What an exciting day!! Yesterday is what is known in sports-circles as Dead Wednesday*. It is perhaps the slowest sports day of the year. The All Star Game festivities are done with, Basketball, Football and…(what’s the other major league sport in America??)…oh, yeah…Lacrosse are all out of season. So, what’s a sports fan to do?? Well, tune in here, of course!! KC Sports Podcast proudly brings you the First Annual Dead Wednesday Recap!!
* Obviously it’s known as Dead Wednesday because the day after the All Star Game fell on a Wednesday this year. We need a better nickname for this day. Suggestions?? Casimir Pulaski Day is already taken.
Jeremy Mayfield Likes Meth. I mean, a Lot
I’ll admit that I’m kind of a Nascar fan. I don’t really follow it too much, but, for example, I can probably, with a gun to my head, rattle off about 15-20 drivers. I know Chad Knaus is Jimmy Johnson’s Crew Chief. I know Kyle Busch* is an asshole, etc. etc.
* I really like Kyle Bush, but with the way he runs his mouth, shouldn’t he have a different sponsor than M&Ms?? I mean, that’s like the most non-threatening candy in the world next to Mounds, right?? I think he should be sponsored by Krackel. I know you can only get them in the Halloween variety packs with Mr. Goodbar, but doesn’t Keackel just sound a little more badass?? If I told you Krackel was the name of Ivan Drago’s cut man, you’d believe me, wouldn’t’ you??
But here are some things about Nascar I don’t understand:
-So we’ve reached Nascar’s midseason, and there’s only, what…23 more races to go??
-It seems like Jeff Gordon wins about every other week, yet he’s still in like eighth place in the standings.
-I think Tony Stewart got deducted like 20,000 points last week because the pit crewmember who jacks up his car (Jackman??) had his fly down or some stupid shit like that.
But probably the best story about Nascar this season comes to us from off the track in the form of Jeremy Mayfield. Every major sport in the world over the last few years, due to the fervor of steroids in baseball, has instituted some sort of drug policy. Now, I’m sure they would like you to believe the testing was instituted to avoid any embarrassment to the sanctity of the sport, or to level the competition, or some such crap. Really, it was just a way to cover their asses, and I’m sure they all breathed a deep sigh of relief that the policy was introduced before an intrepid reporter found Andro in Tony Stewart’s trailer.
It takes some cojones to run a piece of machinery the size of a stock car around the track at 8,000 mph, and I have nothing but respect for the guys doing it; if they need a little boost, or pick-me-up to keep their guard up, then I’m all for it. Not surprising, then that when word came out that Mayfield had tested positive for a banned substance, his excuse was that his “medically prescribed” Aderall had interacted with some cold medication to create a false positive. That seemed admissible. If I was in need of a little extra concentration to avoid flying into a concrete wall, I’m sure I could find a doc to scribble “ADHD” into his notebook for me.
Due to some legal wrangling, we didn’t get to learn the truth about the positive test until a couple of weeks later: Meth!! Wow…I mean, I knew the sport was popular with meth-heads, but now I see why. I guess the fans really do see a little bit of themselves in the drivers. Mayfield was obviously indignant, and a US District Court lifted the ban while he disputed the findings, but, obviously not wanting a meth-head behind the wheel of a $200,000 dollar automobile, every team declined to put him back in the field.
But now, it seems, a second test was administered on July 6, and the results were made public in a court filing yesterday. What do you think happened?? BINGO!! METH!! Not only that, but now his stepmother has submitted an affidavit with the filing saying that, yes, not only is Jeremy a tweaker, but she’s seen him do it…before races!!
“I saw Jeremy use methamphetamine by snorting it up his nose at least 30 times during the seven years I was around him.”
Jeremy responds:
“She’s basically a whore…She shot and killed my dad.”
That’s right!! It gets better!! Mayfield is putting his money where his mouth is by suing his stepmother for the wrongful death of his father, who’s passing in 2007 was ruled as a suicide by the Chapel Hill, N.C., medical examiner. Apparently Mayfield feels that the gunshot to his chest was not self-inflicted.
I keep waiting for a goatee’d hidden evil Jeremy Mayfield twin to emerge. Just awesome. Somebody get me some meth to chew on…this is better than The Guiding Light.
Diana Taurasi Likes The Booze. I mean, a Lot
Now time for your Dead Wednesday WNBA recap!!
There were ten teams in action last night. Try to find the made up team names:
Storm, Shock, Fillies, Silver Stars, Lynx, Stallions, Steed, Monarchs, Sky, Seabiscuits
Bet you can’t, can you??
From the amount of press given to Candace Parker’s recent child birth, you’dve thunk she farted out the little rugrat on center court. While an athlete carrying a human child for nine moths, giving birth, and coming back to perform at a high athletic level postpartum is remarkable, I think her coach Michael Cooper might have gone a little looney when he said:
“I wish Michael Jordan could give birth and come out and play…The only thing he had to do was fight a cold and then throw up against Utah [in the 1998 NBA Finals]…He’s not half the woman that Candace is.”
Touche. Aside from the whole “not having ovaries” thing, I think MJ could hang. I’d like to see Candace Parker go with Charles Oakley to a strip club for 12 hours, blow about 160 large at the craps table in Atlantic City, get three hours of sleep, and still drop 40 on the Nets. Well, maybe Candace wouldn’t be able to hang, but I bet I know who would:
Taurasi has always seemed to me to be the girl from the sorority that nobody wants to ever admit having slept with, but after four years, you realize that 2/3 of the fraternity has taken her home from the bars at one point or another. Guess what this story does?? I’ll tell you what it does!! It does absolutely nothing to convince me of anything different!!
Apparently, our girl was nabbed for a DUI on July 2nd, but Diana went a little farther than having just a few too many pops. Nope, looks like she had about a few dozen too many, blowing a .17, over twice the legal limit, and qualifying as an “extreme” DUI case. Fun!!
A few people have been up-in-arms about this situation, calling for her to be banned from the All Star Team (wait…the WNBA has an All Star Team??). I mean, she’s an inspiration to little girls, right?? She has to pay for her mistakes, right??
Maybe she should have just used the Charles Barkley excuse. Worked for him.
The Royals Like to Suck. I mean, a Lot
I’ve got your second half prediction RIGHT HERE.
Matt Casell Likes Money. I mean…well, not as much as he could
It’s July 16th, it’s 102 degrees outside. You know what that means?? Chiefs news!!
We’ll keep this “analysis” on the short side because, well, this is actually some pretty big Chiefs news. Seems as if we’ve gone and found ourselves a quarterback to hitch our wagon to for the next six years. As Brad Doolittle points out, of the teams in the past 40 years that have reached the level of futility the Chiefs have reached over the past two seasons, the ones who have pulled themselves into a winner have had one common ingredient: a franchise quarterback.
Reaction to the Casell deal seems to fall into two camps:
1.) It was a good deal for the Chiefs. They have locked up the franchise QB for a number of years, and considering he was due a salary to the tune of $15 mil. this season, they were able to sign him at below market value.
2.) The Chiefs are taking far too much risk. Cassel is an unproven commodity, given that he was given the keys to the Cadillac offense of the Pats, and now has to rebuild a jalopy with the Chiefs. Also, I’m angry they won’t let me close to the field.
Sure, it’s a risk for any team to sign a guy for as long as the Chiefs did, and for as much money as they did it for. But, the team got a very close look at him in OTAs, and were able to couple that with the knowledge of him that Pioli brought over to give them an idea of what he’s capable of. Word on the street is that he has pin-point accuracy, and while he does occasionally miss on the deep ball, it’s not that big of a concern given that there’s not a big deep threat currently on the roster.
Not saying that that’s not a problem, but if the organization feels he’s the right piece, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt…at least until they only win 2 out of their next 23.
