Cheap Seats
Speak up, we can’t hear you
You’ve heard the expression “deafening noise.” Well, it’s a fact at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, where the Chiefs beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 13-10 on Monday night.
An audiologist had urged fans to take precautions before the game.
“The sound level at Arrowhead Stadium nearing 120 decibels can be compared to a jet taking off, a nightclub or thunder. For an outdoor stadium, that is unbelievable,” said Kevin Ruggle of the Audiology Center. “I strongly recommend that, if you take the kids, have them wear some hearing protection.”
As for the players hearing signals, it’s difficult. “After our first home game, my ears were ringing for about two days,” Chiefs quarterback Elvis Grbac said.
Cousy gets confused
National Basketball Association legend Bob Cousy knows the challenges facing the underprivileged children of New York.
Raised in a tenement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the Hall of Fame point guard remembers living in squalor, the basketball court about his only poverty-free haven.
“It was about as ugly a ghetto as you could find those days,” said Cousy, who starred for the Boston Celtics from 1950-1963. “The rats were bigger than the tenants, and the cockroaches were pretty hostile, too.”
The question: Is he referring to his tenement or Boston Garden?
Hussein? The U.N. needs Barkley
We need Charles Barkley in the NBA. Saying that, to some, is the same as saying we need Saddam Hussein in the United Nations. And, yes, we probably do need Saddam there, but not as much as we need Barkley in the NBA.
Over the course of his 13 NBA seasons, Sir Charles has become the conscience of professional basketball. He says what many others think but don’t say. His consequences-be-damned honesty nearly is the lone source of spice in David Stern’s corporate vanilla-ness.
When an Allen Iverson comes dissing and screaming into the NBA, it’s Charles Barkley who tells him to chill and respect his elders. When salaries go through the roof, it’s Barkley who wonders how the teachers and factory workers feel. If the NBA hype machine tries to convince everyone the sky is red (and worth buying a T-shirt over), Barkley would be the first to publicly refuse the rose-colored glasses.
“Charles is a great ambassador for this game,” SuperSonics coach George Karl said, “in a crazy way.”
It’s a sad state
Jim Thomas of the Arizona Republic writes, “Pity the poor sports fan in Illinois where the accent is on ‘ill.”’
He cites the baseball Cubs, perennial losers; the University of Illinois, 0-8; Northern Illinois, 0-9; Illinois State, 2-8; and Northwestern, 3-7.
With the exception of the Chicago Bulls, it doesn’t get much better in basketball.
The last word …
“Never bet with anyone you meet on the first tee who has a deep suntan, a 1-iron in his bag and squinty eyes.”
- The late Dave Marr on cheating in golf, as recalled by Golf Digest
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