Peacocks on a mission from God.

Friday was National Peacock Day, as our friend and Certified Dad Joke Expert PLWoodstock mentioned in the comments yesterday. Actually, I have been able to find no reference to the weird holiday on all my usual Weird Holiday calendars, but let's just roll with it. After all, it was a day for Peacocks of the basketball variety, as a small private college, St. Peter's University in Jersey City, slipped past powerhouse Purdue in the men's NCAA basketball tournament to move into the Elite Eight. The 15th-seed Peacocks became the lowest seed to ever get that far. It was one of the most thrilling, nail-biting games of any kind I have ever seen. 

My disinterest in basketball is well known; just a sport that, like hockey, never grabbed me. That's changed in the last week, at least temporarily, since one of my oldest and dearest friends is an alumnus of St. Peter's. In fact, he was on the last football team the school ever fielded, since (dare I say) their success rate on the gridiron was exceptionally compromised. However, he is thrilled to follow his old school's playoffs, and we old pals, being scattered about the tri-state area now, have been watching each game together virtually while keeping a running chat going via texts. It's been a lot of fun. 

I asked my friend if he knew why the team's mascot is the peacock. He didn't know, although he'd heard that the grounds used to have a lot of peacocks hanging about. That seems odd, since the peacock is not native to the Americas. Moreover, St. Peter's avian symbol is the rooster or cock, after Christ's warning that Peter would deny Him three times before cock crow. 

I suggested that the name came from Pete cock, which seems unlikely but is kind of funny. (Keep it clean, boys.) 

Actually, it seems that the peacock, like the pelican and many other animals, has a history of Christian symbolism. The site Jesus Walk lists some examples of peacock symbolism in Christian art, for example, but nothing specifically associated with St. Peter. 

When I was a kid, the local zoo had a couple of African peacocks wandering around. They were fun to watch, but the males seldom put on the classic display. It's usually done to scare predators, and of course to attract mates. 

"Helllloooo, ladies!"

There's quite a spectacle on the court, though, as the young men of St. Peter's are playing an energetic brand of basketball that thrills my basketball-loving pals, most of whom can barely stand the modern NBA's current brand of three-point showboating and bricked foul shots. 

I root for the Peacocks unreservedly in their battle against the Tar Heels tonight. Fight fiercely, Peacocks!

I have also noted that, since it is Lent, St. Peter's is on a mission from God. I think we have to understand that that's the case. Villanova is still in the mix, but it's time for a more humble Catholic college to step forward. St. Peter's has gotten the call.

Fred's Book Club: Root Fan or Die.

Welcome to another episode of Fred's Book Club, also called the Humpback Writers because it falls on Wednesday. And if you think that joke is a disaster, then you haven't seen the real disasters that have been seen by...

Joe Queenan, who has written for pretty much everybody from TV Guide to National Review to the New York Times, published True Believers: The Tragic Inner Life of Sports Fans as an ode to long-suffering sports fans -- a painful, awful ode. As with all of Queenan's writing, there's a lot of hilarity in this book, despite his perpetual agony of being a fan of the teams from his native Philadelphia all his life. And if you know about the Phillies (two championships in 136 years) and the Eagles (no championships between 1960 and 2018) and the 76ers (no championships since 1983) you know how he feels.

True Believers is a deep dive into some of the characteristics of the die-hard fan -- the willingness to defend and fight for and pay large amounts of cash to his beloved teams; the superstitions; the birth of fandom from childhood up; and the stupidity. If you've ever loved a team beyond all reason, ever quit following the team and kept coming back, ever said "Wait till next year" when there isn't a spark of hope in you that next year will be better, this book is for you. Even if you've finally given up and walked away, he has a chapter about that.

Don't think that Queenan calls all dedicated fans unrealistic or dumb. To the contrary. He writes that "it would be remiss to overlook the Manichaean nature of the true fan's relationship to his team. By this I mean that, while one is morally obligated to root, root, root for the home team, it is also perfectly acceptable to maintain a simultaneous hatred of the franchise and to curse the moment it first saw the light of day. I personally believe the Eagles and the Phillies have each taken about five years off my life through their vaudevillian antics down through the decades. As a friend once put it, the difference between the Phillies and the Third Reich is that after the Second World War, a few of the Nazis apologized for their crimes against humanity, while the boys in the colorful red pinstripes have remained obstreperously mute on the subject."

And don't think this is a book just for Philadelphia fans. In one chapter he discusses the woes of Jets fans, for example, describing the time "the Jets' ancient, mysterious, and very possibly insane owner Leon Hess went out and hired Richie Kotite to be his new head coach. In a remark so cryptic that cultural anthropologists will still be analyzing it centuries from now, Hess said, 'I want to win now.' Kotite, who had just lost his last seven games with the Eagles, thereupon guided the Jets to their worst season in history, winning just three games, and the next season, one. In Kotite's defense, it doesn't seem fair that a genuinely nice man who had survived brain surgery and four years in Philadelphia should then be asked to coach the Jets."

As I noted above, Queenan spends some pages looking into the origin of the suffering pastime of sports fandom, usually in childhood.

Fans' support must be based on one of two criteria. Either you grew up in a specific locality and inherited a congenital municipal connection to the team, or you grew up somewhere else but rooted for your father's teams. (In certain rare instances an exception could be made for supporting a team simply because your uncle Sal did. But only if he was your real uncle Sal and not some mythical figure you dreamed up to make your perfidy seem more palatable to your naive, gullible friends.)

After all, "it was morally unacceptable, an outrage against the laws of God and man, to root for teams with which these emotional or geographic ties did not exist. For starters, it weakened our national moral character by promulgating the notion that it was permissible to arbitrarily switch allegiances."

Without question, my favorite part of the book was Queenan's description of the turtle.

In a dark corner of my kitchen, right next to the radio, sits a hideous enamel turtle that has not budged from this position since October 1993. During that memorable year, or so I have come to believe, the turtle's uncanny telekinetic powers contributed in some way to the Philadelphia Phillies winning the National League Pennant. 

This is the kind of sports superstition everyone can admire. I know for a fact that when I was a youth, the Mets' Game 6 rally in 1986 was caused by me sitting in my house, on my street, on the edge of my bed, with my legs and arms wrapped around my old desk chair, watching on a blinkered old black-and-white TV. If I had gotten up during the rest of the inning, we would have lost. I was as much a key to the win as Knight, Mookie, and Aguilera. You're welcome, Mets fans.

And you know why the Beloved Mets have not won the World Series since? My family moved the next year.

Little orange balls.

In the yogurt, no less. 

The new NBA season kicks off October 27, so to gin up excitement among the yogurt-slurping children who are or could become basketball fans, there's this:

I got it on deep discount last month because the expiration date was coming up quick. These little cups of vanilla yogurt come in a four-pack for eating by children (or overgrown children) on the go. What's so basketbally about yogurt? Glad you asked:

Little orange balls!

We've seen this kind of thing before, of course; yogurt, the once-healthy ideal hippie dairy treat, now comes with everything from Froot Loops to Snickers in the plastic cap for mixing in to the sugared yogurt. I know, I know, I say like it's a bad thing. The iron rule of food drift is: Everything healthy that can be made less healthy will be.

In this case, the little orange balls are not flavored orange, but are actually little round bits of white chocolate. The taste is almost indiscernible, even on their own. Mixed in to the yogurt, you essentially just taste the yogurt.

This Alpina yogurt, of which I had never heard, may be healthy as far as its non-chocolate section goes; it's not very sweet, and is in fact quite tart, like a traditional yogurt. Alpina is actually huge in South America. They have, however, struggled some in the US market. On the other hand, they claim to have cracked the code in combining real coffee with yogurt ("This has been a challenge for food companies because of high acidity levels in both coffee and yogurt" says Buffalo Business First), so there's that.

Meanwhile, they have little orange balls, which come with stickers in the four-pack:

Collect 'em all, kids! Stick them on your school textbooks! Stick them on the side of Daddy's car on the way to school! Stick them to your baby brother's fontanelle! And get ready for tip-off!

The Fighting Meh.

Everyone's going nuts with the NCAA men's basketball tournament---March Mental Illness, is it? I confess I've never liked watching basketball much. Not because I sucked at it; I sucked at football and baseball too, but I enjoy watching them.

Also, my college was not exactly a Division I school. Not Division II, either. Or III. In fact, our division looks more like a late-model Super Bowl. Division XLIV, maybe. I forget. I did not attend a single game for any of the sports in my time there. The Fighting Meh had to fight on without my rooting them on. (Also the Fighting Lady Meh.)

Some of their opponents could be pretty brutal, or so I heard. Here's the rundown on some of their competition in this year's Eastern Thruway-Turnpike Championship Series:

Jersey Shore College of Cosmetic Studies
A bad stretch in midseasons from the Blushing Bandits left them 12-12. Coach Revlon's Curling Iron offense still occasionally startles opponents, and when they get the ol' Alley Goop going they can be competitive.

Ulster County Community College
Look for a big turnout from the "Sixth Man," UCCC's rabid fans, in the first game against the Hamptons. "Being a two-year school makes us something of an underdog," admitted power forward Rob Gyrble. "Everyone's under twenty or over forty. But what we lack in experience we make up for in energy... and vice-versa."

Queens School of Arts
A disappointing year for the boys from the Big Borough, but despite finishing 7-17, they're in the tournament. Coach "Two Coats" Scungilli promises that the Artistes will shellac the competition. While they have a great running game, they've been known to turn into drips late in the third, and then their opponents roll right over them. They may look good on paper, but their backs are to the wall.

Fashion Institute of Technology
The Battlin' Basters hope to keep their opponents hemmed in and tied up with their renowned defense and rebounding. If they can tailor a close one against the Fighting Meh in the opener, they could go all the way.

Culinary Institute of America
A five-game winning streak has left the Chefs hungry for more. But the Newark boys are raring to eat their lunch in the first round. Can the Chefs take a bite out of Newark and avoid the pangs of defeat? Coach Boyardee says "Si, si!"

Apex Technical School
When not repairing air conditioning units or perfecting soldering techniques, the Guys From Apex are shooting hoops like wildmen. Strong on offense and free throwing but weak on D, Apex's games have tended to be high-scoring affairs. A tendency to commit technical fouls may be their undoing.

Newark College of Stenography
The Pencil Pushers haven't been the same since center Dixon Ticonderoga, "Old No. 2," graduated, but they still managed to put together a winning season. Can they take it to the hole against the CIA? They'll have to stay sharp, says Coach Pitman.

Hamptons Celebrity Sciences Academy
Losing center Alvin "Cheech" Marie to a case of acute ennui has really hurt the Fanboys in their last two games. The rest of the team says they can rebound like Jennifer Aniston, but word is that they feel like a Kardashian... Rob Kardashian. Can the Fanboys put it together and find victory...and, yes, love?

Joe's Turnpike Auto School
Joe is not only the president of the school, but also the sponsor, and plays point guard when his knee is not acting up. The Hubcaps had a great year, going 21-3, but there are concerns that the team may be hungover for its big match today at Apex. The team bus driver, also hungover, was warned that failure to appear would mean a forfeit, and has promised to switch over to coffee after this beer.

Wilted.

Basketball great Wilt Chamberlain lived from August 21, 1936 to October 12, 1999. He famously scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knicks* on March 2, 1962. He also famously claimed in his autobiography to have scored with 20,000 women. 

I'm still boggled by the math here. 

Look: Thanks to the date calculator on timeanddate.com, Chamberlain lived exactly 23,062 days. That's 2,505 less than the three score and ten years set out in Psalm 90, but 1,062 more set out by the Moody Blues. However, for our purposes, we have to restrict ourselves to the number of Wilt's days after he hit puberty. Since he was a fine looking man and very tall, let's say he started getting crazy busy on his thirteenth birthday. That would be 18,314 days from his thirteenth birthday until the day he died. Which means he bedded 1.09 women a day every day from his thirteenth birthday until the day the final whistle blew.

Madison Square Garden only seats 18,200. If you filled it up with Wilt's conquests there would be 1,800 women standing out on West 34th Street. 

I'm tired just thinking about it. 

It's that extra .09 that throws me. It means that every eleventh or twelfth day Wilt had to go find a brace of babes instead of just one.

King Solomon was supposed to be a big deal with 700 wives. Plus 300 concubines. Good thing he had people working for him, because that means he had to come up with a nice birthday present three times a day. But even Solomon did not get the action and variety of Wilt Chamberlain.

My real point in bringing this up is that I have to wonder what happened to all the gals. They didn't just disappear. Assuming Wilt's girlfriends were his contemporaries or younger, but none underage, they ones still around would be between the ages of 78 and 33 now. There could be thousands of ol' ladies running around with a secret smile, remembering a certain not-repeated encounter with a tall handsome fellow who played basketball, once upon a time.

So... what was YOUR grandma up to back in the day, hmm?

*Which any Knick fan would tell you just figures.

**Not to mention 700 mothers-in-law. Which is why guys don't run around with 700 wives anymore.