Proper honor
Today should be a national holiday.
No strike that. Today should be an international holiday.
On this day, 75 years ago, tens of thousands of Americans – a large number of them teenagers – answered the most terrifying call imaginable.
To get off boats and march into a barrage of bullets with death waiting in an effort to change the fate of the most fate-changing war in history.
To jump from planes with the only certainty in the darkness below being the uncertainty as a fortified German battalion was waiting.
To fight for themselves, their families, a world filled with strangers needing help and all of us in future generations who far too frequently take our freedom for granted.
And I am all for as many holidays as possible, but is Labor Day more important than D-Day?
Yes, I know we have Memorial Day, and that covers all the folks that made the ultimate sacrifice throughout our history regardless of war or police action.
But with what WWII represented and the hate-filled regimes of Hitler and the Axis of Evil and what the D-Day effort meant to so many cultures around the world and how it changed the path of the war, this should be a worldwide holiday.
NBA Finals
Series on. (Yes, Chas and Spy, you are allowed to skip ahead if you must, but this more than just hoops this morning.)
Toronto’s depth and varied options were too much against a relentless showing from Steph Curry. (Side note: Steph Curry reaches that “surprised he missed” point, regardless of the shot, more often than anyone since MJ. Seriously, regardless of the angle, the coverage, feet set or not, shoulders squared or not, when dude launches, you feel like it’s bottom.)
The game was fairly predictable considering that KD and Klay were DNPs. (Here’s hoping Big Boned Vader got to wet his beak a little on the Raptors +4.5 from the comforts of the oversized Death Star.)
Fred VanFleet – a bona fide member of the Reggie Cleveland All-Stars – was very good. So was Kyle Lowry.
How good were the Raptors regardless of who was playing for the Warriors last night?
Well, it was just the third time in fnals history that a team went 50/40/90 on a shooting slash line. The Raptors (52.4 FG, 44.7 3FG, 95.2 FT) joined the Warriors in 2017 and the Celtics in 1986.
That’s enough of the basketball analysis for now, and when the Warriors third or fourth option most of the time was either Andrew Bogut or Quin Cook, well, it was enough in Game 3, too.
The topic du jour (ohh, the topic of the day, that sounds good; I think we will discuss that) is how lucky the NBA got that Kyle Lowry kept his cool when he went into the first row of the stands and got shoved by a fan.
It was a sissified, what-you-would-expect shove from a dude sitting in the high-dollar seats. And if Lowry had responded, he would have put that doofus in a trash can and rolled him into the locker room.
Here’s the video, and the fact that it was a Punky Brewster shove is immaterial.
Because if Lowry had responded – and popped the dude, which is what he deserved – that would be the only thing we would be discussing thing morning.
Of course this generated some “NBA needs a barrier” or other banter, which is ridiculous.
We can’t regulate against jackwagons, stupidity and unfortunate situations.
Someone explain how various fans around the league have been banned for saying things, but this guy – who committed the cardinal sin of putting your hands on a player – has not been booted.
Alleged hate speech more offensive than physical violence now?
Braves miss
I’ve got nothing for you, fellow Braves followers.
Nothing.
Nothing can explain why the Braves would not match what the Cubs offered closer Craig Kimbrel (three years, $43 million).
No words trying to rationalize that the Braves did not want to give the hard-throwing veteran that third year in the deal.
No words trying to defend a decision that at this point only would have cost the Braves money since the Braves are making money hand-over-fist in a swanky new ballpark that was publicly supported in Cobb County and loaded with a roster filled with team-friendly contracts.
No words trying to offer an alternate reason that the answer is already on the roster and Kimbrel’s presence would block the development of the closer of the future.
And, beyond the instant on-the-field improvement that Kimbrel would have delivered – and never mind that the Cubs could be a hurdle the Braves have to clear in the postseason – it would have been on par with the emotional shot in the arm the McGriff addition proved to be in 1995.
Forget the loss to a mediocre Pirates bunch last night.
The Braves’ biggest setback was internal and avoidable.
Somebody somewhere with a cursive A on his shirt better be getting Dallas Keuchel on the blower ASAP. (Then maybe we can walk Kevin Gausman to long relief.)
This and that
» Speaking of D-Day, this story right here is out-and-out awesome in its awesomeness. Yes, that’s a 97-year-old paratrooper who parachuted into the fight on D-Day 75 years ago celebrating 75 years later by parachuting into Normandy again. I’m not crying; you’re crying.
» Speaking of the Finals, Steph’s 47 points last night were the second most in a Finals lost ever. LeBron’s 51 in Game 1 last year (the J.R. Smith Game) is No. 1. I was surprised to learn that Steph became just the ninth player ever to score 45 or more in a Finals game. He joined Bob Pettit, Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West (did it three times), Rick Barry, MJ (also three times), Allen Iverson and LeBron.
» One more NBA Finals item, which actually is more of a basketball item in general, but did we make too little a deal of Golden State winning Game 2 despite getting 0 second-chance points? Not sure I’ve ever heard of that happening before, and if there was not that 20-0 run to start the second half in Game 2, we are looking at a Raptors’ 3-0 lead.
» I’ll take “Tax kicks to the privates” for $800, Alex. We know that “Jeopardy!”contestant James Holzhauer made almost $2.5 million on his history-making game show run. Now, according to this story, we know how much Uncle Sam and the state of California claimed. Buckets of H&R Blocks people. Holzhauer owed 46% of his total – $1.138 million in federal and state taxes.
» We mentioned this last week when Disney boss Bob Iger said he did not see anyway that Disney could shoot movies in Georgia is the state went forward with its new abortion laws. We said Disney would not be the last TV or movie entity to make a similar statement. Here’s AMC threatening to pull “Walking Dead” production from Georgia if the abortion law goes through. In that story, Netflix and CBS also have threatened to stop shooting in the state of Georgia, which reported more than $2.4 billion in direct spending and revenue from TV and movie production companies in the fiscal year of 2018.
» Speaking of Punky Brewster, there is a reboot in the works. This officially proves there are no new ideas out there. When does “Better Call Saul” come back? Seriously.
» This story screams fishy. OK, last month, Le’Veon Bell returned home from the gym to find two girlfriends – not sure if they both were staying with Bell or what – and more than half-a-million in jewelry had disappeared. This of course begs the question about which is more silly, having multiple girlfriends at the same time or more than $520K in jewelry.
Today’s questions
OK, we can offer some big picture issues:
Should D-Day be a holiday?
Should the Warriors fan be banned for shoving Kyle Lowry? Should Kyle Lowry be allowed to shove him back?
How much jewelry, in ballpark net worth, do you own?
Bjorn Borg is 63 today. Robert Kennedy died on this day. On this day, “Sex and the City” premiered in 1998. In 1972, David Bowie released the perpetually underrated “The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.”
OK, let’s go a little bit off the wall for our Rushmore. On this day in 2005, Anne Bancroft died. Bancroft, of course, will forever be Mrs. Robinson and was long before her time in terms of a whole genre of adult entertainment.
Let’s stay above the fray and simply do Rushmore of Mrs. Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, because yes, she is on there.
Go and remember the mailbag.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com.