Strange things about sports.

Yesterday, during the Phillies/Marlin game on Fox, the announcers declared John Baker the Pepsi Clutch Performer of the Game. That's great, only it was a 7 to 4 game in the bottom of the seventh inning. Don't you think that there might yet be a clutch performer to emerge or do you think that Pepsi wanted their name on the broadcast before most of America tuned out? I'm thinking the latter. What it amounts to is a commercial and not a real award. Why not just put up a big PEPSI banner on the screen and get it over with? We need more junk on the screen, right?

Meanwhile, over on ABC we're watching The Open. America calls it The British Open, but the rest of the world calls it The Open. The announcers (them again) tell us that we're "watching ESPN on ABC." Huh? I thought I was watching ABC. In fact, I was watching ABC. ESPN had a fishing tournament and billiards. This cross-marketing thing is amazing to me. I know that ABC owns ESPN and Disney owns them both, so why don't they say, "You're watching The Disney Channel on ABC?"

Speaking of billiards, there was a women's billiards tournament on ESPN2 (which I was watching sans ABC) and I wondered why there is a need for Women's billiards. Can't they play the men? There isn't a strength or durability issue - it's billiards. There are women's billiards leagues and women's bowling leagues, but it doesn't seem to me to make any sense to separate them because bowling and billiards aren't games that necessarily make men better than women. Let them play against each other. It'll be fun. Maybe the men are afraid the women will beat them? Yes, that's it.

Golf is a strange game. I like it, but it's strange. It's really hung up on the rules and the strict adherence to very strange rules. Yesterday, Michelle Wie was disqualified for violating one of golf's strange rules. She failed to sign her scorecard, and after she walked out of one of the roped-off areas of the scoring tent, the violation was irreversible.

Rule 6-6 A player is deemed to have returned her score card to the Committee when she leaves the roped area of the scoring tent or leaves the scoring trailer.

MICHELLE WIE: You know, it's just a really unfortunate. I don't know what happened to me. Usually, I sign it first. But I forgot to sign the scorecard. Unfortunately, I left the tournament area, and a couple of the scorers went after me and I signed it and I turned it in. And I thought it would be okay.

Sue Witters, the LPGA’s director of tournament competitions, disqualified Wie in a small office in an LPGA trailer at the golf course after asking her what had happened.
“She was like a little kid after you tell them there’s no Santa Claus,” Witters said.

There is no Santa Claus. What's odd is that she probably signed about a hundred autographs at the scoring tent for fans after the round. One of them should have handed her a scorecard.

Thanks to Scott the Hobo for the cool Jeanette Lee photo.