Since the sports world and sports media has been grossly preoccupied with the Super Bowl (and will likely continue to be inordinately concerned with football and the NFL until late July…just in time for the start of training camp) I’ll report on a couple sports occurrences that I found entertaining.
To start, I have to applaud the performances of numerous tennis players in the year’s first Slam event, the Australian Open. It was incredibly entertaining to watch. I found myself waking up at 3:00am, 4am, and 5 o’clock in the morning to catch a glimpse of the action throughout the fortnight. And boy was it competitive. With the exception of #5 seed Maria Sharapova on the Women’s side, the finalists on both the Men and Women’s sides were virtually unknowns.
One name everyone better get used to is Novak Djokovic. He dominated and beat the seemingly unstoppable Roger Federer—in straight sets too! Not to be outdone as far as upsets are concerned, the gentleman that Djokovic beat in the finals, Tsonga, made light work of world #2 Rafael Nadal. On the Women’s side, both Williams’ sisters were put out in the quarterfinals along with the very powerful world #1 Justine Henin. And what’s in the water in Serbia? Jelena Jankovic made the Women’s semifinals while Men’s finalist Djokovic and Women’s finalist Ana Ivanovic all hail from Serbia. In fact, virtual unknown Serb Tipsarevic pushed Federer to 5 sets in the 3rd round. It looks like this year in pro tennis will be hotly contested…and who knows, there may be a changing of the guard on both the men’s and women’s sides by year’s end.
What a surprise the New Orleans Hornets have been in the NBA! In a year that was supposed to be all about the Boston Celtics super trifecta of Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, the Hornets are the real story in the league. Coming from out of nowhere, the team that was moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to New Orleans (and then displaced from New Orleans to Oklahoma City following Hurricane Katrina to only resurface in New Orleans again this season) has dazzled and dominated for the first half of this NBA campaign. And straight up, Chris Paul is a beast! If he continues to play this way, he deserves to be the league MVP, hands down, bar-none!
Yo, since I’m on the topic of the National Basketball Association, I’m amazed at all these trades that have gone down this past week. Shaq to Phoenix, Gasol to the Lakers, and Webber to Golden State. I think that the Gasol trade might be the best of the bunch, but I’m not sleepin on Shaq.
Video has surfaced of New York Mets star pitcher Pedro Martinez attending a cockfight in his native Dominican Republic. On the heels of the Michael Vick story, I want to know where all the people are that were incensed that Vick was attending and bankrolling dogfights. True, there are a few factors that differ: 1. we don’t know if Martinez actually bet on or funded the cockfight, 2. we don’t know if this is a pattern of behavior, and 3. this happened in a nation where cockfighting is legal. However, if the sentiments of those outraged Vick protesters were complete and thorough, they would be calling for Martinez to be on the chopping block in NY. If something is wrong, like fighting animals happens to be, then it’s wrong no matter where it occurs (e.g. murder is murder, and animal cruelty is animal cruelty, whether in the USA or in the Dominican Republic). So I’m just asking for a little consistency from the supposed outraged public. I guess I was just disturbed by the fact that people seemed only SO upset about Vick because he was fighting dogs. I thoroughly doubt that if Vick had been cockfighting, or fighting snakes or cats, that we would’ve seen the nationwide outrage that we did. At least PETA is consistent…they want Pedro’s head on a platter.
And this just in, Tiger Woods is unreal! This guy seems poised to dominate for another year on the PGA tour. He is still on a roll, which extends back to last year. He’s started this year off with 2 convincing wins, with the second being a show of just sheer resilience. Tiger trailed Ernie Els by 4 strokes heading into the final round of the Dubai Desert Classic last week, but surged ahead to take home the trophy on Sunday. Is there any competition out there for this guy?
Ok I’ll stop…I think I watch sports too much!
-Maelstrom
1 comment:
Good for people to know.
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