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07/02/2007: "If It's Monday, This Must Be A Sports Rant ..."

OK, I know the real sports you want to rant about - billfish! And since the first SoCal marlin and the first swordfish of the 2007 season were caught on Saturday, you'll definitely want to be checking out the Fishing News tonight for all the details. But there is other sports in the world ...

- The Major League Baseball All-Star rosters were announced yesterday, and there were few surprises. At the head of the list would be the election by the fans of Barry Bonds of the Giants as a starting outfielder for the National League squad. Alfonso Soriano of the Cubs had the spot, but a late-minute charge pushed bongs over the top. Now I know what you're saying, but remember - this is a fan-oriented game. Love him or hate him, Bonds is the big draw. After all, the game is being played in San Francisco, Bonds is the only decent player on the host team, and - like it or not - Bonds is about to set the career record for home runs (more on that later this week). It's the right thing for baseball to have Bonds on the field for an All-Star Game held in his own home park. The real question is whether Big Head Barry will see this as the image-rehab opportunity that it is. Smile a bit, sign some autographs, participate in the Home Run Hitting contest - just have a good time. It could go a long way towards making people forget about the clear and the cream.

- We've said it before (here, here, here, here ... ) but Michelle Wie absolutely needs to get away from the game for a while. Sure, her wrist is hurting, but it's her head that needs the most work - and could be the hardest to heal. It wasn't that long ago that she was the Next Great Thing; now she's been reduced to being a sideshow freak. Even her fellow players are taking notice - when an unnamed player saw a group of reporters surrounding Wie after she left the course on Saturday, she was quoted as saying, "what did she do - quit again?" She's a competitor, and I respect that, but she's doing herself no good now. She's only 17 and has lots of seasons ahead of her; for now, she just needs to shut it down. Take the summer to be with her friends, head off to Stanford in the fall, join a sorority, chase some boys, just enjoy life and rest the wrist. Golf will still be there next year.

- Is it just me, or has NASCAR become the International Race of Champions? You remember IROC, right? Take a dozen identically prepared cars, assign them randomly to a group of elite drivers from different race series, and let them race. Other than the occasional surprising performance by an oval driver on a road course, it ended up being a parade - and a boring one at that. NASCAR used to be an interesting series, where innovation was respected. Heck, one of the favorite saying about NASCAR - right behind "Rubbin' is Racin'" was "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'". But as the money has gone up and NASCAR has tried to shed it's hillbilly roots, there's no room at the inn for innovation. It was one thing when they established templates that every car had to adhere to, but now you can't even modify things between the templates - just ask Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, who both got hit with fines for unauthorized modifications a couple of weeks back. It's at the point now where the cars are essentially identical and the only changes are the decals. And now the races look like parades ... gee, I wonder why ... yaaaawn ...