The Morning Offering - March 21, 2005

Written by Father Time on March 21, 2005

“You’ve got beautiful eyes.”
“They’re nothing, compared to my tits.”

Good morning.

I will be spending most of my offering discussing the wonder that is the first four days of the NCAA Tournament. It is the most exciting four consecutive days in sports each year and therefore deserves that kind of dedication from such a word artist as myself. But before I begin, let me get a few things out of the way.

Congressional Hearing. Now Everything’s All Better! Boy, I sure am glad Congress took control and brought this whole steroid situation to its knees. Some monumental findings of fact, to say the least. I repeat them here only because I’m still having trouble absorbing these tremendous life-altering reports:

- Rafael Palmeiro really, really didn’t take steroids; something else made his dick limp
- Sammy Sosa only really didn’t take steroids (I know I believe him)
- Mark McGwire cried like a baby because his shriveled up snow pea balls wouldn’t allow him to admit that he took steroids
- Curt Schilling thinks steroids are bad
- So does Frank Thomas
- Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi — the three players who have admitted to taking steroids — weren’t asked a damn thing because they weren’t invited to … the hearing on steroids
- Who’s to say if steroids exist in other sports?

I know. Just … groundbreaking stuff. I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb to say that the congressional hearing on steroids soon will be mentioned in the same sentence as Watergate and Brown v. Board of Education. In fact, it just was!

LeBron James. Freak of nature? Oh, I think so. He may not average a triple-double for the season, but 25-8-8 sounds pretty good to me.

Rocky’s Boxing Shorts. Anyone else have a problem with this? Apollo goes 15 rounds with Rocky the first time he uses them. Then Rocky gets to use them for two nasty, brain-damaging fights with Clubber Lang and Drago. And then he gives them to Uber-White Trash AIDS Mullet Tommy Gun in Rocky V for about 10 fights. And this is all in, what, a span of 10 years? THROW THE FUCKING THINGS OUT! Christ.

THE TOURNEY.Okay, now to business. I’ll only hit on a few things, as this is just an offering. My favorite long weekend in all of sports again didn’t disappoint. Brackets? Brackets are gone. There are no brackets. I’m not sure why I thought the curse of Roy Williams would leave Kansas with him, but there I was picking the Jayhawks to reach the finals. I hate Kansas. I would like nothing more than to poop on it. But for now check out this MIND NUMBING SEGUE!

Team Utah. Anyone else thinking 1988 Jayhawks? Not even just a little? Mr. Bogut is ridiculous, first off. Way too much talent for a big man this early in his career. But he’s also avoided the Vlade/Peja/Pau blank expression Eurotude. Dude’s got fire. He’s also got a team surrounding him. This isn’t just Bogut and his peons. Utah kicked Oklahoma’s ass. That was the best I’ve seen a team play as a team so far this tournament. A win over Kentucky would not surprise me, especially not this year. I’ve seen better Wildcats teams. After that, who knows? Danny Manning led a team with a lot less to the Promised Land.

Cincy shit coaching. Speaking of the Wildcats, they didn’t so much win their game against Cincy as the Bearcats gave it to them. I watched the end of that game, and there were times when Cincinnati had the ball that I honestly thought it felt like a pickup game. Nobody looking to do much of anything, except the guy with the ball who’s trying to do everything. It didn’t feel like Huggins was making coaching mistakes as much as he wasn’t coaching in the first place. Just a horrible job.

Hating Duke. I have Puke going to the finals in my money pool. And I still can’t root for them. I hate them that much.

Wakeloss. Once Chris Paul fouled out, they might as well have just stopped playing. Unbelievable game, though. So many clutch shots.

Billy Fudgepacker. I had forgotten how much I despise him. I also had forgotten how much I love Bill Raftery.

Big Ten Apparently Good. Everyone’s hated on this conference all year long, and here they are with three teams in the Sweet 16. They should send over a couple boxes of Chinese newspapers to the Big East.

So this weekend I was flipping channels and I found Gladiator on TNT. It gets to the part where Proximo has the slave-selling guy by the balls and is explaining to him that his giraffes don’t fuck. But then TNT edits out the phrase, “You sold me queer giraffes.”

Apparently, even animals can’t be gay in this country.

-- Written by Father Time on March 21, 2005