NEW YORK, NY – Today is Wednesday September 7th and summer is over, people. Don’t come at me with, “Well it’s not officially over until…” IT’S OVER. The sun is setting earlier every night, kids are back at school, and, if you needed more convincing, you will soon be carpet-bombed with way-too-early Halloween sh!t and pumpkin spice everything. There’s a certain sadness that comes with this seasonal changeover, and there are no quick cures. Sometimes you just have to let things like the despondency of another hopeless season of Minnesota Vikings football—led by the same numb-nuts quarterback—wash over you. But luckily, for other seasonal sports-related mental and physical maladies, there do seem to be some things that work. Let’s take a quick look.
The New York Yankees Sucking. In case you’ve been living in a cave, Staten Island, or East Sloatsburg, the New York Yankees have been suffering from explosive losing diarrhea since the All-Star break. Symptoms of this crippling condition also include extreme offensive anemia, pitching malaise, and uncontrollable sports talk radio wacko-babble. Luckily for the Yankees and their fans, there’s the Minnesota Twins. The Twins are the Yankees ginger ale, warm broth, and bananas, whenever their widdle tummies hurt. I really wish the FDA or some other agency would take the Twins off the market already and let Yankee suffering continue unabated.
Insufferable Dallas Cowboys Fans. You know who you are. Your team hasn’t won jacksh!t in decades and still you pop off about your stupid team like Jerry Jones has his hand up your a$$. Luckily for the rest of us, there’s your HC, Mike McCarthy. His jolly red round face and the Black Hole brain found beyond his glazed over eyes, is where all of your useless yammering gets sucked into antimatter oblivion. Enjoy another season rooting for the Ted Cruz of NFL teams.
Albert Pujols’ Aging Process. Let’s get one thing out of the way first: St. Louis is a sports city bereft of any charm, fun, or amusement of any kind and Albert Pujols has been in decline for years. But the minute he passes through that stupid Gateway Arch, he turns back into Gigantor. There is no explaining this phenomenon. The “Gateway to the West” is a hideous eyesore with all the design charm of an ill-conceived junior high metal shop project, but it’s clearly made of some sort of crushed up space aliens and BALCO dust that activates something in Pujols’ DNA. So I suppose it’s good for something, and St. Louis finally has its only real tourist attraction back.
Nick Kyrgios. For those of you who follow tennis, or even don’t follow tennis, let me just tell you that Nick Kyrgios is a very good tennis player from Australia, who also happens to be a f**king a$$hole. Seriously, he’s a complete jerk who gets pissed at everyone and everything all the time. Anyway, this past weekend he beat #1 ranked Daniil Medvedev to advance to the U.S. Open quarterfinals and a friend—who happens to teach tennis in my neighborhood—said to me: “I don’t think anyone can beat him. He can only beat himself.” And that right there, my friends, is the answer. The cure for those of us who don’t want to see Nick Kyrgios win the U.S, Open is Nick Kyrgios. To paraphrase Bull Durham’s Crash Davis, he has million-dollar talent, but a five-cent head. He’ll eventually lose his cool and not be able to reel it back in. At least that’s what I’m betting. (*Note: I’m writing this prior to his match Tuesday night as he attempts to advance to the semis and move one step closer. Update: He lost in 5 sets, and destroyed a couple of rackets. Ha!)
Okay, that’s all the sports medicine I have for today. Come back tomorrow for the silky smooth sports prose of Buddy Diaz.
