The Importance of Haberdashery in Sports

Why jocks should sweat the small stuff

Lucas Glover sweated out won the Fed Ex St. Jude Sunday, defeating Patrick Cantlay in 19 holes. “No sweat, problem,’’ Glover didn’t say, after winning his second tournament in as many weeks. “Golf is a mind game. Just because I looked like Richard Nixon debating JFK a little moist didn’t mean my emotions weren’t under control.’’

I wanted very much to admire Glover’s shotmaking and clutch putting down the stretch Sunday. His is a feelverygood story of a 43-year-old journeyman who went from the heights (winning the U.S. Open in 2009) to the depths (missing an 18-inch putt in last June’s Open qualifier, that would have qualified him for this year’s Open.)

Talk about vicissitudes. The man has trekked the Himalayas.

Wonderful story about try- try- trying again.

I couldn’t stop looking at his pants.

“Huge, unfortunate stains,’’ observed Yahoo’s golf correspondent.

Maybe some journo, heathen and intrepid, asked Glover how it felt to win a tournament while resembling a human water faucet. I didn’t see any responses indicating that very legit question had been asked. Golf being golf, I suppose that’s an inappropriate question. Especially right after the guy just won a huge event.

Only a pen-wielding worm would ask a champion about huge, unfortunate stains.

And really, the general soaking did have an Everyman quality to it. Tiger never looked like a mahogany tree in the Amazon rain forest. Arnie was the definition of jock masculinity. I don’t recall seeing his pores open up and unleash the Mississippi.

Lucas Glover, though, man. The Mayo Clinic might call it “hyperhydrosis,’’ which its website defines as “excessive sweating that's not always related to heat or exercise. You may sweat so much that it soaks through your clothes.’’

The rest of us who commit golf in the summer swelter look like Lucas did. We just say we spilled a beer on our shorts.

Hearty congratulations to Mr. Glover, who has won back his career, to say nothing of nearly $4 mil in the past eight days. Perhaps now he could splurge at the haberdasher. Key word: Wicking.

Never let ‘em see you Glover perspire.

Now, then. . .

GEEZ, DOC. . . You just spent 466 words clowning on a man who did something you could only dream of.

You want me to write about the Reds weekend or the football scam perpetrated on the masses by The Men Friday night? Not the players specifically. The NFL, which believes gouging its customers to be an acceptable way of doing business. It’s time fans formed a union to fight this sort of pocket-robbery.

I’m only half-joking. Organize. Send lobbyists to DC. Make charging full boat for bad football against the agreed-upon rules. While you’re at it, demand that Congress punish rich owners who receive tax money by the Brinks-load, to buy new stadia. See to it that any professional sports team charging $15 for a cup of craft beer give $14 of it to a local charity. It’d give our elected officials something meaningful to do.

The Reds? You blame Bell for the way he uses his bullpen. The man is just trying to find someone who can get him some outs. It’d be good if his use of Diaz in non-save situations were a sign of his creativity. I’ve said forever that your best reliever should be used in the most dire situation, not in the cushy arena of the two-run 9th-inning lead.

But Bell’s overworking of Diaz is a sign of his desperation. Alexis will be fine as long as his arm doesn’t follow his fastball into the catcher’s mitt.

I think The Club stays relevant a while longer, though, if only because Milwaukee stops playing the Nationals, Pirates, Rockies and White Sox and now must spend the next week on the road at Dodger Stadium and in Arlington, TX, before returning for five at home against 1st-place Minnesota and dangerous San Diego.

And maybe Greene and Lodolo are the cavalry. Or maybe they’re Custer.

Gen. David Bell at Little Big Horn, surrounded by his bullpen.

Stay tuned. If you feel like it.

STICK TO (NO) SPORTS. . . If I can tear myself away from those riveting position battles up and down the Bengals backup offensive line, I’d like to waste my time more productively. Maybe once a week — call it Navel-Gazing Tuesday, or some such — we will stray from sports for most of an entire TML, hopefully to stuff that’s more universally relevant and entirely non-political.

Such as. . .

OG CAN’T HEAR. Aging is mostly about loss. Physical and mental. I was shocked to learn recently that I can no longer do 20 chin-ups consecutively and that the edges of my head have been invaded by what appears to be gray hair. (Until recently, I attributed the heretofore foreign color to the way the light was hitting my dome.)

Time is no longer a petty thief. Time is a multinational smuggling corporation, intent on swiping my weeks and turning them into days. We just spent a one-week day in Florida, for example.

And I can’t hear. The ear doctor confirmed it. I hear 60 percent of what I should.

What?

These guys killed my hearing in 1977

*

Too many Nighthawks concerts at the Psyche Delly when I was 17. Fifth-row for Led Zeppelin as a high school senior. Wayyyy too many Xavier and UC basketball games, where the crowd’s going insane and the band is just off my left ear, trumpets pumping Louie, Louie or Sweet Caroline.

I am vain and I am cheap, two traits that don’t lend themselves to dropping 5 grand on hearing aids. But there will come a time. . .

For now, I choose to view hearing deficiency as a personality quirk. Charming, sweet OG, meaning to come help his wife change a light bulb or something but — dadgummit — he just can’t hear her when she calls.

PROGRAMMING WONDERMENT. . . Would you consider listening to a Morning Line podcast? A. . . Mobcast?

For how long?

About what?

Guests good?

Occasional foul language OK? The comedian Bill Burr does one of my favorite pods. He drops in a megaton of F-bombs, because that’s how he converses in real life. I wouldn’t overdo it, but it’s not as if I speak the King’s English all the time.

Whaddaya think?

THERE ARE THREE TYPES OF PEOPLE in the world, and three types only.

1. Those who know what they know.

2. Those who know what they don’t know.

3. Those who don’t know what they don’t know.

Most of us are #2s. We’re not so full of ourselves that we can’t open our minds and allow for new knowledge and different viewpoints. Very few of us are #1s, experts in a given field. Frighteningly, the prevalence of #3s is growing. Number 3s can be dangerous.

Maybe it’s the Internet Social Media Industrial Complex. Number 3s can spew there without fear of consequence. Maybe we’re becoming less tolerant of people with whom we disagree. I think we’re getting angrier as a society. That’ll shut down empathy, compassion, cooperation.

I think Warren Buffet is a 1.

Gimme your examples. Who in public life is a No. 1? 2? 3?

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . I liked these guys in high school, until it became cool not to like them. The rock-n-roll cognoscenti looked at this band and went all snobby, believing if you liked their music, you knew nothing about music.

(Cognoscenti: Persons who have superior knowledge and understanding of a particular field.)

I wanted to be cool, so I stopped liking the band.

When I ditched all my high school insecurities (last week, Monday I think) I started liking the group again. America was cotton candy to the ears. They wrote nonsensical lyrics. But I like their music and a little nonsense is fine.

This is my favorite of theirs.