Holyagnostic

Texas Stadium Finale

Mark Felt, who was "Deep Throat" in the Watergate saga, never said, "Follow the money." D. D. Lewis, former line backer of the Dallas Cowboys, never said that the reason there was a hole in the roof of Texas Stadium was, "So God could watch his favorite team." But they should have.

Tonight, the last game will be played in one of the most easily identified venues in the world. Holyagnostic attended the very first event there, a Billy Graham Revival Crusade in 1971. He will be watching tonight from a distance.

The players for the Cowboys initially hated the place. They were moving from the Cotton Bowl with its natural grass and rowdy fans. The new artificial turf at Texas Stadium was like playing on a parking lot and would not just burn if one skidded, but would cut. A significant part of the crowd was there to be seen rather than to see the game. Stadium bonds that cost $5000 allowed one to buy a ticket. Two levels of stadium boxes that could be decorated by the rich and famous ringed the entire circumference. The result was a mink and diamond bunch who politely applauded events on the field like they were at the opera.

Five Super Bowl teams brought the rowdies back. And the $50,000 minimum for what was basically a concrete room became one of the best real estate deals in Texas when sky boxes later sold for $250,000 and up.

The old place deserves a much wider audience for its last dance on the stage, but the television coverage is being done by the NFL's cable channel. Games on that channel are accurately called "chicken spit" by sportswriter Randy Galloway.

In some locations in Birmingham, and in other cities across America, many on cable will not be able to receive the telecast, because they live in a cable area serviced by one of the companies that refuse to carry the NFL channel. Mr. T wasn't talking about those monopolies when he said, "Pity the fools." But he should have.

An "Unfair" Advantage

400 meters is a killer distance. To be competitive, one must run full out for the complete race. Now, imagine putting 10 barriers that a runner must jump and the race becomes one designed by the Marquis de Sade.

To say that Edwin Corley Moses ran the 400 meter high hurdles is to say that Michelangelo was a church ceiling painter. Edwin ran masterpieces.

Moses lost to Germany's Harald Schmid on August 26, 1977 in Berlin, his fourth defeat in the 400-meter hurdles. Beginning the next week, when he beat Schmid by 15 meters in Düsseldorf, Moses did not lose another race for nine years, nine months and nine days. That stretch will probably be one of those records that defy the cliche "records were made to be broken."

How did Moses do it? He had an "unfair" advantage.

In the 400 men’s race the hurdles are .914 meters high. The first hurdle is set 45 meters from the starting line. There are 35 meters between hurdles and 40 meters from the final hurdle to the finish line. Those are the fixed values facing all the runners.

The key to the race is the number of strides between hurdles. Odd step patterns (13, 15, 17) allow the runner to use the same lead leg over all the hurdles. But a transition takes place when a hurdler changes down to a shorter stride length when fatigue rears its ugly head. Usually this happens between the 6th and 7th hurdle. The result is one or two more steps between hurdles. Good runners compensate by being able to lead with either leg.

All of that technical gobbledygook is needed to be able to visualize Moses' advantage. He not only was able to lead over the hurdle with either leg, he was also able to put 13 strides between all the hurdles. Incredibly he was even able to drop down to 12 strides if needed. The result was a handful of fewer steps than any one else in the race. That was his "unfair" advantage.

Wouldn't it be great to have the same kind of advantage in business and investing as Edwin Moses had in track and field? It is possible. In a subsequent post, Holy will provide some examples. Who knows? Maybe you will become unbeatable.

Staubach vs. Favre

Two GREAT quarterbacks are in the news this morning (7/13/08). One has gotten on with his life's work. The other isn't ready to do that yet. The stories are here and here.

Roger Staubach just sold the real estate company that he started while he was still playing for the Dallas Cowboys. His contract for the Cowboys payed him a bit above 200,000 during the year that he began his commercial real estate ventures.

Brett Farve, after announcing retirement and with Green Bay about to honor him at one of their games this year, says, "Please, release me. Let me go."

Staubach get $87.2 million of a $613 million deal and enriches 300 others who divide up the rest of the pie.

Farve thinks he can perform one more year in a brutal sport at the most difficult position. Why does Holy have the suspicion that Farve can't find anything else to do?

Baseball and the Church of Trancendendal Hesitation

No Trees, Texas had a professional baseball team. Holy LOVED it. Out there in the desert it was great to be left at Hogan Park by his mother. Alone in a crowd. It was a place where he could safely test his freedom a little bit on hot summer nights.

Dick Greene, the teams left fielder led the Class D minor leagues in home runs. Green and others produced something Holy has not seen at any other games since those long ago nights. With a flash like the heat lightening in the distance, Green would whoosh his bat toward the ball and with a crack like the distant thunder send the pitch to settle in the darkness beyond the fence among rattlesnakes and jackrabbits.

As he rounded the bases to the cheers, men from all over the park would fill the aisles to crowd toward the screen protecting the stands from fouls behind the plate. They would then shove folding money into the chicken wire-like back stop. Oil money was plentiful. Tens, twenties, and even the occasional hundred was a way to reward someone reaching for the big show. A home run in No Trees ended with the player picking cash all along the stands like picking lettuce from a field.

And the No Trees team was also on the radio. It was easy to imagine the reality at the park and still thrill to the action while at home. But Wednesday nights presented a problem.

The TV Star at the Church of Transcendental Hesitation, Holyagnostic's father, gathered the flock in mid week for supper, prayer, and Bible study. How could Holy catch his heroes and still be present at the church. For such an hour as this, God had invented the transistor radio.

Holyagnostic placed the card deck sized radio in his back blue jean pocket and ran the wire of the ear plug under his shirt. The only evidence of something amiss was the tell tale small speaker in his ear. While church commotion was all around him, Holy was "watching" Dick Green, with one swing of his bat, collect enough money to buy beer for the rest of the season.

Holy thought no one knew what was going on, and he was right in a way. The church members were ALWAYS watching. It was like having thousands of parental eyes making sure that behavior was correct. Why didn't they act? Because they all imagined a different reality. Months later the rumors reached Holy's mother. The church members were sad and wanting to help with the problems the TV Star's son was having with his hearing. Some to this day probably remember the little deaf preacher's kid.

Top of a Mountain II

Holy remembers how much he paid for the black piece of plastic with the glowing red LED numbers. Fifty two dollars. That hunk of polymer produced by Texas Instruments in the early 70's was a tool that captured something deep within Holy's soul. It was a hand held calculator.

For eight years the field of study had been what one wag called, "...like trying to nail Jello to a tree." God wasn't going to be penned down. Just when one thought he had mastered an immutable principle, he would read exactly the opposite from a reputable source. Nothing was tied down for sure.

But here in his hands, Holyagnostic held a wizard that had precision and certitude.

True, there was SOME inexactitude. If Holy divided two by three, the resultant value would not be exact, but on his TI magic box the imprecision was carried to nine decimal places.

"Close enough for a theology student," he said.

Holyagnostic had discovered the magic of numbers the summer of his 15th year of life at a baseball camp in Meridian, Texas. Football, the favored game of Texas had become for Holy a spectator sport. Too much like war to play. No face masks for heaven sakes!

But the summer before, Mickey Mantle had put up some astonishing numbers. Batting average: .353. Home runs: 52. RBI: 130. Holy found the game that is most like life. And there were ways to tell EXACTLY how well he and his hero Mickey were doing. In the central Texas June heat Holy was one of the boys of summer.

A whole month away from home playing baseball three time a day with weekend All Star games against teams as far away as Ft. Worth. It was paradise played out at the facilities of a closed college. When the campers were not on the field they were watching old baseball highlight movies at night. Has been major league players would tell us of their exploits. Monty Stratton, pitched batting practice one day.

There were scoreboards everywhere that told how a game was going. But there was also a scoreboard posted in the dining hall every Friday evening that was personal. Each player at camp had their personal numbers listed for all of the rest of the camp to see.

The first Friday, even before getting into line to eat, Holy walked to the bulletin board to look at the numbers.
Separated out from all of the other numbers on the page was a column titled: CAMP LEADERS. The announcement looked almost exactly like the column in Holy's hometown newspaper that listed the major league leaders by categories. He had read them all summer while Mickey chased the triple crown.

Now in bold letters at the top of each category was Holyagnostic. Astonishingly satisfying. The last Friday night is buried in the days of history now. But Holy, in his memory, can still stand with pride in front of that bulletin board. Only numbers were written there. Meaningless numbers to almost all of the rest of the world, but to Holy those numbers pointed him to a lifetime of measuring his and others competence.

The experience was another mountain top.

In his journals, Holy carefully kept the baseball records of his sons. They probably thought it was a little strange of him. They were both accomplished at the game most like life. They will someday find those numbers hidden there in his writings and remember, too.

Years after the baseball camp, Holy held in his hand that little piece of plastic and transistors. He was prepared as never before to do some measuring and to look at some scoreboards.

US Open

Today the best bleepin' golf tournament in the whole wide world begins.

Hundreds and hundreds have played at qualifying venues. No names against pros. It is quintessential Americana.

The course will bring them ALL to their knees, but when Sunday evening gets here, there will be a champion and he will have had to EARN it.

 

One additional thing. It's about excellence. His holiness enjoys the games that identify who really is the best. The US Open almost always is successful at that winnowing process.

No need to watch. Just read the name on Monday morning and imagine being the VERY BEST at what you do during four shining days.

Revise and extend remarks: It took a little bit longer than expected. Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate put on a show.