We understand, you missed the last week in sports because you are going on a sports diet to get ready for the NFL orgy/buffet that starts in a week. Also, your fantasy draft is super important so you stopped watching the rest of it. Unlike most of August, it was a pretty wild week in sports. VICE, as always, has it covered.
Cycling
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The US Anti-Doping Association stripped Lance “Neil” Armstrong of his seven (consecutive) Tour De France championships (1999-2005, remember?) and banned him for life from competition when he decided sometime last week he wouldn’t face the charges. I’m not sure why he quit, one of the Olsen twins probably put him up to it (the evil one, obvi.). Naturally, people are freaking out about the news, mostly his fans and the ten weirdos still alive who actually watch cycling. Armstrong is cool because he beat cancer and is rich and is an asshole, but he sucks since… well, he is annoying looking and most athletes are wretched, and those take precedence. He is probably listening to some terrible music right now and thinking incredibly hard, but the joke is on us when he drives his 1988 Beemer to Woody Harrelson’s ranch for skeet shooting. The real question is whether Armstrong still shaves his legs, or if they were smooth to begin with.
Baseball
The Red Sox, deep in an underwhelming season, traded four players—two bad, one good, and one basically irrelevant—to the Dodgers for a few prospects and warm bodies, and made history. History not because of the prospect return (nothing franchise-altering), but because Boston got rid of, like, $260 million in salary. The Dodgers, who you’ll remember are under new and flush ownership, are betting on the present. Here are their playoff odds. If you’re not a baseball fan, you’ll be surprised to know the Dodgers’ new salary commitments are chump change. (Just kidding, it’s a fucking ton of money.) Some Red Sox fans are disappointed Gonzalez is gone, but the other guys who were traded were so bad and on such imbecilic contracts, Gonzalez could turn into Babe Ruth Carver (the guy who carved Babe Ruth’s bat and invented Big League Chew) and it’d still be a fine move for Boston. On a philosophical level, it’s a basketball trade, and also probably the first instance of a team firing the players instead of the manager.
– Roger Clemens pitched for the Sugarland Skeeters, which isn’t a real (i.e., affiliated) team, on Saturday and did incredibly well and also incredibly poorly. Incredibly well since he struck out guys, which doesn’t happen for a 50-year-old pitcher, but poorly since the quality of competition he faced then was equivalent to a 50-year-old Major Leaguer now, say, John Kruk. John Kruk is 50 (I think) and retired, and is about 25,000 times less good of a hitter than the Astros’ backup catcher. So Clemens’ game Saturday, like all individual games, didn’t mean anything.
Soccer
– Everton, which might be the most righteous team in the Premiership since it’s the poorest, kind of, whupped Manchester United’s azz on Monday, and the initial estimations are that United lost like $30 million in jersey sales in weird countries where they only wear United jerseys. People with gelled hair everywhere are sad, some of that being due to the loss. Then Everton won again. :D
NFL
– Peyton Manning, who is the quarterback with the giant head that Denver traded for and who also acts in those awesome Pedialite commercials, apparently can’t throw to his right, which is, as most football fans know, a crucial work-skill in today’s national (football) (league) job market. Will he get cut? Will he be playing in Saskatoon by October? Will the friendships he’s trying to form with the guys on his team happen? He will still make $18 million this year. What a country, folks!
NBA
– LeBron James wants to act in Space Jam II. The movie doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, or IMDB entry, just, like, a sad petition, but here’s the footage of Bill Murray wearing Air Jordans in the original. Here’s a quote from James’ teammate Dwyane Wade saying he’s no Michael Jordan. God, is this anything? This is not anything. This is nothing. This is the basketball offseason.
