problem considering the anecdotal evidence I see each time I venture out on the roads.

It’s not just me. Last week, President Trump felt the need to institute an executive order requiring drivers of commercial vehicles to be proficient in English, thereby being able to read, comprehend and follow the rules of the road. That we need to have such a dictate speaks to the problem – pun intended

Today, I got my latest dose of seeming illiterates behind wheels. During a short run to Richland and back there were many such drivers, of vehicles private and commercial, big and small, that I encountered.

It can’t be that they are able to read and understand, but just ignore, right?

Clearly, at least half the driving populace sees STOP and reads YIELD. How else to explain the abundance of people who pull into traffic, oblivious to the STOP sign that marked their entry point?

Even if they perceived YIELD, it’s a stretch to pull directly in front of moving traffic.

These illiterates are similarly puzzled when a sign indicates the need to stop at a given point at an intersection, often accompanied by a wide, white line. But the dolts seem to think this marks the point the rear wheels should be lined up.

Left lane turn only, no turn on red, these signs also are misunderstood. Greek to the average driver, perhaps, or simply ignored.

Math dyslexia also must be very common.

Perhaps you, too, have noticed people who think a 15-mile-an-hour zone is 51 miles an hour. It follows that 35 is 53, 25 is 52, 45 is 54.

Only when the speed limit is 55 should these math dyslexics have no problem. Alas, tell me the last time you saw most vehicles observing a 55 mph speed limit, particulary on a four-lane, divided highway.

Back to my trip to and from Richland. I saw a moron in a massive white pickup truck who felt the need to pull in front of me on Eisenhower Blvd in the Krings area, then bumble along well below the speed limit.

Before that, I’d encountered a person so terrified by signs of an approaching lane closure, that he/she/it immediately reduced travel speed to 15 mph. About half a mile later, we actually encountered the tree trimmers and the lane closure.

One of the construction sign people was no Phi Betta Kappa, either, flashing the sign to proceed, then hurriedly spinning his sign to stop, totally confusing the timid soul ahead of me, before again spinning back to the proceed message. I can only imagine what caused that.

Fortunately, after pausing to contemplate a course of action, the vehicle ahead of me moved on in painfully slow fashion, only to turn left not much farther along Goucher Street.

Traffic lights seem to be similarly confusing. Red, the universal stop color, looks green to many, with resultant near-misses and harsh language.

This phenomenon has been with us for some time. I recall many years back, getting rear-ended by a belligerent woman as I stopped before pulling from Giant Eagle onto Goucher Street.

“What are you doing,” she screamed at me.

“Stopping at a stop sign,” I told her.

“No one stops at that stop sign,” she shot back.

“I do,” was my response.

Knowing such fools are perched behind steering wheels is enough to put one on high alert anytime the need arises to drive.

Also, like the overly dramatic and self-important female space tourists, there is an urge to kiss the ground after every successful mission/drive completion.

A Tesla Cybertruck visited the neighborhood Thursday afternoon. We didn’t scream May Day, May Day, key it, or festoon it with swastikas.

Instead, we had an impromptu show and tell session with the owner.

An aside here: One of the tenets of journalism when I was practicing the dark art was you could find out a lot about a subject merely by asking individuals involved. That, and understanding that if two people knew something, it wasn’t a secret, were useful realities.

So, when the Cybertruck was spotted across the street at about 3 p.m., my wife was curious about the vehicle and decided to go out and take a close look at it. I told her that, considering the way Tesla vehicles, dealerships and charging stations are targets of left-wing lunatics, she might want to make sure the owner was aware she was not hostile before getting too close.

When I saw a man, presumably the owner, demonstrating the way the tailgate functioned, I threw on a par of flipflops and wondered out to take in the show.

A neighbor joined us. Curiosity is a shared quality.

It turns out the guy was quite the nice fellow, eager to interact. I noted I have seen another Cybertruck often around the War Memorial. He said that’s his twin brother. Yes, they both own Cybertrucks.

By way of background, these trucks are said to list for about $80,000, so I’m not in the market. I do, however, find them interesting.

Let’s face it, they’re like a stealth fighter cruising the streets with their flat panels of stainless steel and sharp angles.

The owner opened up the payload area for us, as well as doors so we could peer inside. We were surprised to find someone lurking behind the blacked out glass in the second row of seating.

Range is in the high 300-mile range for this electric vehicle, according to the guy. It’s considerably less in the winter.

Charging stations are a problem, too. But, the guy loves the truck.

It is fast, he said, which is understandable considering a reported 600 horsepower.

The steering wheel is more a yoke, The dash is mostly a large computer screen.

My wife was impressed when he demonstrated how the vehicle ride height could be lowered to allow easier access – we are of that age – or raised to an asburdly high level.

And, no, the man is not being harassed by others due to driving a Tesla.

Instead, he said the reactions are mostly thumbs-up.

I’ll give him a thumbs up for courteous interaction, something people on other side of the political aisle – the Tesla haters — should try.

They won’t be reading this blog post in Spain – unless they have a portable generator.

A week after proudly boasting that the electrical grid in Spain operated entirely on renewal energy for the first time during a weekday, it all went dark early Monday afternoon.

The Spanish problem also took down power in Portugal and parts of France and Belgium.

Apologists blamed a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” (it got dark?) and “extreme temperature variations” (it got cold or hot?).

And so the Spanish, stumbling around in the darkness, have bumped into reality. Solar power is not as reliable as a source of electricity as coal, uranium, natural gas. It does get dark, or even cloudy, you understand, and that has a crimping effect on solar production.

Just when you need electricity the most, solar can let you down.

Reports on social media noted the problem wasn’t necessarily just the darkness, but the lack of electricity to power transportation, payment systems, access to the internet, etc.

I’ve yet to read a report that the power is back on, it now being night time in the area.

There but the for the grace of God, Trump and Republicans, go us.

Democrats and their advocacy of all things insane, would like to put this nation back in the pre-industrial age of limited or zero reliable electricity.

It’s their dream to do away with coal-fired electricity plants, not to mention those powered by natural gas, or even uranium.

Wind and solar, both proven to be cost-ineffective and unreliable in periods of peak demand, are the proposed alternatives.

While they’re at it, they’d like to ban gas cooking stoves and internal combustion engines in vehicles.

The crusade is based on faulty statistics and the screechings of a psychologically challenged European woman. That’s a winning combination when you reside on the political left.

Fortunately, the so-called Green New Scam here has been put on hold by Trump and his administration. But it lurks in the background, awaiting the next totally clueless, or socialist president to take power.

The Spanish problem will be ignored by these eco-Nazis and the LameStream media. Just another inconvenient reality that stands in 180-degree opposition to their fantasies.

But I’m taking note. And, hopefully, others will, too, when the future elections arrive.

This is the sort of real failure leftist fools in charge can visit on the populace. You already have seen it with fires in California, rampant crime in Blue cities, the invasion of the nation by illegal immigrants.

Putting these people in charge is daring the fates. It’s a losing proposition. Just ask the Spanish today.

The arrest of the man alleged to have stolen the purse of Kristi Noem proves, among other things, that God has a sense of humor.

How fitting that the individual, who has been arrested for swiping the purse of our Homeland Security Secretary, is an illegal immigrant.

Cue the absurd, whiny Democrats, and LameStream media to defend yet another wrongdoer. It is their duty, don’t you understand, to work against American interests and values.

He will be portrayed as a Virginia, Maryland, D.C., man. Perhaps he will be revealed to be a husband and father. If history repeats, we might eventually discover – inconveniently – that the man also is an accused domestic abuser with bastard children. Don’t let the details get in the way of the narrative.

These serial apologists will note that he and his ilk perform work that Americans will not, even though it has been my observation that homegrown Americans are more than willing to lie, cheat and steal, not to mention exist on the public dole through various forms of welfare.

If you are like me, you wondered how the thief managed to lift the purse even as Secret Service agents were on duty “protecting” Noem. It was not as egregious as Donald Trump’s repeated near assassinations while under Secret Service protection. But, it did prompt doubts and speculation,

One story I read Sunday of the theft detailed that it was made while some agents sat at the bar in what was described as an eatery that “wasn’t particularly crowded.”

Somehow, the alleged thief sat near Noem’s table, fished her purse from beneath it with his foot, secreted said purse under a jacket and walked out. He wore a medical mask, of course.

Much has been made of the fact Noem’s carrying ensemble was a “Gucci B” shoulder bag that retails for $4,500, had a $600 purse inside and there was roughly $3,000 in cash.

Talk about victim shaming. Noem and her family can’t go around our nation’s capital with nice things, while under Secret Service protection, without expecting to be robbed.

All that was missing is the “she asked for it” rationalization.

But, to borrow the catchphrase of late, great radio announcer Gabriel Heatter, there’s good news tonight.

Unlike the Secret Service and the like who, under the Clueless Joe Biden regime, were unable to identify who left cocaine in the White House, this time a suspect has been identified and apprehended.

And, I suspect no left-wing judges will harbor him, or help him slip out a side door at the courthouse to avoid ICE agents.

No, I’m thinking this guy is ticketed for a plane ride and a spot in one of those 80-person cells.

The man should be grateful Noem doesn’t get to deal with the matter herself. Remember, she is the person who shot her own dog when it was judged to be dangerous to her and her children.

And, unlike Elmer Fudd Tim Walz, Noem has proven she knows how to load the gun she’s using.

The Stanley Cup playoffs are providing me an escape from the strains of daily life. I recommend others find similar distractions.

To be glued to a smart phone or computer for the latest updates on politics or finance, to be obsessed with aspects of the big picture beyond one’s control, is to doom oneself to anxiety and all the negatives that flow from that.

I recall reading many years back that workers on assembly lines felt great stress, largely because they had so little control over their jobs. The line kept moving, independent of whether or not their particular task had been completed, or done well.

While the number of assembly line workers in this country is ever smaller, others put themselves on an emotional assembly line by feeling the need to be in a constant state of information update. You gain control by breaking that pattern.

For recent weeks – months? – my routine has been something of a rut. Monitor the political and investment world during business hours, accomplish many mundane tasks, get in a walk perhaps, or maybe write a blog post, then begin the evening by ripping through a DVRd episode of CNBC’s “Fast Money” (usually thus being able to distill that one hour show into 10 minutes or so of content that interests me).

It was then on to mixing viewing Fox News shows such as Jesse Watters or Greg Gutfeld, with slices of Real America’s Voice and various offerings from the assorted general entertainment cable channels.

Since the hockey playoffs opened the past Saturday, the evening routine is spent consuming the feast of first-round games, of which there customarily are three or four.

It is a relief to shift from hearing contradictory trade deal teases, or reports on the latest protests/acts of domestic terrorism, to admiring the brutal simplicity of playoff hockey.

Alex Ovechkin, the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer, has scored some goals as Washington has taken a 2-0 lead in a best-of-7 series with Montreal, including the overtime winner in Game 1. But, what stands out is the way this ancient warrior is dishing out body hits at a prodigious rate.

Dallas-Colorado has been spellbinding, with Dallas managing to kill off a 4-minute double minor penalty late in regulation and into overtime, before winning Game 3 late Wednesday night.

Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog returned in that game after an injury-related absence of THREE YEARS!

And so it goes in the Stanley Cup playoffs, offering intense hockey sprinkled with compelling story lines.

I recall a former news editor telling me years back that he just couldn’t understand how sports fans could get so worked up about something that meant so little in the bigger picture.

He unknowingly was answering his own inquiry. That so much emotional investment can be made in something that really doesn’t affect our lives in a significant way, provides a break from developing tunnel vision regarding the things that do.

Man does not live by bread alone.