The Sporting News

Since I know most of you turn to this blog for all your sports information, I am declaring today a feast of celebration. It is a day of wonderful athletics, and the weekend will only continue the theme.

Baseball: The Yankees have triumphed twice against the Red Stockings, winning the home-stand. This afternoon at one they attempt the sweep. There is nothing like afternoon baseball to alleviate the oppressive boredome of my average Post Meridian. A victory today would set us 5 games back in the East, give us an 8-7 edge in the season series, and keep the pressure on the Mariners, who share our lead in the Wild Card hunt.

College Football: The season begins tonight. The main event is #2 LSU taking on Mississippi State. If you can't get behind SEC football, there's nothing to be done for your sad soul. The southeastern United States is a congealed mass of anger, impotence, poverty, and crime. Yet each autumn, stadium lights shed a sort of grace on that beleaguered land. It is like the smile of an ugly child receiving an award for sheer persistence. Even the teeth of a dog glow in the sun.

Unfortuantely, I will be practicing improv in some godforsaken dump of a theatre. I will be attempting to conjure imagined events in a manner approximating reality, while on any of myriad local televisions, fierce men without the luxury of pretense do battle against one another for the only kind of pride worthy of human exertion.

Tennis: Andy Roddick attempts to enact his bullheaded advance in the US Open, while Roger Federer skims along unruffled. Barring upset, the two will meet in the quarterfinal. For young Andy, the soulless embodiment of American excess, all flash and no spirit, the slow advance is akin to a covetous 13th centure Hungarian king. Yea, cruel despot, you may storm the native landscape, accumulating useless fiefdoms, but listen! Do you hear the thundering horde advancing from the east? Do you reckon their numbers? Do you tremble at their might? For they are the Mongols, and at their head is the great Khan!

From now on, I will only write about sport. There is no higher plateau.