Sports – Uncle Crappy

March 22, 2022March 22, 2022

and now I know.

As my frustrations with the Cleveland Browns have waxed and waned over the years, I’ve threatened at different points just to bag my five-plus decades of support because it wasn’t worth the effort.

I always stuck with it, though, and I had always wondered what exactly would it take for me to actually follow up on that impulse.

That’s the basic question here: How bad would it have to be?

I got that answer last week, when it was announced that the team had reached an agreement to trade for a quarterback who hadn’t played for a year while police, prosecutors and a grand jury investigated multiple complaints that he had sexually abused women while getting massages. A quarterback who still has deal with nearly two dozen civil lawsuits from individual woman who detailed those assaults.

And there’s the answer to that question.

To briefly recap: Early last week, NFL media folks began reporting that the Browns were one of an handful of teams interested in this guy, and I tweeted at that point that I’d be done with the Browns if that were to ever happen. At that point, though, the tweet felt impulsive and I deleted it a short time later.

I was glad I did a day or two later, when the name national media folks reported that the Browns were out of the running. That still left the Browns in a terrible position with Baker Mayfield, the guy who was to have been the team’s savior — but at least it wasn’t going to be that guy.

So it’s fair to say I was stunned when multiple push alerts hit my phone Friday afternoon that the Browns were not only back in the running but had reached an agreement with the Texans to trade for the guy.

I was crushed. And I knew that impulsive tweet from earlier in the week wasn’t just an impulse — that’s what I had to do if I was ever going to enjoy watching NFL games ever again.

I went to Target after work and grabbed a big storage tub, brought it home and filled it with all of the Browns stuff I could find — books, hats, hoodies, t-shirts, jerseys, all of it — so I could take it up to the attic. I cut the team out of my social media. I left the local Browns Backers group on FB. I shut off mentions in my various sports apps and deleted the Browns app from my phone.

OFFICIAL: We have acquired 3-time Pro Bowl QB Deshaun Watson in a trade with the Texans
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) March 20, 2022

Maybe I had a sliver of hope that the deal could unravel before it was finalized, and that might have been the reason that I didn’t take the tub of Browns stuff upstairs right away. But that was dashed when I saw this tweet Sunday morning.

Yep. It was over.

There is one large question to address here, because it’s already become the basis for justifying his presence in Cleveland, just as it was the justification for celebrating the Stillers quarterback who just retired without any meaningful discussion of his own reputation for being a sexual predator: “But Uncle Crappy — what happened to the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty?’ “

Was he charged with any crimes? No, he was not.

So he’s innocent, right?

It’s not that simple. Police and prosecutors make hard decisions all the time about whether those suspected of crimes can be prosecuted successfully or not. In this case, prosecutors actually took evidence to a grand jury, which was empaneled not to decide innocence or guilt but to determine if there was enough evidence to proceed with charges and a trial.

That grand jury said there wasn’t.

But that ruling speaks only to those questions; it does nothing to address whether or not anything happened. And where there is smoke, boys and girls — in this instance the civil lawsuits that are still hanging out there — there is fire.

The number of allegations against him is important too. This wasn’t a one-time problem (which we refer to incorrectly as a “mistake,” as in, “Whoops, sorry, I don’t know how my penis got there.”) — it demonstrates a pattern. Something happened, over and over and over, which pretty clearly shows that this guy has no regard for women, that he’s a dangerous person in the community and that he shouldn’t be in the league — and I sure as hell don’t want him on my team.

After that tweeted announcement, there were subsequent posts from the owners, the GM and the head coach, all saying they were satisfied that the new face of the Cleveland Browns “understands and embraces the hard work to build his name both in the community and on the field” (quoted from the statement of Dee and Jimmy Haslam).

Is it possible that that’s actually true? Does he feel remorseful? Could he successfully rehabilitate himself? Sure. That’s possible. But I also think that we should believe people when they show us who they are — and he felt comfortable enough with some kind of troubling conduct that he did it not just once but again and again and again.

And that’s not a guy I can cheer for. Ever.

Fifty years. Plus a few more.

Because of TV, I was a Browns fan before I really knew what Ohio State football was. I had posters — the ones you used to be able to order from Sports Illustrated — of Leroy Kelly hanging in my bedroom. And while Buckeyes would be on TV once or twice a year back in those days, I couldn’t begin to count the hours I spent watching the Browns on TV on a black-and-white screen with a crescent-shaped chip out of one corner of the TV’s plastic frame.

There was also even more time when I was in junior high and high school, pretty much every Sunday. My dad and I even convinced my mom to let us keep a small radio plugged in behind the couch so we could listen to the radio broadcast as we watched the game TV. And if we weren’t parked on that couch for kickoff, it was probably because we went to the game, as we did once a year for a few years.

That wasn’t easy, either. Everyone knows the list of Patented Cleveland Sports Disasters that happened to the Browns, and trust me — I felt each of those, deeply and personally. The ultimate heartbreak happened in 1995, when the team was stolen from Cleveland and from me. Mrs. Crappy talked me out of bailing then, and I was newly committed to the team when it returned.

I stuck with them through everything, even the previously mentioned moments when I doubted whether I should. But that wavering was all based on football stuff — the team’s luck, its poor decisions by terrible coaches and personnel folks and, yes, its inability to beat the team that plays just down the road from my house. But that was my team. And I stayed.

The Browns would say that this also is a football decision; I think it’s more than that, though. Regardless of the tweeted platitudes, it shows a disregard for the women of the team’s fan base and a disregard for your community. It says that the front office folks think those things can be sacrificed in the name of playoff wins, all while keeping their fingers crossed that he doesn’t start doing the same things once he lands in Cleveland.

Look, I’m not being naive. I know that the NFL is about winning. Period. And I suspect this guy will help. But my own values are more important — and they say that I can neither support this guy nor the team that signed him

So what happens now? That’s hard to say. If I’m still going to watch the NFL, it would make sense to fall back on my previous free agency deal with the 49ers. It would be easy and pretty comfortable.

And I have to admit that at the moment, the idea of cheering for the other Ohio team — the one led by Joey Burrow — is interesting.

And it could also be that I simply choose to take some time off from pro football. After all, I discovered in the years that the Browns were gone that Sunday afternoons spent doing things other than football were kind of nice.

Maybe I’ll give that a try for a while.

March 31, 2021March 31, 2021

not so big.

As you can probably gather from the impressive on-court surrender cobra, not even everyone’s favorite #BasketballSchool could save the Big Ten this March — and from top to bottom, that’s pretty pathetic.

The news isn’t as bad for this year’s players in the Fourteenth Kind Of Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub*) — in fact, this is one of the better performances in recent memory.

But. No. We’re not Blutarsky-free. We’ll get to that in a minute.

As you’re aware, now that we have a Final Four, we can begin awarding FKOAUCNFFC (BTYBPP*) points and taking a look at how we all stack up. There are, of course, more games to come and more points to be awarded, so these things — it’s not really accurate to call them “standings” — are my own weird mishmash of actual points and semi-wild conjecture. Do not fear — I’ll explain as we go.

Two and done — these players got one FF pick correct, but have no more points coming their way:

Ex-Pat Pittsburgh Girl
Aunt Annoyed Angel
Calipanthergrl
Spoon
Kewyson

Two and some — two points, more possible, but pick for champion is out:

Mrs. Crappy
Lianne

Two and Oooo — two points, champ is still alive:

Strang
Socialist Joe
Red Buppy
Dudders
Dish

Four but no more — two correct FF picks but no more points to come:

Styx 4 Curl Girl

Four and a few more — four points with the possibility of more, but champ is eliminated:

Uncle Crappy
Carla

Four and much more — two correct picks and champ still in play:

Mister G

Four and even more — two FF picks, title game and champ still in play:

North Coast Matt
Sports Chump
JCK158
Scooter

You’d think those guys in the last two lists were in pretty good shape, right? Wrong. Because we have one last category.

Six and sitting pretty — that’s three correct FF picks, title game participants and champ in play:

Miss C
Chachi

So here are the possibilities. If you’re not listed in the last three categories, thank you very much for playing. If Gonzaga beats Baylor in the title game, it’ll come down to the tiebreakers from Miss C and Chachi — and there’s only a three-point difference in those. There is also this outlier — no one has Baylor winning the whole thing … except for Scooter. If that’s what happens, no one can catch him.

And if someone other than Gonzaga or Baylor wins the whole thing? Ugh. My math-averse brain doesn’t even want to deal with that at the moment.

Wait. Did I say there was only one more category left? That’s not quite correct.

As I stated earlier, I was pretty pleased with the performance of our FKOAUCNFFC (BTYBPP*) participants this time around. But, as always, there are few who manage to distinguish themselves in a different way, by amassing exactly zero points when the scoring begins.

Or, rather, zero point zero points.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Blutarsky Award winners for the Fourteenth Kind Of Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub*):

Cleveland Kelsey
Pgh Rugby Ref
MFulk
TraiLion

It’s a badge of honor, guys. Wear it proudly.

March 27, 2021

not that terrible.

Oh, look — someone from The Simpsons found a copy of Uncle Crappy’s bracket.

Folks, I have to apologize. I normally would have had this update ready by midweek at the latest, but real life got in the way in a pretty significant manner this week.

But writing about basketball — and the Fourteenth Kind Of Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub*) is the kind of distraction I need — so let’s get down to bidness.

As longtime AUCNFFC players will recall, no one has any points yet — that doesn’t happen until teams actually reach the Final Four after Monday night’s games.

We can, however, begin to ascertain how things might shake out, based on the results of the first weekend. Quite a few of us picked Ohio State as our eventual champion, for example — and that’s not going to work out so well. A few others of us went all in on the Big Ten — and that’s really not going to work so well.

But most of us — well over half, in fact — were able avoid real disasters associated with early upsets, and are therefore in pretty good shape. And there two of us — just two of us — who have an intact Final Four still alive.

I have done no math associated with this so far, but in general, I’d give the advantage to those who are still working with their pick to be national champion over those who are trying to move on without. And so, we begin with the bad news and move on to the good.

One FF team alive, champ pick is out:

Strang
Trailion

One FF team/champ alive:

Susan

Two FF teams alive, champ is out

Mrs. Crappy
Cleveland Kelsey
Kewyson
Spoon

Three FF teams alive, champ is out

Uncle Crappy
Lianne
Carla
Pgh Rugby Ref

Three FF team/champ alive

Socialist Joe
Ex-Pat Pittsburgh Girl
Aunt Annoyed Angel
Mister G
Styx 4 Curl Girl
Chachi
Calipanthergrl
Dudders
North Coast Matt
Sports Chump
MFulk
Dish
JCK158
Scooter

And our best of the best, as we go through the second weekend of FKOAUCNFFC (BTYBPP*):

All FF picks/champ still alive

Miss C
Red Buppy

There is one more player I haven’t mentioned, and that’s Juan, oh he of little basketball knowledge. When I started this thing, I was concerned that I wouldn’t get enough entries to make it interesting, so I badgered the hell out of my family and close friends to get in. Most were accommodating, but Juan dug in his heels, giving me BS reasons like “I don’t like college basketball” and “Why are you torturing me?” When he finally made it clear that he was out, I decided to enter him anyway, using a variety of methods that pretty much guaranteed that he wouldn’t come close to ever winning this thing. He grumbled about it at first, but eventually came to appreciate that he would be entered in AUCNFFC with zero effort and almost zero chance of stressing about it at all. It became a standing joke, one of a looooooong list of standing jokes we had between us.

Juan — that’s not his actual name — was my friend who died this week. We’re not going to worry about his picks for the rest of FKOAUCNFFC (BTYBPP*), and if I do this again next year, I suspect the tournament will be named in his honor. Which he would find as funny as I would hope.

I hope your teams do well this weekend, and I’ll be back on Tuesday — I promise this time — with the first look at our official FKOAUCNFFC (BTYBPP*) standings.

March 19, 2021March 19, 2021

FKOAUCNFFC (BTYBPP*) tip off.

Sister Jean says it’s go time. And we never argue with Sister Jean.

Because you never argue with a Chicago nun.

But we don’t need to be afraid of Sister Jean — or of rogue yardsticks: There is championship basketball on our screens and the Fourteenth Kind Of Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub*) is underway.

As I do every year, this is the post where our picks are revealed and we all begin the painful public shame and humiliation of sports prognostication — and for one lucky contestant, never-ending glory and $50 for drinks and food at the legendary Piper’s Pub. So — who ya got?

As is tradition, we begin with Yours Truly:

Gonzaga and Michigan on one side of the bracket and Houston and … wait for it … Ohio State on the other. Title game is the Zags and my Buckeyes. And the champion? Gonzaga is this season’s Team Of Destiny — but the Buckeyes are winning the title. And they’ll win by a score of 74-68.

Next we have the contestant I’m rooting for: Mrs. Crappy:

Gonzaga vs. Alabama, Purdue vs. Illinois. Illinois beats the Zags for the championship, 82-79.

And now, the rest of yinz guys, pretty much in no particular order:

Strang, who isn’t rolling with her hometown Bonnies:

Final Four: Houston, Texas, Iowa, Ohio State. Championship Game: Houston vs. Texas Winner: Houston (80-77)

Morgantown Socialist Joe:

Final Four: Gonzaga, BYU, Arkansas, West Virginia National Championship: Gonzaga, West Virginia Winner: Gonzaga Tiebreaker: 136

Ex-Pat Pittsburgh Girl, Esq.:

My FKOAUCNFFC (BTYBPP*) picks as selected by pulling my sweet sixteen selections out of a hat: Final Four: Baylor v. WVU, Kansas v. Texas Semi-finals: Kansas v. WVU National Champion: WVU

Aunt Annoyed Angel, who’s been doing this for as long as I have:

Ok, here goes. Final 4: Gonzaga/Alabama, Ohio State/Tennessee. Final 2: Alabama v Ohio State. Winner: Alabama. 73-68I’m well aware that one side of my bracket is very family & personal preference influenced… I just couldn’t get past it no matter how I tried.

And this is a first in the long and storied history of AUCNFFC: Entries from an entire family: AAA’s sister Lianne and the kids who bestowed upon AAA that first A: C and G Haviland.

Lianne:

Ok- here is my info- Final four- Oregon, Baylor, Alabama, Illinois Champ game: Illinois vs Baylor Champion: Illinois (75-68)

Miss C:

final four: Gonzaga, Baylor, Colorado, Houston. Champ game- Gonzaga vs Baylor. Champion- Gonzaga (83-79).

Mister G:

final four- Gonzaga, Baylor, LSU, TN. Champ game: TN vs Gonzaga. Champion- Gonazaga (87-82)

My question for AAA and Lianne: Do the kids have to take you guys out for dinner if one of them wins?

Next up: Cleveland Kelsey, who is as much of a homer as your Uncle Crappy:

FKOAUCNFFC (BTYBPP*)! Final Four: Ohio State, M!ch!g@n, Iowa, West Virginia. OSU/scUM in the championship. OSU wins 72-71

Red Buppy:

Gonzaga over Michigan. West Virginia over Villanova. Gonzaga 71, West Virginia 63. (If this looks like I haven’t paid any attention to college basketball this season, it’s because I haven’t.)

Kewyson, who apparently discovered brevity somewhere between 2019 and 2021:

With Covid rules in play, one never knows – but I stuck with the tried and true (and no Duke Blue) –
M*ch*gan / Iowa – with the Team up North prevailing
Illinois / Baylor – with Illinois coming through with the win
Final victor goes to Illinois – 87 – 83

Styx 4 Curl Girl, another contestant who’s been doing this for a very long time:

Final four: Gonzaga vs. Alabama, Ohio St. vs. Houston
Championship: Alabama vs. Ohio St.
Champion: Alabama
Tie Breaker: 78-72

Good luck everyone!

What does Chachi say? Chachi Says:

Gonzaga v Texas
Houston v Baylor

Final
Gonzaga v Baylor

Gonzaga 86-79

No Cardinals and no Panthers? No problem for Calipanthergrl:

I have watched like 20 minutes of MCBB this entire season. But I’m in! Here are my entirely laughable picks: USC/Michigan & Syracuse/Purdue. Michigan/Purdue. Michigan (84-73)

My #CnCShow partner Carla knows college football. Does she know college hoops as well?

Gonzaga / Alabama Baylor / Illinois Gonzaga / Illinois Illinois wins 82-78

And, for the record, I have Ohio in the Sweet 16.

Hey, me too!

Next up is Dudders, the baddest woman in all of Pittsburgh:

I would like to join that basketball event you host each year! I like to randomly pick teams and not do any research. Final Four: Purdue, WVU, Gonzaga, Alabama. Final Two: Gonzaga and Purdue. Gonzaga❤️

She added in a subsequent message that her tiebreaker is 91-88.

My former colleague North Coast Matt:

Final Four:
Gonzaga, Alabama, Houston, Illinois
Championship
Gonzaga vs. Houston
Champion
Gonzaga
total combined score: 157

Your defending AUCNFFC champ, the Sports Chump:

Against my better judgment, I’m going chalk. Give me all number one seeds in the Final Four.

Illinois, Gonzaga, Baylor and Michigan with Gonzaga beating Baylor in the final game 82-67.

But what do I know?

Pgh Rugby Ref has taken over Kewyson’s claim to the most-verbose contestant each year:

The day the brackets came out I completed one quickly, without any research or thought (other than no number 1s in the Final Four). After I looked at my selections, I figured there was no chance of winning (hell, I might even Blutarsky). All week I had the intention of putting in some effort for a real bracket (I’m sure you know about intentions and what road it paves). It’s a little more than an hour before deadline, and no extra work has gone into selections, so you get my original choices:
Virginia over Colorado
West Virginia over Arkansas
Virginia
Final score total 124

A blast from the past: M Fulk:

Hey, why not?

Final Four: Kansas vs. Alabama, Purdue vs. West Virginia
Championship: Alabama vs. Purdue
Champion: Alabama
Tie Breaker: 80-85

Spoon, on behalf of his basketball-playing boys:

Kids picked this one. I’ll think about getting them Piper’s if we win.

Final Four: Gonzaga vs. Alabama, Ohio St. vs. Clemson
Championship: Alabama vs. Ohio St.
Champion: Ohio St.
Tie Breaker: 77-75

Susan, who did, in fact, get in just under the wire:

Hopefully getting in under the wire: Iowa, Michigan, Ohio St, Ilinois. Michigan/Ohio St. Michigan. 151. Please do not reject based on my winner.

Dish, who is an actual person and not a restaurant on the South Side:

Gonzaga over Alabama, Illinois over Arkansas. Gonzaga over Illinois, 83-77. I did at least 90 seconds of research for this!

My Penn State friends are partial to hockey and football, but TraiLion paid more attention to the Lions’ hoops season this year than she would probably admit. Her picks:

Ohio State over Illinois, Iowa over Michigan, Iowa over Ohio State (sorry). 112 points.

The lion’s spouse JCK158:

Gonzaga over FSU, Baylor over Illinois, Gonzaga over Baylor, 158.

It’s excellent when you guys provide me with your own nicknames. Right, Scooter (38 seconds from being defending champions)?

Gonzaga, Alabama, Baylor and Illinois
Gonzaga and Baylor
Baylor
150
F the Mutant Twins

As to Scooter’s final comment: If you know, you know.

And finally, we have Juan, oh he of little basketball knowledge. He is entered each and every year against his will (or, at least, without his awareness); I couldn’t find picks from Phil’s Mom, so we’re going with the virtual version of the Penny-Flipping Method — ESPN’s random bracket generator. And while it’s not going to win him a damn thing, I’m going to be pulling for these picks anyway:

To be clear, this is my Bobcats vs. Texas Southern on one side and Purdue vs. Liberty on the other. And in what would be a championship matchup for the ages, Purdue will beat OU in the title game. And no, I’m not picking a tiebreaker. C’mon now.

And there you go, boys and girls. I have to say that I’m disappointed that I didn’t get any TikTok entries; that might be a thing we’ll work on for 2022. As is always the case, if I missed your entry, it’s nothing personal — I’m just an idiot. Let me know and I’ll add you to the list. Let’s all enjoy the hell out of the hoopage. And good luck to everyone. Especially me Mrs. Crappy.