CHANGE MY LOCATION
Los Angeles Examiners
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Examiner
Most Recent Post
No place for Moseley in Angels’ playoff rotation (thank God); Scioscia still must drop a starter
The one time ‘bracket’ has nothing to do with ‘income’
SEE THE LATEST ON THIS STORY
Related Topics: BALTIMORE
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Brackets.
Yes, starting Sunday, everything will be about brackets, when the NCAA teams are revealed, and everybody fills out their brackets in the office pool. You don’t otherwise hear about brackets, do you? — except when the word “income” precedes. In other sports tournaments, like tennis, nobody says “brackets.” They say “draw.” She got a good draw. The bottom quarter of the draw is strong.
But the March Madness brackets have been a wonderful creation. The conference champions automatically qualify, and then the rest of the teams are chosen by a bunch of college athletic officials, who gather in secret, rather like the cardinals, when they assemble to select a pope.
Instead of white smoke, they reveal their basketball choices to CBS, which pays the bills. The mysterious bracket makers then fade away, back to obscurity. It is rather like being the Delphi Oracle, but just for a long weekend.
Brackets.
It is all rather amazing when you consider that the same poohbahs can’t figure out how to produce a college football playoff for just four teams, but they can take 65 basketball teams from colleges of all shapes and sizes, divide them up into various and sundry sub-regionals, seed them, and send them off to the four winds of arenas for three weeks worth of play.
For sheer genius, brackets rank with the Rosetta Stone, the U.S. Constitution and the trenchant observations of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. If Monet was only still alive, he surely would be painting brackets instead of haystacks.
But, of course, first we must deal with, speculate about and sympathize with the teams that are on the bubble. I first heard that term with regard to the Indianapolis 500 — referring to the cars vying for the last of the 33 places. Or possibly it comes from poker, where, in a tournament, “on the bubble” designates the player who comes closest to making money, but ends up a loser.
But, no matter: “on the bubble” has been utterly appropriated by the brackets, and right now, we are in the high season of bubble time. Teams hanging on by their fingertips actually are even called “bubble teams.”
Brackets.
There are now actually people who are called “bracketologists.” They not only study this year’s brackets, but also are historians of past brackets and will make pronouncements like, beware fifth seeds getting upset by 12th seeds. Astute bracketologists especially are alert to the teams called “mid-majors.” This is a lovely euphemism.
The teams from these so-called mid-major conferences should actually be called the high minors, but mid-major sounds so much more American, like middle class and the midwest, and so everybody plays along. This year, Davidson, from the Southern Conference, is the hot high-minor, uh, mid-major pick.
Despite the fact that the large state universities and the powerful conferences dominate the NCAAs more than ever, March Madness remains the most charming and lovable of all our popular national championships. It was sort of the American Idol of our culture back when we were a gentler, more gracious people, who didn’t laugh at losers.
But even now, the basketball brackets are still Americana, and you don’t have to be a bracketologist to make your picks and root for the underdog teams you never heard of before they made the brackets.
Frank Deford’s column also appears as commentary Wednesdays on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. He can be reached at flamegarden@aol.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
10:21 AM MST on Thu., Jul. 24, 2008 re: "Presidential game plan: Obama’s bid rooted to the rise of the black athlete"
Report as inappropriate
4:20 PM MST on Thu., Jul. 3, 2008
re: "Hope springs eternal for Baltimore’s Phelps"
Report as inappropriate
7:46 AM MST on Thu., Apr. 17, 2008
re: "TKO: Technology Knockout"
Report as inappropriate
2:48 PM MST on Tue., Apr. 15, 2008
re: "Maybe it’s time to extinguish the Olympic torch"
Report as inappropriate
7:39 PM MST on Thu., Jan. 31, 2008
re: "Super Bowl, Shakespeare style"
Report as inappropriate
5:07 PM MST on Mon., Jan. 14, 2008
re: "A variety of thoughts on the Mitchell Report now that the dust has begun to settle"
Report as inappropriate
3:08 AM MST on Thu., Dec. 27, 2007
re: "Need an Owner’s Manual? Here’s one"
Report as inappropriate
8:01 AM MST on Fri., Oct. 5, 2007
re: "Time to take the ‘foot’ out of football"
Report as inappropriate
5:41 PM MST on Mon., Sep. 10, 2007
re: "Time to take the ‘foot’ out of football"
Report as inappropriate
6:05 PM MST on Fri., Aug. 17, 2007
re: "Tall tales: Best athletes seem to rise"
Report as inappropriate
5:45 AM MST on Tue., May. 15, 2007
re: "Taking a trip up memory lane"
Report as inappropriate
Examiner Reader said:
Dude, come into the 21st century and leave your old white guy racist beliefs behind. Are you friggin' serious? Nah, you gotta be kidding. Some old fart like you? Geez!
2 agree | 1 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
your chauvanistic gilman background shows. what about hoff she is from baltimore too. you seem to dismiss the williams as unamerican---perhaps because they are women also
2 agree | 3 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
This is quite possibly the stupidest article I've read in a while. Frank, was press time five minutes away when you coined this piece?
10 agree | 9 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
Great article; agree with it entirely. The Olympics have lost their prestige, and this year in Beijing, the IOC will recognize this reality when it sees the declining interest from worldwide audiences. And indeed, let's ask the athletes to skip the opening ceremonies and demand that President Bush boycott the games altogether; it's his job to speak diplomatically with action.
8 agree | 10 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Brian O'Rourke said:
Alas, poor Billick...we knew him well!
128 agree | 131 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
this so called legal system will destroy a thousand white men to destroy one black man. if they want him bad enough. and they do. racism is more clandestine and senister in this country than anywhere else in the world. we black men are considered a threat and always have been. but the table is taking a slow turn. but don't worry we'll show you some love. obviously something you know nothing about.
150 agree | 166 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
avid reader said:
Angelos would not listen to anyone who made sense about making baseball interesting again in Baltimore.
190 agree | 166 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Michael said:
Football was named after the length of the ball, one foot. It has nothing to do with using your feet. And no one cares about soccer anyway. You could change its name to kickball. Oh, and basketball will be bounceball. And change tennis to racketball, racketball to wallball, and golf to metalstickball. Hey, volleyball. Theres one you can keep. Some people will search high and low to find something to complain about. Isn't there real sports news in D.C. that you can write about.
311 agree | 293 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Ron Redmerski said:
No way was this supposed to happen. Not like this, anyway. Four years ago when the ACC decided to expand, the prevailing thought on Tobacco Road was that the SEC had some competition. Finally. A 12 team super conference that included two Florida schools and, arguably, New England’s top athletic program. The talent-rich, fertile Newport Beach/Hampton recruiting areas were going to help the ACC yield top five football programs like Pez dispensers spit out candy. Well, if yesterday was any indication of how far the ACC has come, we won’t be eating Elvis Pez any time soon. Losing to an underrated East Carolina team is one thing (not to mention struggling with UAB, a program beaten by Michigan State 55-12 the week prior), but getting run over, completely throttled, by LSU and Oklahoma is quite another. The aforementioned powers made quick and decisive work of Virginia Tech and Miami (and that’s saying it nicely), respectively, the two programs that had John Swofford and the ACC bras
315 agree | 335 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
Frank Deford's editorial on tall tales: Best athletes seem to rise Growth hormones does wonders ask my 16 year old son who is on them for medical reasons due to cancer treatment as a baby! If an adult or even a child is using them and they shouldn't be who knows what problems they may have down the road.
383 agree | 346 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
Reminds me of the old line about horseracing as the sport of kings. But you never saw any kings @the $2 window.
1,098 agree | 850 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree