Craig Counsell is in midair, suspended there by a pair of male ballet dancers, and it looks like he’d rather be in a tobacco juice Jacuzzi.
But yes, here he is at the dress rehearsal for a Milwaukee Ballet performance of The Nutcracker. Well, not just at the rehearsal, but actually in it, helping the company prepare for its Dec. 29 show.
That’s right, it’s Baryshnikov Counsell. And back on the ground, the veteran baseball player can finally smile again while hitting Whiffle balls with a minibat.
Don’t quite recall that Nutcracker scene? Don’t worry. This is the Nutty Nutcracker, an anything-goes spoof of the holiday classic.
And why exactly was Counsell nuts enough to do it? Apparently, the Brewers’ team doctor is also a big ballet supporter and put the two sides together.
“I said yes,” Counsell explains. “I didn’t really know what I was saying yes to.”
Though Ballet Mistress Nadia Thompson reports that Counsell did secure one crucial assurance.
“He said, ‘I’m not gonna have to wear a tutu, am I?’ ”
Happily, no. But you can bet one will make an appearance in his locker next season. You know how ballplayers are.
Counsell’s cameo is just one facet of the show, joining appearances by the Klement’s Racing Sausages, FOX 6 sportscaster Tom Pipines and soldiers from the U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion, among others. Tickets are still available through www.milwaukeeballet.org.
Counsell alone should be worth the price of admission, even if he has a few last-minute concerns.
“I’m worried for [the dancers] because I think I’m too heavy,” says the 175-pound infielder. “They’re already complaining I’m too heavy.”
And now you know why they didn’t ask Prince Fielder.
Z-riffic
Since that arctic expedition masquerading as a Packers’ football game has you a little depressed, here’s a story to cheer you up. From the inimitable Dr. Z and his weekly power rankings comes this peachy Packers parable.
Seems the good doctor was covering an NFC Championship Game at Lambeau and parked his car in a lot he’d been told was reserved for press. “When I came back there was a ticket on the car,” Z explains. “Judge’s name was on the summons. I wrote to him to complain, enclosed the ticket, and ended my rant with, ‘I guess this destroys the myth of Midwestern hospitality.’ I got a return letter from him immediately. Inside was the ticket, neatly torn in two, and written on it was, ‘Go Packers!’ ”
So sometimes the pen is mightier than the parking ticket.
Pat on the Back
And since you can’t wear a Packers jacket within 50 miles of Chicago for awhile, here’s a little more holiday cheer for Green Bay fans. ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons, perhaps the world’s biggest Patriots patsy, is worried about facing Green Bay in the Super Bowl. He thinks Favre as a QB is in a class of his own. He also thinks Aaron Rodgers has better upside than Brady Quinn and No. 1 draft pick JaMarcus Russell.
Of course, Simmons isn’t exactly Carnac the Magnificent (he had the Falcons in the playoffs this year and actually wrote the words “I believe in Petrino”), but maybe if he’s thinking this way, some of the Patriots are, too.
Assuming, of course, they didn’t watch the Bears game.
Quote of Note
“We make Santa’s workshop look like a retirement home.”
– Marquette men’s basketball assistant coach Jason Rabedeaux, on the team’s work ethic in practice, from his In Rab’s Words blog at www.gomarquette.com.
Read through the blog, subtitled An Insider’s View of Marquette Basketball, and one thing becomes clear. Whenever Rab’s ready to do his memoirs, he won’t need a ghostwriter.
Vocal Leadership
He’s like the Howard Cosell of his generation, either loved or hated, but inarguably at the top of his field. So it’s truly sad that basketball broadcaster Dick Vitale battles a crisis with the body part that’s made his career. And no, it’s not his Brad Pitt complexion.
In this letter to his fans, Vitale explains the need for undergoing vocal cord surgery, along with the hope that he’ll be back broadcasting games in February. Then, characteristically, he ends the letter by trying to help not himself, but others – a solicitation for donations to help kids fighting cancer.
Bowled Over
There’s a widespread belief that the BCS Powers That Be secretly love the controversy their system always seems to generate. After all, it keeps college football at the forefront of the sports landscape.
But apparently there’s a limit to the amount of controversy they’re willing to swallow.
CNNSI.com’s Stewart Mandel reports that the BCS nixed a potential Orange Bowl matchup between Oklahoma and Virginia Tech. Why? Because OU and V-Tech happen to be ranked third and fourth, respectively, and the result may have further eroded the credibility of this year’s official title tilt between Ohio State and LSU.
The decision apparently miffed OU athletic director Joe Castiglione, and I can understand why. I knew Joe when I covered the Sooners during the late 1990s, and you won’t find a man more committed to doing things the right way. And while the matchup certainly was in OU’s interest, it was also in the interest of college football at large. Why not have the best-possible games you can get? “Clear-thinking, well-intentioned minds would like to know whether something like this is possible,” Castiglione says.
A few weeks ago, I wrote that it was impossible to get a credible national champ this season because no team had distinguished itself. Seems the BCS folks agree, so they’re doing what they can to keep up appearances.
Most Valuable Pursuit
Feel like doing something more constructive than complaining about baseball’s performance-enhancing drugs problem? Check out the I Won’t Cheat Foundation, a grassroots movement launched by two-time MVP Dale Murphy, one of the classiest men to ever wear a baseball mitt.
The group’s main goal is to dissuade young athletes from using performance-enhancing drugs. “Too many of these young people,” reads the group’s mission statement, “now feel that they must put their bodies and minds in danger if they want to compete at the highest levels.”
There’s one more thing the big-league drug users and their enablers can put on their collective resumé.
And finally…
If Mitt Romney is elected president, let’s hope he has a vice president who knows sports. Otherwise, those championship team visits to the White House are gonna be pretty dicey.
Exhibit A: The Massachusetts governor can’t wait for the Patriots to win, um… the World Series.
Check out my new radio segment with Doug Russell and Mike Wickett on SportsRadio 1250. And be sure to pull up a stool for our Bar Time column.
