Monday, April 10, 2006

A little sports hodge podge, coming at you.

I think I have finally gotten my core temperature back to normal and I am ready to take some quick hits at what is going on in the sports world. It’s a little something I like to call hodge podge. Let’s hunt.

Barry Bonds is the topic du jour in baseball right now. There are many thoughts that pop into the old skull when you hear the name Barry Bonds. Here are a few terms to describe Bonds: bitter, cheater, liar, stubborn mule, and for some, the greatest. I think all of those apply to Bonds, but one thing I have to say about Bonds is that he is always watchable.

I have probably seen half or more of his at bats so far this season. I just want to see how he will function during all the steroid talk and all the investigations, and how he will react to all the fans who will boo and ride him any chance they get. I have not watched Bonds’ little “reality” show yet, but I will. I have seen clips of Bonds crying. I have seen clips of Bonds saying he doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him.

I am sure the show’s aim is to humanize Bonds and mine sympathy for him, but one thing Bonds needs to realize while he is fishing for sympathy is that he is not a victim; he brought this all on himself.

I think the only way Bonds can garner any sympathy is to come clean about everything. Look what it has done for Jose Canseco. Look at what coming clean has done for Jason Giambi. Bonds may not be "forgiven" like those players were, but it would go a long way to repairing the damage already done to his legacy.

On to golf, and I am not a huge golf fan, but I did watch some of the Masters on Sunday. I think I watched about 3 minutes of the telecast. I’m sorry, watching golf on TV just doesn’t do it for me. I am more interested in watching a sport that I can’t play than one in which I could play every weekend. I will say this; it is good to see that Phil Mickelson is bringing back the mullet.

In college basketball, it looks like everyone is coming back for the national champion Florida Gators and the University of Kentucky Wildcats seem to be losing players left and right. Ravi Moss, Patrick Sparks and Brandon Stockton have graduated. Adam Williams is transferring, probably a good idea for him. Rajon Rondo is going to the NBA to be a superstar. I also heard about another player transferring and by the looks of it, one other player will probably be leaving the team.

The reason I think other players will be leaving the team is that it seems Tubby Smith is recruiting two more players for next year, besides the four he already has coming in. The numbers don’t work out unless the current team loses a player or two to open up the necessary scholarships. It could be a very interesting off season for the University of Kentucky Wildcats, so keep your eyes and ears open in the coming weeks and months.

Now one more thing that I have to write about this week. I have received good feedback about my Cincinnati Opening Day column, but some of those who went with me were disappointed that I left one thing out about the trip. I admit, perhaps my brain was frozen and I forgot. So I thought I would tell you about it now.

We got to the game what seemed like six hours before the opening pitch. We camped out in the outfield in foul territory during batting practice trying to get a foul ball as a souvenir. After about a 30 minute wait, we got what we were waiting for, a hard driven foul ball screaming toward our group.

Unfortunately, I never saw it and the others in the group were ducking for cover. My brother lost the ball in a white patch in his field of vision and his only thought was to protect the camera he had brought with him. He did this, but he was blasted by the ball on his right forearm. The ball bounced off his arm and onto the field.

I am sure it hurt like a son of a gun, but my brother never let on that his arm was on fire with pain or that he had broken it in four places. I’m kidding, he did not break his arm, but a nasty bump was raised. We never had another shot at a foul ball the rest of the day. How I forgot to include that in last week’s column I do not know, so there it is.

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