Breaking down the headlines

Rather than broach one subject this week, I thought it would be interesting to take some short looks at a bunch of things that happened in sports over the last week or so.

Tiger Woods wins the U.S. Open
I wouldn’t profess myself to be a fan of golf, but I am a fan of Tiger Woods. So when he’s playing in a tournament, I’m likely to at least follow it. Once Tiger was still in the hunt after two days, I knew there was a chance something special could happen that weekend and boy did it ever. At one point during the weekend I referred to Woods as a cyborg and said the competitors needed to hide the WD-40. They didn’t, and he won. He wasn’t his most dominating self. And that was surely the most impressive part of all. He proved he was human, and still, like Superman pounding through a kryptonite wall, Tiger came out on top. ON ONE LEG! Which brings me to our next development….

Tiger Woods out for the rest of the season; PGA screwed
ONE LEG! Can you fathom doing your job on one leg? Maybe. But do you have to generate enough power to drive a ball 300 feet for your job. And then do you have to walk for 91 HOLES on that same one leg? If you do, well, you’re lying, no one has to do that. No one would do it. Except Tiger, because he’s just that good.

Just days after his U.S. Open victory, what may or may not go down as his greatest victory ever, we find out he had a double stress fracture of his tibia AND a ruptured ACL. This is bigger than Willis Reed, or Kirk Gibson or Jordan with the flu. I’m proud to say I watched Tiger do what he did, because I know it’s a story that I’ll be able to recall years from now. I’m just sorry it cost him the rest of the year. And for that matter, so is the PGA.

How fast do you think the networks that have the British Open and the PGA Championship peed their pants when they heard about this? There’s a huge difference between a Tiger tournament and a non-Tiger tournament. He is THE draw. The others have fans. Tiger has throngs. I just hope the injury doesn’t cloud his future. Get well soon Tiger; the game just isn’t the same.

Sick of Boston yet?
I am! And I just took an awesome trip there a few weeks ago. I made my first trip to Fenway Park and it was everything I imagined. The people of Boston definitely have it made. The city now has six major sports championships in the last seven years. And they were a David Tyree catch from seven. Insane! You guys want to let everybody else play? Speaking of the Celtics…

Celtics prove money can buy love, championships
Congratulations Celtics, you won your seventh NBA Championship putting together a mini All-Star team. KG, Pierce and Allen? Who can compete? Does anyone remember anymore that Kevin Garnett at first refused a trade to Boston? That seems to be one of those things that gets lost in the shuffle.

The Celtics threw the dough at Garnett after he dissed them the first time and he finally came running. Now months later, it was a great decision, but I’d just like all these Celtics fans crawling out of the woodwork to remember that your savior nearly chose to stay and rot in Minnesota than play for you…just sayin’. Now that the Celtics are a powerhouse again, expect many more reincarnations of the cross-country rivalry that just won’t die.

The Lakers will be back, better
Mark me down as one of the ones who believe this series is a whole different story if the Lakers have Andrew Bynum back from injury. The kid was just starting to realize his enormous potential when he went down in the winter. Pair him with Gasol, Odom, another rising star in Jordan Farmar, oh yeah and Kobe, the greatest player in the game today, and the Lake-show will be shushing all the skeptics a year from now. Speaking of Kobe’s skeptics…

Someone take that mic away from Shaq, tell him he’s awful
Shaquille O’Neal opened his big mouth again this week and for some reason, people are still listening. Shaq competed in a rap battle, like he’s B. Rabbit or something, and decided he was going to use the spotlight to drag Kobe through the dirt.

Some samplings from The Big Weasel…err Diesel:

“You know how I be. Last week Kobe couldn’t do without me.”
“Kobe [expletive], tell me how my [expletive] tastes.”

Do what you will with those expletives. It’s like a sick game of mad libs, but regardless of your fill-in-the-blank preference, am I the only one that’s getting tired of Shaq’s act?

I mean, Shaq, I didn’t wanna tell you this because I was younger and easily entertained then, by “Kazaam” was awful and “Steel” was even worse. Wait, no it wasn’t, only “Glitter” was worse than “Kazaam,” but “Steel” was awful too.

Shaq, you’re not funny. And you’re not good at basketball anymore either. The Suns literally ruined their season just by trading for you. And then their coach left to coach the Knicks! That right there says it all. You were tolerable when Penny Hardaway was your sidekick, I could stomach you when Kobe had your back, but now you’re nothing. Just give it up. And let’s see YOU win a title without a pure scorer. You know D-Wade is just a younger Kobe, right? You didn’t prove anything with the Heat. D-Wade carried all 300 pounds of you through that title run. Don’t hate on Kobe cause he has it better than you do now.

That’s all the headlines I’ve got this week. I’ll be back on Friday with a spirited breakdown of my beloved Mets, a team that can’t even fire a guy the right way.