Category Archives: Sports

“The Pacific was a Home Run”: My Favorite Sportswriting

Sports, Sportswriting

I’ve been known to steal ideas before, and here it comes again. Deal with it.

At theathletic.com the other day, writers covering different sports listed their take on the best books about each.

OK, there’s a nifty idea, I says to myself.

At which juncture, I perused the bookcases in my condo, donning one of my Covid masks, so I wouldn’t choke on the dust stirred up, and pulled out a few of my faves.

 * * * * *

I’ll start with my favorite sports book, and my favorite story by my favorite sportswriter. My favorite writer period, the fellow whom I would aspire to emulate, while understanding I really am not worthy of toting his inkwell.

Murray, Ky. — You run up Route 641 to get here from Paris in Tennessee, because that is the closest place to Murray where there are any hotel rooms. You run past the browned fields, hawks, and vultures riding the thermals at different levels, and you run past the ponds, as still as Sunday morning. You go through Camden, where Patsy Cline’s airplane went down, and all the little farm roads off the highway seem to lead to churches, many of them the least common denominations. One of them, two miles up the road, calls itself The Church of the Living God of the Holiness of Holiness, which certainly ought to narrow things down. The way you know you’ve passed from Tennessee into Kentucky is that all the liquor stores and roadhouses seem to have disappeared. Continue reading “The Pacific was a Home Run”: My Favorite Sportswriting →

Friday Squawks: Dabo, Roy, K, & the ’86 Title

Basketball, Sports,

Because I’m an inveterate Louisville Cardinal fan, because I still shake my head in awe that the Cards now compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and because I’m justifiably accused of being OCD, I tuned into the premier evening of the ACC Network.

(Besides I’m not a huge fan of the LLWS, and the episode of “Texas Metal” on MotorTrend Channel didn’t intrigue me.)

It was mostly just Show & Tell, since there was no actual live sports action.

Here are a few of the things I learned: Continue reading Friday Squawks: Dabo, Roy, K, & the ’86 Title →

Louisville Cardinal Short Shots

Baseball, Basketball, Football, Softball, Sports, Track & Field

So I’m standing in line at the grocery on the first day of the weekend, and the clerk asks if I have anything fun planned for the holiday?

“Errands. Maybe some music,” I reply.

At which point the fellow next to me in line says, “Post something at CardChron.”

Fortunately he didn’t seem to be one of the regulars, an antagonist whose vitriol would indicate I wouldn’t want to be meeting them out in public. He was a good guy.

“It’s that time of year, when there’s not a lot of news. Hopefully the baseball team (which had just gone ofer the ACC tourney) will get its act together.”

Anyway, my reader’s wishes are my command. So, here I come with a bunch of little stuff. Most, but not all of which, is Cardinal related. Continue reading Louisville Cardinal Short Shots →

Louisville Cardinals in the Big Time Now

Sports,

LouACCBrad Evans was a dude in full.

A Hemingway character — He eventually drank himself to death after working on barges just for the experience — he was as smart as he was mean, as willing to argue politics as he was to break a bottle of Sterling over your head in a bar fight.

The transfer from Wofford played line for Frank Camp’s Cardinals in the mid not-so-halcyon 60s, toiling in the grime that passed for turf at the one-sided all-purpose facility, passed off as a football stadium, at the State Fairgrounds.

Evans was an imposing presence on the then quaintly bucolic Belknap campus.

He could rouse the rabble with the best of them.

In that capacity, he led the several hundred or so protestors who marched to The Thinker, to rally against school prexy Philip Davidson’s proclamation that the then woefully underfunded municipal university was seriously considering dropping football.

Were Evans still around, I trust he’d be as dumbfounded and exhilarated as I am at what’s happened with U of L sports. Continue reading Louisville Cardinals in the Big Time Now →

Who is The University of Louisville’s Best Coach?

Sports

cardsThere are, of course, some eagle-eyed among you, who, upon seeing the header to this blog, said to yourself, “There goes Seedy K, grabbing hold of somebody else’s idea and presenting it as his own.”

In this case, you’d be thinking of WDRB’s Rick Bozich, who asked the very same question in a column, on the exact day last week — honest — that a loyal reader asked it of me. And I replied to my fan, there’s a column there.

I swear. It was such the coincidence. No really, I’m not lying. (If you insist I’ll copy you the emails that went back and forth between Big Card Fan (not his real moniker) and myself, which shall be time stamped before Rick posted his story.)

So, even those it’s been asked before, and recently at that, I’m still going with it.

Because? Well, because it’s a fascinating discussion taking place among Cardinal fans, during these halcyon days of athletic success on the diamond, pitch, field, court, track and in the pool.

Plus, because, Big Card Fan’s analysis is seriously astute, and he took time out of his working day to send it along. Continue reading Who is The University of Louisville’s Best Coach? →

Thirteen Thoughts for Thursday (Rockin’ Video Included)

Announcing, Basketball, Hockey, Olympics, Recruiting, Sports, , , , , ,

animated_sports1. Boys Will Be Boys. So The Rick, as he is wont to do from time to time, pontificated about his feelings on the social media phenomenon.

Essentially, he called all of us who might, from time to time, tweet or post on Facebook or any other of our ilk, uh, “crazy.”

Which is, frankly, a really stupid thing to say, but of little consequence in the realm of human events.

Except to Coach Cal, he of the you-say-potato-I-say-tomato mentality, when it comes to his rival down I-64.

And so it goes.

Boys, go to your rooms, each of you, and don’t come out until called for dinner. Continue reading Thirteen Thoughts for Thursday (Rockin’ Video Included) →

A Loyal Reader’s Valentine Gift: One I Shan’t Easily Forget

Sports

shoutingAny number of you regular readers have sent inquiries, questioning the sanity and intelligence of a regular — dare I say, loyal — reader, one J G Joyner.

“Does this dude actually read your stuff? Why would he think you’re a UK fan?’

“Is that J G idiot mental, or what?”

“What’s this guy’s problem. If he could read, he’d know you’re not a big Kentucky booster.”

Having seen neither the results of his IQ test, nor a clean bill of health from the Mental Inquest department, I feel uncomfortable commenting on either.

I do know that he is more than somewhat obsessed with the Cats. And, as you know if you’ve been paying attention, not in a positive way.

I admit to lunching with him, and another old associate, on occasion. Once, by coincidence when I showed up with a blue shirt on, he threatened to sit at another table.

And, in a comment, to a blog earlier this week, he simply commented, “You should move to Lexington . . .”

Hmmmm . . .

So, in the interests of hopefully coming to some resolution to what I’ve considered an egregious breach in internet ethics, I met him and that other associate, who also happens to be my attorney.

Or, so I thought. Continue reading A Loyal Reader’s Valentine Gift: One I Shan’t Easily Forget →

Year of the Cardinal’s Bumpy Landing

Basketball, Football, Sports, , , , , , ,

cardsThis is the way a magical Flight of the Redbird ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

* * * * *

Before one of Louisville’s exhibition basketball games — one of those actually designated so, not one of the spate of them since the “real” season began — I was chatting up a fellow long time fan about the state of Kevin Ware.

While our mutual love for the Cardinals is deep and true, we rarely agree about any specific. But, that night, he offered of Ware, “I just have a feeling it’s not going to be a good end for him at U of L.”

I felt compelled to agree. Continue reading Year of the Cardinal’s Bumpy Landing →

Welcome to America’s Pithiest Sports Commentary

Announcing, Baseball, Basketball, Cycling, Football, Golf, Hockey, Recruiting, Soccer, Sports, Tennis

reporterAfter years of writing about sports elsewhere, I dare to venture where many have gone before.

Welcome to my own site, Seedy K Sports, where I’ll continue to cover the scene with a gangster lean. Lots more opinionating on the athletic endeavors and competitions we love. Plus, it is my intention to, on occasion, actually pepper the page and opinion with arguable facts and documentation.

My first loves are University of Louisville athletics, college basketball and football in general and their professional counterparts. But I’ll also be posting essays on the personality and personalities of sport, the announcers we love and loathe, recruiting, officiating, along with peeks at the worlds of baseball, cycling, golf, hockey, soccer, tennis, the Olympics and, every once in a great while, Australian Rules Football which I love but rarely get to see.

As the former gossip monger behind a column called “Rumor & Innuendo,” I won’t be shy about sharing juicy gossip, at least that which has at least a scintilla of possibility.

Every once in awhile I’ll be serious, as when discussing issues such as head injuries in football. Sometimes, I’ll be faux serious, as when contemplating when Brett Favre will again take the field. Most of the time, I’ll write as the sports fan I am, with an opinion and my own website on which to publish it.

Thanks for taking a look see. Come back often. Bookmark this site, if so inclined. If you’re on Facebook, Like my Culture Maven c d kaplan page, where links to all my posts from here and my other website appear.

Remember, the door is always open.

— Seedy K

Louisville Card File: Houston (Boffo Music Video Included)

Sports

cardfootballWhat strikes me most about U of L’s steady as she goes 20-13 victory over Houston is how practical it was.

On the season, Louisville’s ratio of rushing attempts to passing attempts has been just about even. 343 ground assaults vs. 321 air attacks. Last night, when it became obvious that the Cougars’ defensive schemes had Teddy B in too much peril when looking down field for an air lift, Sean Watson obviously decided to keep it on the ground more.

Forty one rushing attempts vs. only 29 passes.

The strategy obviously worked. Louisville won, and, bottom line, that’s why they play the game.

It was also effective in more subtle ways. Louisville had possession of the ball for 37:49 vs 22:11 for the visitors from Texas. If not impossible, a football team is less likely to score when it doesn’t have the ball than when it does. Continue reading Louisville Card File: Houston (Boffo Music Video Included) →