But last week I read something that made me dislike him a little bit.

Kevin Durant has no clue when it comes to pro wrestling.

Granted, I am no pro wrestler. I’ve said that before. I’ll never step foot in the ring. But I have a lot of respect for the folks that go in rings around the world to entertain us. I can barely begin to understand how they do what they do when they do it. It is 1000% different from wrestling my friends in the living room when we were younger. There is absolutely no comparison.

That’s why reading Kevin Durant’s blog about how he wanted to jump the guardrail at a WWE and go face-to-face with the Undertaker made me lose respect for him.

Would the Undertaker ever think about jumping on the court during a game and running the floor with Durant and the rest of the Oklahoma City Thunder? I seriously doubt it. No matter if the Undertaker had played college, high school, or even playground hoops, I don’t think he would ever consider interrupting an NBA game.

Sadly, the desire to be a part of pro wrestling is not limited to Kevin Durant. While most people ditch their fantasies of playing in the NBA or batting clean-up for the Yankees about the time they enter the “real world”, for whatever reason many wrestling fans still cling to their dreams of being in the ring long after adulthood.

Maybe it is the fact that wrestling has a low barrier of entry. Maybe it is the fact that many small-time wrestling promoters will do whatever it takes to get a few butts in the seats. Maybe it is the fact that wrestlers are such good actors that they make what they do in the ring look easy. Whatever the reason, far too many fans feel they should be part of the show.

(Quick disclaimer before I continue: I have been accused of this by a few fans. For some people, wearing an afro, leading chants, and heckling is too intrusive on the show. Personally, I think I’m on the same level as those crazy Raider fans or the Cowgirls of Florida State.)

Now I am not saying all fan involvement is a bad thing. Some local wrestling feds in Tampa allow fans to help with ring construction and de-construction, work ticket sales, or man the video cameras. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But it’s when non-wrestlers want to be more that I have a problem. In order to be part of the show a person should have enough respect for the business to go through training, to get the right gear, to dress the role, act the role, and be the role. And exhibit the same respect they would for Kevin Durant or any other professional athlete.

That brings me to the Bubba the Love Sponge / Awesome Kong situation. For those unaware, Bubba is a Central Florida shock jock who somehow had gotten involved in wrestling promotion Total Non-Stop Action (TNA). Strike one.

Bubba was then used by the company as an interviewer and on-air personality. Strike two.

Third, Bubba got in a scuffle with female wrestler Awesome Kong that may or may not have involved Bubba insulting Kong’s homeland of Haiti. Of course, being that it happened in pro wrestling, no one will admit whether it was part of a script. Strike three.

Then, in a coup de grace, not only was Bubba, a non-wrestler and a fan, involved with a wrestler in the capacity of the show, but according to Kong, he prank called her at 5:00 AM and berated her with racial insults. She is now suing AT&T for the phone records and possibly taking Bubba to court.

(Which makes me think, why not sue TNA? They were the one who made the workplace hostile. There were the ones who brought in a notorious troublemaker as an on-air personality. Maybe getting sued would force TNA to enact standards of employment for fear of having to pay continuous reparations. But, then again, that might actually bring order to the chaotic business of pro wrestling, and we can’t have that.)

Bringing storylines out of the ring is a outstanding marketing tool, if done by professionals. If two wrestlers want to say how much they hate each on a train, in a plane, in a boat, on a moat, and anywhere else you could eat green eggs and ham, that’s great. But wrestling should not include two-bit cult of personality whores like Bubba the Love Sponge.

Or other wrestling fans, such as Kevin Durant, who can’t let go of their childhood dreams.

In other news, maybe wrestlers need to join non-wrestlers in learning how not to embarrass their public image.

Although I’ve been a big fan of both sports, I only played organized baseball, and only then up to age 14.

(I did make my 6th grade basketball team. How, I don’t know, but I did. Sadly, I was cut before the first game. If I remember right, I missed one too many practices before the season even began. That was 1988. Practice? I was Iverson before Iverson was Iverson.)

Anyway, one of the things I’ve learned in the last few years by reading great blogs and talking to people is that if you never played a sport, you can never really understand what’s occurring on the field, court, or other playing surface.

With that in mind, or rather with the experience of playing basketball not in mind, or with the inexperience of playing basketball in mind, here are some thoughts on how baseball and basketball compare to each other.

(In all honesty, some of this post was written over two years ago, back in the “compare basketball to Jazz” phase of the sports blogosphere. That theory has been so overused and overanalyzed that even one of its originators, Bethlehem Shoals of FreeDarko.com thinks it is cliché.)

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Even the most casual fan of music knows the difference between the performance of music by mechanical rote and music played by improvisation.  It is the difference between the calculated routine of an orchestra and the raw emotion of an old bluesman.  Although both show musical ability and captivate the listener in their own way, their methodologies reveal a dichotomy in music between precision and feeling, accuracy and improv, calculation and creation, science and art.

These differences can also be seen in sports, particularly in the basic underlying premises of baseball and basketball.  Whereas baseball is admired for its strategy, planning, physics, and mathematical analysis, basketball is quite the opposite, admired more for its spontaneity, creation, and freedom.

(This is of course changing rapidly as front office folks and more and more fans jump feet-first into the statistical analysis world baseball fans have been in for the last 30 years.)

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For as long as there have been baseball fans, there have been baseball statistics. Ever since Harry Chadwick started keeping score, baseball fans have been enamored with numbers. Wins, losses, batting averages, hitting streaks, home runs, strike outs, speeds, and distances have been associated with the game since the first pitch.

Basketball is different. It doesn’t have the long lasting relationship with numbers that baseball has. Basketball fans are more thrilled by the performance than the result. It is the spectacle of action, the awe of movement. Granted, there are historical numbers, such as Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game, Michael Jordan’s 63-point playoff performance, or maybe even Scott Skiles’s 30-assist game, but they pale in historical depth to the numbers of baseball legend.

Because of its association with numbers, baseball as always seemed more scientific to me than basketball.  Baseball is the “Science of Pitching” and “Science of Hitting”.  Although I am sure there are numerous books on how to shoot a basketball, I’ve never heard of the the “Science of Shooting” or the “Science of Dribbling”.

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Throughout the history of baseball, those who achieve the highest levels of success have been those who have mastered the science of the game. One of the best examples of a baseball “scientist” is future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux.  Despite Maddux’s inability to strike out every hitter, he made a successful career of deceiving hitters through ballspeed variance and movement.  On the other side of the spectrum is pitchers like Detroit Tiger Joel Zumaya, whose brute strength (when healthy) enables him to make a living overwhelming hitters with his 100 mph fastball.  Falling between Zumaya and Maddux are hundreds of pitchers, some successful and some not, who utilize both the science of strength and the science of aerodynamics to varying degrees.

For batters as well, baseball is describable through the science of physics.  As making contact is at the heart of basic hitting, numerous batters throughout history have studied the science of procedure as to ensure hit placement.  These hitters such as Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, Pete Rose, and currently Ichiro Suzuki, use the spin of the pitch to determine where to guide the ball during the hit. As with pitching, there are also those whose brute strength has elevated them to success.  Hitters such as the legendary Babe Ruth and not-so-legendary Rob Deer have used their ability to hit a baseball a long distance as a way to continue their careers.

Basketball is of course not without its physics. There are plenty of trajectories. There is the shot, the arc, the leaping, the angles of the rebound, and the reaction of a blocked shot. Many rebounders, such as the legendary Dennis Rodman, have used science-like precision to determine angles and timing, not unlike the mound calculations of Greg Maddux.

But basketball is based much more on freedom. The freedom to move left or right, front or back. The freedom to accelerate or slow down. The freedom to create your offense through arm and leg motions that make even the most liberal coach cringe. You can’t improv a home run. You can throw a little zazz into a dunk.

Basketball is not without its brute strength either. But braun in basketball is far different than braun in baseball. Like baseball’s speed, basketball’s strength is  a segment of the game falls opposite of the majority of the sport. For basketball, the strength, power, and science most often seen in baseball are evident in plays near the basket. Like Ruth and McGwire in baseball, many large basketball players such as Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard and have used their size and strength as a weapon, overpowering their smaller contemporaries and dunking the ball directly in the basket.

Although a majority of baseball relies on physics and its resulting actions, there is one aspect of baseball that does not confine itself to the rules of science: fielding.  Fielding is more often than not a routine of basic movements, conditioned by practice to position individuals at the right place at the right time.  However, when the ball is batted or thrown off its usual trajectory, fielders must make non-routine movements to catch or throw the ball.  These movements – the leaping catch over the fence, the dive in the hole to field a groundball, the jump over or around a runner to make a throw – make fielding more of an art than a science.  Defensive experts such as the legendary Ozzie Smith or, more recently, Omar Vizquel, or any of the other great fielders in baseball history have often displayed a level of immeasurable improvisation and a knack for getting to the ball and ensuring it gets to where it needs to go.

If fielding can be considered artful, then it is no coincidence that it is the last frontier of baseball statistical analysis. And it is no coincidence either that baseball fielding and basketball are becoming statistical at the same time.

Then his mother asked him if he would really be happy writing about junior high basketball in a two-bit town halfway across the country. She told him someone with skills such as his should be aiming higher. He took those words to heart, stopped pursuing journalism jobs, and went to grad school. Three years later, he landed a job close to home, one that paid him well enough to buy a new truck and go to a few baseball games.

To be honest, looking back, I am actually glad no newspaper did so much as offer me an interview. I am happy none of the 60 or so jobs I applied to took the even first look at me. Because no matter how much I may bitch about my job now, I am absolutely thankful I don’t work for the newspaper industry. I would probably be unemployed right now.

I don’t remember the last time I read a newspaper. I used to sit down every morning, pour myself a big heaping bowl of Crunch Berries, and dig through the Florida Today. First, I would read the Sports, then the Comics, then the Front Page section, then, if I had time, I would read the Business and Life sections. I was hip to the happenings of the world.

I have no idea if they still publish the Florida Today. If so, I would assume 90% of its readership is over the age of 65.

These days it should come to no surprise to anyone that the newspaper as we used to know it is going the way of the dodo. Last week alone I read three articles that called out the newspaper business for being less than responsive.

In the first, TyDuffy of The Big Lead asks “Why Do Newspapers Remain Slaves to the Games Story and Boring Quotes?”. Duffy challenges the status quo of sports writing and basically calls it less than inspired.

The next day, Tommy Duncan of esteemed Tampa-area blog Sticks of Fire called out the St. Pete Times and the Tampa Tribune for their hypocritical statements regarding disposable plastic bags. According to Tommy, articles in both papers have denounced the bags whether by calling for their ban or promoting alternative measures. Yet, both newspapers are delivered to their readers’ front doors in small, clear, disposal plastic bags.

Tommy again goes on the offensive a few days later blasting the Tampa Tribune’s advertising flyer. Apparently, the “Trib Clips” is delivered every week without fail, regardless of readership, interest, or occupancy. Kinda like the official newspaper of the mob in Good Fellas. Not home? F*** you, read me.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much good news coming out of the newspaper industry. They seem to be scrambling to find some footing during the information metamorphosis of the last 10 years. They are cutting even the most established staff.

Back when I wrote for the FSU newspaper, I predicted that five years after graduation I would be living in a cardboard box behind a WalMart with only my diploma and my Writer of the Year 2002 award to keep me warm. I’m sure if I was in the newspaper industry, that would probably be true.

AfroBoy has always been a favorite of mine, a good wrestler and a good guy with a great hair do. Unfortunately, he has been sidelined for the last few months. But despite not being in the ring, he still goes to the shows and makes his presence known to the fans.

So without further ado …

Jordi: You’ve been out for a while. What happened?

AfroBoy: Well J, I had what I thought was a minor accident. Turned out that I fractured both my leg and ankle.

J: What have done to get ready to return to the ring?

AB: I had to have surgery on the ankle which lengthened my return date. Been going through the recommended rehab.

J: When can fans expect to see you back in action?

AB: I am confident that the fans will see me back in the ring sooner than later. As for now, I am remaining present in the commentary department of WXW.

J: So how did AfroBoy end up in the Florida wrestling scene? Did you train here in FL?

AB: Yes I did train in Florida at the now defunct FXE Academy. I received training from several professionals of the sport. It assisted in producing some wrestlers making waves: Simon Sez, Mike Cruz, Bobby Fonta, and Da Biff.

(Ed note: watch AfroBoy and Da Biff take on Simon Sez and fellow local grappler Gus Money here.)

J: What would you say has been your best match?

AB: I do not know if it was my best, but a good one. My favorite match was against the British Lions. I had the privilege of tagging with Scotty 2 Hotty. It was the first time I got to main event a program.

J: What wrestlers did you admire growing up?

AB: I was a big fan of Superfly Jimmy Snuka and Flyin’ Brian Pillman. I enjoyed Macho Man, Mr Perfect, and Rick Rude. All were amazing in my eyes.

J: Who are your professional idols? What wrestlers do you look up to now?

AB: Dwayne Johnson is someone I look up to. While many question why he won’t return to the ring, I admire that he was able to walk away. His in ring work led him to another path which has been just as successful and more power to the man. I also admire Randy Orton. Another 3rd generation superstar who has been able to carve his own niche. Bound to be around for many years to come.

J: Let’s talk about the ‘fro. How long have you had it? Did you grow it just for wrestling?

AB: The ‘Fro has been on for almost four years now. June will make 3 yrs for me as a pro wrestler. I grew up watching my favorite wrestlers all with long hair. So I figured I would let mine grow out as well. Only problem is that my hair doesn’t just lay down and look fabulous. I pick it out and make it look ‘FroLicious!!!

J: How do you maintain and take care of the ‘fro?

AB: I do keep the ‘Fro trimmed up. Once a month, I go see my lady at the salon and make sure it is touched up. Add a bit of sheen on the night of a match and Damm, that boy is fly!

J: What message do you want to send to your fans?

AB: Thank you for all the support up to this point. Many may say it, but I believe it… 2010 is going to be a big year for your friendly neighborhood AfroBoy and the Afro-Squad. Keep it Pimpin’ ! ! !

The Buses have Returned to Florida

Sure enough, I also posted that link over at ScalpEm.com. Trust me, it was a tough decision where I would post the original blog. I had to think about it. Post on the FSU site or on the baseball site? Both are run by longtime e-migos, and both have allowed me to write whatever I want whenever I want. But with a big basketball game for Florida State played last night as well, and the game against the Phillies only an exhibition, I went with the BusLeagues site.

Over on YouTube, the SnowMan of Wrestling911.com posted a video of the day I met WWE Diva Tiffany.

(By the way, did you know Tiffany was a vegan? She made PETA’s list of Sexiest Vegetarians of 2009. Personally, I don’t think I could date a woman who didn’t like BBQ, even it meant ruining my chances with Kaley Cuoco, Natalie Portman, and Carrie Underwood. Sorry, ladies.)

In other news, RaysIndex pointed out that Rays pitcher James Shields is sporting the ‘fro these days. In honor of James’s admission into the ‘Squad, we shall have a ceremony with chips, dip, punch, and pie.

(Hard to believe the South Park Movie is over 10 years old. Wow. It’s like the Canadians have really rehab’ed their image. From being the birthplace of Terrance and Phillip to hosting the Olympics. I’m proud of them. And it’s good to know they have forgiven America for invading their capital city of Toronto.)

Oh, and if you want to read something actually well-written, swing on by Deadspin.com and read Will Leitch’s post on film critic Roger Ebert. It’s about a young writer and his idol.

Leitch’s story reminds me of a similar, albeit much shorter, tale from my own early writing days. When I was in college, and just starting to understand how to write, I emailed columnist Leonard Pitts in response to an article he wrote about the mother of Emmitt Till, a young black man whose death was a key point in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. I thought Pitts’s article was so well done I had to ask him how I could write like that and how maybe one day I could have my own general interest column.

Although I think his assistant sent a canned response, Mr. Pitts’s advice was some of the best I ever received – actually, it may have been the only advice I ever received on the art of writing. Anyway, here is what he wrote:

As for advice…practice your craft.  Then practice it some more.  After
you’re done with that, take a little more time and practice. This is the
only sure route to learning your craft.

There is, in other words, no trick, secret, or magic formula that will make
you good.  Unfortunately for them, most writers are very good at finding
excuses not to write.  This is because writing is not enjoyable.  As some
sage once put it: “Writing is not fun.  Having written is.”

So what is required of the would-be writer is that he or she first develop
the discipline to apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair and
start putting words down on the screen.  You will be awful at first, then a
little better.  In time, perhaps, you will become good.  And sometime after
that, assuming you possess the basic gifts for it, you will become great.

Time not spent writing should be spent reading.  Read constantly and
promiscuously.  Read writers whose work you admire and try to figure out how
they do what they do and what it is in their work that makes it achieve
whatever effect it does.  Read writers whose work you dislike and try to
figure out what they’re doing wrong so that you can avoid making the same
mistakes.

Also: It’s important to invest in the tools of your craft.  In making an
investment, you prove – to others and, more importantly, to yourself – that
you are serious about this thing.  To that end, you need a workspace -
doesn’t have to be fancy, but it ought to be yours and accessible to you on
a regular basis.  You need a word processor or computer; a good dictionary,
an almanac, a copy of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, and a thesaurus.
You need a copy of Writer’s Market, which is a directory of magazine
publishers.  It lists the kind of material they’re looking for, the contact
persons and the prices they pay.  Also, get yourself a subscription to
Writer’s Digest; it’s a monthly magazine that deals with the craft of
writing, but also the business of it.  The magazine provides a great crash
course for young writers.

Finally, assuming you have any cash left over, you might want to pick up a
copy of Stephen King’s On Writing.  It’s a memoir of the craft that I found
inspirational and instructive.

I still haven’t picked up that Stephen King book yet. I might want to do that.

Thoughts?

This is a definite “must read” for fans of the blues and music history.

30 Minutes With Satan

Right from the start, Forbes discusses the difficulty of compiling their list. Their thought was that because ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Fox News, and regional sports sections provided ample coverage, then there was no reason for sports fans to blog. On top of that, there was “no economic incentive to start a sports blog”.  I guess for Forbes that’s all that counts.

Before I review their Top 5, here is perhaps my favorite line from Forbes’s intro:

“Pro football and basketball blogs are the worst of the bunch–the pickings are slim, the presentation is poor and the writing uninspired.”

Number 1: Badjocks.com

2003 Forbes description highlight: “a good-looking, fun and informative blog that offers a Kobe Watch, a tally of high school coach sex scandals and the main attraction, stories listed under the heading “Who Did Something Stupid Today?” With 3,000 daily visits, the site may feature a story on a gold medal Russian rhythmic gymnast who was arrested for cheating at cards, or a high school mascot waving the Confederate flag.”

2010 Follow up: Badjocks.com is still active and was recently named one of the most influential blogs of the decade by Sports Illustrated.

Number 2: Off Wing Opinion

2003 Forbes description highlights: “There’s very little sports news that Eric McErlain won’t take an opinionated whack at … The Reston, Va., resident supplies an impressively informed point of view on every topic he targets … he gets 200 to 300 visitors a day.”

2010 Follow-up: Currently located at the more convenient www.offwing.com, Off Wing Opinion is still active, although it is now apparently only updated once a week as McErlain has seized bigger and better media opportunities.

Number 3: FanBlogs.com

2003 Forbes description highlights: “Fanblogs.com is probably the best blog dedicated to a single sport–college football … Making Fanblogs profitable is not on the agenda, they say, though they would like to make enough to cover the costs of producing the site. The blog got an average 17,000 daily hits this month.”

2010 Follow-up: FanBlogs.com is still active and looks as popular as ever. In 2006, it was purchased by Rivals.com, which makes it a part of the extensive Yahoo! Sports network.

Number 4: F#%!edsports.com

2003 Forbes description highlights: “F#%!edsports.com is sports’ version of King Lear’s fool. Buddy Maguire comments on the day’s major scandals … Although he claims to have earned a whopping $8.05 from the site so far, it’s the grotesque, not the money, that fuels him.”

2010 Follow-up: I’m not sure what to think here. When I typed in “F#%!edsports.com there was no site. However, when I looked up “Buddy Maguire”, I found a site called FrostedSports.tv which has not been updated since October 2008. Either way, I’m going to say they are not active anymore. Maybe someone out there knows something different.

Number 5: Replacement Level Yankee Fan

2003 Forbes description highlight: “Larry Mahnken’s Replacement Level Yankees has a pretty, pinstriped design, in-depth opinions updated regularly and relevant stats … The site is slowly gaining popularity, drawing about 1,000 hits in May, 2,000 in June, 3,000 in July and 6,500 in August.”

2010 Follow-up: On April 2nd, 2007 Replacement Level Yankee Fan moved from its original location to www.replacementlevel.com. That web address however redirects to Revenge of the RLYW which picks up on March 15, 2008. It’s almost as if the Yankees didn’t exist for 11 months.

Overall, I have to give credit to these guys. Not only are they the forebearers of the sports blogging scene, but as a writer/blogger who has been on the scene for 3.5 years, I have to tip my cap to the writers at 4 out of 5 of these sites who continue to post quality material day in and day out.

Seven years is a long time. Great job, guys.

(Addendum: In 2004, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote an article on the growing sports blog scene. According to the P-I, at the time there were “322 blogs, with 267 dedicated to baseball. Some have become so popular, they are selling advertising.”)

After reading Prelude, I started thinking about the transportation situation in Tampa. Like most of America, a large majority of the residents of Tampa prefer private automobile use over public transportation. Buses, although used, remain a secondary alternative, ridden primarily by those without cars or those looking to save money on gas.

I predict this is going to change in the very near future. I think we will soon see a major shift in transportation culture. A shift that will require change in the perception and utility of public transportation.

One of the most consistent news trends of the last few years has been reporting the dangerous relationship between communication devices and driving. Every few weeks it seems another story is written about an accident involving a phoning, texting, or tweeting victim. According to a recent Mashable.com post, “an estimated 6,000 people were killed and 500,000 were injured due to cell-phone related car accidents” in 2008.

There is no doubt people are having trouble pausing their desire to stay social. With the growth of the communication industry and ease of staying in touch, we are seeing a cultural shift from the importance of travel to the need for continuous communication. We value staying in touch more than we do those short moments in which our concentration is needed for driving.

So far, our society’s initial reaction has been to fight this cultural shift. Mashable, a blog dedicated to technology and social media, recommended “a combination of legislation, social awareness, and technological innovation to create a safe marriage between social media and driving“. CNN also recently reported on a product designed to disable cell phones from calling or texting while vehicles are in motion.

Unfortunately, the genie of communication and increased socialization cannot be put back in the bottle. On the contrary, we need to embrace our need to be social.

This is where public transportation must step up. They must take the lead in embracing this cultural shift. Instead of being seen as secondary, they need to rebrand, remarket, and refocus their message and be perceived as a safe alternative for those who want to stay in touch while they travel.

Here are some ideas how public transportation systems can promote themselves to those who are putting increased value on communications:

1) Engage their sense of adventure and participation – One of the major buzzphrases is the last year on the technology front has been “geolocation – the “the identification of the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computer, mobile device, website visitor or other“. Public transportation organizations should encourage riders to plug in and announce where they are. These organizations could promote “Tweet ‘N’ Ride” events, incorporate social applications such as Foursquare, or even do virtual treasure hunts or games of “I Spy“.

2) Increase routes through college and young professional residential areas – In order to encourage usage, buses need to be seen in areas where communication-savvy people live. This means putting routes in the residential areas of people 18 to 35. These routes need to stop by places this demographic frequents, such as campuses, downtown areas, malls, entertainment complexes, and sports stadiums.

3) Ensure routes have good signal – Whenever possible, public transportation organizations should make sure there are few, if any deadzones along the routes. They could also make all bus stops Wi-Fi zones. If possible, these organizations should also put Wi-Fi on the buses.

4) Embrace social media – Although many transportation organizations already have twitter and facebook accounts, these organizations need to better utilize these platforms. Not only should the administration be engaging potential riders, but the buses should as well. However possible, each bus should have access to the tweeter feed and “automatically” tweet its location when it reaches stops along its route. This information could be broadcast not only to individuals through twitter, but also possibly to a small screen installed in each stop.

5) Target parents – In order to encourage teens and other members of the millennial generation that buses are a viable option, public transportation organizations should create advertising campaigns targeted to parents and other decision makers. Parents should be informed that they do not have to discourage their teen from communicating, and that options do exist for teens to travel and stay in touch.

In Prelude to a Super Airplane, the great culture battle between individual and mass aerial transportation culminates in 2012. If public transportation organizations can capitalize on the current growing cultural shift between transportation and communication, we may see the battle on land much sooner.