Rob’s Quickies for Summer ’23

Hot takes. YouTube “Shorts.” Facebook “Story.” Tweets – or X posts – that can’t be more than 280 characters. It’s what we do now. Nothing too long. No one’s going to read it or watch it. Great news for a guy writing a novel. With that in mind, I considered bringing back Rob’s Rants instead of doing my annual summer recap, but “rants” might have too much of a negative connotation for today’s overly sensitive readers. (Was that sentence too long?) So, here’s some thoughts from summer ’23 with Rob’s Quickies. Shtoink! That’s right. Let’s have a quickie.

• I actually watched the debate between Republican presidential candidates with great interest. Good to see they’re keeping up with the times. Candidates were given an entire minute – yes, 60 seconds – to answer the pressing questions of our times. Each one person who was called out in an answer got 30 seconds to respond. Is this really how we want to decide who should sit in the Oval Office? (No, I don’t think Democrats do debates any better.)

• For the record, I had hoped for more from Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy was clueless and punkish, Nikki Hailey was good, as were Doug Burgum and Asa Hutchison, Ron DeSantis was terrible, Mike Pence was better than expected, and Tim Scott was probably the smartest guy in the room. Did I get everybody?

• Polls show that we’re staring down the barrel of another general election of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. Yet, other polls show that most people don’t want either candidate to run. Anyone else wondering why we have polls? Anyone else hoping the barrel goes off?

• I really don’t want to be that guy, but I trust media less and less. CNN and FOX “News” viewers live in different realities. If it wasn’t so sad, I’d say it was laughable flipping back and forth between the two a few weeks ago. One had wall-to-wall coverage of Trump’s latest indictment, while the other aired nothing but details of Hunter Biden’s plea bargain falling apart. I lean to the “left” if you look at my voting record, though I have plenty of views people consider conservative. It shouldn’t matter. We need news outlets covering the news – facts! – not pandering to their audience.

• Despite Bryce Harper recently saying he was fired up by a caller to a local sports talk station, I feel like sports coverage has become all about football. I flipped on 610 WIP, a sports talk station, twice in July only to hear people talking about the Eagles in the NFC Championship and the Super Bowl. Their new morning guy is known for saying “let’s get it back to the Eagles” if the conversation ever dares to get too far off football. Comcast SportsNet airs “Birds Huddle” seemingly daily year-round. Last time I checked, the Phillies went to the World Series last season and look like they could make another run at it this year. The Sixers have one of the best players in the game in Joel Embiid. I like football as much as anyone. I love betting on it. I just don’t want to hear about the Eagles (or the Steelers) back up punt returner in May. I understand that they’re “playing the hits,” and this is not about me not being a Birds fan. I just think we deserve better as a sports town.

• One reader (my cousin) suggested I bring back sports picks on the blog. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing, but I certainly appreciate feedback. Football season is actually upon us now, and I just happened to see the Eagles schedule up on the fridge while I was working on this post. Long-term bets aren’t smart in the NFL because of the injury factor, but I have a few early thoughts on the season. I could see the Eagles going undefeated until their bye week, losing three straight after that, then winning out. I’d like to say the Steelers absolutely make the playoffs, but an equally quick look at their schedule (see what happened? A quick look!) and I only feel confident saying they get 8 or 9 wins. I can easily see a rematch of last year’s Super Bowl, but, sorry Eagles fans, I see the same outcome with Kansas City beating Philly. I might bet the match up at +1660 on Sugar House (parlaying each team winning their conference as of Tuesday 8/29), but consider these as bold predictions – not picks.

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