Whether you wanted to or not, you’ve probably heard there’s a basketball tournament going on (unless you’re my wife, who I’m pretty sure has no idea). You might also have heard that during a game between Oklahoma State and Gonzaga last night, CBS announcer Andrew Catalon (an SU grad, I’m sorry to say) referred to OK St.’s strategy of fouling Gonzaga’s Przemek Karnowski (who’s a crappy free throw shooter) toward the end of the game as the “Hack-a-Polack” defense. Even better, Catalon’s broadcast partner for the game was Mike Gminiski. As a fan of alliteration, I’d have probably gone with “Poke-a-Polack.”

Despite the fact that this is how guys tend to talk to each other in private (being perpetually childish, we tend to give each other shit – I think this is part of the reason why women can have a tough time in historically male-dominated professions. They expect us to act like professionals, and we act like adolescents. Of course, it’s all part of our charm) Andrew really should have known better. I assume Catalon comes from “Catalonia” so I wonder how Andy would like the “Smack-a-Spic” defense?

That would probably have gotten him in even more trouble – as would “Whack-a-Wop”, “Deck-a-Dago”, “Grab a Guniea”, “Clobber-a-Kraut”, “Mangle-a-Mick”, Jab-a-Jew”, or “Nail-a-N….” Well, that last one would get him thrown off the air permanently, I bet.

This all reminds me of the 1968 (I think – maybe ’72) summer Olympics. One of the basketball announcers on ABC (have no idea what his name was – I mean, shit, that was like 45 years ago after all) went on and on one night about the “Polack team.” I mean, he said it like 20 times at least. I can remember my dad and me laughing more and more every time he said it.

The the next night he offered a heartfelt on-air apology that went something like “I had no idea that wasn’t what you called them people.” :rofl2:

It was right up there with “as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

And then it was all over and everybody forgot about it. Of course that was before the Internet and YouTube (hell, it was even before regular people had VCRs – which you younger folks will have to ask your grandparents about) so you could do something stupid in public and not have to suffer eternally for it.

You also didn’t have the huge number of perpetually outraged people out there looking for something to be outraged at (the bible thumpers are currently pissed at Neil deGrasse Tyson for not giving creationism “equal time” on the new Cosmos series – when they find out Seth MacFarlane in one of the Executive Producers, their collective heads will implode I say “implode” because that’s what happens when you poke a hole in a substance that contains a vacuum).

Plus I bet 43% of American households were going, “hell, that’s what I thought you called them people, too” – my wife will tell you how when she and her first husband moved to Poplar Bluff Missouri people wanted to meet her husband because they’d “never seen a Jew before.”

Oh well, let’s hope those other fellas from Syracuse have a better night tonight than Andrew had yesterday. It’s still not very warm around here (though not only are we in the lead for the Golden Snowball, we have now overcome what was once more than a one-foot deficit and are tied with Erie PA for the Golden Snowglobe award – and there’s more snow a-comin’), and winning definitely takes the edge off the cold.