My Own Greatest Year In Sports

Let’s be honest, 2011 was a lousy year in sports. Just look at all the stories which happened in that twelve-month span which completely  took away the usual uplifting nature of sports. So, as part of moving forward, I thought it was time to take a look back to a year which for me was the opposite of this one most recently and thankfully past.

That year was 1987.

Ironically, as 2011 brought the low point in the history of Penn State football, 1987 brought one of the highs.  The Nittany Lions came into the Fiesta Bowl in 1987 as a prohibitive underdog against the brash, trash-talking Miami Hurricanes. Joe Paterno’s traditional style of football served as the classic antithesis to the wide-open style of Jiimmy Johnson, but the Hurricanes flat-out got beat.  If you were watching college football in 1987, there is no way you can forget Pete Giftopoulous’ game-sealing interception in the 4th quarter; the one that cemented Penn State’s second National Championship.

Later that year came the culmination of the 1986–87 season in NCAA men’s ice hockey.  To most people, that isn’t such a big deal, but when your alma mater prints its diplomas on hockey pucks, North Dakota’s defeat of Michigan State  to capture it’s 6th National Championship was a big deal on that campus.

The end of March means spring is most places, but Grand Forks, North Dakota is not one of them. The average temperature in Grand Forks in March is about 20 degrees Fahrenheit; average of course meaning a great deal of the time it is significantly colder than that. In short, living in Grand Forks in March means nearing the end of a winter where you’ve been trapped indoors, left to three main forms of entertainment: eating, drinking, and fornicating.  Naturally, after a while, you become a fat, drunken hump-meister that needs no reason to party.

The Fighting Sioux were such fun to watch that winter; their dominance of the indoor ice was an antidote to the ever-present outdoor variety; in January in Grand Forks, even the air freezes.  But thanks to a complement of talent such as Ed Belfour, Tony Hrkac, Bob Joyce, and Ian Kidd, the atmosphere around North Dakota Fighting Sioux games on Friday and Saturday nights warmed to a simply sub-arctic Bacchanalian orgy filled with the aforementioned three surrounding activities.  That is why to this day, there is a hockey puck on my desk to remind me of the the hockey season in which I drank more beer, ate more pizza and after-bar food (for those of you who know…who else misses The Red Pepper?), and had more sex than in any other six-month period in my life.

As long as we are on the subject of things that forever combined the concepts of ice rinks and sex, when is there a better time to mention East German figure skating gold medalist Katarina Witt?

After all, when’s the last time you remembered a figure skater for her serious upper-body pride rather than her triple axle?

If a figure skater who doesn’t look like a hockey stick wearing toe-pick blades is rare, then the phenomenon known as Mike Tyson must have been the sporting world’s version of Haley’s Comet.

The boxing world hadn’t seen anything quite like Mike Tyson before, and it certainly hasn’t seen anything quite like him since. The year before, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion at just 19 years old. In  March 1987, Tyson nearly (and ironically) crushes several James “Bonecrusher” Smith’s internal organs; a victory which unified the WBA and WBC heavyweight titles. Already the the year before, Tyson became the youngest undisputed heavyweight champion in boxing history.

Over the course of the next year, Tyson left a trail of corpses formerly known as challengers (four in all) to retain his title. Early in 1988, he added the last of the great “old-school” heavyweight champs to his body-count when he separated Larry Holmes from his consciousness; the only time Holmes ended up looking up during a ten-count in 76 career bouts.

1987 marks the apogee in the meteoric orbit of  Tyson’s career; this the last year before the tumult takes over.  The following years will bring his divorce from  actress Robin Givens, after being accused of domestic violence, the firing and subsequent suing of his manager, breaking his hand in an early morning street brawl, two car accidents  (one of which was reportedly a suicide attempt), a rape conviction and related prison sentence, a drug conviction with another stint behind bars, and the Evander Holyfield “ear biting” incident.”  Somewhere in that freight train of fouls, Tyson lost the title to a club fighter named Buster Douglas, never to regain it.

At least Tyson always has being a hip-hop and video-game icon.

Now, let’s go from the rare to the unbelievable.  Those of you under 30 may never swallow this, but there was a time in this country when people were all jacked up over yachting, specifically the America’s Cup.  Remember that in the 1980′s, thanks to the “Miracle On Ice” and two Olympic boycotts in that same decade, international competitions became more of an issue of national pride than they had ever been previously. This was magnified when it came to the America’s Cup, which not only is the pinnacle of the yachting world, but had never been outside the possession of the Americans in it’s entire history, which dates back to just after the Civil War.

That all changed in 1983 when Kookaburra III, a tub from the Royal Perth Yacht Club wrested the Cup from the Newport Yacht Club. Seriously, people went crazy over this loss. Stories came out about how there was talk replacing the Cup’s place in the club’s trophy case with the head of the skipper who lost it.  ESPN got the rights to broadcast the races when the American challenger went to Australia. People stopped in their tracks to watch two hours of boats. Water cooler sports-talk included terms like “jibs” and “tacking.” It was like the Olympics with flat-soled shoes, life jackets, and that white sun-block stuff on your nose.

When skipper Dennis Conner led challenger Stars & Stripes ’87 of the San Diego Yacht Club to a four races to none Cup win over the Australian defender, he literally became a national hero.

Believe it or not, for two weeks in 1987, America went boat-shit crazy.

As far as more conventional sports are concerned, 1987 offered two of the great championship series in sports.

First, there was the NBA Finals. It would be easy to simply say the “Showtime” Los Angeles Lakers which I grew up on (my dad had season tickets) beat the hated Boston Celtics 4 games to 2.  While I loved the outcome, just focusing on that would ignore so many great points of this series.

For example, this series was such a perfect contrast in styles. There is no better word to describe the Lakers than “dominant.” They were a beautiful blend of speed and power, of flash and fundamentals that when they were firing on all cylinders it mattered little who they faced.

Despite that, the Celtics offered the effective foil; not only were they the defending champs, they did it in a way that was a complete opposite of Los Angeles.  The Celtics played high-school half-court basketball, but they played it better than anybody ever did.

Even though they were already a championship caliber club, The Lakers were a team on the way up. Michael Cooper emerged as a guard who offered match-up problems of anybody else in the league,  A.C. Green, James Worthy, Mychal Thompson, and Kurt Rambis offered a mix-and-match option for a front-court that could beat you ant any game you wanted to play. This was augmented guy named Magic Johnson who was a point guard in a power forward’s body, and was better than anybody at either position. Even the grand old man, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar still brought his unstoppable “Skyhook” to the mix.

Meanwhile, even though they were the defending champions, the Celtics were a ship taking on water. The fact they made it to the finals was a major accomplishment, considering the death of Len Bias, the ongoing infirmity of an aging Bill Walton,  and nagging injuries to Kevin McHale and Robert Parish. Boiled down to basics, this meant the Celtics did not the horses to run with the Lakers.

This is why the Lakers were such a prohibitive favorite. It’s also why just zipping ahead to a Laker 4-2 win is a mistake.  Had this series gone seven games, it would be regarded as one of the great NBA Finals of all time.

The Celtics were, for all practical purposes, playing with five players. The Celtics had to play perfectly to win; they did it twice and nearly pulled it off a third time, which is really the only reason this series only went six.  It all started in Game 1, when at one point Larry Bird hit 11 shots in a row.  This showed the younger, faster Lakers that the Celtics were so resilient that if they lapsed even the smallest bit, Boston could capitalize on that slip.

Secondly amongst the “big” sports came the “boys of summer.” In a year packed with basketball, boxing, and bimbos, baseball belted the prize-winning punch.

For openers, there were so many guys who had great “pre-steroid” seasons.  A look at the league leaders in the “Triple Crown Categories” will lead you to that conclusion.

Batting Average:

• American League: Wade Boggs, Boston, .363
• National League: Tony Gwynn, San Diego, .370

RBIs:

• American League: George Bell, 134
• National League: Andre Dawson, 137

Home Runs:

• American League:  Mark McGwire, Oakland, 47
• National League: Andre Dawson, Chicago, 49.

1987 also had a story one might think impossible; a player being traded for himself. Granted, it wasn’t the first time it happened. Thanks to he provision in baseball trades known as the “Player to be named later” (PTBNL),  there have been two times when a player has been named on both sides of a trade.

In April 1962, the expansion New York Mets traded catcher Harry Chiti to the Cleveland Indians for the aforementioned PTBNL.  By June, the Indians discovered why Chiti was on the trading block to begin with; the Indians gave Chiti back to the Mets as the PTBNL.

The same situation arose in 1987 with career bullpen jockey Dickie Noles.  Noles had been ping-ponging around the league as a “have fastball, will travel” type, but in 1987 the last place Cubs offered Noles to the first-place Tigers as one of those trade deadline “bolster the playoff run” moves to which we’ve become so accustomed.  The trouble is that Noles sucked so bad the Tigers didn’t want him either, so he was shipped back to the Windy City as…you guessed it…the dreaded PTBNL was also traded for himself in 1987, in a deal between the Cubs and Tigers.

But the real story of baseball in 1987 is the Minnesota Twins. The magic started in June, when the Twins went 18-9 to capture first place in the American League West. They would never be worse than tied for the lead again that season.  But it was August when the stars really seem to align for the nine of the North Star state

August 3 – In a moment that brings this  team to national attention, Twins pitcher Joe Niekro is suspended for 10 days for possessing a nail file on the pitcher’s mound against the defending division champion California Angels. Niekro claimed he had been filing his nails in the dugout and put the file in his back pocket when the inning started.  He later makes an appearance on the David Letterman show in which he makes light of the incident by showing Letterman exactly how to “doctor” a ball.

August 6 – Later in the same West Coast road trip comes the moment where the Twins never look back.  The Twins are opening a four-game set with another contender, the Oakland A’s. In Bottom of the 4th inning, the Twins have a 3-1 lead and a one-out, bases-loaded chance to blow the game open thanks to an error by A’s shortstop Alfredo Griffin.  The Twins do just that when Kirby Puckett ropes a bases-clearing double off 20-game winner Dave Stewart to put Minnesota ahead for good. The Twins win the game 9-4 to capture sole possession of first place, a lead they would retain until Friday, August 28th…or as I will always call it “The Weekend in Milwaukee.”

August 20 – Even though they’ve just been swept by the Tigers, it dawns on me that the Twins can’t win on the road, but can’t lose at home.  This becomes CRUCIAL as this is in the days when the home-field advantage for playoff series were scheduled in advance; in 1987 the American League West Champion would have home field in the championship series, and the American League would enjoy that same advantage in the World Series. This is when I become a firm believer that all the Twins needed to do in win the AL West, and a World Series title would be coming to Minnesota for the first time.

August 29 – The Saturday of ”The Weekend in Milwaukee. ” The Twins had lost to the Brewers the night before to find themselves again tied for the AL West lead. The Twins have Bert Blyleven pitching, and the feel in the air is this game is a “must-win” for the Twins playoff hopes.

In the top of the first, Gary Gaetti belts a two-run shot to put the Twins ahead early.  Puckett adds a solo shot in the top of the third. By the top of the fifth, the Brewers crept back to 3-2, until Puckett added his second home run of the day. Puckett’s bomb opened the flood gates to a Twin 7-2 lead as it was followed by an RBI single by Tom Brunansky and a 2-RBI single my Steve Lombardozzi. Later, Kent Hrbek blasted a three-run dinger to seal the deal. The Twins capture sole possession of first place and never relinquish it.

"The Weekend in Milwaukee:" The first step in getting a street named after you.

August 30 – The Sunday of “The Weekend in Milwaukee,” otherwise known as the day I accepted Kirby Puckett as my Lord and personal Savior.  Puckett leads the Twins to a 10-6 victory by going 6-for-6, including two more homers, two doubles, and 6 RBIs. This made for a two-day total in a critical series of 10 hits in 11 at-bats, 4 home runs, 8 runs batted in, 7 runs scored, and  24 total bases.  Oh, and somewhere amongst that offense-gasm, Puckett also robbed future Hall-of-Famer Robin Yount of a home run.

There were so many more moments along the way to the Twins World Series Title…the game against the Royals when the Twins rode three first-inning home runs to clinch the division title, or Game 4 of the ALCS where the Tigers’ Darrell Evans became the goat to end all goat, or hometown hero Kent Hrbek’s game-sealing grand slam in Game 6 of the World Series.

There were also many firsts. The Twins were the first team with only 85 regular-season wins. Game 1 of the 1987 World Series was the first World Series game played indoors. It was also the first World Series in which the home team won every game. Most importantly, it was the Twins first Championship since the franchise moved to Minnesota.

The 2011 Dubsy Awards

Every January since this blog was created, we here at Dubsism have given an award for achievements during the previous year in some under-recognized categories in the world of sports. In prior years, the nominations for the awards were done exclusively by an internal committee. This was the first year we allowed nominations from the general public.  Between our committee and our valued readers, we had more quality nominations than we could ever possibly use. However, in cases where we received an outstanding nomination, we made sure to recognize those who submitted it.

With that, and after careful consideration, here are the winners for the 2011 Dubsy awards.

The Mickey Klutts Award for Unfortunate Naming

Winner: Chicago Bears fullback Tyler Clutts

We really had no choice but to go with a guy so closely named as the award’s namesake. After all, whether you are an infielder – or in Tyler’s case, a fullback – you still have to handle the ball, and being named for a ten-thumbed oaf just can’t help.

Honorable Mention: St. John’s forward God’sgift Achiuwa

This may be my favorite college basketball name since God Shammgod played for Providence back in the 90′s. Its gets better when you consider Gods’gift has three brothers named Promise, Precious, and God’swill; and two sisters named Grace and Peace.

How is this unfortunate? Because you just know there is some English Lit major working at the St. John’s campus newspaper dying to make all sorts of poet-geeky John Milton/Paradise Lost jokes the minute the Red Storm lose.

We also have to give a shout out to the many of you who nominated both Doug Fister and Charlie Furbush. If only this had been the “Beavis and Butthead” award…

Previous Winner: Gregor Fucka

The Bobby Knight Award for Achievements in Dramatic Public Meltdowns

Winner: UTEP basketball head coach Tim Floyd

Floyd exemplifies the type of rage that was shown by the award’s namesake.  The February loss by UTEP to C-USA foe East Carolina would normally have been unremarkable except for Floyd’s award winning performance, in which UTEP racked up five…count ‘em, five… technical fouls.. Two coaches were ejected and Floyd himself had to be escorted off the court by the cops.  The video is priceless; things get fun at the 1:23 mark…

Honorable Mention: Coastal Carolina Head Football Coach David Bennett

The ability offer this kind of wisdom explains why Bennett is the reigning Big South Coach of the Year. In an attempt to get his team jacked up for an upcoming game against rival Catawba College, Bennett uncorked a wonderfully deranged theory on the relationship between cats and dogs.

Previous Winner: Former Cubs’ manager Lou Piniella

The Bevo and Ralphie Award for Mascot Buffoonery

Winner:  Scorch, mascot for the Boston Blazers

I had no idea wearing a big, fuzzy head while cheering on an indoor lacrosse team made one a chick skank magnet.  Apparently,  its the prime way to get lap dances during an intermission. Who knew?

By the way, you can’t tell me the expression on the mascot’s face isn’t completely perfect…you can tell inside that suit there’s a Blazer Boner.

Honorable Mention: The University of Minnesota’s Goldy Gopher

Honestly, who amongst us hasn’t wanted to shit-hammer a mascot? Since I can’t really improve on the oddities of this story, I’ll just give you the raw details from from the Minnesota Daily:

An irritated fan punched Goldy Gopher in the face during a men’s gymnastics meet Saturday night at the Sports Pavilion.

During the meet, the University of Minnesota mascot sat behind Douglas Dokken, 60, and started “messing with him,” witness Barry Colthorpe said. Goldy tapped Dokken on the shoulder and ruffled his hair.

First of all, why is a mascot hanging out at a gymnastics event? Secondly, who knew anybody showed up at gymnastic meets? Thirdly, who knew the gymnastics crowd were such ass-kickers?

Colthorpe said Dokken was ignoring Goldy’s antics, but within a couple of minutes, he snapped, turned around and punched Goldy in the face.

Goldy froze, but within moments of the first punch, Dokken wailed another, forcing Goldy to leave the area…Goldy immediately talked to his supervisor and the police officer who was already stationed at the event. He is not reported to have been hurt, but the mask was damaged.

So, it seems somebody did know how dangerous the gymnastics crowd can be since there was already a cop there. But who knew mascots had supervisors? How does one become a mascot supervisor? Don’t you think maybe the mascot supervisor should have stepped in when it became clear his mascot was clearly pissing off somebody’s grandfather?

Security personnel arrested Dokken as soon as the meet finished. Dokken was issued a citation for disorderly conduct and a trespass warning banning him from the Sports Pavilion and Williams Arena for a year, University police Lt. Troy Buhta said.

They should have given him a medal. I hate that freakin’ Gopher.

Previous Winner: Alphie the Wolf (University of Nevada)

The Budd Dwyer Award for Excellence in Career Suicide

Winner: Former Washington Nationals Manager Jim Riggleman

Jim Riggleman felt he deserved better. Perhaps he did; that’s open for debate. But no matter the reason, giving your boss an an ultimatum is never a good idea.

Rigs wanted a contract extension from the Nationals, and general manager Mike Rizzo remained very stand-offish about discussing it, so much so that Riggleman demanded a meeting to finalize such an agreement minutes before they club was leaving for a series in Chicago.

That was bad decision number one.

Riggleman compounded that by forcing Rizzo’s hand – “either schedule a meeting with me or I quit right now.” He may as well just shot himself in the face.

Granted, Rizzo didn’t help matters any, after all  Rizzo didn’t even have the stones to tell him “you’re not our guy” to his face. Not to mention, from an organizational leadership perspective, sending a message to your people that you don’t care about them is far worse than anything Riggleman did. Despite that, Riggleman is the one who brought things to a head at an incredibly inappropriate time, did so in a manner that really didn’t allow his boss any choice other than to be extorted, and placed his own concerns above those of a team with which he was engaged in contractual obligation.

That was bad decision number two; the fatal one.

As badly as Mike Rizzo handled the situation, Riggleman committed career suicide inasmuch as it bodes badly for a man in a leadership role to walk away from a commitment to his team over over what is essentially a disagreement with his boss.  This is why Riggleman will never manage in the major leagues again.

Honorable Mention: Former Chicago Bears Wide Receiver Sam Hurd

This guy screwed up two careers because one of them happens to be rather illegal.

In mid-December, Chicago Bears wide receiver Sam Hurd was taken into federal custody after he tried to set up a huge drug deal with an undercover agent, buying a pound of cocaine from the agent.  The 26-year-old Hurd allegedly was interested in buying 20 pounds  of cocaine and 1,000 pounds of marijuana a week to distribute in the Chicago area. Hurd was cut from the Bears after his arrest, and then was released from federal custody after posting a $100,000 bond.  Hurd faces up to 40 years years in prison if he is convicted and receives the maximum penalty for the alleged crimes.

Previous Winner: Former Colorado head coach Dan Hawkins

The Ed Hochuli Award for the Best Call

Winner: The Signs of the #OccupyGameDay Movement

ESPN sucks. The Dan Patrick Show rules. The signs are awesome.

Honorable Mention: Leslie Frazier, Minnesota Vikings head coach (submitted by Ryan Meehan, who is so freaking funny he writes for more blogs than we can mention)

Frazier gets this Dubsy simply because he was the first credible guy to confirm what the evil little troll known as Mike Shanahan figured out one trade too late. Donovan McNabb is washed up (Andy Reid doesn’t count because he was too wrapped up in the Kevin Kolb/Michael Vick wet dream).

Previous Winner: A guy holding a sign at a hockey game which said “Are you pregnant, Ref? Because You’ve missed two periods!”

The Jason Sehorn Award for Being Completely Overrated

Winner: Kim Kardashian

Kardashian, shown here in a rare instance of only cupping one ball.

If it weren’t for the fact she keeps notching her lipstick case with B-list jocks, we’d have no need to pay attention to her. We’d have no reason to care about those who think she is the hottest thing on two legs.

Forget for a minute that she’s had more athlete meat than every sorority in the SEC combined. If she really were the hottest woman on the planet, what’s she doing marrying some D-list hump like Kris “I Wish I Were The SportsChumphries, Not The HumpDashian” Humphries? Not to mention, if we are to believe the rumor mill, she left that 7-week marriage because she had an itch only Reggie Bush can scratch.

For a C-list guy, Reggie Bush must have some serious trouser magic. After all, so far he’s dicked an entire university, two NFL franchises, and the biggest butt this side of Jennifer Lopez.

But, I digress. Honestly, it’s not like she’s hideous; give Joe Namath a few drinks and he’d probably want to kiss her too.  But let’s be even more honest – I could easily name at least 50 women I’d rather know in the biblical sense than anybody named Kardashian.

Honorable Mention: Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo

There’s two ways to look at this. You can either believe it took a sham of a marriage to keep a Dubsy out of Romo’s hands, or you can believe this is just another example of Romo not being able to win at ANYTHING.  Either way, you can’t be surprised that Romo’s name pops up here, considering he’s “waiting to live up to his potential” for eight years now. Face it, the guy is 31 years old, which statistically places him the back half of his career. It also means we’ve seen his potential. He’s mediocre at best, he’s not going to get any better. Deal with it.

Previous Co-Winners: Tim Tebow and LeBron James

The Clinton-Nixon Award for Cover-Up Futility

Winner: Former Penn State President Graham Spanier

Spanier with one of this awards namesakes at Penn State landmark The Creamery.

I’ll be honest, there were a ton of nominations for the Penn State and Syracuse sex abuse scandals in some other categories for Dubsy awards. This meant the awards committee had some hard choices to make.

First of all, J-Dub recused himself since he is a Penn State alum. Then it became a question of whose behavior was really award-worthy. Besides, his views on this matter are already on record.

Secondly, the only award child-raping monsters like Jerry Sandusky and Bernie Fine deserve are heavy, blunt ones which are swung into their skulls leaving fatal wounds.

Then it became a question of people who lost their jobs as a result of these situations. The Budd Dwyer Award for Excellence in Career Suicide is really about sticking the gun in your own mouth, not getting fired for the actions of others, even if you covered up those actions. Besides, if you are a dinosaur like Joe Paterno or Jim Boeheim, it doesn’t matter how your job ends; you aren’t getting hired anywhere else because you are OLD.

The Penn State situation unfolded as it did because of two key components. First, there was the prerequisite for this category; the cover-up.  Even if you don’t believe the grand jury testimony which led to the filing of the charges, the Sandusky trial eventually will draw out the details of who knew what and when they knew it; a trail which ultimately ends at Spanier.

Moreover, it is the manner in which Spanier handled this situation when the news broke about the charges being filed against former assistant Jerry Sandusky, athletic director Tim Curley, and vice president Gary Schultz. Simply stated, it was the worst handling of a crisis I’ve ever seen.

If you recall, the news broke about the indictments on a Saturday afternoon. At this point, none of the heinous details were readily known and the news cycle wasn’t really going to pick up any traction with this until the following Monday. That’s the key to all of this; the reason why the Penn State story blew out of the sports section and onto the front page and the story at Syracuse didn’t.

Spanier called a press conference on Sunday afternoon. This was stupid move #1, because it sent up a big, red flare there was a panic breaking out amongst the Penn State administration.  Stupid move #2 came during that presser; the moment when Spanier offered the table-pounding defense of Sandusky, Curley, and Schultz, going so far as to use the now-fatal phrase “unconditional support.” Those two words allowed every news commentator on the planet to portray everybody at Penn State as having not a single interest in the well-being of the victims.  Once that genie was out of the bottle, it was never going back, and an entire university now bears a mark of shame due to the actions of a few stupid self-preservationists.

Honorable Mention: Former Ohio State Head coach Jim Tressel

I hope the irony isn't lost on you, Jim.

The whole reason why this award is named for the two most recent presidents who are arguably most remembered for their cover-ups, because nobody seemed to learn the lesson about the cover-up being worse than the crime. To mix metaphors, the bottom line is that the shit always hits the fan when the cat gets out of the bag.

Don’t forget, this whole thing at Ohio State started over some tattoos and memorabilia. If Tressel had come clean at first, he’d still be wearing red sweatervests. After all, the NCAA didn’t even kick him or the players out of the Sugar Bowl last year when this story first broke. In fact, they only imposed a sanction which didn’t kick in until the following season.

That can only mean that the punishment wasn’t going to be that severe, so Tressel might as well have just bitten the bullet. Even after the fact, Ohio State only loses a handful of scholarships and one year of post-season suspension. He would have never…repeat NEVER…been fired if he had just told the truth.

Previous Winner: Former USC athletic director Mike Garrett

The Charles O. Finley Award for Achievements in Cheap

Winner: The Tampa Bay Rays (submitted by Chris “Don’t Call Me Kris” Humphries from SportsChump, one of the best sports blogs out there that isn’t this one.  In fact, it just won one of those Salvadoran-style web elections).

This one really doesn’t take long to explain. The Rays have been been a contender for the last four season without spending any money.  In fact they were the catalyst for the collapse of the big-money Boston Red Sox despite having the 29th payroll in baseball.

Honorable Mention: Los Angeles Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling

If you ever needed a poster-child for the fact the evidence the NBA Lockout was a screw-job designed to benefit about 10 owners and the top 5% of players in terms of income, Donald Sterling is your poster child.

Sterling bought the Clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million, and today that team is worth somewhere in the $400 million dollar neighborhood. That waaaay outstrips the value indexed against inflation, so Sterling has made a ton of money on a team that has been little more than a league bottom-feeder for three decades.

My favorite example of what a cheap bastard Sterling is: When then-Clippers’ head coach Kim Hughes needed surgery for prostate cancer in 2004, Sterling refused to pay for an out-of-network procedure, leading Yahoo! Sports blogger Kelly Dwyer to brand him the “worst person in the world.” The bill of $70,000 was paid by some current and former Clippers players, including Corey Maggette, Marko Jaric, Chris Kaman, and Elton Brand.

Previous Winner: The Pittsburgh Pirates

The Joe Kapp Award for Being Run Out of Town

Winner: Former Boston Red Sox Manager Terry Francona

Terry Francona is the perfect example of why Boston sucks not only as a sports city, but as a collection of human beings.  Instead of running him out of town over some bullshit about guys misbehaving in the clubhouse, they should have built a statue of him.  After all, this guy did something twice in a few years that NOBODY had done in 86; bring a championship to one of the most undeserving franchises in all of sports.

Never marry a Bostonian. The minute you do, you open your world to a never-ending litany of excuses, not to mention you can spend years providing a lifestyle better than they had before your arrival, then the minute the ebbs flow, you are yesterday’s newspaper. Every single Boston-born sports fan out there has an “ex” they dumped because they got sick, lost a job, or generally did anything that didn’t work to some Bostonian piece-of-crap’s advantage.

Honorable Mention:  Former Kansas City Chiefs head coach Todd Haley (submitted by Bobby Charts, a member of the Sports Blog Movement and a blogger whose work I highly recommend).

Here’s another case of a guy who inherited a team that was a dog-initiated steaming coil on a winter sidewalk, and with veritably no support from management took that coil into the playoffs. The collapse that followed this year had nothing to do with Haley. How did anybody expect this guy to win with this team living through the “digging out from under Charlie Weis” effect, especially after Matt Cassel got hurt?

Previous Winner: Former Maryland head coach Ralph Friedgen

The Bobby Layne Award for Best Performance While Drunk

Winner:  Former U.S. Ski Team Member Robert “Sandy” Vietze

“Former” is the key word here. After all, who knew getting drunk on a flight and peeing on somebody’s kid would get you A) punched in the face,  B) arrested, and C) kicked off the ski team?

Cue “quote gold” in 3…2…1…

“I was drunk, and I did not realize I was pissing on her leg,” he is quoted as saying.

Time for more honesty…who amongst us hasn’t gotten bombed and peed on somebody?

Honorable Mention: The Unnamed Eustis High School football player 

Why do these stories always happen in Florida? From the Orlando Sentinel:

Several Lake County school employees including two coaches are under investigation as to whether or not they allowed a Eustis High School football student to play when he was drunk.

The district would not confirm whether the student was in fact drunk, but said a student was disciplined after a preliminary investigation.

The word is that this unnamed player drank beer before the game, so much so that he was visibly intoxicated, complete with slurred speech and even a barf or two. Despite that, it is alleged that the coaching staff knew he was drunk but put him in the game anyway.

Previous Winner: Indianapolis Colts’ punter Pat McAfee

The Artis Gilmore Award for Achievements in Hair Boldness

Winner: Minnesota Timberwolves forward Michael Beasly

Uhh, Mike, I don’t care if you are 6’10″ and 240 pounds…headbands and braids are for CHICKS. Now, either go get a MAN’S haircut, or get your kibbles clipped and play for the Minnesota Lynx.

Honorable Mention: Oakland A’s Outfielder Coco Crisp

There’s something special about the power of the afro, but we do have to appreciate the sense of tradition in baseball with Crisp’s straight-up shout out to Oscar Gamble.

Previous Winner: Troy Polamalu

The Kyle Orton Award for Achievements in Partying

Winner: Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki

Forget that Nowitzki is about two dribbles from passing out. Forget that he is wearing a woman’s earring.  It’s more important what she’s wearing…his t-shirt. Let’s be honest, women don’t wear the clothes of men from which they haven’t a sampling of his “low post” moves…

Honorable Mention: New England Patriots quarterback Ryan Mallett

It’s called dedication. Forget that you have a reputation for being a party animal. Forget the fact that reputation cost you some serious money when you plummeted  in the draft. A man has to stick by his principles, even if that means getting piss-drunk during your rookie orientation.  According to Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports, Mallett stayed up “all-night partying” during the NFLPA Rookie Symposium in July.

Previous Winner: San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum

The Vasily Alexseyev Award for Plus-Sized Achievment

Winner: New England Partriots defensive tackle Vince Wilfork

This is a new award named for the recently-departed greatest superheavyweight weightlifter the world has ever seen. While many of his records have since been broken, he remains the only competitor to set 80 of them. Despite his 50-inch waistline and proclivity for 36-egg omelettes, Alezseyev is one of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen, and this award will be given annually to another big guy whose done big things.

Wilfork not only did a big thing for a big guy to do, he did it twice within two weeks of each other. First, he gets an interception and returns it 30 yards against the Chargers, then two weeks later does literally the same thing, just with a slightly shorter return. It is a feat for a defensive lineman to get one interception in his career, let alone two in two weeks. But the fact that Wilfork actually piled up close to fifty total return yards without consuming the contents of every oxygen tank in the stadium in nothing short of miraculous.

Honorable Mention: Fox Sports’ Tony Siragusa

Let’s be honest, we have to give props to anybody who breaks down the blow-dried, make-up wearing barriers in sports broadcasting, especially when that guy gets close to four full scale spins and looks so much like an extra from The Sopranos  he actually was one.

The Vinko Bogotaj Award For Epic Failure

Winner: The NBA Owners and the Player’s Union

Seriously, a pox on both their houses. This became an epic failure the minute the league started canceling games.  Make no mistake, both sides were responsible for this train-wreck.

The owners plotted this for two years. Now, you have to give them credit for devising and carrying out an effective strategy, but the fact they were out to recoup the store they so stupidly gave away the last time speaks to their collective idiocy.

Meanwhile, the players spent so much time sitting around with their thumbs up their asses they never bothered to prepare themselves for what was coming. Nobody from the players side seemed to understand they were going to have the weak position in the negotiations, and nobody did anything to fix that. They had more than one opportunity to win the PR war, but they never realized it.

I could go on all day about how both sides acted stupidly on their own, but that takes a lot of delving into details about a war that already over. Instead, lets’ look at how they acted stupidly together.

First of all, there was the Jonestown-like Kool-Aid march into a stand-off. For two sides quibbling about money, don’t you think that strangling the sole revenue source (games people pay to see) is about the dumbest thing they could do?

Then, there’s the complete screw-job both sides laid on the fans. If you got lost in picking sides, you got suckered. Did you ever once hear anybody that mattered in that whole debate say anything about the impact on the fans?

Honorable Mention: The Boston Red Sox (submitted by Lauren from Too Soxy for My Shirt, a wonderful blog for all the angst that comes with being a Red Sox fan)

How can you not mention blowing a nine-game lead in September? This team, which was supposed to be to be-all, end-all for American League baseball, ultimately couldn’t even beat the sorry-ass Orioles with their playoff lives on the line.

Previous Winner: Xavier guard Dee Dee Jernigan

The Gene Mauch Lifetime Achievement Award

Winner: Former Utah Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan

This award is given annually to somebody who has been around forever, but never won anything.

Jerry Sloan resigned as the head coach of the Utah Jazz on February 10, 2011. Before then, he was the longest-tenured head coach in American major league sports with their current franchise once Tom Kelly stepped down as manager of the Minnesota Twins in Major League Baseball in 2001.

Sloan has one of the all-time great resumes for a guy who never won a ring. Sloan is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.  NBA commissioner David Stern called him “one of the greatest and most respected coaches in NBA history.” Sloan had a career regular-season win–loss record of 1,221–803, placing him third all-time amongst NBA coaches. He was only the fifth coach in NBA history to reach the 1,000 victory milestone, and he is the only coach in NBA history to record 1,000 wins with one club; the Utah Jazz. He also coached for one team longer than anyone in NBA history, having manned the Jazz bench for 22 seasons.

In all that time,  Sloan led the Jazz to 15 consecutive playoff appearances from 1989 to 2003.  That makes him one of only three coaches in NBA history with at least 15 consecutive seasons with a winning record; Pat Riley and Phil Jackson being the other two. He led Utah to the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998, but lost to the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls both times. After all that, it isn’t as astonishing that he never won an NBA Championship as it is that he never once  won a Coach of the Year award.

Previous Winner: Former Minnesota Vikings head coach Bud Grant

It’s Time To Submit Your Nominees For The 2011 Dubsy Awards

For the third January in a row, we here at Dubsism will be handing out our coveted awards for various acheivements in the world of sport.  If you are unfamiliar, you can check out the two previous Dubsy awards here and here.  But the one thing we are doing differently this year is opening the floor for nominations for you, the blog-reading public who clearly has nothing better to do than read this dreck.

If you have time to read this, you likely have read a lot of other sports stuff, and therefore likely have a better idea of to whom to give this awards than our drunken bunch of keyboard droolers does. You can always check out our previous awards should you have any questions as the reasons for which the awards are given. You can also Google the people for whom the awards are named; both are telling, but most are pretty self-explanatory.

Having said that, here is the Dubsy award nomination ballot. Simply fill in your nominees (be sure to include pertinent facts; links to supporting evidence are always welcome, and depending on the reason for nomination, may be required by the Dubsism legal department), then copy and paste your ballot into an email addressed to dubsism@yahoo.com .

There are very few criteria for submitting a ballot:

1. One nominee per category per email.
2. Nominees must come from the world of sport, and they must fit the category in which they are nominated.
3. You do no need to nominate a winner in each category
4. Nominees should have a national presence – as much as your local high school coach might be a perfect nominee, if the rest of us never heard of him, it doesn’t do any good. However, we are willing to make exceptions for awesome stories which have links to back them up.

We also will be giving honorable mentions to the best nominees which are pretty damn good, but didn’t win. For those, we will post your name and a link to your blog/webpage if you wish. If you don’t wish, then don’t give it to us…

___________________________________________________________________________________

The 2011 Dubsy Award Nominee Ballot

Your Name:

Your Blog/Website/Facebook Page so people can worship your brilliant nomination:

The Mickey Klutts Award for Unfortunate Naming

Previous Winner: Gregor Fucka

Your Nominee:

The Bobby Knight Award for Achievements in Dramatic Public Meltdowns

Previous Winner: Former Cubs manager Lou Piniella

Your Nominee:

The Bevo and Ralphie Award for Mascot Buffoonery

Previous Winner: Alphie the Wolf (University of Nevada)

Your Nominee:

The Budd Dwyer Award for Excellence in Career Suicide

Previous Winner: Former Colorado head coach Dan Hawkins

Your Nominee:

The Ed Hochuli Award for the Best Call

Previous Winner: A guy holding a sign at a hockey game which said “Are you preganant, Ref? Because You’ve missed two periods!

Your Nominee:

The Jason Sehorn Award for Being Completely Overrated

Previous Co-Winners: Tim Tebow and LeBron James

Your Nominee:

The Clinton-Nixon Award for Cover-Up Futility

Previous Winner: Former USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett

Your Nominee:

The Charles O. Finley Award for Achievements in Cheap

Previous Winner: The Pittsburgh Pirates

Your Nominee:

The Joe Kapp Award for Being Run Out of Town

Previous Winner: Former Maryland head coach Ralph Friedgen

Your Nominee:

The Bobby Layne Award for Best Performance While Drunk

Previous Winner: Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee

Your Nominee:

The Kyle Orton Award for Achievements in Partying

Previous Winner: San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum

Your Nominee:

The Vasily Alexseyev Award For Plus-Sized Achievements

This is a new award named for the recently-departed greatest superheavyweight weightlifter the world has ever seen. While many of his records have since been broken, he remains the only competitor to set 80 of them. Despite his 50-inch waistline and proclivity for 36-egg omelettes, Alezseyev is one of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen, and this award will be given annually to another big guy whose done big things.

Your Nominee:

The Vinko Bogotaj Award For Epic Failure

Previous Winner: Xavier guard Dee Dee Jernigan

Your Nominee:

The Gene Mauch Lifetime Achievement Award

This award is given annually to somebody who has been around forever, but never won anything.

Previous Winner: Former Minnesota Vikings head coach Bud Grant

Your Nominee:

____________________________________________________________________________

Nominations will be accepted until 3 p.m. Eastern (U.S.) time on January 6th, 2012.

Let your voice be heard, Dubsists. There’s close to 400,000 of you out there, so let’s really make these awards mean something…we simply cannot let the ESPYs stand as the standard in sports awards. Who gives a shit about what “30 by 30″ movie was the best? Let’s make sure we are giving award for things we care about.

After all, aren’t we as the fans make sports matter in the first place?

Today, The World Lost a Hero for Fat Guys Everywhere

RIP, Vasily Alexseyev.

Vasily Alexseyev never looked like Mr. Universe. He didn’t even look like one of those Nordic strongmen you see on ESPN9.  He didn’t have the sculpted, rippling muscles nor did he have those six-pack abs that look like you could grate cheese on them.  Instead, in his prime in the 1970′s, this Russian goliath sported a 50-inch waist and 23-inch biceps while packing somewhere around 350 pounds on his 6’2″ frame.

Yet in his time, Alexseyev was the strongest man in the world.

People my age might remember spending Saturday afternoon parked in front of the television taking in Wide World of Sports. This was where my first lesson in the power of the vast waistband was learned in the form of the walking spheroid known as Vasily Alexseyev. The Russian super-heavyweight was a hero to bigger gentlemen everywhere; he was living proof that it isn’t what you look like, it’ s what you can do.

Alekseyev, the son of a lumberjack,  was born January 7, 1942 in the village of Pokrovo-Shishkino, Ryazan Oblast, Russia. By the age of 12, he was chopping down trees and man-handling the logs for exercise; by 14 he was man-handling woodsmen twice his age as he was already near six feet tall and 200 pounds.

But Alexseyev was more than braun; he graduated the Novocherkassk Polytechnic Institute in 1971 as a mining engineer.

Alexseyev’s formal training as a competitive weightlifter began a decade earlier in 1961 while he was enrolled at the Soviet Forestry Institute. From there, Alekseyev  trained at Trud Voluntary Sports Society with coach Rudolf Plyukfelder. Alexseyev developed his own exceptionally rigorous training regimen which involved, amongst other Herculean tasks, diving into a pool with a full bar of weights, then pressing them out of the water.

He burst onto the weightlifting scene in 1970 when he shattered four world records at the 1970 Soviet junior championships. This was the beginning of a series of 80 world records he would set between 1970 and 1977. During that time, Alexseyev was never beaten in competition and he both the World Championship and European Championship titles for those eight years. He also took home the gold medals in weightlifting from the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich and the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.

It was at the 1976 Olympics where Alexseyev truly put on a display, snatching a then-Olympic record 407 pounds of barbells into the air. He followed that with a then-world record 561 pound clean and jerk.

If that weren’t enough, Alexseyev cemented the claim to being the greatest superheavyweight weightlifter ever by being the first to Clean and Jerk 500 pounds and the first man ever to total over 600 kg in the triple event.

In 1999, in Greece, Alekseyev was acknowledged as the best sportsman of the 20th century.  He was also awarded Order of Lenin (1972), Order of Friendship of Peoples, Order of the Badge of Honour (1970), Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1972). In 1993 he was elected member of the International Weightlifting Federation Hall of Fame.

And he didn’t do all that by eating salads.

До свидания и удача, Vasily.

The Day I Became One Of Joe Frazier’s “Boys”

I think we all know this has been a tough couple of days in the world of sports.  I think we’ve all had enough scandal and death lately. I think we’ve all had enough lockout talk. But out of all the sorrow we’ve seen this past week, I deliberately waited for a few days to tell this story because I didn’t want it to get lost in the firestorm that broke out around the subject of my last post. But out of the sadness of losing one of the great heavyweight champs of all time comes the chance to share my own “Smokin’ Joe” tale.

Picture it…the desolate prairie of North Dakota in the late 1980′s.  A college age J-Dub is working toward his matriculation, and takes a night off for some inebriation. The reason for the break from the books is this particular night was a special event.  It wasn’t every night you could attend a full-on championship fight in a remote town of 50,000 people within sniffing distance of the Canadian border.

See, back in the 1980′s, North Dakota had a favorite son named Virgil Hill who won a boxing silver medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic games.  After that, he went on to capture the WBA world light heavyweight title.  Hill often would defend his title in front of the hometown North Dakota fans.  Needless to say, a world championship bout in a town of 50,000, in an entire state with less than 700,000 people is a major event.  Hill’s title defense against Tyrone Frazier was no exception.

That’s Tyrone Frazier, up-and-coming light heavyweight, and nephew of Smokin’ Joe himself. Naturally, being a boxing aficianado, not to mention a duty-bound uncle, Smokin’ Joe takes the wagon train into town and puts himself up in one of the local hotels. Perhaps it was his days in North Dakota where he picked up his affinity for cowboy hats.  Or perhaps a cowboy hat is the hat of choice when you are drinking a horse trough full of bourbon…not Joe, me.

The fight was on a Saturday, and Joe came into town the day before. The hotel where Smokin’ Joe was staying had a bar which was a favorite of mine. Remember, I’m a college kid at this time and this bar had a full-on cheap appetizer buffet and 2-for-1 drinks, and nothing attracts broke-ass college kids like a cheap booze-up complete with chicken wings and a taco bar.

Now, me and my drinking buddy are busy downing round three and getting ready to answer the bell for the fourth when the bartender shows up with another set, courtesy of “that guy in the corner.” The room by this point to too dark (and my vision a bit too blurry) too make out the shadowy, albeit generous figure in the corner. So, we aim a thankful wave and tip of the glass in the general direction, happy to return to our imbibery.

However, during the remainder of the evening, this happens two more times. Nobody ever approaches us, and we aren’t exactly sure where in the darkened corner of the bar the complimentary drinks are coming from. So we repeat the “thankful wave/glass tip” move, and continue sailing to Cheap Drunk Island. Don’t forget, the only reason we are in this joint in the first place is for a cheap happy hour, and now an anonymous benefactor has extended our collective 45 bucks far closer to closing time then we had ever anticipated (don’t forget, 45 bucks sailed a lot farther 20-some years ago).

We managed to stretch out our cash to that magical part of any full night of bar duty; the part where the bartender says “last call, gents.” Except with us, he hands us two more drinks and motions to the aforementioned corner of mystery. At this point curiousity is slugging it out with free booze, and free booze is winning. But then we hit the other magical part of any full night of bar duty, the part where the lights come up and the bartender says ” you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

As the lights are coming up, curiousity takes over; my drinking buddy and I are intently staring into the corner of that bar, wondering who was the patron saint of our drunkeness was.

If you’ve ever been in a bar at closing time, as the lights come up, there’s always that one guy in the corner who is waaaaaay more drunk than anybody else. Well, in this particular bar on this particular cold night in a prairie town in North Dakota, that guy was Smokin’ Joe.

Once the light knocked out the the dark, behind a table covered  with plates full of chicken wing bones and empty glasses, not twenty feet away from us was the Champ himself.  His tie is undone, there’s probably more wing sauce on his shirt than in his belly, and the drunk he’s on didn’t come from punches. But it’s still Smokin’ Joe, and he’s waving us over to his table.

Again, if you’ve pulled enough bar duty, you know there’s a special language spoken by drunks which is only understood by drunks; the only language on earth other than that African tribal clicking language which contains no consonants. It was kismet that at the moment Joe Frazier spoke that language to me, I was perfectly fluent.

“How are you boys doing tonight?” the Champ asked us.

“I’m a little drunk, your honor,” I slurred. “I’d like to thank you for the drinks, sir.”

“All the traveling I do, I love hotel bars. I always pick out guys to send drinks to because I hate being the last guy out of the bar, and when I spotted what looked like two broke-ass college guys taking advantage of this place’s cheap-ass happy hour, I knew I’d found my boys,” the Champ said.

DOWN GOES DUBSISM! DOWN GOES DUBSISM!

With that he grabbed my hand with a handshake that to this day convinced me even in his wobbly, past-his-prime condition, even though I was larger than him in physical stature and in the peak of my prime; he still could have turned my lights out without even putting down the last chicken wing he was eating.

“Thank you, your honor. They didn’t go to waste.”

“I can tell. What-cha studyin’?”

“We’re both majoring in applied physics.”

“Shit, son, I don’t even know what means. I’m just gonna guess you are a couple of smart drunks.”

“I’d sure like to think so, your honor, said the Champ as he released my hand, gave my buddy the same handshake, and made his way toward the door. After all, he just told us he hates to me the last guy out of the bar.  Smokin’ Joe left that honor to me and my drinking buddy.

To this day, I have no idea why I called the former world heavyweight champ “your honor;” my only defense is the aforementioned fluency in drunk-ese at the time.  But what I will never forget – as I’m standing there in that hotel bar, awash in the “Holy shit, I just shook hands with Joe Frazier” moment – my buddy taps me on the shoulder and gives that moment a  ”can’t-be-saved-by-the-bell” 12th round knock-out.

“Who the hell was that guy?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, deflated. “Even if I told you now, you still wouldn’t know tomorrow. Let’s go.”

Top Salaries From Obscure Sports and What That Really Means

Esteban over at Total Pro Sports put together a thought provoking list. A while ago, that site did a list of the fattest paychecks in sports, and it’s what you would expect, except for the Formula 1 racing guys and Manny Pacquiao. Granted, I didn’t think of those guys at first, but it makes sense if you think about it.

Then, Esteban took that a step further by looking at some of the most bankable figures from sports which wouldn’t necessarily pop into your head. Originally, I was simply going to comment on his site, but the more I composed my thoughts, I realized this needed a Dubsism-style break-down. Let’s be honest, there some serious social commentary hidden in Esteban’s piece; commentary which really needs to be brought out.

Peruse his list understanding that his premise is ranking the entries on the list by “the disparity between the size of the salary and the obscurity of the sport.” Interspersed with Esteban’s list will be the hidden commentary which may only be visible to my bourbon-soaked brain.

13) Phillip Dalhausser/Tedd Rogers – Beach Volleyball: $387,700

Esteban Says:

“Beach Volleyball isn’t that obscure. It’s always one of the most popular events at the Summer Olympics (though, the bikini-clad women are the bigger draw). Still, it’s not particularly popular as a pro sport. You might catch a tournament here or there on ESPN2 at 11AM on a Wednesday, but that’s about it. And yet American duo managed to pull in over three-hundred grand last year. That’s almost as much as the minimum salary for a Major League Baseball player!”

Dubsism Says:

I re-read this three times before it dawned on me…it took two guys to make that amount of money, which means when you split it down the middle, they only made about $140,000 each. I’ve made that much in a year, which means this sport doesn’t really count in terms of a “professional” sport in which you can get rich…at least not for dudes.  Misty  May-Treanor could probably make that much just by letting dudes stick dollar bills in her volley-thong.

Properly utilized, that is clearly a $140,000 ass-et.

 12) Kelly Slater – Surfing: $516,000

Esteban Says:

“Just so we’re clear, Florida native Kelly Slater is a dude. A surfer dude, to be precise. And he’s doing well for himself. In fact, half a million is just about what I would have expected for the top pro surfer, which is why Kelly only ranks #12 on this list. He also makes a good chunk of change on endorsements and has a super hot girlfriend. So it definitely wouldn’t suck to be Kelly Slater these days. (Plus, do you get to see stuff like this when you go to work?)”

Dubsism Says:

If you recall the Dubsism test of what constitutes a sport, I’m not sure surfing passes. But let’s be honest, half a million and hot chicks…well, that’s hard to argue with. Besides, there’s always the off-chance he gets eaten.

11) Tim Don – Triathlon: $223,600

Esteban Says:

“This one is kind of mysterious. British triathlete Tim Don has never been ranked higher than #3 in the world, and he did that only once. In 2010 he finished 15th, and yet somehow he on top of the money list with over two-hundred grand. I guess he won the events with the biggest purses. Still, doesn’t really seem fair, does it?”

Dubsism Says:

I had no idea suicide could be profitable. Have you ever seen what the back-end of a triathlon looks like.? It’s a bunch of skinny exercise addicts who have so over-exerted themselves they are losing their bowel control while running.  I have no idea who would pay to see that.

10) Kane Waselenchuk – Racquetball: $300,000

Esteban Says:

“Where, exactly, is professional racquetball a popular sport? I assumed maybe in Europe or Asia, but all of the major events seem to be held in North America. That includes the most prestigious event, the U.S. Open, which is held in Minneapolis.”

“In any case, Canadian Kane Waselenchuk is the top-earning racquetball player in the world these days, pulling in a decent $300,000. (This figure, unlike the others presented here, is actually the sum of his winnings, appearance fees, and endorsements. So Waselenchuk’s salary is probably more like $150,000-$200,000.)”

Dubsism Says:

I tried to play racquetball once. I couldn’t understand the object of the game. It seems to me this whole game is about getting a ball to bounce off two walls before slamming into your opponent’s testicles at meteor-speed.

9) Darren Appleton – Billiards : $118,494

Esteban Says:

“With many or most of the sports on this list, it would almost seem like a waste to put so much hard work and effort into earning such paltry salaries. Sure, you can make $500,000 surfing, but how much of that do you have to spend on travel and other expenses? A whole lot, I’m guessing. And then one day you’ll be too old to make money surfing, and what will you have? (Sorry, Kelly Slater.)”

“But with billiards it’s different. You can afford to make only $118,494 because the expenses are low relative to other sports, and you can be competitive well into your 50s or 60s (as long as you don’t get early onset arthritis). So Darren Appleton here might be okay.”

Dubsism Says:

I wonder if this guy gets paid in quarters. There’s three types of people who are always on the Jones for quarters: people who need them for laundromats, people who ride the bus, and guys who play a lot of bar pool.

And another thing…don’t be that guy who goes to the bar with his own cue. Even if you can end up as this guy, it’s not worth half a million quarters to be such a colossal douche-hammer.

8 ) Nick Matthew – Squash: $166,929

Esteban Says:

“I thought squash was just some game that rich people played as “the club.” I had no idea there was a Professional Squash Association (PSA) and a Women’s International Squash Players Association (WISPA). But there is. And as top dog Nick Matthew shows, you can’t count of squash to make you rich. So I guess you’d better be playing for the love of the game.”

Dubsism Says:

Is it just me, or does that guy look just a bit too much like Colin Cowherd? That in and of itself tells you this sport has an astronomically-high “Nancy-Boy” factor. Besides, the obvious point is well-taken…if this is a “rich guy club” sport, why does Colin up there  make less than almost anybody else on this list?

7) Trevor Brazile – Rodeo: $507,920

Esteban Says:

“I think I expected the top-earners from the world of Rodeo to earn a little more than this. The sport is pretty popular in certain regions (like Texas and Calgary), and the costs involved—well-bred horses and lots and lots of cattle—are pretty high. How much of that $507,920 does Texan Trevor Brazile get to put in the bank at the end of the year?”

Dubsism Says:

This is where Esteban and I part ways. I was shocked to see the top rodeo guy nets half a million bucks a year.  I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it; I just had no idea there was that much money in it.

Not to mention, look at the look that horse’s eyes. You can just tell he thinks he deserves 57 percent of that half a million. In fact, I think Bryant Gumbel just called rodeo horses “slaves.”

6) Renato Nunes – Bull Riding: $1,594,527

Esteban Says:

“For most people, bull riding is a bit of a novelty. You see people do it on TV, or you hear about bars that have mechanical bull contests, but you kind of forget that this is an actual sport people pay money to watch. So that’s why bull riding ranks to high on the list. It’s certainly not because Brazilian Renato Nunes didn’t earn every penny of that $1.5 million. He most definitely did.”

Dubsism Says:

This guy doesn’t make nearly enough. For all of you NBA panty-wastes who bitch about being underpaid, try doing for one week what this guy does all year long. This event should be called “Professional Testicle-Smashing Which May Also Cripple You And/Or Get a Big Horn Rammed Up Your Anus.”

5) Hakuho – Sumo: $400,000

Esteban Says:

“See, now I thought the top-earning Sumo wrestler would make a hell of a lot more money that this. Though it’s totally a novelty here (like Rodeo), isn’t Sumo kind of a big deal in Japan? You’d think the top sumo wrestler could at least clear $1,000,000. After all, the average salary of a baseball player in Japan is about $450,000. And if they paid them more, maybe Sumo wrestlers wouldn’t have to resort to stealing ATMs.”

Dubsism Says:

This guy only makes $400,000? He eats that much at the $5.99 all-you-can-eat Asian buffet.

4) Walter Ray Williams, Jr. – Bowling: $152,670

Esteban Says:

“Given how much bowling is on TV compared to some of the other sports on this list (like Triathalon), I expected the top-earning pro bowler to be pulling down at least a quarter million, but probably something more along the lines of half a million. Now, I’m sure Walter Ray also has a solid income from endorsements; nevertheless, his actually salary seems shockingly low to me.”

Dubsism Says:

First, that name conjures images of dead girls in a windowless van. Second of all, have you ever watched bowling on television? If you had, you would notice every one of those tournaments which doesn’t happen in the off-Strip backwaters of Las Vegas takes place in exciting urban hot-spots like Columbus, Ohio and North Brunswick, New Jersey.

Besides, if you want to make the big money in bowling, you have to be willing to roll on Shomer Shabbos.

3)  John Baker – Dog Sledding: $50,400

Esteban Says:

“John Baker’s $50,400 dog sledding salary ranks 3rd on this list because it’s surprising in a couple different ways.”

“On the one hand, it’s rather amazing that you can make any kind of living on dog sledding. Everyone’sheard of the Iditarod, but no one knows when it is or who the hell has won it. On the other hand, it’s hard to believe people can afford to compete professionally when making only $50,000 a year.”

“Then again, all the competitions take place in Alaska and northern Canada, so the travel expenses would be relatively low. And you can probably get sponsors to give you dog food, so that takes care of another $10,000 in expenses. So given the low cost of living in the regions where these folks live, I guess they can get by pretty well on fifty grand.”

Dubsism Says:

It doesn’t shock me this guy makes less than I do. It doesn’t shock me this guy looks like his nuts are frozen to his leg.  What shocks me is how does this guy get this much press coverage? There’s nine people trying to get some video or a sound bite off of this guy, and those are just the ones you can see. Either this sport is more popular than we ever imagined, or every single person in Nome, Alaska really needs fresh blog content.

2) Joey Chestnut – Major League Eating: $218,500

Esteban Says:

“Is competitive eating a sport? My instinct says not, but ESPN says yes. And who am I to argue with ESPN?”

“In any case, I was absolutely shocked to learn than you can make this much money by making a complete ass out of yourself on a regular basis. But hey, whatever floats your boat, Joey Chestnut.”

Dubsism Says:

First of all, this is just f–king disgusting. Looking at that, you can just hear the diabetes. This guy must thank God everyday for the Heimlich maneuver.

1)  Phil Taylor – Darts: $1,044,000

Esteban Says:

“British darts champ Phil Taylor made a million bucks in 2010. That just blows my mind. Who knew spending too much time at the pub could become so lucrative?”

Dubsism Says:

We may have found the first guy with a seven-figure income who couldn’t get laid in a women’s prison if he had a fistful of keys. Want to know why? Remember the earlier comment about the guy who brings his own pool cue to the bar? He’s one notch up from the guy who brings his own darts.

Signs We Are Near The End Of Civilization: Handicapped Curling

Before you get all of on a snit, this isn’t about being handicapped, or about curling. Rather it is about a combination that should never be. Some things were made to go together, like pizza and beer. Conversely, some things weren’t, like full frontal nudity and Betty White. Wheelchairs and curling are the latter.

Specifically, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with either on its own, but together, they form something unholy. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the importance of remaining active, and due to having had several reconstructive leg surgeries in my life, I know what being confined to a wheelchair is like.

But this combination is just a monstrous disservice to both; it completely removes any of the skill from curling while finding a way to make being wheelchair-bound even less active. Honestly, I get more physical activity sleeping off a drunk than you could get here, and even worse, the dude in the picture above ISN’T EVEN HOLDING A BEER! Isn’t curling without beer a federal offense in Canada?  He could strap a whole cooler to his chair and do this right; if you are going to adapt, do it in a positive way.

The Dubsism Top Fifteen Sports Events of 2010

Let’s just cut to the chase here…everybody else does some sort of “Year End” list, here’s our obligatory ramble on what we consider to be the 15 most significant sporting occurrances in 2010.

Honorable mention: The Vuvuzela

What began as a seemingly harmless noisemaker instead became a symbol of what happens when you hold a world-class sporting event in some third-world toilet. I don’t care if it isn’t “politically correct” to say it, but the fact is  South Africa is a crime-ridden shithole and holding the Wold Cup there was a complete disaster. Not only is the country a blight by even “poor nation” standards, but it is a ten-hour flight away from the nearest civilized place. Lets’ be even more honest; the reason why South Africa sucks is because it is inhabited by a bunch of low-rent trashballs ; its like every other country on earth rounded up their “Cousin Eddies” and dropped them in South Africa. This is why they had no problem at all ruining every World Cup telecast with the Vuvuzela, a two-dollar plastic horn which when pressed to the lips of a South African emits a droning cacophony similar to a cat stuffed in a bagpipe caught in a washing machine.  It speaks volumes about a country that can make one of the world’s great sporting events almost completely unwatchable.

15) All The (Vi)King’s Men Couldn’t Put The HumptyDome Together Again

What else can you say? Combine a stadium built on the cheap, go even cheaper on the maintenance, and add three decades of Minnesota winters, and who could be surprised when this happens? Just be prepared to see this collapse as a precursor to your new Los Angeles Vikings.

14) Connecticut Almost Convinces Us Women’s Basketball Is A Real Sport

But only almost…thankfully, that winning streak finally ended at 90 games last night.  Granted, winning that many games in a row in anything is impressive, even if the sport isn’t particularly so.  Think anybody cares about women’s basketball? Then tell me how you did in your women’s basketball bracket at the office last year?

13) The World Shuns America At Its Own Expense

It seems nobody wants to play here, given the failure of US World Cup and Olympic Bids. Honestly, I get the Olympic failure since Obama made himself the face of the Chicago bid, and since nobody internationally has nay respect for him and since Chicago is America’s answer to that third-world shithole known as South Africa.  But putting the World Cup in Qatar? Seriously?

So, we’d rather have matches played in an atmosphere of possible sudden-death political instability and 200-degree temperatures rather than to be in a country that would pony up top-dollar for this event? I understand there is some sort of Euro-Chic in hating on Uncle Sam now, but before you get to involved in such behavior, you may want to stop to check how many of those hated American dollars flow into such events, then imagine what those events might look like without any American investment.

12) The So-Called Demise of Tiger Woods

I really have a hard time with calling what happened to Tiger Woods a “demise,” which places me in direct contrast with “mainstream sports media.” I understand the guy went through a huge personal drama, and likely got majorly skinned in his divorce, but calling his drop from the #1 golfer in the world to #2 a “demise” is ludicrous.  From Merriam-Webster:

Demise: intransitive verb

1: die, decease

2: to pass by descent or bequest <the property has demised to the king’s heirs>

So, Tiger Woods didn’t win a tournament this year. Boo-fucking-hoo. Phil Mickelson has made a career out of not winning tournaments. How do I become so “dead” that I still earn $1.3 million dollars? How do I become so “dead” that I likely will be the top golfer in the world again within 1 year?

11) Brett Favre Pisses Away His Legacy

How appropriate is it that the last image of King Brett I as a football player we will have is him splayed out on the deck, knocked cold slap 0ut?  As sports fans, we may not have seen such a mythic figure bow out so disgracefully since Muhammad Ali…except “The Greatest of All-Time” didn’t sully his reputation with allegations of texting pictures of his weiner to some bimbo. However, in terms of a great athlete just not knowing when to go away, Favre’s huge career, his  folk status, and a big chunk of his legacy with a purple arm and pictures of his “purple-headed warrior” all gets flushed simply because he couldn’t realize when the party was over.

10) A Figure Skater Saves the Olympics for Canada

Sure the Canadian hockey team won Gold; if they hadn’t, all of the Great White North may have collectively taken their final luge run. Face it, you really couldn’t have a much worse start to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Hours before the Opening Ceremonies, Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after crashing during a training run. The lack of padding and protection on the dangerously fast Whistler sliding track was just the most consequential of problems plaguing these games; a mechanical torch malfunctioned during the opening ceremonies, an ice-resurfacing machine broke down at the speedskating venue, and snow had to flown in for the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events.

But once the media stopped fixating on what some dubbed the “Glitch Games,” there was some real drama.  Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette used her long program to clinch a bronze medal.  What could be more dramatic than rallying from behind to save the dignity of a nation? Rallying from behind to save the dignity of a nation AND have a freshly-dead mother. ?Two days before the start of the short program, Rochette’s immediate female antecedent suffered a fatal heart attack. Rochette decided to compete anyway, uttering  the nearly-standard dead-parent cliche “I know what it’s what my (insert parental reference here) would have wanted me to do.” After skating through her visible grief in the short program, the Canadian fans gave her a rousing ovation.

Why does such syrupy, cliche, quasi-bullshit make the list of such a hard-edged blog like Dubsism? Because after the emotional competition, Rochette pumped 21 words worth of pure truth into the moment when she endearingly eulogized her mother with the quip  “even though she is not here any more, I’m not afraid to say sometimes she was a pain in the ass.”

9) Graeme McDowell Defines “Clutch”

America’s chances for a repeat win in the Ryder Cup looked slimmer than an Ethiopian on P90X, as the Yanks trailed by by three points going into the last day of this year’s prestigious team golf event. But during the singles matches, the Americans mounted a furious comeback against the Europeans. Even Tiger Woods, who was awful iafter his “demise,” throttled his Euro-pponent. The U.S. tied the tournament at 13 ½, with only American Hunter Mahan and Graeme McDowell left on the course. On the 16th hole McDowell was up 1 hole on Mahan.  McDowell only needed to cup  a 15-foot birdie putt to prevent an epic European collapse. He drained it, and Mahan blew the next hole, which forced him to concede the match.

8 ) The New Orleans Saints Win

Let’s not lie about anything here, if you wanted to define “shitty” in the history of a  sports franchise, the New Orleans Saints would be in that conversation. However, they took a step away from that legacy last February’s Super Bowl XLIV.  Funny to think how one gamble could payoff so big for a city that really doesn’t deserve it.

At the start of the second half, the New Orleans Saints trailed the Indianapolis Colts 10-6, and the Colts were set to receive the ball to begin the 2nd half. were set to kick-off.  But the Saints pulled off an on-side kick; a maneuver that had it back-fired would have given the Colts excellent field position and a chance to put the game out of reach. However, the gamble paid off, the Saints recovered the kick, and the game’s momentum shifted in an instant. New Orleans marched 58 yards downfield for a touchdown, and went on to win the game 31-17.

“Four years ago who ever thought this would be happening when 85 percent of the city was under water from (Hurricane) Katrina,” said New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, the game’s MVP, who completed 32 of 39 passes, for 289 yards, and threw two touchdown passes for a team that had been a perennial loser for most of its 43 seasons in the league. “Most people not knowing if New Orleans would ever come back or if the organization and the team would come back. … This is the culmination of that belief and that faith.”

Fuck all that Katrina shit. Fuck it with a nuclear-powered, reciprocating fuck stick.  I’m so tired of hearing about what a tragedy Katrina was.  The real tragedy of Katrina was that there was anything left of that absolute shithole afterward. New Orleans is the rectum of North America, and anybody who says they love that city should be forced to live there. When I was a kid, my dad’s job got transferred to the “Big Shitty” and it took no time at all for him to want to get out of that sleaze pit. The average mope who shows up to get drunk in the French Quarter for a weekend would recoil in horror of their surrounding if they had to get their mail there; most of them would be gone within six months.

If you doubt that, ask yourself a question. Look at all the sports franchises that have relocated in the past 40 years and ask yourself why nobody except for the NBA went to New Orleans. Granted, the NFL was already there. But baseball never went to New Orleans; baseball never even considered the “Big Shitty.” When hockey teams flooded the south, nobody went to New Orleans. Even the aforementioned NBA deserted the city in 1979 when the Jazz decided five years was enough, and the current Hornets franchise has taken seven years to end up being owned by the league and destined to relocate. Not to mention the Saints had to be given a deal to keep from leaving until 2025, although that deal is rumored to be chock full of escape clauses which make it entirely possible they depart for another city in the next five years.

7) Ghana’s World Cup Choke

The most memorable moment of the World Cup tournament came from the Uruguay/Ghana match.  Near the end of extra time in their quarterfinal match with the game tied 1-1, the safe bet was the teams were headed for penalty kicks. Yet Ghana had one last chance to score, on a free kick, and the set piece was a beauty. The ball was delivered towards the goal box, then headed across four Uruguay defenders before the Uruguay keeper batted it down. On the rebound, a Ghanian  had a clear shot at the goal, but Uruguay forward Luis Suarez positioned himself perfectly in front of the net to knock this flick off his leg. This rebound floated to the head of Ghana’s Dominic Adiyiah, who quickly batted it back towards the net. This time, Suarez had no defense but his hand. This intentional foul gave Ghana a penalty kick, and what looked like an improbable win. A World Cup’s worth of suspense and improbability unfolded over these ten seconds in South Africa.

Then things got even more unreal. Ghana’s best player, Asamoah Gyan, shanked the penalty kick that would have sent an African nation to its first World Cup semifinal, breaking a continent’s heart. Uruguay eventually won on penalty kicks, turning Gyan into the World Cup equivalent of Scott Norwood.

6) The Perfect Game That Wasn’t

The only, and I mean only reason this gets on this list is timing. Blown calls happen all the time, but this one happened to be out #27 of what should have been a perfect game.  When Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga crossed first base with the ball in his glove in the top of the ninth against the Cleveland Indians on June 2 everyone  knew he had just completed a perfect game. Everyone, that is, except the umpire.

To the amazement of everyone watching, Jim Joyce ruled that Cleveland’s Jason Donald had actually just beaten Galarraga to the bag after hitting a grounder to the right of Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera. You didn’t need the replay except as validation, it was simply a blown call made at the end of a game. How many perfect games got snuffed by a bad call in the third inning? Nobody knows because nobody pays attention to such an event until the seventh.

5) Cinderella Almost Busts Everybodys Balls

Rarely has a half-court heave carried the vanquished hopes of so many underdogs. With 3.6 seconds left in the men’s college basketball championship between perennial power and heavy favorite Duke, and small-school underdog Butler playing in front of hometown fans in Indianapolis — it was a script straight out of the movie Hoosiers — Duke clung to a two-point lead. On a second free throw, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski ordered Brian Zoubek to miss , since Butler had no timeouts left, and thus wouldn’t be able to set up a last second-play.

Coach K is a bonafide Hall of Famer, but that strategy was atrocious. The intentional miss gave Butler a chance to win, and the Bulldogs took full advantage. Butler’s Gordon Hayward pulled down the rebound, and dribbled toward half-court: teammate Matt Howard delivered a brutal screen on Duke’s Kyle Singler, giving Hayward a clean look at the hoop. Hayward’s running half-court shot seemed to hang in the air forever. When it finally came down, right on line, many a fan’s gut feeling had it going in.  But it bounced off the backboard, and jetted past the rim, and Kryzyzewski won his fourth national title on one of the worst decision is his career.

4) The NFL Eschews Violence

This is an issue that defines the term “double-edged sword.”  On one side, you have a definite need to protect players in an era where we are discovering the long-term physical and mental damage caused by football violence. On the other, you have a sports that actively markets such violence. Rather than continue to walk the tightrope, the NFL acted aggressively, telling players that the league would increase fines and issue suspensions for those who violated safety rules which have actually been in place for several years. The problem is that in the process, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell showed himself to be both a hypocrite and an authoritarian, autocratic leader. This change was brought about by complete executive fiat; there was no warning, there was no consideration of the impact, there was just “do it or else.”  This led to a lot of cry-babyism from defensive players, however the larger issue is this has proven to be a wedge issue between the players and the league at a time when the league finds itself perilously close to a work stoppage. Making the matter even worse is that these punishments are being levied in the name of player safety, a claim that rings hollow with players as the league threateend to eliminate health coverage for player as part of the new collective bargaining agreement.

3) The Most Awesome Piece Of Sports History Americans Won’t Understand

Certain sports milestones seem simply unreachable; Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, or Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game. In cricket, it’s the one-day double-hundred;  no man had ever produced 200 runs for his team during a one-day international match. However, in February, India’s Sachin Tendulkar hit the magic milestone against a powerful South African squad. Tendulkar smacked three “sixes” — the cricket equivalent of a home run — during his epic performance.  When he reached 199, the home crowd in Gwalior waved Indian flags, and roared, knowing they were about to witness history. The diminutive Tendulkar, dubbed “The Little Master,” slapped a single past the South African fielders. The world’s 1.5 billion cricket fans had a moment they’d never forget. Tendulkar removed his helmet and raised his arms toward the sky. “Take a bow, master,” said television commentator Ravi Shastri, himself a former cricket star for India. “Aw, you little champion,” his partner, former New Zealand cricketeer Danny Morrison chimed in. “If there was ever one deserving to break this milestone, this Everest, it is certainly Sachin Tendulkar.”

2) The Three-Day Duel

You’ll never a tennis score like it again: 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68. At Wimbledon this June, American John Isner and Nicholas Mahut of France played a fifth set headed for infinity, thanks to Wimbledon’s shunning of fifth-set tiebreakers. In all, their historic first-round match lasted a record 11 hours and five minutes, and had to be played over the course of three days.  It was the longest match in tennis history, and  during the 138th game of the fifth set, Isner stroked a backhand winner down the line to finally break Mahut’s serve, ending the match.

1) LeBron’s Bad Decision

It says something about Americans’ priorities that one evening in July, some 10 million people tuned into ESPN, dying to know what color uniform a guy would wear next year. As absurd as the spectacle seemed, it was simply the culmination of a year in which the NBA buzzed loudest off the court, as the summer free-agent frenzy sparked endless speculation about where stars like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Amar’e Stoudemire would land. The homegrown Cleveland Cavalier superstar chose to announce his intention to join buddies Wade and Bosh in Miami on a nationally-televised ESPN special, pompously dubbed “The Decision.” James said he was doing the cable special for charity, donating the show’s advertising revenue to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

But after James dumped the Cavs on national television in front of an in-studio audience of kids from the Greenwich, CT Boys and Girls Club, with the now-infamous words “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach,” his popularity took a hefty hit. The backlash was quite stunning, especially since James had made few, if any, public relations errors in his wildly successful career. He did, however, win some sympathy when Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert, within hours of James’ announcement that he was signing with the Heat, released an invective-filled letter to Cavs fans (some of whom were burning LeBron jerseys in the streets), in which he called James “narcissistic” and accused him of “cowardly betrayal.”

For a guy looking to win a championship or two, bailing on the Cavs was probably smart. But LeBron’s “Decision” was a public-relations disaster.

Guest Column: Joe McGrath on the Olympics

Editor’s Note: Mr. McGrath has long and storied history in the management of professional sports franchises, most notably as the general manager of the Charlestown Chiefs of the now-defunct Federal League. Oh, and this is probably a good time to mention that Mr. McGrath’s views are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Dubsism, our staff, or anybody else whose house you might want to burn to the ground.

So, I’m in the doctor’s office the other day, and I’m flipping through the magazines while I’m waiting. I come across an article talking about how South Africa wants to get the Summer Olympics.

My first thought was “Jesus H. Christ…didn’t you assholes learn anything from the World Cup?” Then I realized who I’m dealing with. Yeah, I know FIFA is run a bunch of European sandal-wearing ovary-boys, but they look like John Fucking Wayne compared to those noodle-wrists at the IOC.

Then as I was looking another article telling me about what a great guy former South African president Nelson Mandela, it dawned on me. These people don’t want to learn anything; this is all just another exercise in that “politically correct” bullshit.

Face it. The only way you could even think about having another major sporting event in a crime-ridden shit-hole like South Africa is to completely ignore what a disaster the World Cup was. While the world was busy fellating Mandela (the World Cup preview edition of Time magazine was at my doctor’s office; it says “Nelson Mandela is the most important person and greatest human on the planet”), it was very easy to ignore the realities of the World Cup.

Reality number one is that nobody showed up.  I know I’ve  said that before, but it’s true. FIFA literally had to give away close to 750,000 tickets to keep all those soccer stadiums from looking nearly empty.  Even the majority of the tickets they sold were to locals, which is not how you rake other people’s money into your local economy.

Sure, you can try to find stories about the crime that continues to run wild in South Africa, but they are largely limited to these “blog” things, whatever the hell a “blog” is, because the regular media has Mandela’s dick so far down their throats they have to squat every time he needs to pee. I’m an old hockey man, which means I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about this Internet thing. So I had one of my grandkids do a little “googling” for me. Again, don’t ask what the fuck that means, but here’s what the kid found.

Statistics released by the South African Police Service showed that between April 2008 and March 2009, this country of 48 million million people had 18,148 murders and 70,514 sexual crimes. By comparison, the United States, with a population of 300 million, had 14,180 murders and 89,000 sexual crimes in 2008. This probably explains why most civilized neighborhoods in South Africa look like an American gated community on steroids.

Any house that looks it has more than thirty US dollars worth of stuff in it needs prison walls around it to keep the scumbags out. Who the hell is going to go to a country where the civilized side of the wall needs motion detectors linked to alarm systems and illuminated by spotlights, and windows with bars, and doors with  multiple locks?

The fact is the murder rate in South Africa is eight times higher than that of the USA. In Gauteng, a province that’s home to 10.5 million people and the World Cup host cities Johannesburg and Pretoria, there were 1,940 violent crimes reported for every 100,000 people in 2008. Detroit stands as the shining example in this country of what happens when you let the inmates run the asylum, yet the violent crime rate in Michigan, which has roughly the same population as Gauteng, was nearly one-fourth that number.

What does all that shit mean? It means that “political correctness” is such bullshit that nobody will admit that Nelson Mandela was little more than a commie bum who brought little more than an era of  unprecedented crime, murder and mayhem to South Africa. It also means that while nobody in their right minds would ever dream of holding the Olympics in an unflushed toilet like Detroit, the world will beat a path to the door of a cesspool if it was founded by a “politically correct” dipshit.

More Proof Dudes are Better Athletes…

Yes, this is another Caster Semenya update. He she Semenya scored its first win since being restored to international competition by the IAAF. The only “female” athlete allowed to compete with “internal” testicles won the 800 meters on Thursday against a field of non-testicled women.

Even Steven Tyler would be confused: Dude DOES look like a lady...sort of...

The South African she-male won in a time of 2 minutes, 4.22 seconds, almost 10 seconds slower than the national record she set when she won gold at the world championships in Berlin last August in 1:55.45.

Semenya was reported to be pleased with his performance, even though he admits he may have been menstruating.

“To come and run a 2:04 is not easy, especially after what happened,” Semenya said.  I was a little bit nervous because it has been a long time not competing.  It’s a new beginning”

Semenya also stated that he was breaking in a new jockstrap and that some “personal chafing” may have also effected his time.