Pretty Vacant

 

Sports related thoughts on a nice spring day... I'm injured, and I can only work in brief paragraph form:

- College ball sells differently than pro hoops, but a Louisiana vs Northern Virginia NBA finals series or World Series would be a financial butt-raping that the league wouldn't recover from in a TV contract year season. I can recall a lot of ugly scenarios being painted for an Indiana/Utah NBA finals that we almost got a few years ago.

   That said, go George Mason!

- Enjoy it while it lasts, because they already fixed the hole in the dyke... but notice how a few years after the elite high school kids start going to the NBA in great numbers, you don't see Duke in the Final Four? I already want the Celtics to get that Greg Oden kid who will do his one year apprenticeship at Ohio State next year.

- Speaking of NBA drafts... while watching the Knicks suck this season, know that they traded away their #1 pick (which may just be the #1 overall pick) to the soon-to-be-competitive Chicago Bulls for chubby center Eddy Curry.  No hope for the future.... and the present sucks, too. They should be pretty awful about the time Oden "finishes" college.

- I've been laid up a lot recently, and I've been watching a lot of normal (read: non-sports) TV. One of the great shocks to my system is the show COPS. 

    Keep in mind the fact that I watch almost nothing on TV but sports when I tell you that- in a lifetime of NFL viewing- I have only seen maybe 5-10 instances where a white man was able to run a black man down from behind. The white guys on COPS  never lose a footrace.

   I'd advance "crack" as a theory, but lots of NFL guys smoke crack. Taking LT and Michael Irvin as evidence, you'd figure that crack would actually improve the rogue's ability to get away. Nope. I must add that the cops catch all the white guys, too.

  Granted, the footage is edited so that the good guys always solve the case... and much like the coyote/roadrunner show, you kind of figure out that you won't get to see anyone beaten on prime-time TV. Still, they should try to show a few fruitless chases now and then.

   I'd imagine that the show wouldn't get the ratings if it consisted of a series of shots involving teens running from cops, who sort of chase them for 50 yards before giving up. I still think it would make for compelling viewing. "G*ddamn kid runs like a f****** deer..."

   Crooks get away from the white cop on Law and Order... but he usually has a young black/Hispanic partner.

- I'm verty, verty interested in how the Patriots spend their first round pick next month. Our starting WRs look like Deion Branch and an aging Troy Brown, we lost the brutal Willie McGinest at OLB, we played a bunch of jabronis at cornerback all last year, our offensive line is shaky, and we even need a kicker.

   We pick fairly late (21st), but we'll be drafting a starter. A lot of sites have us drafting a Corey Dillon replacement, although the McGinest move has started prognosticators towards selecting us a big linebacker. I'd personally try to get a cornerback, although we'll probably go with the BAAATT... "best athlete available at the time."

   We won't take a kicker in the first round. Bill Parcells raised eyebrows once by taking Scott "Missin" Sisson in the fourth round. I would imagine that we'll take whoever we can get.

- Best name in the draft? D'Brickashaw Ferguson. He's too big to laugh at in person, but I'll say it here for everyone to see.... that's a goofy name. Ashton Youboty is pretty funny, too.

- Two fun things happen next month. The Boston Marathon and Opening Day for the Red Sox are both merely weeks away. I could give a damn about the marathon, but a lot of people love the stuff. Bet on whoever has the most Ys, Ks and Es in their first name, and you should do a-ight.

   The Red Sox lost Damon, but they still have Manny and Big Papi. The rotation looks like Clement, Schilling, Wells, Beckett, and maybe Wakefield. If I have to wait another 86 years to see them win again, I'll kill someone by 65 or so.

- Speaking of droughts, the Bruins are now the only local team not to win a championship in my lifetime. They just canned G.M. Mike O'Connell after a six year reign of error, and we don't look good for making the playoffs.

   I seem to recall Boston being a hockey town when i was a kid, but they have had a frightening loss of momentum recently. I taught for several years in both city and suburb, and I never once saw kids talking about hockey. I personally like hockey, but one gets the sense of looking down on a dying patient when watching it. Boston needs to make that team interesting very quickly.

- It'll be hard to do it this year without a big shot of Winstrol in the arse, but I can't wait to see Bud Selig having to suck up to Barry Bonds when he cracks homer 756. That will be one of the funniest prepared speeches of all time. With Bonds and all time hits leader Pete Rose both banned from the Hall Of Fame, it's getting to the point where a team of persona non gratas  could beat the best team you could scrape up out of the HOF.