Sports Rant: July 11, 2011
Maxim chats with sports blogger Drew Magary of Deadspin and Kissing Suzy Kolber about this weekend’s athletic hits and misses.
Maxim chats with sports blogger Drew Magary of Deadspin and Kissing Suzy Kolber about this weekend’s athletic hits and misses.
maxim: Yo yo!
bigdaddydrew: Hey diddly ho.
I guess we can get into DJ3K OMG OMG OMG!
maxim: Yes DEREK JETER HOLY SHIT GUY DIDN’T TAKE MONEY FOR BALL AAHHHHHHHH!
bigdaddydrew: As Ken Tremendous said, “Jesus Christ is the Derek Jeter of Christianity.”
maxim: Did you find yourself begrudgingly going, “Damn. OK. That’s pretty fucking dramatic and badass.”
bigdaddydrew: Yeah no, I don’t give a shit.
And people are like OMG HE HIT A HOMER WITH THE 3000TH HIT!
I can’t get up for 3,000 hits or 300 wins.
Because it’s basically just celebrating round numbers.
Ooh, loogit! Three thousand! That’s divisible by many things!
He didn’t break a record.
It’s like when a good running back gets to 8 or 10 thousand yards.
It’s a personal milestone that doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things. It’s not like Jeter wasn’t going to be a HOFer without it.
I’m sure Lupica would induct him TODAY if he could.
maxim: Yeah, I suppose celebrating 3,000 is as arbitrary as celebrating 2794.
Do you have any strong feelings about that kid giving Jeter the ball back? I can’t believe people are still talking about it.
bigdaddydrew: He’ll regret that.
Especially once we learn Jeter got that 3,000th hit by smoking crystallized snake doodoo.
maxim: I’m the kind of dork who would’ve given it to him, too. And then yeah, in two years when I’m trying to buy a house and I have $300 in savings be like, “Crap.”
bigdaddydrew: Yeah no, NEVER give the ball back. Ever.
Keep it and commission Christie’s to sell it immediately.
Or else you end up like “Spawn” guy and you feel like an idiot.
Too many fans are like, “Well, I need money, but then IT WOULD RUIN THE MAGIC OF BASEBALL.”
maxim: It would be awesome if fans started giving every ball they catch back to the player who hit it. “Excuse me, Mr. Ortiz? This is the ball you fouled off on an 0-2 count in the 5th when you guys were up by 4? I knew you’d want it.”
bigdaddydrew: Yeah no, keep the ball.
maxim: So are you PSYCHED for the Home Run Derby or whatzzzzzzzzzzzzz?
bigdaddydrew: We at Deadspin have a longstanding hatred of Berman doing the Derby.
BACKBACKBACKBACKSHUTTHEFUCKUP.
I bet he urinates in the booth before starting the Derby just to mark his territory.
And now that no one hits home runs in baseball anymore except for that Toronto guy, it’s pretty much like watching the Pro Bowl.
HERE ARE THE NINTH ALTERNATE BEST POWER HITTERS IN THE GAME!
maxim: I think it’s the most useless contest in sports.
I’ll admit to being charmed and vaguely interested by Josh Hamilton’s run a few years ago. But really…? Who cares?
It’s the most boring televised event. C-Span is more interesting.
bigdaddydrew: It’s like the dunk contest.
It works for the first, maybe, ten years of its existence.
After that, the fun is gone and it’s basically like watching badly shot porn.
You have to change these accessory all star events every decade or so or else the novelty wears off.
maxim: I’m not even really a fan of the game itself. All-Star games…kinda bullshit.
And the fact that they try to make it mean something with World Series home advantage is monumentally stupid.
bigdaddydrew: It’s really an event for kids.
We grownups aren’t the target.
The target is a little kid who looks to the field and sees Pedroia and Jeter on the same field and is like OMG OMG! MEGATEAM!
That’s why they do it. Kids are too dumb to know it’s useless.
maxim: So the latest on the NFL lockout is that it should be over in 7-10 days. Which is great, I want there to be football, but the fact that they’re gonna get this done just under the wire in terms of preseason starting is like, Oh fuck you guys. Couldn’t you have worked this out earlier? Just trying to be dramatic?
bigdaddydrew: But they keep moving it back.
I kept hearing July 4.
Then July 15.
Now it’s July 21.
And it’s like, IF IT’S SO DONE, THEN FUCKING DO IT.
Because every day that goes by that it doesn’t happen makes the fear that it will all go to shit magnified.
And I can’t take that fear.
maxim: I hate that they keep pegging it to this Hall of Fame game. Who cares? Just straighten your shit out so these guys can start working out and practicing as a team, get signed up if they’re free agents, whatever. The important stuff. Let’s get that underway. Hall of Fame game is not a factor.
bigdaddydrew: Oh but you’re wrong.
The HOF game is part of the set TV schedule.
And there’s revenue to be had there.
Once revenue is lost and once the TV schedule goes all nutty, then shit degenerates.
They know the preseason is dumb.
But they have certain set things in place that they need to keep in order to prevent postponements and cancellations and lost money.
maxim: But each week of preseason lost is valued at something like 200-250 million dollars.
Though I guess maybe that’s nothing compared to effing up the TV schedule.
bigdaddydrew: TV is the God of the sport, so they mess with it at their own peril.
maxim: SportsCenter just put women’s soccer’s victory over Brazil this weekend at number 5 on a list of the most dramatic moments in sports.
I’m happy about it, but 5th most dramatic moment in sports history ever? I don’t know about that.What about DEREK JETER HOMERS TO REACH 3,000 AHHHHHH!
bigdaddydrew: I didn’t watch it.
Which makes me a horrible American, because it was apparently quite exciting.
And I think it’s cool to see the women’s team produce real, organic excitement, instead of the orchestrated excitement that happened around the ’99 cup.
Because that all felt manufactured.
maxim: I didn’t watch it either, and I feel guilty.
Especially as a woman! Who’s played sports!
bigdaddydrew: I feel guilty mainly because it was great to watch.
And Twitter I think helped get people to tune in.
So it was like, “This isn’t a drill. This is actually good.”
maxim: I’ll be watching their next game for sure. Feels like that victory has given them the momentum they need to win the whole thing.
bigdaddydrew: And I think they’ll benefit from the whole lockout summer sports malaise.
We need an actual sporting event.