Hello, loyal Headtrip readers who at no point of my two month absence questioned the status of this site. I’ll take that as you collectively saying, “We want more! And now!” I’d like to tell you during my hiatus I was off exploring new lands and teaching African students the English language, but you know me too well, so I’ll let you fill in your own gaps. Now, please, don’t get your hopes up too high. I’m not back on a permanent basis, yet, but I felt I was due for an update. To steal a line from the Sports Guy (hey, there’s no plagiarism laws on the internet) You may want to print this one out.
Can someone please tell me what the hell happened? As a friend of mine would say, is this some sort of sick joke? T
he sports world is currently upside down. Left is right. Up is down. Black is white. The Milwaukee Bucks are winning games. Tiger Woods is golfing and sleeping with his wife. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s almost as if some sort of curse or jinx has been placed on all athletic competition. But what… or better yet, who could have the power to cast such a spell? Surely, a guilty culprit would have a lot of money and power. They’d also probably have to strongly influence sports. And they’d probably somehow involve, say, the two biggest stars of any one sport without directly involving them. Hmmmm… don’t these stipulations sound a little familiar? Well, it’s probably because I just described the Nike commercials featuring the Kobe Bryant and LeBron James puppets that ran last basketball season. Please, let me tell you how two felt covered dolls are bringing about the sports apocalypse.
This time last year, it was all but a foregone conclusion that Kobe and LeBron would square off in the 2009 NBA Finals. It was what the fans wanted. It was what the league needed. Hell, it was what ABC would have killed for. Literally, they would have disappeared someone for that matchup. Going in to the playoffs, we all knew nothing was stopping LeBron on his warpath to the NBA crown. Nothing. It was his time. He had taken his licks the year before and was primed for his first ring. Ignoring decades of sports curses, the Nike marketing department decided to run those ill-fated puppet commercials. Collectively, basketball fans gasped. We acted like the commercials weren’t real. Nike wouldn’t jinx something this big. Right? Right?! Then it happened. Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic shocked the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Could a nicer person have ruined what would been the most watched NBA Finals ever? Unless a William H. Macy made for TV character joins the NBA, I don’t think so. Of course, we know the rest. Kobe went on to demolish the Magic, proving he didn’t need Shaq. We all hated the outcome, but understood. Kobe had worked harder than anyone else in the NBA. In a way, he deserved the ring. But to rob us of a showdown with LeBron? That was downright mean. Kobe side note: As much as I want to hate Kobe Bryant, I just can’t. There’s something about the guy that makes us all turn into some white, naïve, Colorado hotel patron. What? Just me?
Flash forward a few months to the 2009 MLB League Championship Series, showcasing teams from New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Los Angeles again. Typical for baseball’s postseason, all remaining participants were big market teams with $100 million plus payrolls. We’d seen it before and weren’t too shocked. We knew the Tampa Bay Rays and Colorado Rockies of yesteryears were flukes. Big market ALWAYS wins in baseball. However, being generally optimistic, baseball fans everywhere pined for an old school Dodgers-Yankees final. East Coast-West Coast. Tupac-Biggie. Bloods-Crips. NCIS-NCIS: Los Angeles. But then, something funny happened again. Playing spoiler, the Philadelphia Phillies changed destiny and robbed sports fans of a Fall Classic for the ages. Of course, showing that a $210 million payroll still means something, the Yankees went on to win the World Series while simultaneously chalking another tally in the “a Sports God might not exist” Category. Fine, we said. It was their time, the Yankees were due. But the curse had to stop there, right? Wrong.
Next came the NBA Slam Dunk contest. Often thought of as the best part of NBA Weekend, this once celebrated spectacle was so bad that I’ll spend as much time talking about it as Gerald Wallace spent practicing dunks.
Not to be outdone, the Winter Olympics was anything but superb. Unless you count figure skating, which I don’t, there were few feel good stories. The results were predictable. Germans won luge events, Norwegians won any event with the word ‘skiing’ in it and the United States won anything invented by the X-Games or Mountain Dew. Capping the Olympics, Sidney Crosby, hockey’s least likeable player this side of Todd Bertuzzi, lead his heavily favored veteran Canadian team over the upstart United States squad, all but guaranteeing NHL players not participating in the next Olympics. Gee, thanks Sidney, don’t you have an accusatory interview to give?
Just when all hope seemed lost, a feisty mid-major school captured America’s hearts as they fought their way to the NCCA Men’s Basketball Championship game. They had no business being there. It was the movie Hoosiers come to life. They had America on their side. They had all the momentum. The game was 6 miles from their campus. The crowd was so pro-Butler they could have burned a Duke flag in the stands and hung a Blue Devil from the rafters and gotten away with it. Everything was set up for the greatest underdog story in NCCA tournament history to unfold. And just like that, Hayward’s shot rimmed out at the buzzer. No storybook ending. No closure. No satisfaction. Just another Duke championship. What? This isn’t how it was suppose to work. The Cobra Kai doesn’t win!
I honestly don’t know what to think anymore. Either it’s been a terrible two years for the good guys or the Nike puppets unleashed an unstoppable 2012 sports apocalypse. For those of you who know me, you know my stance on conspiracy theories and impending apocalypses Or is it apocalypsi? Can you even have multiple apocalypses? Either way, start stocking up on canned beans and bottled water, this thing is about to go down. We are on the brink of a sports apocalypse and not even an aging John Cusack can save us. Inquiring minds want to know, what does JaCaptain see in his Sports Crystal Ball for the years to come? Please, let me indulge:
Summer 2010: To kick the summer off right, soccer’s two top ranked teams, Spain and Brazil, will meet in the Wor
ld Cup finals. After realizing how much money they’ve made kicking around a silly looking basketball while dating super models and sporting faux-hawks, the players will walk off the field, settling with a 0-0 tie. Faux-hawk note: I’m convinced if you’re in shape, tan and have a faux-hawk, there’s a 97.3% chance you’re a professional soccer player. Add 2 more percentage points if you have diamond earrings.
June – August 2010: After completing an impressive regular season and steamrolling the rest of the Eastern Conference, LeBron’s Cavaliers will lose in the Eastern Conference Finals to the Atlanta Hawks who will get swept by the Lakers in the finals. Sick of the Cavaliers’ failures and living in a city whose average citizen could best be described as “husky,” LeBron bolts for the New York Knicks and signs a 12 year, $300 million contract to join Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in the Big Apple, creating a physics-defying, unstoppable force.
Summer 2010: Sidney Crosby and the Penguins win another Stanley Cup, while Sidney complains about not receiving his own trophy.
August – October 2010: Falling out of the playoff race, the Minnesota Twins panic and trade Joe Mauer to the New York Yankees for a handful of pitching prospects and two Coney Island hot dogs, or as the Twins marketing department describes them: the baseball players formerly known as Jorge Posada and Chan Ho Park. After dominating the AL East like it was a tanning booth frequented by a Jersey Shore cast member, the Yankees and their $215 million payroll will capture yet another World Series championship.
February 2011: After mixed reviews and declining viewership, the NBA feels All-Star Saturday is due for an overhaul. As a result, the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest becomes the Nestea Aggressive Layup Drill featuring NBA mid-level stars David Lee, Kevin Love, Tyler Hansborough and Nate Robinson. Mostly because of his small stature, Nate Robinson wins after completing a layup off a standard outlet pass from Danilo Gallinari. The crowd politely claps.
Fall 2011: NFL Players Union and Owners can’t reach an agreement. An NFL Lockout ensues. Vince McMahon revives the XFL. All hope appears lost.
October 2011: The Yankees win another World Series. Hope is officially lost, appearing on milk cartons and telephone poles around the country.
January 1, 2012: Newspaper article snippet: Proving one young writers lofty 2010 prediction, the recreational activity known as ‘organized sports’ passed away late last night. ‘Sports,’ as they were referred to by friends, lost their heroic battle with imminent doom brought about by the now infamous Nike puppet commercials. Said long time sports fan Henry Abbott of Minnesota, “Every once in a while you’d see a 12 seed beat a 5 seed or a small market team win a playoff series, but ol’ Sports just wasn’t the same after the Yankees won their third World Series in three years. We all pretty much knew their time on Earth was short after that.” Sports was survived by leisure activities, NASCAR and John Madden.
Hopefully this article reverses the damage done. But just in case, enjoy sports while they last because the end may be near. Thanks, Nike.
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