The Sixth Cents XVII: Big Brown Dump Edition

This is my somewhat regular posting called “The Sixth Cents.” It’s a little play on words with the "my two cents" concept mixed with me having a "sixth sense" about sports. The second part is obviously ridiculous, just like anyone who tells you that they knew the whole time that Bruce Willis was already dead. In this feature, I will attempt to give my take on some of the stories in the sports world and a few personal annecdots on top of it.

It’s been awhile since I gave ya’ll a post other than my soccer team updates, and I also failed at getting a Top 5 out last week. There really hasn’t been anything new and crazy going in the sports world so I’ve had a tough time getting a Sixth Cents together, but I figured I owed you kids after the poor couple of weeks. Enjoy!

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1. Going Postal
Be sure to dump your stock in UPS and start using the U.S. Postal Service again. Big Brown was the victim of probably the most shocking loss of Triple Crown hopefuls the Belmont has ever seen. It was the first time a horse with a shot at the Triple Crown ever finished in last place. Now it has been 30 long years since our last trifecta.

Big Brown has been injured for the past couple weeks, so it wasn’t exactly the biggest shock the world of horse racing has ever seen. More than anything else, it was the way he lost. Running in third place and looking good over the first half of the race, everyone assumed that Big Brown would coast around the final turn and explode down the final stretch like he had in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes. Instead, he started jerking his head to the side in obvious discomfort and his jockey eased him up and out of the pack as they trotted to the finish line.

Although we are hearing reports that there is nothing physically wrong with the UPS sponsored colt, jockey Kent Desormeaux’s wise decision to pull up lame may have saved Big Brown and the sport of horse racing from another public execution on the track. Mrs. Sizemore, who comes from a family that knows quite a bit about the sport of horse racing, was gleeful that the Triple Crown was not won. Personally, I’m for witnessing history and was sad that the horse that brought me $50 of glory in a random draw bet with Mrs. Miami’s family a few weeks ago couldn’t finish what he started.

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2. The Heart of Rock and Roll is in Cleveland
Several weeks back, Mrs. Sizemore lost a bet. We were sitting around with some friend’s at their lake house in Beverley Shores, Indiana playing cards when the song “The Heart of Rock and Roll” by Huey Lewis and the News came on the old iPod. I was singing along with the song and came in one verse too early with the lyrics, “…in Cleveland,” that appear in the final refrain. Mrs. Sizemore had more than her share of adult cocktails and was adamant that these were not, in fact, the words in the song. So sure of herself, that she said, “I promise I will be an Indians fan if they say ‘Cleveland’ anywhere in this song.”

So one verse later we had one more member of the Tribe and one less member of Red Sox Nation, at which point she proceeded to cry herself to sleep. Since then, the Indians have sucked miserably, so I let her off the hook on Sunday. I’ve never been one to believe that things such as these have any effect on the game, but we’re 2-0 since. Either way, if we don’t turn this thing around soon, it will be a long three months until football season begins.

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3. I Think I’m Gonna Bomb a Town
Speaking of football, we are nearing completion of the first of two Beirut tables and I must say, it’s looking good. All of the up to date pictures are currently available on Mrs. Sizemore’s facebook profile since my date to my cousin’s wedding from LAST June still has my digital camera. For those that aren’t on the ole facebook yet, get with the program. I know parents and companies that have profiles and it’s features make it an all encompassing website that has the potential to make other Internet websites like evite, snapfish, and birthday alarm (among others) obsolete in the near future. For those that don’t want to jump on the bandwagon, wait about another week and I’ll post them on here for the entire world to see. In the mean time, here is a shot of the OSU logo in the middle of the board before we touch it up and a shot of the circles where the cups go to wet your appetite.












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4. Put a Fork in the NBA
After 23 years on this earth, the first live NBA game I ever took in was my first on the job for the Chicago Bulls in the fall of 2002. For over two seasons I lived for the Bulls despite he team being compared too high school teams as far as their level of play. When I left the team, they suddenly got good again and made a couple of playoff runs only to fall apart amidst elevated expectations this past year.

As for the rest of the league, well, amongst the best players in the league you have a rapist (Kobe Bryant,) a whiney baby (Tim Duncan,) a me-first thug who doesn’t like to practice (Allen Iverson,) a vanilla-bland foreigner (Dirk Nowitzki,) and a lousy tipper (LeBron James.) And then you have a referee, Tim Donaghy, who quits and is convicted of fixing games against the spread. Now he says that he isn’t the only one and that the league was fixing games to create lengthen some of the playoff series, something that has been suspected by conspiracy theorists for a long time. Well, I’ve had enough. It was already my least favorite of the five, yes five, major team sports. I don’t know what to do with it anymore except ignore it.

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5. Believe me. I tied my own shoes once. It is an overrated experience.
I’m sure this may be hard to believe, but one month shy of my 29th birthday, I ventured into a gentleman’s club for the first time in my life. A friend’s bachelor party featuring the shenanigans of a trolley ride around Chicago led us to VIP’s before finishing at our local stomping grounds, Tai’s. Being that it was my first time and I had heard previously that this particular establishment wasn’t exactly the best, I won’t judge all strip clubs based on my Friday night. That being said, I was extremely unimpressed. The clear majority of the girls were quite busted looking and had bad boob jobs. They were also mostly tall and on the heavier side than I imagined. The few that were actually pretty and petite (like I like my women,) were not much better than raisins on an ironing board.

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6. Wonderboy! What is the secret of your power?

Roy Hobbs: I coulda been better. I coulda broke every record in the book.

Iris Gaines: And then?

Roy Hobbs: And then? And then when I walked down the street people would've looked and they would've said there goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game.

Great movie if you’ve never seen it. Robert Redford is stupendous despite being his usual monotone and bland self. If ever there were a real life version of Roy Hobbs, it would be Ken Griffey, Jr. From the time he was 19 years old he had the most beautiful and perfect looking swing. He burst on the scene quickly and in his first eleven seasons he already totaled 398 home runs. It was at that point that Griffey was traded to his hometown Cincinnati Reds and his career has been marred by injuries ever since.

On Monday he became the sixth player in MLB history to reach the historic total of 600 homers. That gives him just 202 in the past eight seasons since the trade. It was Griffey, not Barry Bonds, who was believed to be the chosen one to break Hank Aaron’s career home run record. While he will remain in the discussion as one of the top ballplayers of all time, it truly is a sad ending to such a promising career. All of that aside, congratulations are still in order to Junior Griffey for #600. We’ll see you in the Hall of Fame.