Sports and shit

1. Had a bunch of stuff to write about Wimbledon. Mostly because I followed my Russian cousin, Vera Douchevina. Roger Federer is good. I don't like the way the American press tends to view the womens' game as more interesting than the mens'. It's kind of like the way American soccer is covered. I've got nothing against the women, but I think the mens' game is a better product. I'm bored to death with the Williams sisters and the screaming with every shot gets on my last nerve. Mens' tennis has more power, and more cheek too. It's one of the few sports that I get the feeling doesn't take itself way too seriously. My favorite country club sport.

2. Continuing the tour of marginal sporting events that the lame ass summer offers us, Le Tour de France has begun (and almost over, for the most part), and while I am not anything close to an expert on cycling, I really enjoy following the tour. Mostly for geographical purposes, I think. I very much enjoy the coverage on OLN too. Phil Liggett has the perfect voice for the sport and actually makes the event very exciting, especially if you don't know what's really going on.

3. Announced World Baseball Classic - awesome, but expect 9 months of uncertainty and bitching from MLB players and owners. Sheffield is only the beginning.

4. Felipe Lopez wears a Vote For Pedro shirt under his jersey, according to Joe Buck.

5. This should probably be its own post, but Stewart Mandel is probably the biggest bitch of all college football writers. I'm not one to bitch about supposed bias, and I won't here. My beef with him is the way he cannot take any criticism at all. Sure, he might get 5000 emails a week from mouthbreathing message board fans who use all caps, but when he's wrong he should admit it. This question and response in this week's mailbag displays his douchitude:

C'mon now! How can you leave the University of Florida off your list of teams that could win the national title in hoops and football in the same year? With Urban Meyer calling the shots in the Swamp and Billy Donovan going deep in the tourney numerous times, including the championship game in '00 (not to mention the Andrew DeClerq-led Final Four appearance back in '94). --Tim Alessi, Beaver Falls, Pa.

You're right, I blew that one. The Gators are poised for a title run in hoops this year with Anthony Roberson ... oh wait, he left? ... well, Matt Walsh ... what, he bolted too? ... well, at least they have David Lee. ... no. He graduated? Oh right, that's why I left them off. Also, a little correction to Tim's revisionist history about Donovan's "numerous" deep tourney runs -- Florida hasn't made it out of the NCAA second round since the '00 title-game run, and Lon Krueger was the coach in '94.

Speaking of corrections, I apologize profusely to you, the readers, for not fact-checking a question submitted last week by Hunter Roberts of Richmond, Va. In defending Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer, he made an allusion (which, I confess, I read right past) to him leading a program with "the most bowl appearances of all time." The Vols are second to Alabama in that department, as numerous Crimson Tide fans wrote in to point out, an accomplishment that's all the more impressive when you consider how often 'Bama has been banned from the postseason.

Shall we go through this piece by piece... First off, if you go back to Mandel's list the previous week of schools that could win titles in hoops and football, he doesn't stipulate that he's talking about next year alone. And he's got Michigan on his list, which has sucked a di-ock at basketball for the last decade. Mandel's list missed Florida, and more egregiously Maryland, who's had 10 win seasons and won a hoops title recently. Later in this week's mailbag he laughs off Michigan State, which is also a better pick than Michigan (or Ohio State if you ask me). So to take a look at the Gator fan's letter, Mandel disputes the argument by saying he was only talking about next year, which he wasn't, and even then Florida will probably be better than some of the teams he lists (and I'm the last person on earth to defend Florida). Then Mandel feels like he has to correct the writer. Defensive? Par for the course. See the next part.

Mandel corrects his own error on Tennessee's bowl appearances (a really stupid one for a college football writer, who has books and books of records and facts and who could easily fact check the shit he writes), but then slips in a shot at Alabama. Can't just admit a mistake and move on, gotta mock the people who pointed out the mistake. Oh, and remember that he gets paid to write his opinions and should be relied on to have some factual basis behind it. The people who write into these mailbags don't get paid a thing. Mandel is, if nothing else, a craven pussy. I will keep track of his defensiveness the rest of the year.