 |
||||||||||||
That's
A Bad Mother.... Rick Hendrick picked up his 200th win as a car owner, by virtue of Jimmie Johnson's winning effort in Darlington. The Hendrick Motorsports teams have been trying to reach that elusive number for a while, but they finally managed to reach the milestone. It's an impressive feat, but it also shows you how staggering Richard Petty's racing career is, since the "King" won 200 by himself. While Johnson shined down the stretch to pick up the win, more troubles continued for Jeff Gordon. The driver of the 24-car must be wondering who put the voodoo hex on his car this year. If something can go wrong, it has this season. Maybe a change in venue this week in Charlotte will do the trick. Dale, Jr. continues to hang tight near the top of the Cup standings, and he also continues his streak of not being able to win a race. For anybody counting at home, we're now up to 1-4-0....140 starts since his last and only win with the Hendrick organization. The guy gets great equipment, and never seems to find Victory Lane. He has now started 155 races for the Hendrick organization and has a 2008 win at Michigan as the bright spot. Amazing. I can't let a NASCAR mention go without talking about the "Face"....Danica Patrick. She told a national TV audience before the race that she wanted to be relatively competitive and finish. Spoken like a true superstar. Well, "Face" did finish....6 laps behind Jimmie Johnson. And afterwards, she said that she "held her own" on the track. Apparently, there is no drug testing in the sport. The FOX Sports broadcast included a comment from Michael Waltrip that left me laughing my ass off....."Mikey" gave "Face" an A+ for her performance. I guess coming from the "Waltrip Family of Broadcasters", that is to be expected. All I could determine is that GoDaddy.com must be spending a fortune on advertising on the FOX broadcasts and somewhere in the fine print is the line that stipulates that Danica cannot be criticized under any circumstance. I think FOX does the best job covering NASCAR, but you lose all sense of credibility when you give a driver, any driver, an A+ for being 6 laps down in a car that hasn't been damaged or wrecked. The same goes for Darrell Waltrip, who made the dumbest comment ever in NASCAR broadcast history, when he claimed that Danica Patrick was the "Face" of the sport before ever completing one lap in her debut at Daytona. In college football, the hot topic centers around the big boys coming to their senses and kicking around a format that includes a 4-team playoff. The BCS suits gathered a few weeks ago in Florida and the general feeling was that there are a handful of proposals that would tweak the system so that a tournament setup could be formed. We're supposed to hear the latest BCS-playoff news sometime in June or July, depending on the response from the school presidents. And that's the problem. My biggest fear as a college football fan is that we've all got our hopes up thinking that the BCS suits have come to their senses and decided to give us a baby-step solution of a 4-team playoff. What happens if the stuffed suits give it a "thumbs down"? It is a possibility, and I don't like it one bit. Unfortunately, there isn't a thing that anybody can do about it. It will remain a highly debated topic until there is a news conference scheduled for Chicago sometime this summer. Big Ten Commish, Jim Delany, made some news this past week when he claimed that any team that isn't good enough to win its division has no business making it to the playoff format. He took it a step further by declaring that he doesn't have any respect for that team in this matter. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was talking about Bama and their method for playing and winning the national title last year. It was a terrible blunder by Delany....not so much Bama's sake, but his own conference. If we go to the 4-team playoff, take the four best teams regardless of conference affiliation. Under that basic, simplistic rule, that means there are just a handful of conferences that could produce those teams....and the Big Ten is one of them. Why step in it? The ACC landed a new TV deal with ESPN/ABC that will pay each league member $17 million per year thru the 2027 season. That's a ton of cash for a league that has also produced an embarrassing 2-13 record in BCS games. Despite the increase of 4 mil per year, per school in the new deal, there apparently is one disappointed conference member. The one that has spoken out is Florida State. The Noles' collection of suits haven't figured out a way to get on the same page. The school's AD and President have both defended the new TV deal and their commitment to the ACC while a Board of Trustee member has shot off at the hip saying the school needs to look at any and all options that includes joining the Big XII conference. I guess the increase of revenue could be a problem for the Tallahassee school....currently they are losing money in their athletic department despite having a Top 20 football program, a Top 5 baseball program and the current ACC champion in basketball. Maybe they teach accounting or financial management at FSU? If the Noles want to join the Big XII, let 'em go.....but before they head West, make sure they understand that they owe the ACC $20 million bucks for the exit fee. In case the Board of Trustees forgot, their school approved that deal last year along with the rest of the ACC. One thing is certain...greed is alive and well in college athletics. The NBA Playoffs continue.... I got a kick out of all the fines that were handed down by the league this past week. I learned the pecking order:
Be sure you memorize that list....you'll be tested later on. Otherwise, it was another stellar week of playoff hoops.....fun game 7's....and LeBron James picked up his third NBA MVP award. I'm looking forward to the Lakers-Thunder series...it has the makings of an intense, no BS, showdown. |
|
|||||||||||
