The Weekly Meat

Double Numbers

Growing up, I was a bit obsessed with the jersey numbers of my favorite sports stars. No, let me rephrase that. In fact, I was so obsessed with jersey numbers that I sometimes chose my favorite players based on those numbers.

Early-'80s Philadelphia Flyers Ron Flockhart (11) — whose chief attribute was his inability to actually score after skating by all five on-ice opponents — and terminal AHL call-up Tommy Gorence (22) were not exactly stars, yet I followed them with keen interest.

When Wayne Gretzky came along, I thought I'd found numeric gold. He was a slight guy, but that "99" really filled out the back of his jersey. He was joined by Mario Lemieux (66), Ray Bourque (77), and Eric Lindros (88), among others, all of whom helped to popularize the higher double numbers in hockey — and all of whom were great players.

I've still have a bit of a quirky fascination with numbers. I have a gut feeling about them. Some give me an intrinsically positive vibe, and others a negative one. In any case (before I paint myself as too much of a rain man), I've always liked double numbers. Something about the symmetrical look of them, all divisible by 11. I don't know. For me, it's always been about sports, not math, or some new age numerology.

Anyway, as mockumentarian Marty DiBergi said in This Is Spinal Tap, "Enough of my yapping." This is a music post. "Let's boogie."

Motion the Eleven — Cornershop
22 Steps — Andy Stochansky
33 RPM Soul — Michelle Shocked
Forty-Four Blues/How Many More Years — Little Feat
Ol' 55 — Tom Waits
(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66 — Nat King Cole
1977 — The Clash
Rocket 88 — Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats
Johnny 99 — Bruce Springsteen

Coed Hockey

"The hottie is wrecking my mojo."

That's what I'm thinking as I skate down the ice. And that is not a good thought to have. To my mind, nearly any thought is bad. I prefer to just be in the moment-to-moment pace of the game, reacting to whatever situation I'm in. If I think too much — either about what's going on, or about anything outside of the game — I tend to screw up. I'm a beer leaguer, but I love the sport, and I've been playing a long time. So though my ability to see the ice is still far better than what my hands and feet will actually do for me, I do alright when simply reacting as plays develop.

Hockey is one of the few things in my life that generally allows me this hyper-aware, almost meditative focus. I don't empty my mind per se while skating. Rather, I empty my mind of all things not happening right then and there on the ice — an act that is frees me tremendously from the stress of adult life.

So, you can perhaps understand my red-blooded, heterosexual dismay when, say, a good-looking young Swedish lass skates with us — as one occasionally does.

Her mere presence antagonizes me, throws me off my game. Thought creeps in. At times, even, the sorts of thoughts for which Jimmy Carter was apt to apologize publicly.

And it's not just me. I've skated with the same Wednesday night group of guys for more than a half dozen years, and women sometimes skate with us. We're all of varying skill levels, from high school hacks to guys who played Canadian juniors. It's a good, competitive skate, with a nice pace to it. Without showing anyone else up, guys don't tend to give lesser-skilled players a break. But for the hotties.

This current one plays alright positionally, but she's not very quick on her feet, and for that, we tend to give her a bit more of a chance than we would show any of the less skilled guys who regularly skate. Is it sexist and slightly pandering? That's a discussion for another day. I just know it's different.

Doing anything athletic with women is fairly new to me. (That is, to say, in a group setting. Ahem.) And hockey doesn't generally lend itself to coed play, despite what those sophomoric '90s college t-shirts might have had you believe. Softball, sure, but that's a sport one can play recreationally while drinking a beer. Hockey's innate physicality makes coed play difficult, as even in non-checking games, there is plenty of incidental contact. Sure, there is bulky gear involved, so any male-female physicality is relative (as opposed to the closeness of a basketball court, where tight one-on-one defense is essentially groping). But still.

When I sit next to guys on the bench, we tend to smell, as I've noted before on these pages, like rotting pig stink. But even under all the same gear, women manage to smell like women. And that throws me.

I grew up playing team sports. After a 10-year lull during college and grad school, it was great, during my late twenties, to get back into the group dynamic of team sports while playing in an organized soccer league. The league was coed, and that was fine. I was single, and well, none of my teammates were exactly Keira Knightley.

But soccer led me back to hockey, and hockey has now put me, a handful of times, in a sweaty locker room with women. And that creates a strange dynamic, in a place that has been one of the few man-caves in which I regularly hang out. Not to get all drum-thumping about male bonding, but I do enjoy the camaraderie, and the moment women enter that world, sex enters into it — adding a certain stress into my sole stress-free activity.

Hockey always been sacrosanct for me in that way. More so than anything I've done, it has always provided a break from all things sexual in life. Playing soccer as a teenager, I was always aware that the girls' teams were practicing on nearby fields, and always in part was hoping to somehow look cool even as I was playing. But in the early days of Title IX, aside from the occasional figure skater, women were only ever at ice rinks for actual games — and conveniently-scheduled prime-time games at that.

I don't know, maybe sports in this new millennium have entered a post-gender realm. Maybe I just need to look past attractive women and rise above what seems, at times like these, my biological handicap. Ach. Maybe I'm just a crotchety middle-aged married guy with too much to say about this.

Förlåt, Swedish girl. Jag förstår inte. So, go ahead, play on. Play with us, even. But skate with your head up. And dammit, if I can see your eyeliner, you're too close.

Thanks to Laura and Katie for the pics.

Beer, Beer, Beer

I.  Before the louts that are Roger Clinton and Jeb Bush, our fine nation was blessed with one of the most influential presidential siblings of all time. With apologies to RFK, I'm talking, of course, about Billy Carter. Hell yes, he was country, and simple as a two-by-four, but brother Billy played an inspired role in the U.S. microbrew revolution — and for that, he must be celebrated.

The fact that his eponymous "Billy" beer tasted like a mixture of old bongwater, urine, and IC Light notwithstanding, you had to love his advertising approach: It's the best beer I've ever tasted. And I've tasted a lot. (A reworking of Schaefer's classic one beer to have when you're having more than one.) Billy beer didn't exactly corner the market, but it did gain a certain trashy kitsch appeal in the way that, say, a Bill Clinton cigar might.

Regardless, it was Billy who convinced POTUS Jimmy to do away with moldy blue laws against homebrewing, which gave both everyday Joes and entrepreneurs permission to legally brew beer in small batches. In this case, as in many, a little experimentation in the garage went a long way. It took a good 10 years to catch fire, but once folks perfected their recipes, it was game on.

So raise a pint to Billy, because today's package store shelves look a far sight better than they did in the '80s. And many of us can hit up a local pub and find draft offerings from Dogfish Head, Victory, Sierra Nevada, and the like.

II.  The first beer I can remember drinking (and I don't mean that in an Amy Winehouse sort of way) was a Carlsberg "Elephant" beer, at a party back in tenth grade. It was basically OE for the suburban set. Bad beer, but it made us feel cool, and it gave me something to hold while those with an even greater need to feel cool experimented with the latest from Medellín.

While growing up, I had tasted beer my dad poured for himself, and never really liked it all that much. But when one wants to develop a taste for something, one can, and for good or ill, beer was an integral part of my college experience.

I didn't necessarily drink good beer in college, mind you, but I did drink it. It was after those four years that I had the good fortune for my culinary tastebuds to come of age at the moment the microbrew industry went public with their IPO of IPAs, presenting delicious alternatives to those of us boring Americans daring enough to drink anything darker than Bud.

Yes, I know there are still plenty of light-beer–swilling folks out there, and all I can say is thank you for leaving more of the good stuff for those of us who like it. Just get your simple ads off my hockey telecasts, eh?

III.  Cheers.

Coach: What's the story, Norm?
Norm: Thirsty guy walks into a bar. You finish it.

IV.  Two weeks ago, I went to the New England Real Ale Exhibition (NERAX) — which, as luck would have it — is held in my neighborhood each year. This is a somewhat small but well-organized affair held over several nights, and damn if they don't bring in some hella ales each year.

"Real ale" is defined by the Campaign for Real Ale as "beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide." You can read plenty more about the distinction here, but in a nutshell, real ale is to brewing what "slow food" is to cooking — a natural, old-school approach meant to highlight both the product and the process.

The beers tend to be smooth, and less carbonated than most non-cask beers. If beer had tasted like this when I was growing up, I might actually have taken a dinner-table liking to it much sooner. Not that these are kid beers (for lack of a better term); most are very flavorful and complex in a way that surpasses many of the better bottled beers.

In fact, I found it interesting to sample the real ale versions of beers I can readily buy in bottles at the liquor store. Last year, I discovered first in cask form and then in bottles what I'd been missing in Geary's Hampshire Special Ale, a delicious beer. On the other hand, though I liked Harpoon's (then) new Brown Session Ale from a cask, its bottled equivalent leaves something to be desired.

Clearly, in the name of both science and of blogging, I need to do a bit more "research," and report back. Until then, thank god for the brewer patriots out there, giving us freedom of choice, and the choicest of hops. And thank god for Billy Carter.

The Clancy Brothers — Beer, Beer, Beer

Guilty Pleasures

*Excuse the short post, but I've been cranking away on a bevy of longer ones, to begin next week, and feeling entitled.

With spring finally hitting like Manny in an option year, I've been thinking about guilty pleasures. Sure, I go in for comfort food, good wine, melancholy movies, the sort of sex during which I'm not required to do much — but when I force myself to pin down my ultimate guilty pleasure, I keep it simple.

It's this: drinking beer in the shower.

Might not sound like much, but boy, I tell you, after an exhausting hockey skate or a day of fixing up this old house — when I'm thirsty, weary, and aching — there is really just nothing I want to do more than to stand in a hot shower drinking a cold beer.

Call me what you will, but give it a shot and see if I'm wrong. I'm telling you, you get that old-school McDLT-like difference in temperature going with the internal and external refreshment, and it's really outstanding.

So, what's your ultimate guilty pleasure? Respond in comments, please.

Kentucky Derby 134

Anything can happen at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday of May, and anyone who tells you they know what will happen this Saturday in particular is off their rocker.

There's not a ton of speed in this year's race, with only seven horses ever running Beyer speed figures of 100 or better, and only three of those (Pyro, Gayego, and Big Brown) able to do so more than once.

Yesterday morning, I'd have considered those three horses as the contenders, with Big Brown as the early betting favorite, but the post positions have been announced, and this year, they wreck this thing for the handicappers.

Uh.... So, off my rocker or not, here's what's gonna happen:

BIG BROWN will break from the far outside of the auxiliary gate, and will have a lot of ground to make up to get himself into the good early positioning he seems to like. With nearly all of the early speed in the race breaking from far outside posts, I can't see this thing being won by anyone at the front of the pack early on, unless BB is indeed the second coming of Secretariat that his trainer claims him to be.

BB is a fascinating puzzle, in that he's very lightly raced, but has very real speed, and has won all three of his starts. Will he win? I highly doubt it. He'd turn out to be an incredibly exciting horse to watch if he did, but he'd be overcoming his inexperience and his post position to do so.

I might have liked GAYEGO, but not from the 19 post, sandwiched between BB and RECAPTURETHEGLORY, who has early speed to burn.

PYRO will be the darling of a lot of folks willing to toss out his last race, as he'd been rocking steady until then. But I can't ignore his slow workouts. It could all be an aberration, and he has both the speed and the running style to win it, I just don't think he will.

Two horses I do like:

As a longshot, EIGHT BELLES is a filly with good pedigree and decent speed. She's won her last four starts, and has turned in some lickety-split workouts recently. To win this thing, she'll have to be one tough chick, running with the boys for the first time, overcoming a much bigger crowd than she's ever seen, and running late. I'd love to see her do it. Is that just me wanting to give a girl a chance? Maybe. But at high odds, she's worth a bet to be in the money.

COLONEL JOHN is a solid horse on paper, is breaking from a good middle post, and will surely see his odds drop even lower by post time. He's coming off a couple of wins, has never finished worse than second in six starts, and has very impressive recent workout numbers. If I've got to pick one horse to win it, he's my nag.

There it is, people. Be sure to make your simple syrup early enough to chill it before mixing a tasty Mint Julep. And if your feeling particularly thirsty gluttonous patriotic, accept this as a challenge.

*The Daily Racing Form, America's Turf Authority since 1894, neither endorses nor is affiliated in any way with the views and ramblings of BK, America's Dirt Authority Since 1968.