Monday Morning Cooler Talk (EW Is Pretty Much Fired Edition)

[Ed. note: sincere apologies for forgetting to post this. I was actually doing work today. Yes, I realize how implausible that excuse is.] --EW

Welcome friends for a rare but always fulfilling update of Trot. I want to preface this MMCT by explaining our total lack of updates. Take a look at your television and your couch at home. Seems a bit foreign huh? It’s because there has been ZERO significant sports on in the past month, and there won’t be anything worth talking about until September 2nd when the college football season begins. Until then, we’re running a skeleton crew at Trot, updating you Mondays and Fridays, and maybe something in-between, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

As for the weekend that was…

• Tiger Woods is back, and in a very weird way. Perhaps unfairly characterized as a player who could only win bomber’s courses (however frequent that may have been), Woods showed everyone he was back by winning the British Open while only removing Frank once to wield his big stick. While Woods often left himself with longer approaches by driving with the long irons, he found the fairway with the highest frequency allowing him to position his approach shot with greater accuracy.
• With the victory secured, the eighteenth hole on Sunday quickly became an emotional one for Woods, who lost his father a few months back, as well as second place finisher Chris DiMarco, who lost his mother a few weeks ago. Both gave extremely emotional exit interviews with the media and I’m sure every fan had to feel relieved that these two phenomenal golfers found some temporary relief in their superb golf play this weekend.
• An odd fact – Woods’ British Open victory at Hoylake this weekend was also the location where Jack Nicklaus also won his first major after his father passed away.
• After nearly giving the Tour away on Stage 16, Floyd Landis made up over eight minutes to become the Tour de France’s latest American winner, joining the likes of three-time winner Greg LeMond and seven-time hardass Lance Armstrong. Landis battled a notably less-powerful group (as Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, and a handful of other top riders were banned for substance abuse) as well as an arthritic hip to win the Tour by a slim margin of 57 seconds.
• Over this off-season, the Indiana Pacers have acquired Marquis Daniels, Darrell Armstrong, Josh Powell, Rawle Marshall, three AAC concession workers, Champ, and four MFFL t-shirts from the Dallas Mavericks. No word on whether they’re taking Humble Billy or that annoying douchebag and possibly gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that) on-court emcee, Chris Arnold. Fingers crossed!
• The Mavericks, on the other hand, have only received Austin Croshere, Anthony Johnson, and a pretty cool Reggie Miller throwback jersey in return from the Indiana Pacers. As far as quantity goes, the Mavs are getting jobbed.
• Ricky Williams – the Longhorn who tries my patience even more than Mike Williams – has broken his arm while playing in a CFL game for the Toronto Argonauts. Here’s where I’m about to spill some knowledge on you. The Toronto Argonauts were founded in 1873 by the Toronto Argonaut Rowing Club (hence the name Argonaut, as in Jason and the Argonauts). The Argonauts are the oldest continuously operating football team in North America (though this is disputed by the Mexico City Aztec Sun, who allegedly played an exhibition against the Confederates during the Civil War), and have launched careers of such greats as Joe Theismann, Rocket Ismail, Doug Flutie, Mike Vanderjagt, and Terry Metcalf. The Argonauts currently have two Heisman winners on their roster – Ricky Williams and Eric Crouch. That’s ridiculous.

As for my non-sports thoughts of the week:

• For a guy who talks a lot about basketball and follows basketball religiously, I’m actually quite terrible at the game in question. Like, there’s normal un-athletic bad, but then there’s me – laughably awkward with no real skill set to speak of. When I was at my best (about 11 or 12 years old), I think I totally could’ve schooled current-me. It also doesn’t help that I didn’t get much bigger or faster since then.
• Brothas doing the motorcycle dance? It looks ridiculous. Definitely on par with white guys doing the casting and luring dance.
• When the resident “THAT GUY” at the office goes on a business trip for two weeks, everybody’s a winner. Seriously, there are no losers in that situation.

So concludes the first book end. Maybe there will be books in between this week, but maybe not. I don’t really care, as I’m doing this service pro bono. Pro bono is Latin for, “without effort”.

--CH