Sports

Yeah, I didn’t believe that headline either, even as I typed it with my own basketball-loving fingers.
The news broke this morning from inside sources who have it on good authority that the Blazers’ franchise player (and former rookie of the year), Brandon Roy, would be retiring do to knee injuries.

Tim Tebow (and baby Jesus and the rest of the Denver team) outlasted the Chargers 16-13 in OT on Sunday. Goddammit. Unfortunately, next weekend the Broncos (6-5) are at Minnesota (2-9)—not really the team that’s going to stop Denver. Maybe if we Tebow really hard, the Vikes can pull it out…

In this week’s Left Field column, I wrote about how although I think Tim Tebow is an excellent young man, I really can’t stand the way the guy plays football.
Some people didn’t really like this.

In this week’s Left Field column, I wrote about how Hank Williams Jr.’s dreadful opening song to Monday Night Football was pulled this week after the son of the country legend appeared on Fox News and, among other bizarre statements, called the president and vice president of the United States “the enemy.

The college pigskin season started this past week and with it time to once again examine team nicknames and the current trend to wild uniforms. There are nicknames and uniforms that are truly fearsome and some that are, well, not destined to strike fear into the hearts of anyone, much less the opposition.
First to team nicknames. From the Bulldogs (Yale, Georgia) to the Bears (Cal golden, Maine black), Wildcats (Arizona, Kentucky, Northwestern) and the Golden Gophers (Minnesota), animal nicknames are the most popular. But there are way too many teams sporting the “Tiger” nickname. LSU (sorry Oregon fans) Missouri, Princeton, Auburn, Memphis, among others. Too many tigers have diminished the name’s overall ferocity.
As for Ducks and Beavers, neither is as scary as Cougars (Washington State and BYU), Wolverines (Michigan), or Badgers (Wisconsin). The latter are truly fierce creatures, the former not so scary but very Oregon-centric, of course.

It might seem counter intuitive that in the midst of the ongoing recession the newest sport take hold in the High Desert would be polo, the activity most associated with British Royalty. Regardless, the relatively young and locally based Cascade Polo Club is demonstrating that the sport has an audience here in Central Oregon.

College football season is still a few weeks away, but there was some good news for the Oregon Ducks squad today when the USA Today preseason rankings were released.
Oregon is ranked #3 in a pre-season poll that has Oklahoma as the top-ranked team and places fellow Pac-12 (that feels weird to type) rival Stanford at #6.

Update: At about 1:15 local time, the Mariners 17-game losing streak came to an end with a 9-2 win over the Yankees. Consider this an obituary to the worst run of loses in Mariners history.