Sporting an opinion

Mears, the weakest link on NASCAR's strongest team, has decided to leave Hendrick Motorsports.

"We just really, really struggled," Mears said. "The team as a whole, and then us seemed to struggle a little bit more the first half of the season. It's unfortunate that things happened the way they have."

Team owner Rick Hendrick didn't offer a potential replacement to join Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson in his stable of Sprint Cup drivers.

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chances are, if you were sitting in front of a computer, you were watching the final 19 holes of the U.S. Open.

The United States Golf Association (USGA) announced today that USOPEN.com set a record for live concurrent streaming viewers during the playoff round of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. More than 2.5 million streams were served on USOPEN.com, surpassing all previous single sporting event numbers. The numbers peaked at more than 600,000 concurrent streams during Monday's playoff.

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The U.S. Open went to a 91st hole. In sudden-death play, if it's Tiger and the other guy, the other guy suddenly (though not surprisingly) dies. Always.

I was initially surprised to see Woods and Rocco Mediate approaching the 18th hole today at Torrey Pines, each with a chance to win. But when you think about it, the best way to get Tiger off his game this weekend was to make him walk as many holes as possible on that bum knee. Make him think about that injury, not about the situational strategy.

If you're (insert inferior golfer's name here), this was your only chance.

Mediate also showed he could manage the Torrey Pines course almost as well as the master. In pressure situations, my money's with Tiger, but over a full 18 holes? Hey, maybe the guy's got a chance. Rocco Mediate did have a chance, and almost made the most of it -- but then it went to sudden death. Then, and only then, could you forget about it.

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 7:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have conflicting opinions on mixed martial arts. As a sports writer, MMA has the potential to send the lowest common denominator plummeting somewhere between WWE wrestling and "Gladiator"-era, um, gladiating.

(As an aside, I have a hard time imagining anyone in ancient Rome interviewing the athletes after a gladiator fight ... "Yeah, I didn't get killed today," Hudsonius said. "That's pretty much the goal any time you go out there, really. I didn't have my best sword on me, but that's what separates the good fighters from the bad ones - they come out alive even on days when they aren't wielding their best sword.")

As a sports writer, I'll take hockey any day (which, by the way, got its butt kicked in the local TV ratings, with Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals going up against MMA in the same timeslot Saturday night).

The appeal of MMA is that it has more legitimatacy than WWE wrestling, but no more intellectual appeal. In that sense it's perfect: Watching MMA brings out the idiot in all of us, but without the fear of being made fun of for watching it. That's fine. The guys are good athletes, no doubt. Some of my best friends are WAY into it. I know of at least a couple former high school and college wrestling champions who are competing in MMA these days. I know first-hand how hard they worked to attain their skill level, and it's impressive. Take nothing away from them - but they weren't the main draw when MMA made its network TV debut last night.

No, that would be one Kevin Ferguson (AKA Kimbo Slice). The anti-Kimbo Slice argument is that he preys on the public's repressed stereotype of the Scary Black Man, and that he was rushed into prime-time TV having competed in just a handful of fights because he so perfectly fits the stereotype. Never mind the former collegiate wrestling champions in MMA who have worked all their lives to get to this stage; no, their stories feel too good for TV. Ferguson -- I think I'm going to call him "Ferguson" because it's less exploitative and closer to the truth -- is the sort of polarizing antihero that makes for good ratings, both because of, and in spite of, his qualifications as a "former street brawler from Miami."

Anyway, Ferguson is now 3-0 in his MMA career after beating Some White Guy From England. By contrast, Andre Ward is a 24-year-old boxer from Oakland with an Olympic gold medal to his credit, is a devout Christian with a wife and two children, sports a 15-0 record as a professional for goodness sakes, and how many times have you seen him on network TV? Perhaps the reason "boxing is dead" is because of guys like Ward, whose stories and image are just so darn good that you can't sell them to the much lower-minded American public.

You want to hold up an example of The Dumbing Down of America at its worst? Thank you, MMA. On Saturday night, you just made it 100% easier

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 7:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I had the privilege of sitting next to the official rules interpreter for the CIF-Southern Section baseball playoffs Saturday at UC Riverside during the Upland Christian-Calabasas Viewpoint game, the Division VII final.

I forget the gentleman's name, but he had clearly found his calling in life. He seemed content to discuss the gray areas between every rule in the entire baseball rulebook for, well, forever. But one point he brought up during a near two-hour long dialogue stood out, something that isn't intuitive to the casual observer: While most high school athletes haven't had to deal with the enormity of a venue like Dodger Stadium or UC Riverside, neither have most high school umpires.

Even though there's a ratings system in place to grade the section's umps, and ensure that only the best are calling games in the playoffs, it does nothing to take into consideration experience. The crowd had no idea how many college or pro games the umpires at Upland Christian's game had called, but it didn't seem to matter. They didn't miss a meaningful call so far as I (or my new friend) could tell.

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 6:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)