The Nether Reaches of Sport- It’s downtime in my sporting world. No football, no baseball, time to dig deep. Sure, the Jeremy Lin situation’s been a fun distraction for a loyal, though hardly excitable, Knicks fan such as myself. It’s really starting to seem like they could make the playoffs and perhaps advance to the second round before getting blown out by a much better team. That of course would be a monumental achievement for this broken franchise.
And then there’s those Rangers. How `bout them Rangers! Oh hell yeah! But again, not my top sport by any stretch. So I gotta see what I can unearth down here in Baltimore for entertaining sport-like products.
One friend is trying to entice me into some radical workout routine called Crossfire. Basically, you abuse the sh!t out of yourself for about 20 minutes. Like any illicit drug, the first class is free. Then they’ve got a $5 dealio for March. After that, lord knows how much they want from you. I think I’d be better of with a Dominatrix. Lori? Cookie? Either of MTM’s finest available to crack the whip? I’ll even let you call me Short Matt if you like.
Another friend invited me to attend a Baltimore Blast indoor soccer game. Apparently there’s an indoor soccer league and Baltimore has a team. Who knew? This season’s final home game on March 2nd is going to feature, and I use this term loosely, a “celebrity” game at halftime. One of the participants will be said friend, who’s a newspaper editor by day, a degenerate poker player by night, and middle age pudge to boot. He’s threatening to have a stroke on the field, and that alone might be worth the price of admission.
What else? My sister’s getting married this summer, and she’s already changed the date once after already sending out Hold-This-Date emails to everyone. What date will it actually end up being? Maybe I’ll try to drum up some action by running a pool on that one. Half the money to the winner, the other half to pay for the open bar I’ll be abusing whenever it happens.
Finally, there’s the Oscars tomorrow night. Some people like that for action as well. I ran my first Oscars pool back in high school. If I remember correctly, Angry Ward took home the kitty by correctly calling Maurice Jarre for best best score (A Passage to India), and Swiss entry Dangerous Moves for best foreign film. AW was always ahead of his time.
I ran a few more of those pools sporadically over the years, but haven’t done one since the late 1990s. I had an offer to join one this year, but declined. Once they started putting 10 movies up for Best Picture, I decided I’d had enough. Christ, that’s almost as big a field as the Kentucky Derby.
Cheesy Bruin puts the giddy-up in your Sunday. Check him out tomorrow.
