Horse Racing is LAME!

 

I will never say that I have been a fan of horse racing, but usually I find myself watching the Kentucky Derby.  This year, however, I was lucky enough to have been busy on that day.  There is little worse in life than watching an animal completely break down, as Derby runner-up Eight Belles did last weekend.  Everyone knows that when a horse’s leg breaks, it’s usually glue factory time, and it was no different for Eight Belles as he was euthanized on the track shortly after breaking both front ankles.  

Think about how it would be to see a football player get euthanized on field after tearing an ACL.  Either way, sports is a consumption industry, when an athlete can benefit the industry they are allowed to stay, but when the athlete (whether human or a horse) is no longer able to serve their purpose, they are cast aside like a sack of moldy tangerines.  Eight Belles and Barbaro died for their sport in the last three years, countless humans have taken performance-enhancing substances to get to or stay at the top for decades (see: Lyle Alzado, Ken Caminiti, and many other athletes who have died from the roids)

Favre Unwanted in Green Bay

I think that Packers GM Ted Thompson made it really clear last weekend when the Pack selected Brian Brohm and LSU’s quarterback Matt Flynn.  Along with Aaron Rodgers, the green and gold seem awfully set at the postition, even with Favre hinting to several media outlets that he may or may not want to return sometime mid-season.  Package the draft and the Packers hurried number retirement ceremony (Week 1 against the Vikings) and it seems that Thompson and Co. are really ready to move on without old number 4.  It’s also been a hot rumor that if the Packers sign a veteran quarterback to backup Rodgers, it may be the Pack’s former nemesis, Daunte Culpepper.

It’s Really Difficult For Me Right Now…

I admit it, I am a Vikings fan.  It’s hard to be a Vikings fan sometimes, especially since I married a Packer fan, but that’s not why I write this blurb.

 

I have heard all of the jokes about the empty trophy case, the love boat, the Herschel Walker trade, forgetting to make a draft pick, not showing up to the NFC Championship game in 2000 when the Giants destroyed my squad, and Gary Anderson’s kick that sailed wide right when the Vikings were by far the best team in the NFL in 1998.  So, we fans have had more than our fair share of heartbreak surrounding the Vikings, and when we get optimistic we get pegged as airheaded HOMERsotans.  How hard has it been to watch our biggest rivals hang on to a QB like Brett Favre for 17 years, and have the insane amount of success he has brought them?  Let me tell you it has been awful.

So, on the eve of Football Christmas (the NFL Draft) I’m getting an uneasy feeling of optimism and hope.  Normally I thrive on seeing draft day unfold, but the Vikes have already made their selection, via a trade with the Chiefs for defensive end Jared Allen.  The whole problem is, I think that this team may be for real this year.

 

 

With 75% of our defensive line being Pro Bowlers, and what seems to be the beginning of a pass rush, I am finding it harder and harder to believe that this defense will be lit up this season.  We all saw what a great pass rush can get you in cruch time when the Giants handled everyone en route to the Lombardi Trophy.  Even the most glaring hole, quarterback Tarvaris Jackson (which is pronounced TAR-VAR-US), I find myself feeling more confident in than I ever have.  I believe he went 7-3 in starts last year, and this year he has not only one of, if not the best running back in the league, A.P., he also has a great deep target in Bernard Berrian (who was pretty good on a horrible pass offense in Chicago).

And with the next best team in the division losing their 17-year starting quarterback, and replacing him with a talented but injury prone Aaron Rodgers, I find it hard to believe that the Vikings will not only win the weak NFC North, but contend for a first round bye.

Maybe I need to be talked down from the ledge, because I am about to jump off of this building and land in the driver’s seat of the Vikings bandwagon.

Sports Dork Anonymous

The other day, I was thinking about when I was about 11 or 12 years old and I had a calendar up on my wall in my room.  By no means was it any kind of special calendar, in fact it could have been self-made.  On it, I had stripes of green and stripes of blue.  The green stripe signified a Minnesota North Stars game on the radio, and the blue stripe meant there was a Minnesota Timberwolves game on the radio.  On a few occaisions, both stripes were on the calendar, and then I had tough decisions to make.

Neither of the teams were any good back then, the T-Wolves were a fresh expansion franchise which was struggling to hit 90 with players like Randy Breuer and Pooh Richardson.  The North Stars made their Stanley Cup run in the spring of ’92, but they were one of the worst teams in the NHL at a time when 16 of the 21 franchises made the playoffs.

Either way, every night I fell asleep to the Stars or the Wolves every night in my pre-teen years.  I guess that solidified my sports-dorkiness.  There’s a lot more where that came from though, like how I used to sleep in my baseball uniform, or write letters to Tom Kelly (the then manager of the Twins) with my ideas of lineups he could try out.  I also created a large football field out of paper, and made 11 little Viking players and 11 little Los Angeles Rams players (because I loved the Rams uniforms).

Hi, I’m Mat, and I’m a Sports Dork.

Danica vs. Dale: Who Serves Racing Better?

VERSUS

 

So, who is the better individual to help further the entity that is auto racing?  Is it Danica Patrick or Dale Earnhardt Jr.?

 

I would like to know, so please enlighten me hillbillies…  If auto racing is a sport, do you accept the fact that a woman (Danica Patrick, who won her first race on Sunday in Japan) can be as good, if not better than a man?

 

In most other actual sports, mens and womens leagues are kept separate due to the fact that biologically men are stronger muscularly than women.

 

If you indeed believe that anyone from either gender has the ability to be the best racer in the world, do you think that genders should be mixed within other sports too?  Should the top WNBA players be given the opportunity to join the NBA?  Should women be preferred by racing leagues because of their marketability to other demographics (mainly other women that NASCAR doesn’t capture)? And if said female is considered “pretty,” it could mean that they are marketable to men for different reasons (e.g. do a google image search for Danica Patrick, and see what the first 20 pics are).  Would you be comfortable seeing a NASCAR covered in Tampax, Monistat, or Victoria’s Secret decals?  This could mean a change of everything you left-turning hicks love!

 

Or, if you believe that men are superior athletes, and becuase you still think drivers are athletes, they are therefore superior behind the wheel.  This would have you believing that Danica is just a freak of nature?  NASCAR is perfect as is, and 98% of the drivers will remain men, because men are simply better at driving.

 

So, which box would you like to get put into?  Are you in favor of making NASCAR a more feminine-influenced entity?  Or are you a sexist chauvinist pig?  This is open for discussion!