I just learned in the past few weeks that the city of Denver has a basketball team. They are called the Nuggets. Last year I learned that Denver also has a hockey team, called the Avalanche.
At the gym a fellow told me that eleven people were shot in the subsequent downtown celebration after the Nuggets’ win last night. Now they are saying nine. I’ll take their word on it despite the suspicious numbers.
I don’t mean to be looking down on people because they like sports, but I did say to Mark, the guy at the gym, that at least the Broncos are not causing anyone harm. They’ve not won anything in seven years. It got so bad that John Elway was given his walking papers. The guy at one time was God in this town. The shine came off his crown. I think it is a mistake to hire former local superstars to run sports franchises. They are difficult, if not impossible to fire. Look at the Cincinnati Reds and Pete Rose. It took a (fake?) gambling scandal to dislodge him.
When Seattle won the Superbowl in 2015, word was that their post-win celebration was mild by football standards. They said that fans in the downtown area would wait at crosswalks for the lights to change. In Pittsburgh they overturn cars and set them on fire. In Philadelphia they greased light poles to prevent people from climbing them and getting injured.
Some years back, while still a baseball fan, a friend and I attended a spring training game between the Reds and the Seattle Mariners. A guy sold us his box seat tickets, so we were able to sit in the Seattle rooting section. We had the nicest time, as the people around us were all so pleasant. At one point a Red stole second base and the Umpire called him safe even as he looked out. There was some grumbling, and then there erupted the softest “Boooooo” I have ever heard.
Anyway, Denver is considered a rabid sports town. Last night they topped Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston and all the others in over-celebrating.
PS: Go Broncos.
PPS: As presented to me at the gym, it was rowdy fans gone berserk that caused the turmoil. They are saying instead that it was unrelated to the Nuggets’ victory, perhaps a drug deal gone bad. Ten people injured, three critical but all expected to survive. (Helps to know that Denver is a spook/military nest. This sounds real, but we can never be sure.)
Piece of Mindful 
I don’t think the Pete Rose thing is fake, although it might have been used to misdirect from more widespread gambling.
I ushered for a major league team for a season 40 years ago, when Pete was managing the Expos. They were in town, and a few of us went to the Expo dugout before the fans were let in to get Pete’s autograph. One of the ushers kept badgering Rose to “give me 7 points” on a college football game. He was ignored, and I thought it odd that he would ask such a thing. After the gambling story broke it made more sense to me. If this guy was aware Pete liked to gamble it must have been pretty well known.
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Interesting. There was a musical duo, Milli Vanilli, who were outed for lip syncing, and I wondered at the time if they were singled out as misdirection too. I imagine that in that business, where there is real talent and a whole lot of faking it, that lip syncing is very common. Right, Macca? I remember comedian Lewis Black in his act talking about Brittney Spears, and noting with characteristically great emPHAsis that SHE …CAN’T…SING!!!
Rose was a member of the Order of Demolay (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeMolay_International}, a masonic group for boys aged 12-21. Odd, I thought, so that perhaps his outing for gambling (which indeed could have been real) was also a ritualistic shaming, ala OJ, ala Cosby, ala Weinstein …. I like the misdirection aspect that you mention, as baseball is as crooked as an6 sport around. The 2016 World Series was as rigged and event as any Superbowl.
The Reds won the 1990 World Series, a four game sweep of the Oakland A’s. Rose had been retired shortly before, but as manager Lou Pinella noted, the team that did that was “Pete’s team.” It’s now been 32 years of drought for that franchise, so bad that fans. have worn paper bags over their heads at games, leading to their ejection from stadiums. There is a movement in Cincy to shame majority-owner Bob Castellini into to selling the franchise, turning it over to anyone who might actually want to field a winning team. Castellini is juiced … during the Monica scandal Bill Clinton was allegedly interrupted from his canoodling by a phone call to the Executive Office from Carl Lindner (or one of the Williams clan), who preceded Castellini in fronting for the Reds true ownership.
I am now curious as the Reds have apparently fielded a good team this year with some astounding rookie performers, 2023 would be 33 years since the last World Series victory. Do the Reds get to win again, ala the hapless Cubs in 2016, who had suffered a 108 year drought?
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