Robbed.
Robbed.

Increasingly furious baseball fans join surf fans in rage against truncated finals formats: “The Dodgers and Braves have been Carissa Moore’d!”

Chas Smith

By

Ire in the autumn air.

It is October in America, that time of year when Laird Superfood Pumpkin Spice fills the air and baseball the soul. Yes, while the World Surf League may claim to be the nation’s pastime, baseball has long occupied that slot. The season, which kicks off in spring, consists of 162 games winding through the dog days of summer and culminating in autumn.

The Fall Classic.

Now, in times past, the top three teams from each of the three division, both National and American Leagues, punched their playoff ticket to the playoffs alongside the National and American League team with the best record that didn’t win its division as wildcards.

The Major League Baseball powers that be, though, wanted to add some spice and expanded the wildcard portion, allowing a few more teams a shot at the Big Dance. These teams play a three game series, then the winner plays the team with the best record in its league.

This tinkering has been compared to the World Surf League’s decision to implement “Finals Day” wherein the top five surfers, male and female, head to Lower Trestles to compete in a winner-take-all showdown.

While the intention was to “increase excitement” in both baseball and surfing, the results have also benefited upstarts that just so happened to “get hot.”

Take Stephanie Gilmore’s worst-to-first 2022 performance in which Carissa Moore, the champion all year, was unseated.

Or, over on the baseball side, the Arizona Diamondbacks sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers even though the Dodgers were ahead of the D-Backs by sixteen games at season end.

Last year, the Dodgers were undone by the San Diego Padres in similar fashion, leaving Dodger fans furious and wanting the playoff format changed back to the way it was.

Furious.

Message boards and op-eds are filled with “salty” messages from Dodgers, and Braves, fans decrying the “Carissa Moore-ing” of teams that proved their worth all season only to get “Lower Trestled.”

Surf fans not named Richard Toledo nodding quietly.

Will the grousing lead to changes?

Do you have thoughts on the matter or a horse in the race?

The Texas Rangers take on the Houston Astros tonight for the American League pennant.

All action, no lulls.

Tahitian surfers protest building of $5 million Olympic judging tower on Teahupoo’s coral reef as part of “sustainable” Paris 2024 Games

Derek Rielly

By

“It will completely destroy a large part of the lagoon in the face of the most beautiful wave in the world!”

A few weeks back the vaguely humorous story of Olympic organisers tearing down the old WSL wooden judging tower at Teahupoo and replacing it with a magnificent aluminium structure for the three-day event at a cost of five mill US.

Necessary, I suppose.

The old tower is rickety as hell, and who wants to be responsible for besuited officials plunging to their doom after a cross-beam snaps and brings the whole thing down, but a little rich, given Paris 2024 has positioned itself as the “sustainable” Games. 

Tahitian surfers ain’t so thrilled, as you can imagine.

It’s their home and they surf and fish and play on these reefs. 

Local surfer Tahurai Henry, therefore, has organised a protest against the construction on Sunday at eleven am, Tahitian time. I’m writing this at nine pm, Saturday, Sydney time, so in fourteen hours or so. 

“We’re up against this judge’s tour project that will completely destroy a large part of the lagoon in the face of the most beautiful wave in the world! A construction worth over 500 million francs for 3-4 days of competition that won’t be reused for our local surfers! ( No Inheritance )

“We will begin the walk from Teahupo’o town hall to the tip in front of the surf spot! Come one come all 🙏

“TEAHUPOO NEEDS YOU.” 

 

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Support for the action is being felt worldwide.

Eli Olson, a thirty-year-old jiujitsu black belt who grew up shredding alongside the Florence bro’s, posted a before and after of the Tahitian paradise along with the fighting words.

“Taking advantage of the local community and their kindness. I stand with my Tahitian brothers.”

If you happen to be in French Polynesia tomoz, swing on over to Tahiti-iti and put some boots on the ground.

And, in the interim, thrill a little to Henry’s post of Lucas Chumbo at Teahupoo.

 

 

Dorian (left) with Dozer Dave. Photo: Instagram
Dorian (left) with Dozer Dave. Photo: Instagram

Tragedy strikes in Mexico as Shane Dorian’s traveling companion for “life-altering” stem-cell therapy dies

Chas Smith

By

"Crying watching this video of you my brother. Love you."

Very sad news has trickled up from south of the border that “Dozer” Dave Barnett has died in Tijuana after traveling down with Shane Dorian for stem-cell therapy. Dorian thrilled his legion fans, days ago, when sharing that he was at the Cellular Performance Institute and ready to undergo injections of life-giving stem-cells.

Barnett, a much-loved figure in the surf industry, podcast host etc. was very excited, taking to Instagram, like Dorian, and sharing, “I’m about to get some stuff that’s life-changing. You guys haven’t seen me lately because… everything is going to shit. Getting old sucks.”

He shares all of his ailments, blown out knees, blown out ankles, bulging disks in neck and more.

“It kind of sucks,” he continues, pivoting to how he’s been given such a wonderful opportunity to undergo the stem-cell treatment. He shares about the vitamin preparation, saying one in particular “messed with him.”

Shane Dorian, always effusive, responded, “We got this bro! This post is so damn funny. Do the start about how you’re falling apart is amazing. This is going to be good for you. I’m excited for you. Don’t fall asleep in those MRIs ha ha.”

Dorian, taking to his own channel hours later, shared, he and Barnett spent the previous evening together after treatments, watched the Hangover then went to sleep. At some point, Barnett went into cardiac arrest and was unable to be revived even though many doctors were right there.

Tributes are pouring in.

Vintage surfboard collector Buggs penned, “Doze lost w words, lived life to the fullest . Had a big heart . Classic , funny , Witty, . Will truly be missed by many. I was looking forward to connect in MT . Will miss the frequent calls . RIP Brother and will catch one for you today in your honor.”

The musician Mike Love added, “Crying watching this video of you my brother. Love you.”

Surf industry legend Bob Hurley left crying eye emojis.

Tragic.

World Surf League thrown into turmoil as predicted “massive viewership” fails to materialize for exclusive Filipe Toledo sit down!

Chas Smith

By

"Friends, surf fans, countrymen, lend me your eyeballs..."

The 2023 World Surf League Championship Tour is long in the rearview, now. Only the faintest memories of Caroline Marks and Filipe Toledo being chaired up the Lower Trestles’ cobbled stone remain. The sound of Chris Cote’s voice announcing various top five surfers’ names like a dissipating cloud. Was Ethan Ewing’s back broken or something? Was he even there at all?

Yes, it is all a blur save the wildly impressive ratings’ spike Finals Day saw.

Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer was quick to the tools after that last bell of the season, sharing there had been a near 30% increase in live digital views for the aforementioned hoedown.

Impressive by any measure and, no doubt, the World Surf League brain trust was tasked with capturing that momentum and making it real.

Alas, trouble. Inn a seemingly surefire way to capture and convert, the League sat its men’s champ, Filipe Toledo, in front of “the voice of surfing” Joe Turpel for an exclusive one-on-one interview and released, for free, on YouTube.

Boom town?

Not exactly as the nine-minute interview has failed to surpass 5k views in three days and counting.

Toledo, wearing a t-shirt that reads “Peace Power: The World Surf Champ” looks comfortable receiving softballs from Turpel, who is wearing missionary button-down from 1982.

The King of Saquarema even cries at the end, which made me sad for all the heckling and prodding you have done about his brave cowardice at Teahupoo. It was really over the top. Too much. Can we, then, do the world’s best small wave surfer and “champion of a human being,” as Turpel calls him, a favor and kick this video over 5k?

I think it will make you feel good inside.

Property prices at surf enclave Lennox Head “recalibrated” after record-breaking $18 million sale of “seaside masterpiece”

Derek Rielly

By

New owner drawn to Lennox Heads’ “low-key appeal”.

If any further proof was needed of the wildest property bubble in Australia’s history, the 18 mill sale of a joint in Lennox Head, once a hardscrabble town of surfers and blue-collar workers, is probably it. 

The “seaside masterpiece” at 44-52 Blue Seas Parade, Lennox Head, which looks right into the guts of the famous righthander, is “the best property on the east coast, in terms of what it offers in terms of 8.5 acres sitting on one of the most easterly points of Australia with panoramic ocean and coastal views,” selling agent Nick Bordin told the Australian Financial Review.

The vendor, retired software developer George Farley, bought the land in 2012 for a little under three-mill and built the five-bed pavilion style home.

He was chasing twenty-mill, but settled for an undisclosed amount between seventeen and eighteen mill. 

But the value wasn’t so much about the house, pretty as it is, but about the…land. 

Software developers ain’t dumb.

Farley got council approval to create a sub-division of eight luxury homes alongside the main house so, likely, the new owner will bring in the dozer and the cranes ala Owen Wright’s $30 million Byron Bay development.

Two years ago, the director-headliner of retro-surf movie Breath, Simon Baker, shucked his seventeen-mill mansion in Sydney for a cement block and timber beach shack a few hundred metres from Lennox Point. 

Baker, who is fifty-four, bought the two-bedder at 23 Dress Circle Drive, Lennox Head, for almost three-mill following the breakup of his marriage and the subsequent sale of couple’s Bronte house for seventeen-mill; a place they bought in 2015 for six-and-a-half mill. 

His Lennox joint, a sleepy eyed derelict, is one of the last remaining original houses in Dress Circle Drive, the modest holiday homes having long given way to man’s urgent need for compounds and monoliths. 

“This is the ideal site to make a terrific new statement,” advised the selling agent. “It stands on an elevated 505sqm medium density allotment within strolling distance to the beach, cafes and all of Lennox’s amenities. This is a rare real estate offering that will bring fantastic rewards to those wishing to upgrade, knockdown/rebuild or develop the site and capitalise on such a tightly held setting.”

Surprisingly deft on a surfboard, Baker grew up in Lennox before treading the boards in Sydney, Los Angeles etc.

“You can’t deny the power of this landscape,” Baker told 60 Minutes while standing with reporter at Lennox Point. “It’s got this intensity and whether you like it or not it will have an impact on you.”

A cursory jog through Lennox’s recent property sales reveals it ain’t Byron Bay’s poor sister any more. 

Mill and a half for a townhouse, two mill to be near the beach. If you don’t have generational wealth or are at least four rungs up the property ladder, you ain’t buying. 

Rent forever kids, although one thing money can’t buy is a deft rock jump.

 

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Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
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