Just a few thoughts from a sports weekend:
– If I was the head of the NFL referees union, I’d think about trying to settle this contract issue now. Like, today, this hour. Because while the replacement referees certainly haven’t been outstanding, the league hasn’t crumbled to dust because the real referees haven’t been on the field. And for each week that rolls long that isn’t darkened by some hideous, game-altering call or non-call, the fans think about the real referees less and less.
– Is it wrong that I haven’t given the National Hockey League lockout a second thought? A combination of labor unrest overload from the last few years in other sports and the fact that this is hockey and apparently the owners aren’t above wiping out an entire season makes me just not care that much.
– An Asian player won all four majors on the LPGA Tour this year. A show of hands from people who are surprised by that, please. Yeah, I thought not. And if Jiyai Shin had won a major on the men’s tour by nine shots, like she did Sunday, she would be lauded as a superstar.
– Perhaps the reason the New Orleans Saints have started the year 0-2 and lost two games they were expected to win is because THEY DON”T HAVE A HEAD COACH. See, the bounty-gate thing was important, even if the players implicated are playing for now.
– You may not care who wins or loses the World Series, but we should all be rooting for the Pittsburgh Pirates to make it to at least .500 this season for the first time in 18 years. But the Pirates are trying to break a lot of hearts with their recent play of eight losses in nine games.
– One of my pledges to myself this year is to not watch a single second of an NFL pre-game shows on CBS, Fox, ESPN or NBC. Becuase at some point you can only listen to people state the obvious so many times and at some point your realize a lot of the talking heads on the screen are there because they were good players or coaches, not because they can communicate all that well on television. So far, through week 2, I feel I am a much happier and more well-adjusted person overall having turned off the television before 10 a.m. Sunday. Also, my cholesterol is down and I think I’m a little taller.
– Will Southern California ever live it down if the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s make the playoffs this year but the Dodgers and Angels don’t?
– And finally, does USC not have enough shotgun plays in their offensive playbook to call? Why, when Stanford was tackling quarterback Matt Barkley practically before he took the snap from center, would you continued to line him up under center and then just sit him in the pocket waiting to get hit? Can’t he roll out? Can’t he take a shotgun snap? Question to ponder as the Trojans realize they are 98 percent sure not to win the BCS title this year.