Monday, 2-Jul-2001
Spurious
thoughts and idle musings from the sports week just past ...
A mellow
Ye Olde First Week at The Fortnight is in the books with one major upset as the
top-seeded Swiss Miss had her marshmallows melted by some unseeded Spanish el
jibrona named Virginia Ruano Pascual.
But the Williams bruisers, Lindsay Davenport and Jen Capriati are all
still in play at dear old Wimbledon.
Meanwhile, on the men's side, it's the same old yawnfest as Peter The
Unclay Great, Andre, Patrick Rafter, Lleyton Hewitt and even old Goran
Ivanisevic still got some hops left.
Quiet, please.
Word from
Hell Ay has Kobe Bryant and his wife, Vanessa, slamming down $13,500,000 to buy
a 16,000 square foot SoCal spread. On
ten acres of prime Orange County land, Kobe's Krib includes ten bedrooms, a
movie theater, game room and a billiards room plus a half-scale replica pirate
ship, water slides, man-made caves, bumper boats and a lake stuffed with
fishies. Now all Kobe-Wan needs to do
is steal Pee-wee Herman's bicycle and he'll be all set.
Wanna
guess how much season tix for those courtside Knicks seats in MSG go for
??? You know, those primo ones where
Spike Lee, Jerry Seinfeld, Louden Swain, Nuke LaLoosh and Annie Savoy see and
be seen ??? Well, next season, they're
going for $70,400 a pop. Let's go to
the math ... Let's see now, the Knicks play 41 home games plus 3
exhibitions. Okay, carry the two, drop
the zero, move the decimal point over and you get ... yikes ... $1,600.00 per
game. Gold Club dancers sold
separately.
Among
NASCAR's newest corporate sponsors is none other than the United States Marine
Corps. However, according to USMC Maj
Robert Winchester, the Semper Fi boys took their time jumping on the RPM
Speedwagon because of that whole, you know, Southern redneck image thang. Or in other words, all them rebel yellin'
gearheads just might've been a bad mix with The Few, The Proud, The Rhodes
Scholars. Yeah, thanks for clearing
that up, Major.
Top shelf
highlights were abundant at the NBA Draft as four of the first eight picks were
high school seniors. The only college
senior tabbed that early was Shane Battier, ol' Shar Pei Head himself, who
short-circuited Craig Sager's mike when he correctly used the word
"archaic" to describe his four-year college career. Then there's that always agonizing
"Last Man Left In The Green Room" contest. And this year's winner was ... envelope please ... former Tar
Hole Brendan "Mr Whipple" Haywood.
Boo-yeah.
Who sez
you can't steal first base ???
First-year Pirates skipper Lloyd McClendon apparently doesn't believe
that old saw as he yanked the bag outta the ground and stomped off the field
with it following a blown call against Milwaukee last Tuesday. Say, um, Lloyd, where ya going ??? Look, we got a ballgame to finish here, babe. Okay, skip, have it your way but you better
be getting your checkbook ready, man.
Something tells me you're gonna be writing a big one.
Got a
spare $1.1 million dollars lying around ???
Afraid to sink it into the shaky stock market these days ??? Well then, just sign on to eBay and place
your bid to sponsor the PGA Tour's BC Open.
The winning bid gets advertising space, party tents with food service
and all kinds of other name branding goodies.
I kid you not. Don't forget to
use your PayPal account.
More NBA
notes ... Never ever a dull moment seeing 19-year-old skyscrapers in $2,000 big
pimpin' suits shaking hands with the belt-high Sterminator. Can you say "advance against signing
bonus" ??? And how about that
mid-week trading frenzy ??? Four point
guards booked one-ways ... Jason Kidd for Stephon Marbury and White Chocolate
for Mike Bibby. Also, Shareef
Abdur-Rahim for somebody named Pau Gasol and Cliff Robinson for a coupla coat
hangers and a bottle cap good for $25 off a Jeff Gordon t-shirt.
Tony
Gwynn, one of the most remarkable hitters in MLB history, said last week he's
gonna join Cal Ripken in the old folks home after this season's up. Pay attention now ... Tony's hit over .300
for 18 straight NL seasons. In four of
those seasons, he hit over .370. And
with his lifetime .338 average, he'd now have to go hitless for two full
seasons to sink under .300. And get
this .. Tony Gwynn is hitting .433 (39-for 90) lifetime against Greg Maddux ...
With exactly *zero* whiffs while facing the 4-time Cy Young ace. Whew.
Sometimes
when you see a transaction go down, you gotta look at the hidden agendas too
... Take, for example, the Flyers who inked Yote C Jeremy "By The Time I
Get The Hell Outta Phoenix" Roenick to a phat $37.5 million dollar phree
agent deal last week. So what, you
say. Well, along with Keith Primeau and
the rights to Czech cztar Jiri Dopita, the Broad Streeters now have three world
class centers. And that is one world
class middle finger that GM Bob Clarke is aiming at Eric Lindros and his trade
demands.
Still
more MLB kibbles and bits ... The Tomaflops leapfrogged the Phading Phillies
for the NL East lead but my boys then swept five Fish games to take it
back. Barry Bonds cooled off a bit, Red
Sox Nation is sweating bullets waiting for word on Pedro's wing and Brooklyn
finally has the horsehide back as the summer A league Cyclones opened their new
Coney Island ballpark. Which hopefully
means that Doris Kearns Goodwin, Daniel Okrent, George Will and all those other
Ken Burns bobblehead pundits will shut up now.
Speaking
of world class, how was your World Bowl party ??? What, no taco salad ???
No bean dip ??? Oh well, the
Berlin Thunder probably don't mind as they upset the Barcelona Dragons to win
the IXth champeenship of the NFL's European summer league. Jonathan "The Mighty" Quinn, last
seen picking up Mark Brunell's jock in the Jagwires locker room, tossed three
sixes to take home the MVP hardware.
Geez, can you tell I'm dying for some real pig here or what ???
See ya
nexted week ...
Robert E Hunt Jr
Copyright ã 2001 by Robert E Hunt Jr. All rights reserved.