The basketball... oh God the basketball!

 A little recap on what's been happening this week to explain what I feel is a bit long of a delay in my next post

So after my last post I did exactly what I said I would and donated blood.  I went on post to the blood center there because I knew where it was and donated.  The original idea was to donate so hopefully it would support those in need in Boston, but when you donate on an Army post, odds are your blood will go to help a wounded soldier, which I felt is also a noble cause.

Then Wednesday night happened.  The plant explosion in West Texas was about an hour and change from me.  I received a few text messages and phone calls from friends and family about whether or not I was ok, and rest assured the wife and I were more then safe.

I then learned that the blood bank I donated to was sending blood to West, which made me really glad I donated there.

Then, in case you don't remember, I work for the local paper, and along with the everything happening in West I was the guy who had to cover down on everything here.  Needless to say, it led to a long, long week.

And I'll begin the sports ranting by explaining how I ended my weekend.

For a while the wife and I have talked about going to a Mariners or Seahawks game down here in Texas, wearing our team gear and rooting for our team.  Lots of fun.  So Friday, which my wife had off, we drive up to Arlington, which is a little under 3 hours away to go to the Mariners/Rangers game.  I was super excited to see Yu Darvish pitch too.

When we get there, I realize I only have one Mariners hat in my car.  I give it to my wife, and I pull out a different hat from my trunk, breaking one of my cardinal rules of sports.  I was going to wear a different team's hat with my Mariners jersey.

I grabbed my green Boston Red Sox hat that happened to be in my trunk.

As we approached the stadium, we see all of the people holding collections for the victims of the explosion in West, and a couple of other people wearing Boston gear.

During the third inning, we hear the news that the bombing suspect was in custody.  Sweet Caroline is quickly played over the stadium PA, and every single fan in attendance is standing and singing.  Louder then when they sang Take me out to the ballgame.  Louder then they sang God Bless America.  Louder then they sang Deep in the Heart of Texas.  It was truly beautiful.

This great moment helped make up for the 7-0 shellacking the Mariners received.

And honestly, I wasn't that impressed with Darvish.  His ability to change speeds was phenomenal, that I was blown away by.  His control though was meh at best, which made me realize how much potential this guy has.  He appeared to me to not quite yet be a pitcher, but a thrower, and a few more years of improvement will make him a very scary dude to face.

On a side note, I have now been to 2 Mariners games in away stadiums.  This game here, and a game in May of 2008 at the old Yankees Stadium before it was torn down. 

IN BOTH GAMES RAUL IBANEZ DID SOMETHING STUPID.

Yeah, that look about sums up how I felt.

In the New York game, he went to throw the ball in and it went about 5 feet and just hit the ground in front of him.  At the Rangers game, he slipped and had a ball go past him in the outfield, turning a single into a triple.

That's not even the craziest thing about it.  In between 2008 and now, Ibanez played for at least 2 other teams.  The M's resigned him this year.  Yay...

Lots of other sports things have happened too.  Like the WNBA draft.  Yes, I'm mentioning this, but only because I caught a brief little blurb on SportsCenter about it, and I was getting ready to change to the channel when I saw her...

Homina homina homina...

Elena Delle Donne.

Holy crap monkeys.  She is HOT.  Most women's basketball players are... well, they're this:

 

Ok, maybe not that bad, but you get the point.  Which reminds me of another funny story that I will tell another time.  But hey, I got to post Don Imus, that's always... something.

But while we're on the subject of the WNBA, I want to touch on something I planned on writing about last week.  I do not like Gino Auriemma.  Never have.  He's kinda a douche bag, and he ended the Tennessee/UConn game that happened every year because UConn couldn't count it as an auto win.  Prior to my last post, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban commented that he would consider drafting Brittney Griner in the second round of the NBA draft, and that if he didn't, she would be welcome to try out for the Mavs summer league team.  Well, Geno decided to come out and say this before the draft.

"Mark Cuban is a genius. He’s done an awful lot for basketball. But his genius would take a huge hit if he drafted her, it would be a public relations thing, a sham. To think a woman could compete to the level of [NBA players] is ludicrous."

I can't do this.  Can you?

 Is Auriemma right?  Maybe, but shit man, to slam a player like that and say (essentially) that women do not belong in the NBA is a dick move.   For Christ's sake, this guy coaches a WOMEN'S basketball team.  There is no way his players liked him saying that.  I do believe that we will see a woman crack into the NBA someday.  I don't think Griner is the one, but I do believe she is closer then any other player has been.  To dismiss even the possibility of her being able to play is pretty callous, and gives me yet another reason to not like Auriemma.

 

And finally, I'll stick to the world of basketball to comment on something that just happened that I find completely hilarious.  I am, of course, talking about the many wonders that are Kobe Bryant.

I like to play the ballbasket

I'm not going to talk about his injury, that sucks.  Arguably the greatest player of his era may have had his career ended on a freak injury.  I've seen that drive several times, he just cuts like he always has, and then he'd down on the ground.  Pop.  No Achilles anymore.  I think Kobe is a tool, as evidenced by the photo I chose for him, but here's the thing I want to talk about.

Kobe "coaching" the team from his couch.

I'm not a fan of twitter, I find most tweets (especially those from athletes) to be... moronic at best.  But to know that Kobe Bryant is watching the game from home and tweeting coaching advice is HYSTERICAL!  There are lots of ways he could have shared this information.  He could have called the Lakers and be like "Yo, you need to tell coach D'Antoni to feed Gasol down low.  Bryant out."  But nope, he went to a public media tool and "told" his coach by sharing with the world what he thought of the coaching scheme.  His dislike of D'Antoni would have been less obvious if he was sitting on the bench with a sign that says "D'Antoni sucks."

Kobe has always been a me me me kind of guy.  It took him a very long time to win without Shaq, but he did, so I can't hold that over him anymore.  He's the closest thing to being a clubhouse cancer without actually being one, and the only reason I can't call him that is he is without a doubt the most competitive guy in the NBA.  He is the only reason Lebron tries harder now.  Their work together for the Olympics in 2008 made LeBron look at himself and go "Damn, if he's trying that hard, I have to really step things up to beat him."

But now we get to see what a frustrated Kobe who can't vent on the floor every night looks like.  Something tells me that even though he has said he won't tweet for the next game, we haven't heard the last of this.