The Other Sports
I began last week’s newsletter a tad pretentiously: “The season has begun. Yes, THE season. For the baseball season is THE season. Football, basketball, hockey–they’re all nice sports. But baseball is the national pastime. And even if one might actually enjoy watching other sports more…”
It’s lucky I added that last qualifying sentence, “And even if one might actually enjoy watching other sports more…” Because no sooner had the newsletter gone out than the NCAA men’s basketball tournament concluded with one its greatest final games ever, in which Marcus Paige of North Carolina hit an amazing shot with less than 5 seconds left to tie, only to be followed by a three-pointer at the buzzer by Kris Jenkins of Villanova to win. (Here’s the last minute and a half of action for you to watch, to remind yourself how spectacular it was.)
Meanwhile, the pro basketball season was winding up, featuring a truly extraordinary year from the Warriors’ Steph Curry (here’s a fine profile of Curry from yesterday’s Washington Post, by Sally Jenkins). Combine all of this with Irwin Stelzer’s terrific piece in the new issue, “The Sporting Life in New York: Hoop Memories,” and one could convince oneself of the case for basketball.
And then the Masters featured one of the greatest of many pretty remarkable final-day reversals in the history of that tournament, with the leader from the get-go, Jordan Spieth, taking a quadruple bogey on the 12th hole of the last round, and Danny Willett shooting a final-day 67 for the win. At 5:05 pm ET Sunday, Spieth was five shots ahead of Willett; by 5:48 pm, Willett had a three stroke lead. So golf has something to be said for it too, when it comes to the thrill of victory and agony of defeat.
I suppose I’ll just have to resolve in the future to be more open-minded in my occasional sports commentary? Or maybe I should just tip my hat to ‘Nova, Curry, and Willett, but stick to my Baseball Exceptionalist guns? The safest conclusion is that the question requires more study, and therefore more time spent watching sports over the next months. That’s a resolution I think I’ll be able to keep. I’ll report back with my findings.
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It’s up to you, New York, New York
I’ll be busy in New York most of this week with various activities, including meeting with people involved in different aspects of the presidential campaign which has come to New York. I see my New York-themed editorial has already had an effect: I urged Ted Cruz to visit Hamilton’s grave and then go to the musical, “Hamilton.” No sooner had the editorial appeared online early Friday morning than Bernie Sanders went to see “Hamilton” Friday night. That, as Socrates knew, is one problem with writing things: Your advice is there for everyone to see, and the bad can follow it as easily as the good.
I do think my reasonably upbeat take on Cruz can be justified; but really you should be sure to read the contributions by all my colleagues–Jonathan Last, Steve Hayes, John McCormack, Jay Cost, Fred Barnes, and Mike Warren. Read those–they’re all short!–and you’ll know what you need to know (until next week) about the GOP race.
And speaking of providing what you need to know, I’m proud to report what some of you have undoubtedly already noticed: We began last week to post on our website what was originally (and remains) a daily newsletter by Micah Mattix, “Prufrock,” an excellent selection of annotated links to a half-dozen literary and cultural pieces from around the web. Here are links to this morning’s and last week’s Prufrock posts; take a look, and then make sure to check each morning at weeklystandard.com for Micah’s latest guide to keeping us at least somewhat literate and civilized.
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Conservatism and the University, Natural Law, and More!
And speaking of remaining civilized, this is a topic to which Princeton professor of jurisprudence Robert P. George had given a lot of thought, and I’m pleased that the Foundation for Constitutional Government has now released a conversation with Robert P. George on Conversations with Bill Kristol. Robby is both a distinguished scholar and a respected combatant in the fields of legal and moral thought. In this conversation, Robby details the development of his own political and moral views, including his interest in the natural law tradition in moral philosophy. He also discusses the state of American conservatism, and the condition of freedom of speech and thought on university campuses. I trust you’ll find the conversation interesting.
Got to go now–there are baseball, basketball and hockey games on TV. Have to do my research!
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Onward!
Bill Kristol
