Rick Horowitz

Hungry for Playoff Action!

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            “ -- and if you’ve never heard a dachshund singing Dylan before, you’re in for a real treat! Mike?”

             “That’s one amazing dog, Dahlia -- thanks! Well, it’s that time of year again, Tim -- time for playoff baseball, when everything can be riding on a single pitch or a swing of the bat.”

            “Absolutely true, Mike. And we’ve got Margot standing by with a certain skipper of a certain playoff-bound team, and I’ll bet he knows all about post-season excitement. So how’re our guys going to do, Margot?”

            “Thanks, Tim -- that’s exactly what I’m about to ask this gentleman right next to me. How’s it going, Skip?”

            “We’re feeling pretty good, Margot. We’re ready. We had a couple of rocky patches earlier in the season, but we came through ‘em OK, and right now we’re in pretty good shape.”

            “The post-season is almost like a season of its own, isn’t it?”

            “Definitely. You’ve got your regular season, and then you’ve got your post-season -- it’s almost like a season of its own.”

Steinbrenner: By George, He Was a Pain!

     I’m a born-and-bred New Yorker. A Yankee fan by nature and by nurture -- “Cut me and I bleed pinstripes” and all that.

    So you’ll understand what it means for me to say this: George Steinbrenner is the only person in my entire life who has ever made me root, if only temporarily, against my own home team. Against my Yankees.

    Insert the requisite words of respect here -- “towering figure,” “impact on the sport,” “charitable works,” “condolences to the family.”

    But what I’m left with is simple, and hard to overlook: More than once over the years  -- much more than once -- George Steinbrenner made me root for the Yankees to lose.

    And he did it by simply opening his mouth.

Comic Timing: Superman vs. Supermom

              Here’s to all the mothers who threw out all the comic books.

            And the baseball cards -- don’t forget the baseball cards. Or was it Dumpster Barbie that tore it for you?

            Mom meant well. Really she did. And if her lifelong crusade for order turned out to clash with your own lifelong dream of unearned riches -- well, that’s the way the Kryptonite crumbles.

            You’re thinking Superman thoughts today -- not to mention slightly murderous thoughts -- because of the latest news from New York:

             “A rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman sold Monday for $1 million, smashing the previous record price for a comic book.”

The Rio Games -- And Those GOP Games

         MILWAUKEE -- I’m fine with Rio.

            Really. A great city, by all accounts, in a rising star of a country that deserves to be better known and better loved. And that’s even before you factor in some of the world’s greatest music, and the beaches, and Carnaval, and --

            So absolutely -- give the 2016 Summer Olympics to Rio de Janeiro. To Brazil. To a part of the planet that’s never hosted the Olympics. I’m fine with it, even if it means that our neighbor just down the road, Chicago, takes a gold-medal hit to the ego.

            I’m happy for Rio. But it never would have occurred to me to gloat over Chicago’s loss. As a fellow American, I mean.

            Being a gracious competitor is one thing. Being a Republican apparatchik is something else again.