Tuesday, July 10, 2007

It must be July ...

Now, I'm not a huge sports fan, but I enjoy watching my share of football (college and pro), March Madness, NBA playoffs, and the odd Orioles game and soccer match now and then. But, come summer, we're all hung out to dry in the sere desert of mid-season MLB baseball. The problem here is that by the all-star break there is absolutely nothing happening in any sport except baseball. The NBA and NHL playoffs are over, both drafts (NFL and NBA) are finished, and even golf is lukewarm. There's Wimbledon, but the matches are played in the middle of the day and I'm not exactly going to take 2 weeks off of work to watch British people clap supportively every time the chair judge repeats that flash photography isn't permitted because tennis players wear all white and there's a chance the extra light rays might stain their clothes. This would all be fine and dandy if the MLB were gearing up for the quadruple-fortnight World Series, but at this point it may as well be another 8 years away.

The unique majesty of baseball's World Series is only 5 short months away.

Mid-season baseball is boring. By now we all know who's good and who sucks. The Red Sox are good. The Yankees suck. The Mets are good. The Cubs suck. The Nationals suck. The Orioles suck [of course, we're never really given an opportunity to wonder if the Orioles will suck or not because they have been thoroughly consistent in this aspect for the past decade, largely thanks to an opprobriously egomaniacal owner]. And we're only at the fucking All-Star break for god's sakes, of which its Home Run Derby is as big a joke at the NBA's dunk contest---not to mention that Barry Bonds opted not to enter the homerun derby, which is bewildering on 10^5 levels (sorry, I've been taking a GRE test prep class). By the way, to call this period a "break" is hilarious to me. The only people on a baseball field at any time that ever actually do anything are the pitchers and the ball boys/girls, so having a "break" is pretty unnecessary. Well, maybe we should count the fans who occassionally interfere. Even the baseball commentators are obviously bored right now. There could be a game-winning inside-the-park grandslam hit by a wheelchair-bound, terminally ill 10-year old girl in the bottom of the 9th inning and the announcers would still be talking about how they're continually amazed at the number of bugs there are buzzing around the stadium lights.

Kevin Garnett remains seriously concerned about what everyone is telling him that he's thinking.

So except for baseball dragging us along, what are we left with to entertain us while hiding inside from the brutal summer heat? Well, as far as sports news goes right now, there's three huge, earthshaking stories I absolutely need to follow closely right now. First, we can all vapidly gossip about whether or not Bud Selig will end up sitting down in a baseball stadium when a chemically enhanced titan hits another ball over a wall. Second, that little Asian hotdog eater got beaten by a three-hotdog margin by an American named after a yuletide nut. And finally we can continue to follow the neverending carnival of rumors about Kevin Garnett being traded to the Boston Celtics (June 19), Phoenix Suns (June 25), LA Lakers (June 26), Charlotte Bobcats (June 28), Chicago Bulls (June 30), Dallas Mavericks (July 5), Golden State Warriors (July 9), and the Miami Sound Machine (July 10).


An acute visual representation of my wasted time.

Smartly, the hosts on the only sports show I enjoy, Pardon The Interruption, have taken vacations for what feels like a month, and so I'm left with listening to the possibly unintentionally self-deprecating humor of Dan Le Betard and the pacifist verbage of J.A. Adonde, whose dialogue together leaves me feeling like I just ate a pound of feathers without knowing it.

Fortunately, it's just under 2 months until college football kicks off and I can begin worrying about Michigan coming back in the fourth quarter of every game rather than worrying about the Orioles struggling to tread above a .450 win record.

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