|
A Midwinter’s Sports Update 1-28-01
By Troy Brownfield
The Super
Bowl has ended in another blow-out. Basketball will roll on
into the summer. Baseball is months away. So of course, it’s
time for your bi-annual Sports Update!
Mario!
Mario!: You can’t turn on hockey these days without hearing
about Mario. And why not? He’s incredible. If they could get
him, Luigi and Yoshi on one team, they’d be unbeatable.
Iverson
Still Thug, Film at Eleven: Yeah, I know that Iverson
is supposed to be the greatest young player in the NBA (I
still think that’s Vince Carter). Yeah, I know that they call
him “Mr. MVP” and Jordan’s heir apparent. Still, I’d call
him a whiner and a lousy sport.
Playing
the Pacers on Sunday the 28th, Iverson chose to concentrate
on jawing with fans at courtside rather than concentrating
completely on his game. The Pacers still had the possibility
of a come-from-behind victory in their grasp, and Iverson
got so involved with gesturing, shouting obscenities and sticking
his tongue out to fans at Conseco that he missed a free throw.
If I were Larry Brown, I’d fine my star player for missing
a free throw with the game that close. Then again, if I were
Brown, I would have sat Iverson’s ass down the minute he started
worrying more about the fans than the game.
I understand
how a player’s emotions can kick in, and I understand that
jeers can be hard to take. But Iverson’s 25. He’s no rookie.
He’s been around. By doing his schoolyard bullshit, he proves
that he still has a LONG way to go before he’s ever any kind
of real representative of his sport.
K.O.
Camby!: I will give Iverson credit for one thing: he’s
never knocked out Larry Brown. That video of Marcus Camby
accidentally punching out Jeff Van Gundy was funnier than
the last three episodes of Friends combined. Camby now joins
the elite ranks of that exclusive Knicks club (of which Latrelle
Sprewell is president) of players who’ve attacked their coaches.
This
Half-Time Brought to You by Carson Daly: The Super Bowl
Half-Time show this year, brought to you by the unholy alliance
of MTV and eTrade, has got to be one of the scariest and most
bizarre things that I’ve seen since the chest-bursting scene
in Alien. If you tuned in to CBS early in the day, you knew
things were in for a dark turn when TRL host and obvious beneficiary
of a deal with Satan, Carson Daly, was hosting videos with
one of the bland, homogenous Backstreet Boys.
While
I knew that MTV had their sticky hands in the whole Commercial
Bowl from the start, I didn’t expect TRL to be tail-gating.
And even though the site of Jennifer Lopez gyrating across
my TV screen in a cut-off Giants jersey and gold spandex pants
was a nice addition to the proceedings, I could go twenty-four
lifetimes without hearing that God Damn Destiny’s Child Charlie’s-frickin’-Angels
song again.
At any
rate, I jotted down some random thoughts about the Half-Time
carnage itself:
N Synch:
They should win the Worst Dressed Millionaires award.
Every time I see them at some awards show or something, they
look like the just got finished rolling a homeless drag queen
for his wardrobe. Of course, that’s not to mention that their
non-in-synch, herky jerky dance movements evoke nothing so
much as an autistic aerobics class.
Aerosmith:
I think that Aerosmith can now be rightfully called the Biggest
Whores in Human History. The only thing that could strip them
of this title would be a supergroup consisting of Darva Conger,
Anna Nicole Smith, Jasmine St. Clair, and the Roman Empress
Messalina.
Britney
Spears: Like a teen pop Tom Joad, wherever there is overkill,
she’ll be there. I have to say that she really fills out an
outfit though.
Mary
J. Blige: What the hell was she doing there? She shows
up for like a minute to sing a hook. Jesus, Martha Walsh got
better treatment from the C&C Music Factory (anyone who can
explain that joke gets a free comic book).
Nelly:
He should have used the bathroom before coming on stage.
All in all, this was an unfathomably bad Half-Time. The only
way it could have been worse is if SR-71 had played, but then
again, we know that Jets never make it to the Bowl anymore.
Quoth
the Ravens: So anyway, Baltimore wins. And I’m glad, because
as I noted before, they derive their name from an Edgar Allan
Poe poem. Perhaps someday, every team in the NFL will be named
after poetry. I’d really be happy to see the Ravens versus
the Waste Lands, or the Daddys versus the Love Songs of J.
Alfred Prufrock.
The
Ice Ignored: It’s deep into the hockey season, and once
again, the local media is pretty much ignoring the Indianapolis
Ice. I’d remind them that the Ice are the only local team
to win a championship last year, but they’d probably say,
“We have a hockey team?”
Capriati
Wins: Scoring a victory for all shoplifting, pot-smoking
chicks everywhere, Jennifer Capriati FINALLY got her shit
together and won a big tourney. She soundly trashed Martina
Hingis, who herself had defeated the poorly parented Venus
Williams. It’s funny how easily the women’s tennis circuit
breaks down into high school dynamics now: Capriati is the
Bad Girl, Hingis is the Brat, and Venus and Serena are the
Prima Donnas. Would that Anna Kournekova were the One Who
Gives Free Lap-Dances to Internet Journalists. Ahh . . . Martina
Hingis and Anna: a better doubles match I could never see.
The
XFL: Y’know, I’m really looking forward to the XFL. It’ll
either be incredibly entertaining or a glorious train-wreck.
Either way with Vince, you know it won’t be boring. Unless
the players come out and talk for fifteen minutes at the start
of every show. Anyway, can you remember the last time you
saw a football game where you actually saw cheerleaders? Or
a quarterback that didn’t run like a girl the second the line
breaks down? This should be a lot of fun, and not just because
there’s no fair catches.
That’s
all for now, Sports Fans. Tune in sometime in the Spring so
I can complain about baseball.
Troy
Brownfield is the Editor-in-Chief of Shotgun Reviews. He and
Russ Ray have posterized more hate-mail senders than you could
possibly imagine. Bring your game to psikotyk@aol.com.
|
