Hole Punch Sports

The Los Angeles Lakers narrowly escaped with a victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game Four of the Western Conference Finals tonight, and by "narrowly escaped" I mean that they did everything they could think of to blow the game. I tuned in during the fourth quarter, a period in which L.A. had semi-sizeable leads (seven to nine points), but couldn't make them stick. The Lakers took a final seven-point lead with just under a minute remaining, but Manu Ginobili hit a three, Kobe Bryant forced a shot (believe it or not), and then Tim Duncan found Tony Parker downcourt for a breakaway lay-up, or technically a breakaway goaltending call on Lamar Odom. Anyway, the Lakers missed a couple of shots on their next trip but wisely used up most of the shotclock, leaving the Spurs down two with about two seconds left. Brent Barry caught the ball, then took a long and lame three-point attempt to lose the game. Afterwards he lifted his hands up in shock that the foul wasn't ca...

I originally intended to post this under a more innocuous title like "Programming Note" or something...more on that in a second. Yesterday at work I was watching TV when I stumbled upon SportsCenter, a popular athletic highlights show that is not so well-known that my computer thinks I've spelled it correctly. Anyway, one anchor, Mike Greenberg, asked baseball analyst and former New York Mets general manager Steve Phillips his opinion on Alex Rodriguez's return to the Yankees' lineup. (Rodriguez had missed three weeks with a strained quad.) Seconds later, my jaw dropped. I don't remember Phillips' exact response. But I do know he said something along the lines of us having a situation here where the greatest player ever was returning to a team. Immediately I had two thoughts: first, I have to blog about this, and second, he didn't really just say that, did he? It's so dumb that I seriously did sit and wonder. Because the greatest player ever w...

So, it's been a few weeks. What I've missed: 1. Jay Cutler has diabetes . Articles list several prominent athletes who've had the disease and been successful, including guys like Bobby Clarke, Jackie Robinson, and Gary Hall, Jr., who I liked a lot even though I only saw him compete in sprints once every four years. From the USA Today article: CBS4 in Denver caught up with the Denver Broncos quarterback, and was told the disease has affected him for 'at least six months.' 'I was losing weight, didn't have a lot of strength,' Cutler said. 'You could tell, just the way I played. Some of the throws that I made didn't have a lot behind them.' That sort of makes it sound like he'll be much better this year now that he's healthy. And that makes sense if the disease held him back down the stretch. The thing is his game-by-game statistics don't paint the picture of someone who was worn down at the end of the season; instead, he had som...