I don't mean no harm but ...

When was subtlety invented? How about tactfulness?
I ask because those words didn’t exist when I was growing up. There was no tip-toeing around someone’s feelings or beating around the bush. Opinions or critiques were clear, concise and absolutely unfiltered.
I’ve seen young athletes have terrible games and then watched them get comforted by their parents.
“Oh, Sweetie, don’t worry about those two free throws you missed with one second on the clock. That wasn’t the reason the team lost by one point tonight. You did good.”
“Son, I know you went 0-for-3 at the plate with three strikeouts looking. That wasn’t on you. It was that dadgum umpire’s fault. Let’s go beat him up.”
I do believe a parent should pick a youngster up when they’re down emotionally. There were times as a child I could’ve used a little less honesty myself.
When I got cut from the basketball team in the ninth grade, my dad, thoughtfully, told me, “Boy, you know you can’t play. I don’t know why you keep trying.”
Quite the motivational speaker he was.
But that’s the way all the older people were when I was a kid. Honestly, a lot of the young folks didn’t want their parents around when they played. You think striking out with the bases loaded is depressing during the game, wait for the ride home.
Grandparents were probably the most brutal. When an old lady began a sentence, “Baby, I don’t mean no harm,” you knew some harm was about to come your way.
Old men just laughed at your shortcomings.
“That boy ain’t worth a dime,” was used often to describe a boy who wasn’t around.
“Boy, you ain’t worth a dime,” was used when the boy was standing right there.
Other colorful phrases included, “You ain’t peed a drop.” And, “You ain’t worth the powder it’d take to blow you up.”
Of course, if you excelled at something, you were given that message, too. I guess. I wouldn’t really know about that.
The point is, a world of brutal honesty wasn’t the best when it came to building confidence and self- esteem. But it wasn’t all bad, either. After all, honesty is the best policy.
When a kid strikes out three times, he doesn’t need a kick in the pants. He feels bad enough. He doesn’t need a hug and a cookie, either. He needs encouragement but a little dose of tough love never hurts.
Sugar-coating isn’t healthy. But a little tact sprinkled in with some honest criticism is probably the best way to go.
Of course, how would I know? Apparently, I ain’t peed a drop since I was eight.

Worst wrestling match ever?

As a lot of people know, I’m a life-long fan of professional wrestling. That’s not a popular thing to say these days as the WWE product isn’t very good.
But I still watch. Perhaps “glance” would be more accurate.
I do try to support the female wrestlers, though. They’ve been treated poorly by the WWE for far too long. It’s nice to see them get a little bit of positive attention for something other than man-made body parts.
Monday night on RAW, the women had a four-way match between Carmella, Naomi, Natalya and Alexa Bliss, which would decide the No. 1 contender for a championship match against Becky Lynch. The match was horrendous and the fans, being the true wrestling crowd, booed the performers loudly.
That’s not news. Male performers have been heckled, jeered and worse when they’ve failed to entertain the audience. It’s professional wrestling. It happens. Stumble over your words in a promo, you get laughed at. Miss a spot in a match, you get heckled.
That’s the way it goes and since it’s a live show, it happens fairly often.
My issue is with some of the responses I’ve read since the match about how it was so unfair to the women to be treated so badly. They were doing the best they could. Blah.
I love women’s wrestling. I own more than one Alexa Bliss t-shirt. I think she’s wildly entertaining, one of the best female talkers in history.
But that match sucked.
It went on for way too long with nothing happening. How can you have a four-person elimination match with rest holds? The whole point in having four people in a match is there should be non-stop action. Two people go at it in the ring while the other two rest outside of the ring. That’s how it works.
In Monday’s match, which lasted more than 20 minutes, probably 15 of those minutes were rest holds. I haven’t seen that many chin locks since Harley Race retired.
Plus, other than Bliss, the match featured the most bland personalities on the entire show. Some folks like Carmella. I don’t but she does have a fan base, so I’ll leave her out. She was eliminated after about five minutes anyway so most of the boos don’t land on her.
Naomi and Natalya, bless their hearts, are the black holes of charisma. Personality-wise, there just ain’t nothing there. Natalya is supposed to be this great in-ring wrestler. I don’t see it. Naomi is extremely athletic but none of that athleticism translates into fighting moves. She can jump really high and dance - super duper.
It’s amazing they finally give ring time to women and this was the foursome they chose while real wrestlers like Sonya Deville, Ember Moon, Asuka and Kairi Sane sit in the back waiting for an opportunity.
Anyway.
Whoever booked that match should be beaten with a kendo stick. The fans were right. Hell, I was booing at home.
It’s been well documented what Vince McMahon thinks of females in the wrestling business. The WWE won’t be giving the women many opportunities and the one Monday was wasted.
Don’t complain about fans booing. Ask yourself if the booing was warranted. Women will never be treated as well as their male counterparts because a lot of men are just sexist pigs. But some of us want to cheer the ladies because they can be entertaining and put on good matches.
But ya’ll have to give us a reason to cheer. Because if you give us a reason to boo, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

Time for the death penalty

I’ve never been a huge advocate for capital punishment especially in cases where there’s even a one-percent chance of executing an innocent person. To me, there’s no greater crime than executing an innocent human being.
But I’m going to be honest with ya’ll, when they catch the fools opening up ice cream in grocery stores, licking the top and then putting them back on the shelf, I say we fry their sorry arses.
How trifling can a human being be?
I guess they’ve caught other folks on camera spitting mouthwash back into the bottle and returning it to the shelf. Now other dumb arses are being copycats and doing the nasty with other sorts of food items.
I know we’re not a third world country but, in my opinion, that’s a third world crime. They should be treated like third world criminals.
I mean, that’s just nasty. Murderers on death row are disgusted by this nonsense.
What we should do is find all these idiots and then locate their parents and bring them in for questioning. If you raise a child that grows up to be that damn disrespectful, you should lose some of your human privileges, too.
I try not to judge but if your child opens up a box of Blue Bell, licks it, giggles and puts it back on the shelf, Sir, Ma’am, you did something wrong.
I saw an old lady in Brookshires eating grapes once. I felt sorry for her and pretended I didn’t see her when she noticed me. At least she was eating them and not putting them back for others to grab. But that was bad enough.
But what these people are doing is a hundred times worse. They’re not hungry. They’re just disrespectful, disgusting bastards.
I’m sorry for the salty language but this really burns my bacon. Speaking of, thank God bacon comes in a sealed package. As it is, I won’t buy any more ice cream that isn’t sealed by plastic. And I love me some Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate.
These fools have changed the way I shop. And, they think it’s funny.
I don’t know what the charge is for what they did but it needs to at least be a felony. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if it was punishable by death.
Nasty bastards.

I'll have some tea, please

In one of the least-dramatic, most celebrated sporting events in recent memory, the United States Women’s National Team defeated The Netherlands 2-0 Sunday to claim the World Cup. I’m far from a soccer expert but even I knew the Americans winning was a foregone conclusion.
I still watched it, though. I get very patriotic every three or four years and I support female athletes every day. In fact, I’ve been supporting women and girls in sports for most of my life. It’s a passion of mine.
I’ve heard every negative stereotype one can imagine when it comes to female athletes. They simply can’t win. They’re either too masculine or too big or not attractive or, ask Anna Kournikova about being too beautiful.
So, when the many non-sports fans started seeing the soccer women on their television screens, I knew it wouldn’t be long before they found something to criticize. People complain about the WNBA because they don’t find the women feminine. The LPGA women are foreign and the female tennis players scream too much.
What is the great complaint about our women’s soccer team? That’s right, they’re too damn confident. Or, cocky. Or, arrogant. Whatever word that fits the best is fine. They all, basically, mean the same thing.
I’m not going to get into the Megan Rapinoe stuff. I’ve never been a huge fan of her as a player. It has nothing to do with her political beliefs or her stances on social issues. I just felt she was a bit overrated. Even in this tournament, half of her goals came on penalty kicks.
I’m a Christen Press fan.
But it wasn’t just Rapinoe that had the critics singing. It was the overall team’s attitude. They celebrated after each of the 13 goals scored against helpless Thailand. When criticized about being too joyful in that win, they toned it down with golf claps in the next game. Finally, Alex Morgan felt the wrath of the world when she mimed sipping a cup of tea after scoring the game-winning goal against England.
I find this just so silly and, yes, sexist.
First, no one becomes one of the best in the world in their field without being super confident, perhaps even, dare I saw, arrogant. Confidence is what separates elite athletes from all the others. If you don’t have supreme belief in yourself, you’ll never be as good as you could be.
Second, what the women did was not even close to the arrogance shown by their male counterparts. Shaquille O’Neal has the Superman emblem tattooed on his arm. LeBron James has “The Chosen One” tattooed on his back. Mike Tyson once told an opponent he wanted to eat his children.
Alex Morgan sipped tea. Has no one seen a Conor McGregor press conference?
And no, this isn’t me saying, “If the men can do it, why can’t the women?”
Wrong is wrong. But, none of these people did anything wrong.
O’Neal called himself Superman and then he backed it up. Tyson said he wanted to devour his opponent’s children because, A, he’s a bit insane and B, he meant it.
When Alex Morgan taunted England with the tip sipping gesture, she did it during the game. If her opponents had a problem with it, they would’ve had no trouble finding her.
One of the great things about sports is, no matter what you say, eventually, you’ll have to back it up. I despise this politically correct era which asks athletes to lie or sugar coat their words. If I hear one more loser preaching about sportsmanship …
Remember when the cheerleaders use to chant, “U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi. You ugly?”
I want those days back. That’s when sports were fun. That’s when athletics was still a game. Play as hard as you can. Talk a little bit of noise, laugh and then do it again.
Now, you have to be careful what you say. Don’t score too much. Don’t act so happy when you win.
Say what you want about the soccer women, they had fun. All the critics around the world didn’t appear to dampen their celebration. And yeah, they’re kind of cocky. They worked their butts off to become the best at what they do. They’ve earned the right to have a little attitude.
If you don’t like to see the best athletes in the world enjoying what they do, watch a movie. Not that the actors are any less arrogant but at least they can pretend to be something they’re not.