Draft Day Suit

Not much going on in MY world of sports. The Indians are out of the pennant race. Unless they’re giving out a “We Suck” pennant this year, in that case they are in the thick of things. For teams going after the regular pennants, they have a good 30+ games to get through yet, so there’s plenty left to be said in MLB.

I’m starting to feel the football vibe, but my most recent fantasy draft netted me Rashard Mendenhall and Randy Moss in my first two rounds. Yes, picking 10th was a huge advantage this year as I was able to get that second, unexciting guy right away. I like my disappointment hot and immediate (and yes I do believe she said that.)

My 5.5-month old son is helping me write this. His favorite sport is the 8-finger keyboard mash, particularly when it results in an alert beep from the PC speaker. I have to watch him though because he’s all over the control and alt keys and frequently brings up previously unknown keyboard shortcut dialogs. “Are you sure you would like to self-destruct your computer?” He and clippy would have been the best of friends.

Hockey is a couple of months away, both NHL and rec style. I have a good feeling I’m going pro this year though!  Keep your fingers crossed.  I have it on good authority that the pros are looking for a lot of 34-year-old rookies.  They just watched and were inspired by that Dennis Quaid movie.

And everything else is kind of blah.  Things are so slow that the Bengals have gone the whole day without an arrest (last check 2 p.m.)!  Talk about a dull sports day!

Oh well, I guess I’ll go back to killing my lawn.  aj[[[ pofeisu 98gea – Oh, and Lincoln says goodbye.

My alma mater is having a golf outing in the area to raise money for kids who can’t read good or some such and I’m thinking of going. But, I’m not a “networker.” I don’t enjoy “talking to strangers” or “not being anti-social.” I find I “sweat profusely around others.” While I will have graduated with most participants, I’m not one to be in for a foursome of back-slappin’ class of ‘77ers.

That being the case, I asked a friend if she was going. She told me she “wasn’t much of a golfer.” I replied, “Golfing is only a vehicle to drunkeness.” While a good Flyer never needs an excuse to drink, it helps to keep the rehab whispers at bay if you’re not drinking alone on your couch on a Tuesday or blending girly drinks in the office closet most afternoons. So, that is the opportunity that sport affords. Pure, delightful boozing.

In that spirit, allow me to present the best sports for drinking.

• Running Sports: So far, off to a bad start. Unless you’re going for the immediate purge, it’s a bad idea to chug a couple of beers and then start running all over hell’s half-acre. Pace yourself and slow things down so as to increase your intake. Remember drunkenness and not excellence is the goal in sports or aerobic fitness.
• Golf: Better choice. You’re outside. It’s usually sunny. If you’re one shade on the dark side of Powder like me, the sun will accelerate the process. But, you do have to swing the club kind of a lot and there’s an abundance of walking, even with the cart. If there’s no drink-cart girl, you might as well be wandering the Mojave.
• Softball: While nearly all softball players look like they could shotgun a twelver, it’s exceedingly difficult to partake during the game. I’ve heard of mythical “keg” leagues where there’s a keg at third base, but much like unicorns, it eludes.
• Boating: Boating is not really a sport, but you can do sport-type things off the back of a boat, water-skiing, tubing, exploding Jaws and whatnot. Problem being you’ve got to be hella-good at water-skiing to chug a beer while doing it. That would take many, many years of practice. Years you could have spent drinking. But, you might wonder, is pulling your friend in a tube behind the boat in an effort to get him to wipe out a sport? Well, ok, but only if you draw blood.
• Darts: To me, darts is the ultimate drinking “sport.” There’s an element of danger – ever hit the ring around the bull and the dart came back at you? There’s downtime between throws, adequate for chugging. It’s played IN A BAR. And, while probably not a “sport,” its professional players are always drinking DURING COMPETITION. I think that’s what’s always impressed me so much about Babe Ruth. He was hammered or hungover for nearly all of his games. Professional darters are his adopted sons, drunkenly throwing sharp metal objects at cork.

And there you have it. May all your drinks be cold and all your sports slow-paced.

My first biking memory is of propping my banana-seated bicycle up against my family’s fence and then climbing that fence so that I could get on said banana seat.  Gleefully, I pedaled and rode off.  It was my first solo, two-wheeled bike ride and it was glorious.  I was on my third lap around our cul de sac before I realized, “Shit.  How am I going to get off this crazy thing?”

That pretty much summarizes my bicycling knowledge.  How to get on, pedal and ultimately chafe like a melonfarmer after even the shortest of rides.  So when Floyd Landis says, “I saw Lance Armstrong using drugs,” I’m not exactly speaking as an authority.  I should probably stop here, but what fun is that?  Let the speculation and uninformed opinion-making ensue!

I got dibs on whale sperm.

Apparently, there are a lot of ways to cheat in cycling.  And Landis accuses Armstrong of the following:

• Transfusing his own blood and having a strong aversion to garlic.
• Dating Sheryl Crow.  While not performance enhancing, Landis found it “kind of creepy.”
• Landis said that Armstrong received blood transfusions during races.  It’s unclear if it was Armstrong’s own blood or the blood of 1,000 purified super-cycling babies!  Further confounding, how was Armstrong able to pedal with all those cumbersome tubes?
• Armstrong was known to “cut the legs off drifters” and use them to power up the Tour’s steep mountain climbs.
• Instead of water, Armstrong would drink the tears of newly orphaned children. While unnecessarily salty, the thought of their pain delighted and motivated him.
• Armstrong gave Landis testosterone patches in an effort to get Landis to stop being such a “gaping weeping vagina” about all the doping in cycling.

Armstrong has not answered this round of allegations directly, but his attorney, Tim Herman had this to say:

Landis is a confessed perjurer and he is a liar, and I think, as Lance said … when you taste milk to see if it’s sour, you take a first taste and you don’t have to drink the whole carton to know it’s all sour.

http://verto.net/public/2009/05/28/milkshake/

Take that for what you will, but it sounds like Armstrong has gone “downtown” with Landis. If you know what I mean. And I think you do. Sinner.

It seems to me that cycling is dividing into two distinct skills — riding a bike and, more importantly, getting away with cheating. And according to Landis, Armstrong was the perfect synthesis of super-cheating cycling power. And admittedly, I have no idea if Armstrong cheated. I hope he didn’t. But, considering how dirty the sport is isn’t it difficult to believe he’d be able to beat so many doped Frenchmen powered by only Wheaties and apple pie?

Look at the evidence; could a clean athlete win the All-Drug Olympics?

We may never know for sure. But we do know that right now Lance Armstrong wants to get off this crazy thing.

David Stern is the NCAA of professional sports fining. Say or do anything and you are likely in violation of some rule and subject to his sanction. But unlike the NCAA, David Stern’s whimsies are not published anywhere that I know of. He just kind of goes from day to day and levies fines when he needs a new pair of cuff links or some other rich guy accessory.

So it goes for my hero, Dan Gilbert. David Stern just dropped a 100K bomb on Danny boy for his Comic Sans diatribe criticizing LeBron James and his “THE DECISION.” Reading his comments, it’s not exactly clear what his violation was, other than going a little batshit insaney. Presumably this is well within his rights as a citizen, but under the thumb of ol’ Dave and the NBA, it is not so. You might say the slaver has become the slavee . . . ? But if you did, you wouldn’t be making much sense.

Best I can tell, Gilbert’s comments were a little too much? I’m not sure. See if you can figure it out:

I think that remarks by Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavaliers, catalyzed as they may have been by hurt with respect to the manner and the fact for himself, his team, and particularly for the people of Cleveland, though understandable, were ill-advised and imprudent. I have notified Cleveland that they will be fined $100,000 for those remarks under my power as Commissioner.

100G for being ill-advised and imprudent? Damn. I’d hate to be David Stern Jr. dropping that first, accidental f-bomb in front of mom and dad.

Fine. Dan Gilbert gets fined. But does LeBron get fined for being a doucher? No, he does not. Despite the fact LeBron’s spectacle was “ill-conceived, badly produced and poorly executed.” He gets off with some soft-pedaled criticism that he’s likely never to hear about. Why nothing for LeBron? Stern loved every minute of it. He says that LeBron should have informed the Cavs of his decision before announcing, thereby allowing Cleveland to pursue free agents who signed before the announcement. But, don’t believe it for a minute. The greater the number of teams presumably involved in the BronStakes means the greater the ratings, means the greater the exposure for the NBA. And make no mistake the market share in northeast Ohio was huge. (Personally, I did not watch as I was involved in an intense over-30 co-ed indoor soccer game. We (Go Bolts!) got the 6-2 win; thanks for asking.)

To wit:

In Cleveland, “The Decision” drew a staggering 26 rating — meaning more than one in four homes had TVs tuned to ESPN to see James say he was leaving his hometown Cavaliers for the Miami Heat.

In Miami, the show had a 12.8 rating.

Why only less than half of the love in Miami as Cleveland? Miamiahams were all busy smuggling drugs into the country. Oh, I kid. Actually, they were all on the beach having sex with multiple supermodels and increasing their likelihood of contracting skin cancer and gonorrhea – simultaneously. It can’t be ALL fun and sex on the beach, you know. While here in Cleveland besides watch that train wreck all we would have had to do was shovel snow. Why not take a break to enjoy some hot cocoa and superstar back-stabbing? We were accused of overreacting after the announcement, but we only burn his jerseys to keep warm.

Fortunately for Cavs fans, this fine shouldn’t hurt the franchise too much. I mean, bottom line, we are fucked. 100 large here or there isn’t going to make much of a difference.

So David Stern, I fine you $78.52 for being so arbitrary and enigmatic. I am not greedy, but I am in need of a new Mo Williams jersey.

[photo: Tony Dejack]

[photo: Clark]