Prosthetic Prose

In Persian living rooms across the country during this holiday break, you're bound to find sporting events on the TV screen. There's just no other way to 'round up the guests and to break the ice.

One such holiday weekend back in the day, I was visiting relatives on the east coast and gifted a bunch of baseball cards from my mother's younger cousin Morteza. Included in the batch was a 1979 Joe Montana rookie card. Mort didn't think the cards had any value, and when I returned home to Chicago I happily sold it for $80 at a local memorabilia shop. Lo and behold, vord eventually got around on the Persian inter-family network, and grandfather ended up reimbursing the whining Morteza only after a TON of drama.

(One day I'll share the story of when David my American In-Law, married to cousin Shiva, sent me a David Robinson rookie in 1990. That one got ugly.)

That was a long time ago. These days I avoid America professional sports like the plague. Particularly with the economic malaise happening, it's mind-blowing to read of the overblown salaries these fatcats earn -- and the mindless masses who pay their salaries.

Arash Markazi touched on that theme yesterday with this article about the Yankees on CNNsi.com. The 28-year-old USC grad has been one of the more popular journos at Sports Illustrated, as articulated by this dude's Arash-envy blog posting.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the reporting (and alumni) spectrum, Sam Alipour wrote a funny story last week on ESPN's Page 2 about how some students at his alma mater celebrate the end of the semester. Hint: lots and lots of underwear.

Also in the sports pages today, its being reported that the head coach of Cal-Poly SLO (San Luis Obispo) is a candidate to fill one of the many vacancies in the Division I ranks. That'd likely mean the Cal-Poly defensive coordinator would be going along too. That person is Payam Saadat, a 37-year-old Santa Monica native who would become the first Persian to coach on the Division I level. In high school I'd watch him in a few Pac-10 games as a linebacker for Washington State, which was the first school to take a chance on me.