It is true. My last name is Sweat. It is also true that Gatorade and Nike birthed and named me so I can talk about sports. Is that my only qualifications to do so? Yes. And that’s the only one I need.
This is what’s going on in sports right now.
1. Cyclist Grabs Podium Girl’s Butt
Peter Sagan got second place in some bike race no one cares about. What made headlines is his ass grab of the podium girl. People were outraged and I agree that the dude just can’t go grabbing anyone’s ass no matter how juicy it is. But isn’t it amazing that no one even notices these podium girls unless something like this happens? Also, ass grabs are for winners, Sagan.
2. A Women’s Basketball game was the best tournament game this year (that includes the men)
You read that sentence correctly. Now, I’ve been notorious for disliking women’s basketball. And I’m not all of a sudden a changed man, laying naked on my couch in my Sheryl Swoopes jersey watching old highlights of Lisa Leslie dunking. I still think that if you put an inferior product on the market, why should we feel the need to watch it. It has nothing to do with gender or equality. I feel it’s simply a superior game at the men’s level.
But on March 31st, the Baylor vs. Louisville Sweet 16 game sure as hell made me at least reconsider my stance. Boy was this game fucking entertaining. Little background: Brittney Griner has dominated women’s basketball ever since she’s been born it seems.
Baylor won 74 of their last 75 games and were the clear, no question about it, favorite to win the tournament this year. Enter the Louisville Cardinals. A team with a 75-1 chance of winning it all, somehow pulled off the upset, slaying the dragon in dramatic fashion.
How do you stop one of the top five greatest women’s basketball players ever? You throw double teams, triple teams, heck, the whole boat at her and you don’t stop until everyone has either fouled out or died. Well Louisville did that and did it so well that Griner, who averages about 24 points a game, didn’t even score a point until the 2nd half!
“I think I could smell what toothpaste she used,” Louisville guard Antonita Slaughter said. “I was in her face the whole time with my hands up.”
The Louisville girls had mad swagger. All night in the grill of Griner. A fucking hand through her face:
Confidence and Attitude. You’re the best, Griner? Fuck you.
It was raining threes (Cardinals shot 16-for-25 from 3′s; Slaughter was 7-for-9 alone).
It got so intense towards the end of the game that Baylor’s head coach started stripping off her clothes in a fit of passionate rage.
You put it all together… David slays Goliath.
In a day in age where safety and every little tick-tack foul is considered an ejection or a fine, heated competition like this is something truly remarkable. The game was about as intense as you can get without anyone throwing blows. For someone who isn’t a fan of women’s basketball, this game shat out an egg and threw it at my dumb face. The game was so intense that you thought life and death were on the line. Even though many were sad to see the end of Griner’s great career… women’s basketball was better served with Louisville coming out on top. It made the non-fan a semi-believer. Someone who would now POSSIBLY watch again. And that’s better than not watching at all.
I wish some of the men’s tourney games were as great of a battle as this. Highlights:
3. Bones Should Not Do That, CBS
This was hard to watch.
What the fuck, Sweat? Why do you have to show me that? I’m sorry. I really am. It’s hard for me to even watch that again. Kevin Ware broke his leg in two places, had surgery and will most likely rejoin the team in Atlanta for the Final Four after Louisville’s impressive win against the weasel.
I’m bringing up the injury because there’s a larger discussion here in play. Did CBS correctly handle the way it showed the sensitive footage? Yes and no.
Yes. CBS should and needs to show us dramatic events and plays as it unfolds. The problem is they showed it to us two times without warning. All I’m asking for is a little heads up. Not everyone wants to see a fucking leg snap in two. If they would’ve gone to commercial right after the injury, reviewed the tape, realized how gruesome the footage was…a brief heads up how graphic and disturbing this footage is would at least give me an opportunity to stop eating my slab of ribs before I watch. Or, you know, parents could make sure to prevent their child from watching it. Then again, in an age where news travels instantly and everything can be watched via DVR and YouTube…it’s hard to shelter anyone from catching a glimpse of it. If a kid likes basketball. He’s going to eventually see this video one way or another.
CBS probably should’ve gone to commercial a lot sooner. But you know what they say…one kid’s broken leg is another mega-corporations high ratings, high web traffic, conversation, yadiya. The discussion of whether these unpaid college players are being exploited is another topic all together.
The Louisville bench reaction after seeing the injury says it all:
4. Breather: Airballs
Here’s something that will make you feel better about yourself:
5. Tiger Woods Back on Top
On March 26th, Tiger Woods won the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill and is now the #1 golfer in the world for the first time since 2010. He has successfully regained his status as the top man in the golf world, increasingly beloved again in the prude public eye and even has a new blonde white girl in the mix.
Tiger Woods of old is back! Wait…is that a good thing?
Of course I want Tiger Woods to be back on top. I root for greatness in sports and Tiger Woods has to be the top 5 greatest athletes of all-time. But do we really want the Tiger of old: A calculated, overly intense icon who limits himself publicly and emotionally? I often wonder: What would it have been like if Tiger just owned his kinky sexuality?
Clearly, Tiger should be ashamed of his infidelity for the mere fact that his wife wasn’t such a big swinging dick like Tiger. Tiger would still apologize for that, paying the large amount he would owe his wife in the divorce…which he did. But, instead of essentially castrating his dick to show everyone how committed he was to fight these “sex addiction demons” and return back to the old, stern face robot Tiger Woods…what if, back in the fall of 2010 when the scandal was an all-time high, he just looked right at Bryant Gumbel on live TV, shrugged his shoulders and said: I’m a playboy and I simply love fucking. This is who I am. I’m not your kids’ role model.
Can you imagine how liberating and empowering that would be for free spirited non-religious nuts everywhere? You would have this larger than life figure actually quit pretending to be what all you want him to be and instead embraced what he truly is: a fucking freak. What if fans actually embraced this sexuality?
Post-game interviews would become must see TV. After winning the Masters, Tiger would tell Jim Nantz how he has developed such a perversion level that he can only putt well while getting a rim job. There would be kids trading baseball cards showing the great sex champions of sports including Tiger Woods in passionate triumph. Even the sports page box scores will throw away statistics for rebounds and driving distance, and instead keep tabs on thrusts and orgasms. The whole fucking in the woods thing would actually happen and of course everyone would die of sexual diseases but man did we all live!
But that’s all crazy fantasy talk. This is the Tiger we have and it appears he’s back on top if he can claim the Masters jacket later this month. Whether Tiger is a boring athlete or a nymphomaniac, Tiger Woods at the top of his game is great for fans, for golf and for the general landscape of sports. Like Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods legacy is too great to go out with a whimper. He’s on this planet to make history. He’s the rarest of athletes.
6. Danish Pants-Less Golfer:
Yup.
7. Sad Jason Dufner
Golfer Jason Dufner visited some kids in Texas and appeared to be bummed out and sad. So naturally, it became an Internet thing.
8. Baseball is here!
Settle down there, Sweat. Don’t get too excited. Remember. Baseball is a whopping 162 games long, 9 months and seemingly never-ending. Your team will be in first place at the end of April and in last by June. It’s just how it works.
On Opening Day we saw the (now American League) Houston Astros play and I still have yet to receive a logical explanation why there is a hill and a pole in play in centerfield at Minute Maid Park.
No, this is not photoshopped. Yes, this is the closest baseball has gotten to miniature golf.
9. No Pot to Piss In, Brewers Fans
Brewers fans can no longer bring their own portable bathrooms with them to games. What amazes and scares me is how many people actually own their own porta potty.
10. Mets Jon Niese’s wife has lucky panties and we love it
11. NBA Playoffs/Heat 2nd Title Run starts April 20th
Will anyone beat the Heat? I honestly don’t think so. This is one of the most dominant teams we’ve seen since the Kobe/Shaq/Rick Fox(?) era. We are watching the most dominant player to ever play basketball.
The regular season limps to a close but at least we have Vanilla Ice performing at halftime at Bucks games:
12. Jiu Jitsu Guy is extremely photogenic and no two fucks were given:
Related on The Smoking Jacket:
Phil Jackson vs. Marshall Henderson
Behind the Scenes of Pornstar Dater