Sports stories, ad nauseating

By Jeff Glauser
The Phanatic Magazine

In today’s instant access society, you’re considered out of the loop and living in a cave if you haven’t been informed of that big news story which occurred within the last hour. There are, of course, many benefits to this “I want to know yesterday” information retrieval and the resources we now have at our disposal, be it the Internet (and where would our lives be if we weren’t kept abreast of Paris had for prison lunch?), cable or radio.

The con to this, other than becoming desensitized to the topic – a la war, violence, terrorism and Brittny’s latest haircut, is that, quite frankly, hearing the same crap over and over again starts becoming quite annoying after a while.

This holds true in the sports world as well, where in the past several weeks alone there have been stories conveyed to us ad nauseam.

The intent of this column is for my rants to serve as an official funeral for the following pieces, among others:

- I don’t care if Barry Bonds almost hit a home run last night. I don’t care if it’s been two days, six hours, nine minutes and four-tenths of a second since his last one. I don’t care that Hank Aaron doesn’t care either – although I’m sorry that he’s unable to spell. Barry has officially become obsolete and his record inevitable – not anticipated – for most people.

Considering what we now know, I think it’s time to reassess the grandeur of the record he’ll be breaking. It’s not such a mythical thing anymore. Let’s move on.

- On a somewhat relevant segue, the time to investigate steroid use in baseball was ten years ago when everyone and their mother were using them. It’s too late now. Retroactive punishment will serve no purpose and Congress is incompetent enough as it is to have to waste additional taxpayer money on this. Although it is somewhat fascinating how the more face Bud Selig tries to save, the deeper he digs himself, the ship has sailed on this, as well as on him (who, incidentally, has become the worst commissioner in sports history. Yes, even worse than Bettman, Herpen readers).

So Bud, please leave Giambi alone, leave us alone and perhaps work on more important issues like contracting teams like the Devil Rays and eliminating the designated hitter.

- Whether it’s smacking the ball out of a fielder like a special ed kid trying to get his first hit or shoving a shortstop on a double play like a 6th grade bully or simply going bush league by pretending he is a shortstop calling off the third baseman, I believe A-Rod is an ass for what he does on the field. If you’re supposedly transcendently great, you don’t need to resort to these tactics. You rely on skill, and perhaps a little respect for the game. To me, what he’s done is the equivalent of flopping in basketball or hockey. So therefore, I have little respect for a man whose eye-popping regular season statistics mean less than Bobby Abreu’s during his time in Philly.

HOWEVER… I can care less about which buxom blonde bimbo he’s seen with at a Toronto strip club. He can be seen with three albino crossdressing midgets at a bowling alley for all I care. As long as laws are not broken (excluding the ones he has with his wife, which are none of our business), I really don’t care. Like Bonds and his homer-posing and half-speed efforts, there are plenty of reasons to dislike him for his on-the-job performances.

(With that said, I can’t WAIT for the next time he faces the Blue Jays and I will personally lose respect for the entire franchise if there isn’t a “Rawlings” tattoo on his back by game’s end.)

- All this talk about Yankees reminds me of something – I don’t care about the Yankees and whether or not the playoffs are out of reach. It’s a 162-game season. We’ve barely completely 60 of them thus far. Let’s play about 70 more and perhaps then we can revisit this discussion. Until then, let’s just continue hating them for general reasons.

Switching sports…

- If another Cincinnati Bengal player gets arrested, can we just rerun an old archive piece? Seriously, no one will notice.

- For the love of unsurprisingly crappy NBA Finals, will someone please end all the dissection of every Lebron performance? He’s 22, he’s exponentially sped up the expectation timeline for himself as well as the Cavs and, with the Spurs on cruise control this entire series, you could replace his supporting cast with YMCA rejects and the final scores will essentially remain the same.

Let’s credit the kid for finally showing what he can truly do when he cares and chalk the rest up to a growing experience. Many of us forget that another No. 23 was in the league seven years and fastly approaching 30 when he first got to – and won – a championship. He turned out okay, didn’t he?

- Are the Spurs a dynasty now? Are they not? Let’s just create an official mathematical equation and get this over with once and for all:

If, in a period of no less than four seasons but no more than eight, a team has won the championship more than half the time in that span and consecutively at least once, it is considered a dynasty.

The reason why it needs to be at least four seasons is because that indicates sustained success. A dynasty by nature needs to be considered an era of sorts. Therefore, back to back titles, a la the 1992-93 Blue Jays or the 1994-95 Rockets just doesn’t cut it. And it should be cut off at eight because after that, you’re typically dealing with an entirely different cast of characters. Therefore, the 1991-1998 Bulls obviously would make the cut (even though Jordan and Pippen were the only two to be a part of all six championships. With that in mind, one could argue that it should be considered two separate dynasties: 1991-93 and 1996-98).

When San Antonio wins this year, that will make four in nine seasons and three in five. The latter would have qualified them, but they have not won two years in a row yet. So therefore, if the Spurs win it all next season, they will be a dynasty. End of story.
In fact, end of all of these stories. They may now rest in peace.