RON MALY HAS BEEN WATCHING THE PARADE GO BY FOR A LONG TIME. THIS IS ONE OF HIS WEBSITES.

Friday, June 27, 2014

A League Of Have-Nots


By RON MALY

I've written several columns in recent months saying the Des Moines public schools are so bad in football that the elite suburban schools shouldn't waste time playing them. 
Des Moines Roosevelt High School

Obviously, people at the Roosevelts, Easts, Lincolns, Hoovers and Norths of central Iowa have been reading my stuff. 

Now it's in the paper that they're saying they want to form their own league with a few of the other have-nots of Central Iowa Metro League athletics. 

I'm all for that idea. 

My only question is whether it would be class 3-A football, or 2-A.  

Roosevelt, East, Lincoln and the other Des Moines schools have no business playing Valley, Dowling, Southeast Polk, Waukee, Johnston and the rest of the talent-rich metro high schools in football and a number of other sports. 

The sooner the Des Moines schools get out of the CIML, the better. 

Unfortunately, the metro teams will still be rolling roughshod over Roosevelt and the rest in the 2014 season, and those 70-7 scores [in favor of the metro teams] will be an embarrassment to the entire city of Des Moines. 

Games against the Des Moines schools have turned into breathers for the metro schools in recent seasons. 

The best the Des Moines schools can hope for in 2014 is for the "mercy" rule to be put into effect at the time of the opening kickoff. 

Just let the clock keep moving, whether Valley is ahead of Lincoln by 35 points or not.

Don't stop the clock after out-of-bounds plays or even at halftime. 

That way the scores won't be so one-sided and the paper's naive editorial writers won't have to write that Valley and Dowling were pouring it on.

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Speaking of embarrassments, Manny Ramirez went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in his playing debut with Des Moines' Triple-A baseball team. 
Manny Ramirez

I'm wondering why  that clown was penciled into the starting lineup on his first day with the team. 

He's supposed to be some sort of half-assed advisor to young players in the Chicago Cubs' farm system, but I'm figuring Ramirez actually thinks he's auditioning for a return to the major leagues. 

It's too bad there isn't anyone in the entire Chicago organization who is smart enough to tell Ramirez he was washed up 10 years ago.

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Good for Devyn Marble.  Hopefully, things will continue working out for him.

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My Neighbor Al, the Health Nut, came over for a cup of Italian Dark Roast on this rainy morning, and asked what I thought about the paper's sports columnist borrowing the late Maury White's "A Little Bit About a Lot Of Things" idea for a weekly notes column. 
Maury White


Al, who had just read the paper at Hy-Vee, said the present columnist calls his notes column "A little bit about a lot." 

I told Al I don't have any opinion on it, and I don't care, because I don't read the stuff, 

Obviously, there's nothing new in newspapering these days. 

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Photos courtesy of Google.