Wednesday, December 23, 2009

See you in a week

Brutal loss for Florida basketball last night. Every bit of momentum from the early tournament win against Michigan State has now been given away, thanks to a home loss to South Alabama. This team can certainly still make the tournament, but they can say goodbye to the rankings for at least a month after the week they just had. Either the outside shooting has to improve, which doesn't seem that likely, or they have to cool it on taking so many shots from there.

The Yankees continue to add ridiculous depth to their arsenal, acquiring Javier Vasquez from Atlanta for the thoroughly unremarkable Melky Cabrera and a couple of prospects. Everyone knew the Braves needed to move an arm, but this doesn't inspire great confidence in their plan going forward unless it leads to something bigger. As for New York, I continue to wonder how it's enjoyable to be a Yankees fan. Their season's a waste of time until the playoffs, and if any injuries or disappointments occur they'll just buy someone else to fill in the hole. It's legal, but where's the fun of rooting for a team like that?

Everyone's doing athlete of the year awards right now, and yesterday Serena Williams won the AP's honor for female athletes. What grabbed my attention was the second place choice: Zenyatta. That's right, the horse. I don't care that Zenyatta's a filly, this is ridiculous. Comparing seperate species just because they're in the same gender is absurd. Beyond that, does anyone think a male horse will get serious consideration on the men's side of the award anytime soon? If the "athlete" doesn't know she's even involved in a sport, she shouldn't be involved in the voting for these kind of awards.

The Wall Street Journal did a lengthy piece focused on former FSU player Myron Rolle. The headline reads "Can Scholars Make Dollars in the NFL?" Of course they can - if they're good football players. That's the detail people writing about Rolle seem to be missing - his play for FSU wasn't all that special. Rolle was a highly touted recruit, but when I watched him play I didn't see the performance to back that up. No NFL draft gurus considered him anything better than a midround pick last season, and that was before he took a full year away from the game to study at Oxford. By all indications Rolle's a terrific young man, and would be a wonderful example for any young athlete to follow. The NFL won't give a crap about that if he gets burned in games, and fifth round picks don't generally get big endorsements whether they're scholars or can't spell scholar.

My wife and I will begin our trip to Tampa late tonight. I've never traveled with a dog before, so this could be interesting. As previously noted, I'll be taking a blogging break for the holidays. The regular posting schedule will resume here on Wednesday the 30th from Birmingham, where I'll be a small part of the raw excitement and energy surrounding the Papa John's Bowl between South Carolina and UConn. Thanks for reading - I hope you have a terrific Christmas. If you're not burned out on holiday music, enjoy my personal favorites: Stevie Wonder's "What Christmas Means To Me", U2's Baby Please Come Home and Run-DMC's Christmas in Hollis.

3 comments:

Sharon said...

Merry Christmas!

Anonymous said...

Heath, you can go to the Vet and get these little red pills that you wrap in cheese and feed to your dog that is the equivalent to a human drinking half a bottle of scotch (er, am I not to make cross species comparisons?). At any rate, the dog will pass out in the back and you'll have drama-free driving. Recommended for large and/or hyper dogs.

Unknown said...

merry Christmas and safe traves.