To be honest, I missed a lot of the sporting events that happened this weekend. I was told there was this big race in Florida with fast cars, bright stickers and explosions, but every time I tune in for events like this, I have to force myself to change the channel after the fourth John Mellencamp "Our Country" Chevy Silverado commercial. Needless to say, I didn't watch much past lap 12, but I heard it was a real humdinger of a finish.
I did manage to catch some of the NBA's All-Star weekend which was mildly entertaining, if you can call watching an overweight Charles Barkley and 67-year-old referee Dick Bavetta racing up and down the court entertaining. Personally, I thought it was rigged. For a guy who claims to run at least five miles a day, it looked like Bavetta was dogging it for most of the game and probably made a pretty penny in kickbacks. Now I know what you're thinking, but don't worry dear WOE readers, because I've already contacted NBA Commisioner Stern's office and I'm told he will be reviewing the tape and releasing it to YouTube in the near future after he gets a few hours of laughs in.
Before I run bone dry on fluff material, I'm going to do what any good writer would do and quickly segue to the most anticipated material of this Wednesday's edition of The D: awards.
Sore Losers of the Weekend: Florida Gators Men's Basketball Team (24-3, 11-1)
Florida finally ended their 17-game winning streak with a loss to unranked Vanderbilt this past Saturday, after which the Vandy faithful rushed the court in a typical collegiate display of unadulterated drunken celebration. Dropping to third place in the national polls after the loss was apparently not the only thing that upset the Gators, considering freshman guard Brandon Powell apparently threw a punch at a Vanderbilt fan after the game for "shoving" him. Now, I can understand that you would be upset after a tough loss to an unranked opponent, but the Florida Gators are not new to the top seed. They should all know that when an underdog beats the number one team in the country at home, the fans are going to rush the court. Vanderbilt was fined the paltry sum of $25,000 by the SEC for their second court-rushing offense but some real action needs to be taken on this issue, which can admittedly become dangerous. The NCAA and SEC need to either come to terms with the rushing phenomenon and let it happen or come up with a better system of curbing the activity instead of just fining schools negligible amounts of money. I am personally in favor of constructing massive steel cages around every basketball court in the country, old Monday Night Raw style.
Wait of the Weekend: Bernie Williams, retired New York Yankees center fielder
Some with less-than-normal brain stem activity are still waiting for Bernie Williams to magically appear in uniform at the Yankees spring training camp. As far as I'm concerned, they can keep waiting, but it's not going to change the fact that Bernie is not coming back. He retired. For real retired, not Roger Clemens retired or Michael Jordan retired or even Rocky Balboa retired. WOE recently spoke via telephone with Bernie, who said, "I really don't know why people insist on thinking that I'm miraculously going to show up at camp. I'm retired. I'm done with baseball and I like spending my time playing the guitar and entertaining fantasies of having a legitimate music career. Me and Peter Gammons have had some pretty intense Guitar Hero Pro Battles in the offseason, but I'm confident that I've put in enough practice to beat his scrawny ass in our next rematch. Tell him I'm calling him out, and I'm gonna burn him on 'Can't You Hear Me Knockin' on Expert."
Poll of the Weekend: Insidelacrosse.com
Being an avid Dartmouth lacrosse fan, I cannot help but finish this week's WOE with a shout out to both the men's and women's lacrosse teams, who made appearances on their respective Insidelacrosse.com national polls this week. The women, who were national runners-up last season, start the 2007 season in the No. 9 spot, while the men's team, much like the Duke men's basketball team, is holding it down on the "Others Receiving Votes" list.