Monday, May 31, 2021

Sports this 'n' that

 Just a week after Phil Mickelson, 50, won the PGA championship, another veteran shocked the world by winning one of the biggest events in his sport.

Helio Castroneves, 46, captured his 4th Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. I can picture Castroneves, after the race, doing his Spider-Man impersonation climbing the fence in celebration.

Unlike in golf, which has the Champions tour for players 50-up, which Mickelson almost surely will join, if he hasn't already, there is no senior tour in auto racing. And that's the beauty of it.
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Another day, another idiot loses his fan privileges at an NBA arena.


Cole Buckley, 21, tossed a water bottle in the direction of Brooklyn star (and former Celtic) Kyrie Irving after the Nets took a 3-1 lead in games in their 1st round Eastern Conference series, and can close out Boston at the Barclays Center on Wednesday. This follows a pattern of rude, idiotic fan behavior during these playoffs that has included three Utah Jazz fans harassed Memphis' Ja Morant, this after some dunce threw popcorn at Washington's Russell Westbrook, and, as previously documented, a fan spat at Atlanta's Trae Young at Madison Square Garden.

The victims are all African-American athletes. The perps are drunken (except maybe for Buckley and his water bottle) white jackasses. Irving left Boston, going back on a promise he made to Celtic Nation, to join fellow superstar Kevin Durant in Brooklyn, and, of course, given how NY-Boston in any sport is filled to the brim with negative emotion on both sides, something like this was bound to happen. Not only that, but in those four series, it appears that Brooklyn, Memphis, Philadelphia, and Atlanta are all going to advance, barring late comebacks by Boston, Utah, Washington, and the Knicks. 

Buckley, and the other morons, are banned from their home arenas.
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Tennis star Naomi Osaka has been fined for refusing to speak to the media while at the French Open. Apparently, something, or someone, offended Ms. Osaka to the point where she decided not to talk to the media. That's not going to fly at one of tennis' four majors, and Open officials have threatened to disqualify Ms. Osaka if she doesn't end the boycott.

Update, 2:20 pm (ET): Turns out Naomi is dealing with depression, and has withdrawn from the French Open. She has issued this statement on Twitter to address the situation:

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TNT NBA analyst and Papa Johns/Gold Bond/The General pitchman Shaquille O'Neal announced earlier this weekend he plans to get back in the ring for All Elite Wrestling later this year. AEW has signed former WWE champions Paul Wight (pka The Big Show) and Mark Henry as announcers/coaches, but O'Neal has been chomping at the bit for a match with Wight for years, dating back to when Wight was in WWE.

Meanwhile, some corporate synergy at last night's Double or Nothing PPV. New Jacksonville coach Urban Meyer and defensive coordinator Charlie Strong made guest appearances, and got in on the action in a "Stadium Stampede" match between the Inner Circle and the Pinnacle. Chris Jericho used a laptop computer supplied by Meyer on Maxwell J. Friedman. Friedman later swung and missed with a helmet, and Jericho pushed a chair into Friedman and pushed his foe out of the coach's office. Totally cray-cray.

Don't be surprised if AEW talent shows up to pump up the crowds at Jaguars games this fall. They'll need it.


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