Would Roddy get Roy’s early days?
Cork v Dublin! Northside and northside! Roy Keane Ha Ha Ha! The Commitments and the Committed!
This announcement became, within seconds, the gift that keeps on giving.
There’s no limit to the amount of angles you can wring out of it, and as there isn’t a bandwagon invented that I wouldn’t get my own rear end onto . . .
The only regret, really, is that the identities of the Keane biographers weren’t switched.
I’d have far preferred seeing Eamon Dunphy dealing with the recent years in the Corkman’s career, and Doyle handling the part of the Roy Keane biography which obviously dealt with his early life in Cork.
Ponder the possibilities: Doyle would have had to get a glossary of terms crucial to anyone delineating the life and times of any youngster growing up on Cork’s northside in the eighties.
A modern version of those booklets which were given to American soldiers before they went to war-time Britain, pamphlets which gave the British version of US terms – tap for faucet, pavement for sidewalk.
Not so much the traditional southern terms of abuse (does the entire country reduce Cork lingo to a handful of abusive terms?) but specific information about key landmarks and institutions: Tipples of Pine Street, the Queen’s Old Castle, the number eight bus (Lotabeg route).
One issue which may arise even now, however, as a source of conflict between the Dublin writer and the Republic of Ireland assistant manager is music.
Doyle famously made soul music a part of the Dublin landscape in his book The Commitments: Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, and the like.
That’s all very well for the coarser palates of the capital: Keane may not respond favourably to any attempt to privilege American/Dublin music over local favourites such as Takapuna, Burning Embers or Five Go Down To The Sea, which were the soundtrack to the youngster’s days.
I feel it only fair to warn you: this is a topic to which I may have to return on a semi-regular basis.
During the week I stumbled across a piece on the internet about John Rawls, the American philosopher who is well known for work on matters such as overlapping consensus and political constructivism (full disclosure and apologies for the above humblebrag: I spend about 12 times as much man-hours and mental focus tracking down obscure 1970s songs on YouTube as I do on tracking down American philosophers).
Anyway, what attracted me to this feature (in theclassical.org) was Rawls’ attraction to baseball. Not the usual paean to the great American pastime, however, but a well-argued case for its place as the greatest of all games.
Rawls had six arguments for baseball’s pre-eminence, which he advanced in a letter to a friend.
“First: the rules of the game are in equilibrium: that is, from the start, the diamond was made just the right size, the pitcher’s mound the right distance from home plate, etc . . .
“Second: the game does not give unusual preference or advantage to special physical types . . .
“Third: the game uses all parts of the body . . .
“Fourth: all plays of the game are open to view: the spectators and the players can see what is going on . . .
“Fifth: baseball is the only game where scoring is not done with the ball . . .
“Finally, there is the factor of time . . .”
(That “finally” was a reference to the fact that there’s no clock in baseball; no set time limits of 90, 80 or 70 minutes as we have in our major sports here).
Now, the eagle-eyed among you will notice some flaws in the argument immediately. Baseball doesn’t use every part of the body, for instance – nobody heads a baseball – as in argument no. 3, while the dimensions of the playing area have been subject to change over the decades and have not been, as a result, immutable “from the start”, as stated in argument no. 1 above.
The suggestion that everything in baseball is “open to view” is another one that’s true in theory but less sustainable in practice, particularly if you’ve ever sat in the top tier of an American stadium and tried to detect whether a ball thrown a hundred yards away is a strike or not.
Still, it’s an intriguing set of theses, and far above the usual argument in favour of a particular sport, which tends to be based on the failings of other pursuits rather than the inherent strengths of the game in question.
If anyone has a counter-argument for their own sport, feel free to submit same to me at michael.moynihan@examiner.ie and I’ll give full vent to the best ones I get.
Don’t let yourselves down, though. Rawls also said: “Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.”
And now back to the search for The Cars’ early hits.
A missive from the Department of I Don’t Follow The Game Myself: Cristiano Ronaldo won the Ballon d’Or last week, as I presume you know.
The gel, the pouting, the sheer level of being septic (note for R Doyle: a Cork twist on narcissistic)... there are a few reasons not to warm to the Real Madrid man.
But lack of dedication isn’t one of them. It was interesting to see comments from a former Manchester United strength and conditioning coach during the week about the extent of Ronaldo’s wish to improve himself physically when he reached the English club.
Savage commitment to the gym. Doing the hours of extra on-field training with weights on his ankles. Building a swimming pool in his own house in order to aid recovery, and hiring a chef to ensure his nutritional intake was top standard, or even top, top standard.
I know, I know. Don’t shout at once. The last two benchmarks of dedication are beyond most people’s reach (unless they reach a smart pension deal with the CRC, ho ho).
But plenty of players with the same resources at their disposal don’t put in that extra effort. Respect is due to Ronaldo, no matter what you think of his hairstyle.
I know the Heineken Cup is in full flow, or full overflow, but the Six Nations is about to start. Springtime means internationals, after all.
Are we going to see a rash of concussion-related departures from the field of play in those games?
We might next year, if the RFU’s decision to insist on concussion education for its players is put into action ahead of the 2014-5 season.
That can only be a good thing. I understand the IRFU surveyed its pro players recently about concussion and the results were interesting when circulated to those same players.
Apparently almost half admitted to sustaining a concussion, hardly surprising given the impacts involved in the modern game.
What’s striking, though, is that almost the same percentage of players admitted to being untruthful. Perhaps that’s not surprising, given the competitive impulse among these athletes.
But it rather underscores the absolute need to be serious about concussion. More on this later . . .
