JULY 29th - I Hope Someone Found Wilson

Summertime. The kids are home from school driving their parents’ crazy. Inflatable pools pop up and sprinklers spurt. Snoballs and lemonade stands. If you’re lucky enough to live in the South, the July heat has you moving sluggishly, possibly because the rubber soles of your tennis shoes have melted to the cement. Baseball rules. But in the not so distant past, July 29th 1986, football was the sport making the headlines. In what has to be one of the worst outcomes of winning of a lawsuit, the USFL “won” its antitrust suit against the NFL and was awarded a clean, crisp dollar bill for its trouble. The antitrust law tripled it to three clean, crisp dollar bills. There was a lot of legal jargon that went into the verdict, but basically the gist of it was that USFL messed up so badly (debt out the ying-yang) that the NFL’s monopolizing of TV and Stadium Venues had little bearing on the league’s dire circumstances. Which is all fine and good, but it’s still a rather cruel point to make. Imagine, for instance, that someone killed your brother, was on trial for murder and found guilty, but was only given a three day sentences because your brother was an alcoholic coke-head who was in the beginning phases of liver failure. Of course I’m comparing apples to oranges here or using the logical fallacy of the false analogy to pull the wool over your eyes about the fact the USFL spent money as if it were Liberace at a rhinestone warehouse, but I still think the verdict is a bit harsh. It would be like in the movie Cast Away, if Tom Hanks was rescued after surviving four years on an island and the trauma of losing Wilson, and reunited with the woman he loved, the woman, mind you, that was the main reason he survived in the first place, and was like Helen Hunt I love you. And she was like I love you too. But I married Mr. Big from Sex and the City. Sorry. No soup for you. Oh wait, that’s what happened? SO harsh! But at least Tom ends the movie in the middle of a four-road intersection with endless possibilities. Or four possibilities. The USFL just ended. And that is why you should never count on a lawsuit. Or spend your money like Liberace at rhinestone warehouse.

This day has been Marked.

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