Month: July 2012

Racked And Ready

July 26, 2012 / DB

Two weeks down, two to go.

Yesterday I racked and bottled my first batch of beer. Racking is the process in which the beer is moved from the fermenter into a temporary container, where it is mixed with sugar which will kick off the carbonation process once bottled.

Everything appeared well with my nut brown ale. When I popped the top of the fermenter, I was greeted by the pleasant smell of a healthy, growing brown ale. As I moved it to my bottling bucket, I took a small sip. The taste was terrific, although at room temperature and with no carbonation, it wasn’t exactly ready-to-drink.

My only hiccup came in getting the beer into the bottle. I don’t have a bottling tube, and using the long tubing from the siphon was unwieldy, and I feared not terribly sanitary. So I just used the spigot on the bottling bucket, which may have presented too much oxygen into the process. I guess I’ll find out in a couple weeks when I stick it in the fridge and then drink it up.

I had a tentative name in mind, but made an adjustment yesterday. I’m pretty pleased with what I came up with. Today I designed some labels and ordered them. All systems are go, providing the bottles don’t explode because I miscalculated the timing on bottling.

Just another reason for my beer-loving readers to visit Indy, so they can try it for themselves!

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Big Girl Gets Bigger

July 25, 2012 / DB

Today is M.’s eighth birthday. The kid is growing up and beginning to leave the trappings of early childhood behind. Over the weekend, we were in the vicinity of a group of girls I will guess were in the 12-14 range. M. kind of drifted away from the rest of the family and just stared at the party for the longest time, taking in everything the girls were doing and saying. You could tell she was planning her own adolescent get-togethers.

Man, it’s really close.

But she’s still a kid. We had a small crisis about gifts last week when, at the last minute, she insisted she wanted to go to the Build A Bear store. Forget that the store is overpriced and under-delivers¹, but I kept thinking, “Does she really need more stuffed animals? Won’t this be cast aside quickly as a ‘baby toy’ as she gravitates towards big girl toys?” Fortunately, with some help from our neighbors, we’ve dodged the Build a Bear bullet for the time being. Hopefully L. won’t be asking for the same thing when her fourth birthday rolls around in October.

I found my reaction to that kind of odd, since you don’t really want your kids to grow up faster than they need to. What’s wrong with her wanting another stuffed animal? Why can’t she cling to the things that comforted her in her toddler and preschool years just a little longer? She could be asking for iPod Touches or cell phones, items some of her friends already have. I should be glad she’s not in a hurry to grow up just yet. Those days will come soon enough.

I like to give a summary of each daughter on their birthday. While M. is growing and maturing, she’s really the same kid she’s always been. She’s smart and inquisitive. She sees everything and forgets almost nothing. Each time she discovers something new, her face lights up in delight and she is quick to share her discovery with anyone in earshot. She reminds me of myself in having lots of interests but is still able to submerse herself in one of them for long periods of time. Sometimes we’ll sit together, both quietly reading a book, and I get the same thrill that other fathers get when they play catch with their sons or help their daughter build a science project.

I love the rare moments when it’s just the two of us. That’s when she calms down and stops seeking her mother’s attention or trying to boss/correct her sisters. We have great conversations and I see the sweet, intelligent girl her teachers always compliment me for.

I must admit, I don’t deal well with a lot of her big sister qualities, probably because I was never bossed nor had anybody to boss. It seems like I’m constantly telling her to give her sisters a break and stop instructing them on what they should say or do. I keep telling myself that big personality is going to come in handy one day, and she’s growing into a world where it will be even more accepted for a woman to have a strong point of view and be a bold leader of others than it is even today.

Each year I say that I don’t worry about her at all. That’s still the case, although there are days when I think she’s not going to make it to her teenage years, let alone adulthood, because of her rapidly emerging attitude. Provided we all survive the next 15 years or so, she’ll have no problem carving out a path in life.

M. was born two weeks early when she forced her way into the world unexpectedly. She’s been making sure she got her way ever since. While it often drives me crazy, I know that’s a skill that should serve her well as she grows older.

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I base that on the comments of many other parents. ↩

Baseball Hits

July 24, 2012 / DB

We’ve reached the time of the year when the Royals completely fall apart, before their inevitable signs of life in September that we will cling to over the off season in hopes it was a sign that the team’s fortunes are finally changing. I’ll call it now: Eric Hosmer is going to start hitting again in mid-August. Luke Hochevar will do his annual ‘pitch solidly when no one is watching’ thing. Starting pitching as a whole won’t be great, but will be more consistent than in the first four months of the season. The team will string together hits and score runs like we expected them to.

But unless the Royals move some players, get Jake Odorizzi into the rotation (which I think will happen), and get Wil Myers 100-150 ABs I’m not going to get excited about anything that happens over the next two months.

If the Royals do close the season on a decent run, I expect the official message from the organization to be a reminder about how Sal Perez and Lorenzo Cain missed much of the season; Danny Duffy, Joachim Soria, and Felipe Paulino will all be back next season; the team really could have contended this year, and thus doesn’t need a major rehaul to contend in 2013. Trust the process and all.

Sigh.

I was out of Internet contact over the weekend and missed the glorious news that the Royals had shipped Jonathan Sanchez to Colorado for fellow suck pitcher Jeremy Guthrie. I’m not sure why I, and many others, hated Sanchez so much. He sucked, no doubt, but there have been plenty of shitty pitchers in KC in the last 25 years. But I’m glad he’s gone.

Ichiro to the Yankees? Holy out of nowhere! Nice that he could play his first series as a Yankee in Seattle, so his old fans could pay their respects to his time as a Mariner. I don’t get worked up about the “Player X in Team Y’s uniform” thing much. But it will be odd seeing him in pinstripes. It would have been odder if he was still a decent player, though.

I mentioned earlier this year that most summers I end up working up a list of what team I would adopt should the Royals ever be contracted. A couple people said they’d like to see that list, so I’ve been putting it in written form over the past few weeks. I expect to post it next week.

Here’s a nice use of Internet bandwidth: the current walkup song(s) for every MLB player.

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Velvet Hammer

July 23, 2012 / DB

The NCAA has spoken and now Penn State gets to deal with another part of the rebuilding process after the Sandusky Affair. A $60 million fine. A four-year bowl ban. The loss of ten scholarships per year for four years. And vacating all wins from 1998 to 2011.

That fine is not insignificant. Neither is the loss of bowl games in four straight years, nor the longer term effects reducing scholarships will carry. Taking away the wins is purely symbolic and does nothing to either punish the school or help the victims of Jerry Sandusky. And Penn State will still be playing football in the Big 10, appearing on TV often, and despite the scandal, operate under one of the most historic names in the game.

Penn State got hammered, but in many respects, they got off easy. They can and will rebuild from this. They may never be the same as they were in the Paterno era, but they’re not going to turn into New Mexico State, either.

I’ve not read a ton of reaction to the punishment, but I hope the NCAA doesn’t get too much credit for their decision. They didn’t have much of a choice. They weren’t about to appear to be supporting an athletic department going out-of-its way to harbor a child molester. It was a no-brainer, dead simple, with-a-doubt decision.

Perhaps this will usher in a new era of NCAA oversight of programs, where rules are simplified but expected to be followed to the letter. Maybe the organization will be serious about putting the needs of the “student athletes” first and not be more worried about protecting the bottom line of the organization as a whole or its members. But until a major program gets more than a slap on the wrist for violating recruiting and/or academic guidelines, I’m not going to give the suits in downtown Indy too much credit.

Finally, I’ve had this conversation with several friends and family members and thought I would share it here.

Over the last nine months, as the scandal poured forth, I’ve tried to think how I would feel had this happened at KU. I’ve also tried to think of it happening when I was a student rather than a rational, well-adjusted adult. I did this only to try to find some understanding for the actions of the Penn State students who have defiantly defended the school, Joe Paterno, and the football program.

It’s easy, from afar, to look at these kids and shake your head, wondering how they can defend someone who defended a serial child rapist. But we’re not always rational in those years that surround our 20th birthdays, and don’t always quietly accept criticism of something dear to us during that time in our lives. I would hope that I would be as disgusted as I am now had this happened to my school, when I was a student. But I’m at least willing to cut the Penn State kids a little slack. It’s the adults that operate the school and support the football program who have remained steadfast in their support of Joe Paterno that upset me.

There are a lot of negatives about college sports and it’s easy to let them overwhelm the beauty of the games if you let them. But what happened at Penn State, as with the murder scandal at Baylor nearly a decade ago, is the worst possible thing that can happen to college sports.

Cheating we kind of expect, and tacitly support. Academic fraud? Well it’s fine as long as you don’t get caught and, hey, everyone else is doing it. Shoveling more-and-more money into athletic programs while academic programs are cut, professors struggle to make a decent living, and students get nailed with tuition increases far greater than the rate of inflation each year? We’d rather not hear about that, so shut up and watch the game, would you?

I think we’ve come to an uncomfortable acceptance of all that. But when a coach is so powerful he can cover up the evil of Jerry Sandusky, it’s hard to find anything good enough in college sports to outweigh it.

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Rocky Mountain High

July 18, 2012 / DB

Four days in Denver. Sounds like a bad political thriller from the 1970s, no? Our weekend in the Mile High City was far from bad movie from my childhood.

The highlights:

The girls travelled very well on the way out. S. sat in a row with C. and L., while M. and I sat a row up. We were lucky enough to share our row with a pilot from another airline who was all-too-happy to share information about flying without being asked. He was just on the verge of being annoying, but fortunately didn’t volunteer flying tidbits for the entire flight.
Saturday we went out to the famous Red Rocks park and concert site. The place was full of people working out. There were people running the seats of the amphitheater, a group of over 50 people doing various exercises at the top of the seats, a large contingent of kids from the Air Force Academy, and then random folks like us who were walking around. Like most non-Coloradans my age, about all I know of Red Rocks is the classic 1983 U2 concert, during which the video for “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” was filmed. It’s a pretty cool place to walk around. I bet seeing a show there would be pretty amazing.
After that we headed higher into the hills to visit two KC friends who are now in the Denver area. We had a fine time with them, and our girls played with the two boys quite well. We headed to the neighborhood pool after lunch. It’s been a very hot summer in Denver, too. But we were just high enough, and enough clouds had rolled in, that the water wasn’t all that warm. Thus we didn’t spend a ton of time in the water. But it was great to see my two friends, Erin and Mandi, and their families for the first time in four years.
We descended about a thousand feet, to where it was a normal, hot, summer day and hopped into the pool in my brother & sister-in-laws’ neighborhood. The girls showed off their diving board skills some more.
Sunday my brother-in-law and I went to the Phillies-Rockies game at Coors Field. Coors was my eighth big league stadium, which is pretty lame when you consider how much baseball I’ve watched in my life. We had terrific seats, the only downside of which was we were directly in the sun. Each time we’d head up to grab another round, our seats would be blistering upon our return. We watched Cole Hamels shut down the Rockies, drank some beer, and enjoyed some time without the kids.
Monday morning we went to the restaurant my other Denver sister-in-law runs, Snooze. It’s a breakfast place that makes some amazing food. We sampled some of their pancakes, which are probably the best I’ve ever had, and I stuffed myself on a massive breakfast burrito.
What better way to recover from eating too much food than to go to the Denver Zoo and stroll around in the heat? That was our next stop. Things began to unravel a bit by now, with the girls being tired from three nights in strange beds, a different sleeping schedule, and the weather. I, of course, handled all their moods with absolute aplomb.
Monday night we ate dinner at a barbecue place not too far from my in-laws’ home. You can’t really go wrong with barbecue, but my pulled pork sandwich wasn’t quite Kansas City quality. We ordered some wings, too, which my brother-in-law raved about, and they were indeed some of the better wings I’ve had. I’m not sure how they were made, but they were fantastic: a little smoky, a little hot, but not dripping with sauce.
The girls had lots of fun with their cousins. Will is 2.5 and loved hanging out with the girls. Anytime he couldn’t find one, he’d start yelling, “Where M./C./L.?” Will’s little sister, Sara, is almost three months old and very cute. The girls loved watching her, trying to get her to smile and make noises back at them.
Tuesday we flew home, and we lucked out with a flight that wasn’t completely full. This time M. and I sat a row behind the rest, and as we sat waiting to leave the gate, a girl from across the aisle came over, sat in the empty seat next to me, looked at M., and asked, “How old is she?” Despite being 5.5, this girl was perfectly happy to hang with M. for two hours, so I moved over to the window and let them have fun. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t let any of my daughters go sit with strangers, even if just across the aisle from me, but this worked out ok.

We made it home safe and sound, to a hot and dry home that made sleeping Tuesday night difficult. But at least we were home. Most of our trips in recent years have been 2-3 nights, and I always feel like I could have used one more. This time, with four nights schedule, I could have easily come home a night earlier. But it was still a great trip. I haven’t spent a ton of time in Denver over the years, but I like it a lot. They welcome Indianapolis refugees warmly there, so if we do ever move, that’s a place I could go.

Now we get two whole days to do laundry and relax a bit before we welcome another visitor and spend another weekend in a lake.

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BOOOOOOOO!!!!

July 12, 2012 / DB

For a crappy game, the 2012 All Star Game will certainly go down as one of the more memorable All Star weeks in recent memory.

Thanks to the mini-controversy of Yankee Robinson Cano not selecting Royal Billy Butler for the Home Run Derby, the event turned into an opportunity for Kansas City baseball fans to unload 25 years of frustration on the best player on the best team in the league. And then, since this is 2012, everyone with any perspective on Boo-gate got to completely overreact to it.

I’m firmly in the “This Was a Silly Little Thing That Too Many People Took Too Seriously” camp. Cano was silly to say that he would include a Royal on the AL HR Derby squad earlier this year if he didn’t mean it. Royals fans were silly for acting like it was a black mark on the game that Billy Butler was not included. The national media was silly for not talking about Cano’s promise or realizing the reaction to him got stronger the longer he struggled in his Derby at bats. Had he knocked one out early, I think it never becomes the big deal it ended up being.

In this whole silly mess there was some stupidity, though. It was stupid for anyone to take the ire of the Royals fans, at least on Monday night, too seriously. It was stupid for any Royals fans that were rude and abusive to Cano’s family Tuesday. Not that it excuses such behavior, but it was stupid for the national media to act like Monday and Tuesday were the first time a home crowd ever reacted strongly towards a player. As Derek Jeter said, the reaction he received in Boston in 1999 was much worse. And it was stupid for some writers, a couple who are even pretty good ones, to assert that the performance of the KC fans will somehow keep them from ever signing a free agent again.

I was in the strange position Tuesday night of actually agreeing with most of what the Fox team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver said about the ‘controversy’. They seemed to understand it was mostly light hearted and good natured and there was no menace behind it.

It’s a cliché to say that the All Star Game has lost its luster. Baseball hasn’t been America’s favorite sport in decades. When I was growing up, Little League baseball was done right around the time the All Star Game rolled around. Now leagues last all summer, and countless other kids who used to be sitting around are instead at camps or in summer leagues for other sports. We have a million crappy TV choices and the firehose that is the Internet. There are a lot of things to do other than sit down and catch up with what’s been going on in baseball for the first half of the season during the Mid-Summer Classic.

Even in its glory days, each year’s All Star Games blended into each other. Only the ones with big moments stood the test of time. There was Pete Rose running over Ray Fosse, Dave Parker’s throw, Bo Jackson’s home run, Randy Johnson zipping one behind Jon Kruk’s head, and, of course, The Tie. Those are the All Star Games everyone remembers. Thanks to Robinson Cano and angry Royals fans, though, the 2012 All Star Game is now on that list.

Aside from that, it seemed to be a pretty good time in Kansas City. Which makes the Midwest 2-for-2 in hosting big sports events this year after Indy’s fine performance with the Super Bowl earlier this year. People were properly enamored with the food and people in the city, and Kauffman Stadium got a rare moment in the national spotlight.

Which was bittersweet for me. I remember when the K (then Royals Stadium) was always in the middle of important events in baseball. Once upon a time NBC came to town a few times a year for the Game of the Week, Monday Night Baseball would make a couple visits, and October usually meant more network coverage. It’s been a long time since Kansas City baseball mattered and when the game ended, it didn’t feel like we were that much closer to it being a big deal again.

Joe Posnanski wrote a wonderful ode to Kansas City before the game which also touched on the rarity of this moment.

Kansas City gets the All-Star Game, and it’s likely that this will be the last time Kansas City will be in the national sports spotlight for a long time. Kansas City used to be in the spotlight with regularity. But times have changed. Unless something dramatic changes – and it almost certainly won’t – there won’t ever be a Super Bowl here, a U.S. Open here, another Final Four here. There’s a beautiful arena downtown that was built largely for an NBA or NHL team that almost certainly won’t ever come. Another World Series seems as distant as anything. The All-Star Game won’t come back for a long time.

Lots of George Brett appearances over the week. Which meant several people linked to one of the greatest things ever created on the Internet. Many of you are familiar with the infamous video of Brett describing a particularly nasty night in Las Vegas while on a spring training practice field. I did not know, however, that someone had remixed that video and turned it into a fine little song.

Shitty game, though. Shame it wasn’t Carlos Beltran who got the NL rolling instead of the other former Royal in the NL outfield, Melky Cabrera. When Tony LaRussa started treating it like a real game, despite being up eight, by swapping pitchers late in the game, I sat on my couch with my middle finger raised at the TV. Please keep your word and stay retired, Tony.

Now we can go back to complaining about how the Royals still suck, how Dayton Moore needs to go, and how the Glass family needs to sell. July baseball!

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Time Is Flying

July 11, 2012 / DB

What a busy few days. Let’s see if I can cram some of what’s happened, and is about to happen, into a post of reasonable length.

We spent last weekend enjoying a fine Indiana freshwater recreation site with some good friends and family. The weather continued to be ridiculously hot, but being in the water was a fine way to cool off. The girls learned how to jump off a dock, pedal a paddle boat (or is it pedalboat?), and were lucky enough to watch fireworks from the water thanks to some friends. A pretty solid weekend.

For some reason I decided to schedule a playdate for C. on Monday. I don’t recommend inviting two six year olds over after you’ve spent three days someplace else. Then M. had her own playdate Tuesday. Fortunately S. just began a run of several days off, so I wasn’t solely responsible for entertaining the girls and their friends.

In fact, Tuesday I took the first step in my newest hobby. I brewed up a batch of beer. I’ve been toying with the idea for a while, and a buddy pushed me over the edge when he started brewing earlier this summer. I visited the local speciality brewery store a couple weeks ago, picked up some tips and a book which I’ve been reading. Monday I drove down and got my supplies and first kit. I took a bunch of notes Monday night, made a script I would work off of, and got to work after lunch Tuesday. Three hours later, my brown ale was sealed into the fermenter where it will sit and, hopefully ferment, for the next two weeks. Then I’ll prime and bottle, let it sit for another couple weeks, and right around the time M. and C. are going back to school, I’ll be able to sample the first run of B. Brown.

The process seemed to go smoothly today. I avoided the dreaded boilovers. I didn’t spill anything or make any mistakes in the order I added the ingredients. And when I dumped the brewing kettle, there wasn’t a huge mess of malt extract and hops stuck to the bottom. I’m not saying the process was flawless: there are a couple things I’m worried about, but I don’t think they’ll be catastrophic. The thing that held be back from trying this before was my concern that between the time investment and the final yield, this can be a frustrating hobby if you make a mistake. I don’t want to pour out two cases of beer if I didn’t sanitize my fermenter properly, or didn’t let the malts boil long enough before adding the first round of hops. And it will be a bummer to spend parts of a couple days brewing and bottling, and then a month waiting for it to be ready, only to be disappointed by the final product.

But I think this is easier to do than it used to be, provided you do some research and follow the instructions. I’m already thinking about what my next batch will consist of.

The downside is our house kind of stinks, which I don’t mind but S. isn’t loving.

Then, of course, there are the MLB All-Star activities in Kansas City I’ve been following closely. I’ll write more about those later.

The final large item on our agenda is a trip to Denver that begins this Friday. We’re heading out to visit our family members who live there, including the girls’ newest cousin. I’ll also be going to a Rockies game with my brother-in-law, eating at the restaurant my sister-in-law manages, and meeting up with some old KC friends who have relocated to Colorado. That’s all cool stuff, but the girls might be most excited about flying on a plane. M. and C. haven’t flown since our last visit to Denver, over four years ago. And L. was just a tiny fetus we weren’t yet aware of on that trip, so she obviously doesn’t recall it.

Like I said, busy times.

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This Is Interesting

July 5, 2012 / DB

Def Leppard is rerecording their back catalog because of an argument with Universal over the digital distribution rights of their original songs. Despite being the slickest of the 80s hairbands, it took some effort.

”You just don’t go in and say, ‘Hey guys, let’s record it,’ and it’s done in three minutes,” Elliott notes. “We had to study those songs, I mean down to the umpteenth degree of detail, and make complete forgeries of them. Time-wise it probably took as long to do as the originals, but because of the technology it actually got done quicker as we got going. But trying to find all those sounds…like where am I gonna find a 22-year-old voice?

It might have taken just as long to record these as the originals, but I have a feeling the band was a lot more sober this time around.

I don’t know anything about the legality of this – why doesn’t every artist who is pissed at their label do this – but it’s an awfully interesting approach.

Off The Board

July 5, 2012 / DB

I love it when events coincide with specific dates so that they are easy to remember.

Example: earlier this year we purchased a new lawn mower. S. wondered how long we had our old one¹ and I said, “I can tell you exactly when we got it.”

“OK, what game was that day?” She knows me well.

“It wasn’t just a game, although that was the same day that KU lost to Georgia Tech in the regional finals.” March 28, 2004.

I remembered the exact day because that was also the first time I felt M. kicking inside S.’s stomach. It was just an added convenience that a notable game fell on that day too.

Fast forward to July 4, 2012 and we come to another day I’ll always remember. That was the first day both C. and M. jumped off a diving board.

We went to the pool our neighbors belong to in an attempt to escape this ridiculous heat. After they had splashed around in the shallow end for awhile, I asked M. if she was interested in going off the diving board. She looked across the pool, saw the line of kids, some smaller than her, thought about it for a minute, then declined. I dropped it. At the next adult swim I jumped off the board once to show the girls it was no big deal. When adult time ended, C. was ready to go.

I swam out to the deep end and waited for her. When it was her turn I told her to jump away from the board, then to swim toward me when she surfaced. No problem. She leaped in, popped up, swam straight to me then to the ladder so she could pull herself out and try again. Back to the end of the line. Typical C., no fear or hesitation. Just do it.

M. waited and watched for awhile but finally decided to give it a shot too. When it was her turn, I again swam to the landing area. I gave her the same instructions I gave C.. “I know!” she answered tersely. She looked at the water, looked at me, looked at the water. “How deep it is, daddy?”

“It’s deep but you’ll do fine.”

She gazed at the water some more. She whined a little.

“Come one, M.. There are other people waiting.”

“I’m not sure I want to do this.”

“That’s fine, but either jump in or get off so other people can go.”

She took a breath, jumped, and survived. She surfaced with a big grin and a yell of triumph.

And so the B. girls spent the next 15 minutes or so ignoring their friends and leaping off the diving board while I tread water to make sure they had no issues swimming where they couldn’t touch. It was great and they were both very proud of themselves. By the end of our time at the pool, C. was bouncing on the board and jumping pretty far away from it, and M. was doing “moves” when she jumped off, throwing her arms or legs out and yelling at her friends who were watching.

So it was a pretty good, and memorable, Independence Day for us.

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We passed the old mower on to a family member whose previous mower died. ↩

The Reign Of Spain

July 2, 2012 / DB

For a minute or two, I thought Italy had a chance in Sunday’s Euro 2012 final. But then Spain got rolling, picked apart the pressing Italians, and rolled to a dominating 4-0 win that gives them a legitimate claim to be the best soccer team ever and in the conversation for best sports team ever.¹ Those moments of hope were delicious for us fans of the Azzurri though.

Their destruction of Germany in Thursday’s semifinal was especially sweet. Mario Balotelli scored two of the most beautiful goals you will ever see and the Italians systematically ripped apart the vaunted German team. The margin could have easily been 4-0 or 5-0 before Germany took one back on a penalty kick in injury time. As it was, those two goals were enough to send Italy though to the final.

This Italian team was like no Italian national team in recent memory. Long the masters of scoring a goal then sucking the life out of the game in order to preserve the lead, this year’s edition pressed forward constantly. The back four weren’t as stout as some of the epic backlines of the past, but they were good enough to choke off most attacks. Andrea Pirlo was simply amazing controlling the middle of the field. It always seemed to be the Italians who were pushing forward, setting the pace, and keeping the defense on their heels. Even when Balotelli put the <em>Azzurri</em> ahead on his header Thursday, they continued to push forward. After his second goal, they still pushed. Sunday, rather than sit back and stifle the dangerous Spaniards, they pushed. For once it was an Itlian team that matched the image of Italy: sleek and stylish and fast.

There’s no shame in losing to Spain, even 4-0. For a few days, this Italian team gave its tifosi hope that they might pull off another miracle like their 2006 World Cup victory.

A couple other things about Euro 2012. As I wrote during the last World Cup, I love how Europe is becoming more like America, at least in racial terms. Germany started players born in Poland and Ghana, another of Spanish descent, and another of Turkish descent. Germany! A certain long-deceased former German leader is spinning in his grave right now. Mario Balotelli, despite his uber-Italian name, is a dark-skinned man of African lineage. The Czech Republic started a player born in Ethiopia. Once it was just the French and Dutch who featured players that were darker that the sterotypical European. England has embraced its black players in recent years. Finally others are getting on board. European soccer is, sadly, plagued by racism that seems shockingly out of place in 2012. Perhaps the integration of so many national teams will end that as a generation of kids grows up playing with and cheering for countrymen with different pigmentations.

Another way European soccer has become mre American is in the crowds. The age of drunken, working class, often racist mobs following their national teams around the continent and creating mayhem appears to be over. Not because those fans are gone or have been banned from traveling, but because actually attending the games has clearly become too expensive an option for the hooligans. Shots of the stands showed beautiful, rich people cheering on their teams while smiling at their opponents. That violence in the stands has been erradicated, at least at the highest levels, is a good thing. But that it’s a product of it being so bloody expensive to get into a game is a shame, just as it’s a shame working class families in the US have a hard time going to sporting events here.

I loved how The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” was the official post-goal song of the tournament. I wonder how much Jack and Meg got each time a goal was scored. I really enjoyed it when the English fan with the trumpet would play it over-and-over throughout the game.

Now the countdown for Brazil 2014 begins. Can the hosts win? Will the US make it out of group play? Can Spain continue their epic streak? Just how will England disappoint this time? Will Holland and France put their internal disfunction aside and play up to their abilities? I’m sure most of you can’t wait for my World Cup 2014 posts!

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These conversations are silly, because how can you really compare the best run by the Yankees to the Packers or Celtics of the 1960s, the 1970s Steelers or 1980s 49ers or 1990s Bulls, let alone throw in a national team that has won three competitions over a four-year period? ↩