Thursday, March 26, 2015

The end of the world is coming

Not only the world, but the entire universe. So sayeth some highly educated folks that supposedly know about such things. In a mere few billion years, the Big Bang will reverse itself and become the Big Crunch. Everything's going to implode upon itself and form one all-consuming super-colossal galactic mass. Kind of like William Shatner's ego or a Kardashian butt. Ahem.

Well then. If everything's going to end anyway, perhaps one should stop paying their bills and taxes. On the other hand, if this whole thing turns out to be a false alarm, the late fees and penalties would be a KILLER after a few billion years.

Of course, we've heard the doomsday scenario before, many times in the world of sports.

Back in the early 1900s, when the Boston Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees, the curse of the Bambino was born. Indeed, it would take the Bosox almost a century before they won another World Series. But they did and, last time I looked Boston was still on the map and going strong. Besides, what's a century when one is considering billions of years?  No more than a blink of the cosmic eye. Kind of like the Spice Girls' fame in the world of music or your average celebrity marriage.

Many golf fans, and certainly the media, turned into collective Chicken Littles when Tiger Woods took a nosedive for various reasons. OMG, the sky is falling and surely the PGA tour will struggle without him. Balderdash. The tour was just fine before Eldrick arrived and it's going great guns since his game went in the dumpster and he disappeared. For that matter, yours truly would submit it's much more interesting to watch now than it was when Tiger was dominant. Though the TV folks valiantly tried to keep him relevant with replay after replay of his former heroics, even in tournaments he wasn't participating in, they eventually realized that people were getting sick and tired of this nonsense. Much better to spread the coverage around evenly amongst the players that are contenders in the tournament happening NOW. There's more talent out there than ever, so who wants to see replays of what some former great did last year -- or 5 years ago -- or longer? Granted, Woods likely had the greatest decade in the history of golf. Kudos to him, but it's over. So let's move on. Continuing to dwell on Eldrick Tont is kind of like reminiscing over drive-in movies or the "heady" days of turntables, reel-to-reel tape recorders and huge ampzilla speakers. Guess what? They're not coming back either.

Every year, in every major sports city, there will come a time when a team is experiencing a slump, and a columnist will always pose the same question ----  Is it time to panic?

Evidently, they think their readers might start building bomb shelters and stocking up on non-perishable goods if that particular team doesn't start winning a few more games. It's always been so ridiculous. At the end of the season, including the playoffs, only one team is going to be crowned a champion. Somewhere along the line, all the rest will be defeated and go home for another year, until the next season springs "hope eternal" and the hype starts all over again. That's kind of like the folks that stood in line to buy cabbage patch dolls, pet rocks, and chiapets. P.T. Barnum was on the right track, but grossly underestimated. There's not one born every minute, but millions of them already out there ripe for the taking.

But one never knows. It might take a few billion more years or the entire universe could collapse tomorrow. The former would be preferable. The Detroit Lions might even make it to a Super Bowl during that time. After all, what's a mere 50 years of futility and ineptitude when it comes to countless eons of time? With a few breaks, it could happen. Maybe. Someday. The latter would be a bummer. Kind of like divorce court or all 9000 TV channels showing the same program 24/7 -- and that program is some evangelical charlatan asking you to give him money. Definite bummer.

For now, let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best. Personally, I can't comprehend how long a few billion years is. That goes back WAY before the dinosaurs, or even Regis Philbin roamed the earth.

So there's only one thing to do. Keep on keeping on. If the whole cosmic crunch thing comes quickly and the planet Jupiter falls on my head tomorrow -- then I had a very bad day.

Until such a thing happens, yours truly will continue to carry on the tradition of his life-long hero. Alfred E. Neuman.

What Me Worry.

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