THE Open

With all due respect to the Brits and their insistence that the British Open simply be known as "The Open," there's no nearly the excitement or interest in yours as their is in ours.

And that's not just me, the obnoxious American, talking. It's also me the obnoxious golf fan.

See, I just can't get excited about seeing guys struggling to avoid going to +10. I can double bogey holes, guys! I watch golf to see excellent shot making and skilled players. And when Greg fricking Norman is leading a major after 54 holes, that indicates that something is amiss. When the younger, more talented players simply cannot hack it because the conditions are just ridiculous, it's not fun anymore. It's not fun for the players, for sure, and it's not fun for me to watch.

Word came out on Saturday night that course officials were going to check things out on Sunday morning and were considering suspending play if the winds reached their potential of 50 MPH gusts. That's kind of stupid. Guys were backing off of putts because the wind would begin to move their balls! And when the wind moves my balls, I call it a day. (Heh.)

Now, I know, there are golf fans out there who will claim this is a true test of skill.... that the atrocious northwestern England weather "levels the playing field."

They're wrong.

If the Indianapolis 500 was raced in six inches of snow, would that be a great leveler? Would that show some real driving skill? I suppose so, but would be an enjoyable race? (Actually, that's a bad example because I think that would make me watch it... but you get my point.)

In the end, Padraig Harrington won his second straight Open, and he shot a 32 on the back nine to do it, which is kind of nice and a lot better than the way he won last year, with Sergio choking.

And then there's poor Greg Norman. I've never been a fan of Norman, but I do distinctly remember his various choke jobs over the years. The guys a tremendously talented golfer who simply cannot finish. He's the anti-Tiger: He's taken the 54 hole lead into Sunday eight times in his career -- he is 1-7 in those tourneys. Yikes.

However, I'm sure Chris Evert, his new bride, will make him feel like a champion who can finish.

Hey-oooo!

Meanwhile, Across Town...

Incredibly, the Mets, who were running away with their division for most of this year, have slippped to just one game ahead of the Phillies as of today after getting swept last night (at home!) by the Washington Nationals. The Nats have taken five of six from the Mets over the past two weeks.

As you may or may not know, I report to you from the NY Metro area and the Mets fans I know are absolutely beside themselves. Last week, I was at a meeting and an attorney (and Mets fan) I know was so disgusted, he could barely articulate it. His answer to the issues? "They need to fire that manager." He couldn't even bring himself to say Willie Randolph's name. And he went on to say he knew they never should have hired a Yankee. Good gracious, are Mets fans this deluded? Do they think a Yankee is some kind of cancer? A guy from a winning organization? Who should they have made the manager? Rickey "Me First" Henderson? (Who, by the way, has to be fired from his job as first base coach. Jose Reyes now gets thrown out way too much and what's changed? Rickey as first base coach.)

Today I came into my office and, again, Mets fans cannot even bring themselves to discuss the situations and many of them (and this is something I've always noticed about Mets fans) claim they're not even watching the games anymore because they don't want to be upset. Amazing.

They are indeed in trouble, though. This isn't one of my posts where I'll tell everyone to calm down. This isn't the New York media building this up to be more than it is. This is the Mets, who had a 7-game lead in mid-September, down to a one-game lead over a hot Phillies team. And if they Mets don't watch what they're doing, they could miss the playoffs altogether. They have four games to go and their magic number is STILL four. This isn't a good team. Pedro's arm is always suspect, Glavine is over the hill, El Duque is over the hill AND hurt right now. Their bullpen is a complete disaster, blowing leads almost every night. And their offense is relying on guys who keep talking about being "tired" (Wright and Reyes) and guys getting older (Delgado, Alou, Lo Duca). Even if they make it into the playoffs, they're not winning it all and I think they'd be lucky to make it out of the Division Series.

But we shall see. Who would have thought the Yankees would clinch first?

Don't Get Your Balls Mixed Up

Yes, this is another post having to do with Alex Rodriguez. Hey, it's baseball season, what do you want from me? boilerdowd will provide you with your F1 news and I'll ramble on about baseball... and eventually, mercifully, Boilermaker Football will be upon us.

Anyway, so Alex Rodriguez hits home run number 499 last night as the Yankees continued to beat up on quadruple A teams. Leaving aside the fact that ARod will only be 32 years old on Friday and he's already at 500 dingers (okay, 499), how about this interesting fact:

Prior to their game against the Orioles on Friday, the Yankees have to complete a game that was suspended due to the weather on June 28th. So if ARod, who will bat in the completion of the game unless Torre removes him, hits homer #500 then, it won't technically be #500 and the one from last night will now be number 500. Right?

Or do we count them in succession... and this one will literally be the 500th of his major league career, according to chronology?

Geez, ARod, you can't even do this right. You're such a choker.

Well, At Least He Doesn't Hit Like a Girl

Sure, Shelly Duncan has a girl's name, but the down-home, corn-fed country boy can really hit. He came up to the big club over the weekend and hit three homers, including two in yesterday's gangbang of the Tampa Bay pitching staff. The 21-4 pasting came a day after a 17-5 ass-whipping. My awful softball team doesn't get beaten this badly... though, that's likely because of the mercy rule. Yes, guys, I think the Devil Rays get the point. Doing that against good teams would be fun, too. And that brings us to the point, here... before we all get too excited about Shelly Duncan, let's see him hit off someone other than John Sheilds, or whatever his name was.

In other weekend sports news, Sergio Garcia's career may have just officially come to an end. Oh, sure, he'll keep playing, but he'll probably never be the same. He blew the British Open that he had owned all weekend, and now the stigma of not winning a major has got to be in his head. It's really fine, though, since Colin Montgomerie is getting on in years so it's time for a new weak-kneed Euro to take his place.

And in awful baseball news, a coach was hit in the head with a line drive and died. Just reading the story is so sad. Sorry for the downer this morning.