Corked in Louisville, an average golfer, a mountainous feat and Mrs. Spiderman
06/14/2001
Codding Home / Sports Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
Just how pitiful are the Tampa Bay Devil Rays? Well, with a 21-44 record the Rays are tied with the Pirates for the lowest winning percentage in baseball: 32.3%. They've allowed 410 runs on the year, one of only two teams to have given up at least 400 runs; conversely, eight teams in the American League alone haven't even allowed 300 yet. And not only is Tampa last in runs allowed, they're also dead last in the AL in runs scored with 257. But that's not the worst of it. Those are just numbers -- sure, they're terrible numbers, but numbers nonetheless.
The Devil Rays, as a franchise, finally hit rock bottom on June 13 when outfielder Jose Guillen, currently on a rehab assignment with the Durham Bulls, sent a broken-bat grounder to third in the first inning against the Louisville RiverBats. Instead of running toward first base, though, Guillen took a step toward the mound, apparently trying to retrieve the barrel of his shattered bat. But plate umpire Jeff Head had already caught a glimpse of what Guillen was trying to hide from everyone in Louisville Slugger Field: a barrel stuffed with wine cork. When asked about the bat after the game, Guillen said, "I don't have time to talk about that stuff." He obviously was in a hurry to get that next batch of bats ready for whenever his eminent suspension is over.
So we've got a 24-year-old outfielder with 42 homers and a career .262 batting average in 1,778 Major League plate appearances actually corking his bat in a minor league game? I'm pretty sure that's one of the more pathetic sports stories I've ever heard, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who already deserved to be ridiculed every time they took the field, took another colossal step into the land of mortification.
Newsflash:
Tiger Woods is human, after all. In fact, I just saw him hit a shot in the U.S. Open that I'm pretty sure I could have made. Actually, I'm damn confident I could have duplicated Tiger's second shot on the ninth hole at Southern Hills. From about 85 yards out, Tiger's wedge betrayed him, sending his chip shot wide right, ricocheting off a tree and settling in a nearby bunker. An ugly sand wedge, another chip and one putt later, Tiger scribbled a double-bogey on his scorecard, knocking him to +3 on the front nine. A couple minutes later, his second shot on the 10th also found sand. Now, I'm not predicting defeat for Tiger this weekend as he tries to win his fifth-straight major in Tulsa, and I'm certainly not trying to imply that my golf game is a mere lob wedge away from his -- it's more like a blistering tee shot, a crushed three-wood, an easy eight-iron, a four-putt, another tee shot, one more chip and two or three more putts. But it's nice to know that, at least at one crazy moment in time, arguably the best golfer to ever tee-up a ball looks no better than your average weekend worm-burner with a 27-handicap, a ferocious slice off the tee and a case of beer in the cooler.
Ain't no mountain high enough...
On Thursday, May 24, Erik Weihenmayer, a 32-year-old private school teacher from Colorado, became the first blind hiker to successfully climb Mount Everest.
Weihenmayer, who also is a motivational speaker, had help from two friends as he scaled the 29,000-foot mountain in Nepal -- one friend used a bell to help him find his way while another followed close behind. Man, I can't even find my way to the bathroom at 3:00 in the morning without banging into a wall or cracking my hip on the corner of the bed and
Weihenmayer, who was blind by his early teens because of a degenerative disease called
retinoschesis, climbed Mount Everest using only a bell and the help of two friends? Instead of hearing Barry Bonds home run updates every 15 minutes, why haven't we heard more about Erik Weihenmayer and his truly remarkable accomplishment?
Left Eye and Big Mouth
You can call NFL wide receiver Andre Rison a lot of things: loudmouthed, obnoxious, cocky, overrated, a felon, unemployed... . The list goes on and on. But, a hopeless romantic? It seems there is actually a softer side to the former Colts, Falcons, Browns, Jaguars, Packers, Chiefs and Raiders wide receiver, who recently announced that he and singer Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes will be married next month. If you remember, Lopes, a member of the pop group TLC, burnt down Rison's Alpharetta, Ga., mansion in 1994 after the two, who were dating at the time, had a particularly nasty argument. Reportedly Rison, who played with Oakland last season and won a Super Bowl ring with the Packers in 1996, said, "Well, I didn't want to be your typical washed-up football player with a criminal record and a violent temper, so I figured I may as well marry a psychotic pyromaniac to sorta set me apart from guys like Michael Irvin, Hollywood Henderson and Lawrence Phillips."
QuickQuote:
"I always played mean. I just like playing mean. However, I'm not a mean person in real life... unless you mess with me. Then I'll kick your ass."
--Lakers center
Shaquille O'Neal on his
physical play in the NBA Finals