Category: Sports

The Real Thing

Good Stuff, Sports

Among many of my Readers, I know that their opinion of golf is that it takes up acreage better used for a shooting center.  However, after watching the 2022 Masters last week, something really fine happened.

A young guy named Scottie Scheffler emerged the champion, and here’s his story.

Even better, he and his pretty wife have been crowned as the world’s cutest couple:

Best of all?  (and this just has to stick in the media’s craw)

“It all goes back to my faith,” he said.  “The reason why I play golf is that I’m trying to glorify God and all that he’s done in my life.  So for me, my identity isn’t a golf score.  Like Meredith told me this morning, if you win this golf tournament today, if you lose this golf tournament by 10 shots, if you never win another golf tournament again she goes, I’m still going to love you, you’re still going to be the same person.”

God, humility and family.

Makes me tear up, it does.

Two Kinds

Drive Time, Sports

Some guy at RedState got ahead of himself and had a go at my favorite motorsport (F1, for those who’ve been away living on the Planet Zarg for the past twenty years).

Saith Jerry:

[O]ur taste in auto racing leans heavily toward the NASCAR and IndyCar side of things. Not to slight F1, but it’s long been overly snobbish and high roller hoidy-toidy for our taste. If NASCAR is auto racing’s Lynyrd Skynyrd, F1 is its Dave Matthews Band. You get the idea.

Not quite;  the comparison is more apt if expressed that NASCAR/Indy are more like a garage band:

and F1 like smooth jazz:

Yeah, F1 is a high-roller sport;  I would have thought that Americans would understand that concept better than our European cousins, who are always just one regulation away from Pure Marxism.  (Then again, considering the Biden Maladministration, maybe we’re not doing too badly ourselves.)

Whatever.  The fact is that F1, especially with its all-new formula for 2022, is far more exciting to watch than the parabolic antics of NASCAR — and yesterday’s maligned Saudi GP at Jeddah was one of the most exciting races I’ve ever watched, of any type, despite the sideshow provided by Houthi missiles:

(And despite my dislike of Mr. Woke Lewis Hamilton, he was robbed of a higher finish by pure bad luck.)

I know that given my readership profile I’m going to get a whole lot of stick about this, but I don’t care.  2022 looks like being a brilliant F1 season.

And I don’t even like smooth jazz.

Something Wrong

Health, Resistance, Sports

Down in Ozland, the Melbourne Cup Race is probably the only occasion where the entire country shuts down for the day.  It is one of the biggest horse racing events in the world — indeed perhaps one of the biggest sporting events, period.

So last weekend this monster took place Down Under in, as its name would suggest, in Melbourne, and here are a few pics of the festivities:

Anyone notice anything missing?

Face masks.

And lest we forget, this is the city which saw thuggish cops teargas old ladies, arrest people for walking in parks without a mask, check to see that people were locked up in their homes, and all the other WuFlu-related atrocities brought to them courtesy of the Victoria state government.

There was, however, this:

Punters at the track had to be fully vaccinated and they were separated into three zones which they were not allowed to leave.

Sort of house arrest at the track.

One might have expected at least some of the attendees to be wearing a face condom, but as far as I can see:  none.

I don’t know what this means, if anything, but it sure is interesting.

Well, Now

Politics, Sports

Here’s an interesting piece of news coming from Seffrica:

Members of the the South African men’s cricket team competing at the T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates have been ordered to “take the knee” before every match. A directive issued by the Cricket South Africa (CSA) Board late Monday night outlined the new requirement.
The move follows the team’s T20 World Cup opener against Australia on the weekend when players were seen variously standing, kneeling or raising a fist during the statutory pre-match BLM protest.

And then this subsequent situation:

South African cricket star Quinton de Kock withdrew from a major international competition Tuesday rather than follow a new policy requiring players to kneel for the country’s national anthem in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
De Kock, who was named South Africa’s “Cricketer of the Year” in 2020, and who has served as the team’s captain, made himself unavailable for the team’s T20 World Cup match against the West Indies on Tuesday, rather than be forced to kneel.

I know that few Readers on this here back porch would be familiar with the game and players of cricket, so let me tell you:  this is a big fucking deal.  Quinton de Kock is one of the best cricketers in the world — ask anyone who follows international cricket — and as he’s the team’s wicket-keeper (catcher, in baseball terms) and a first-class batter who has more than once won games all by his own efforts, his loss to the SA team will be incalculable.

That said, Cricket South Africa is more of a political institution than a sports governing body, so they’re not going to make an exception — CSA is the bunch of fools who mandated that all SA cricket teams have to consist of x number of White players, y number of Black players, and z number of “other races”, regardless of talent.  So the teams are picked almost exclusively by color.

Anyway, De Kock has decided not to follow this BLM kneeling bullshit, and good for him.  His courage in putting it all on the line for his beliefs will not be forgotten.