My Sick Mind

The final two minutes of the Marquette-Stanford game Saturday night took about a half hour to complete. Why? Because sports, like life, places an undue burden on the final minutes rather than the first. The referees forced several time-out's running to the scorer's table asking for extra time to be put back on the clock because the official scorer started the clock too soon. My question (because I love to ask questions) is, who was watching the official scorer with ... say ... 13 minutes left in the half to make sure he was re-starting the clock correctly? My answer (because I love to answer my own questions) is: Nobody. We don't pay as much attention to things at the beginning as we do at the end, which is why sports emulates life. Last-second field goals are supposedly more important than the one he missed in the first quarter, ninth inning home runs carry more weight than the strike-out with the bases loaded in the first inning and buzzer-beaters beat the 30% three-...

I don't watch NCAA basketball much during the regular season, but for some reason I watch almost non-stop during the tournament. It has nothing to do with wagering big bucks on pools. I'm only in two. One is with 3 other people over bragging rights (and lunch) at work and the other is over on Sparky's blog for some beer. I like to win, but neither of them detracts from my enjoyment of a good game, even if my pick loses. The action is on the TV on CBS, who has brought out their farm of announcers to broadcast the games. I'm guessing that the only reason most of these guys have a job is because there are 32 first-round games to show. Otherwise, they'd be at home watching on TV like I. Yesterday, a player named Young made a key basket, and the color man screamed, "Only the Young survive!" What? That doesn't make sense. They're so anxious to come up with the next big Al Michaels 'do you believe in miracles' quote that they reach (over-reach...