I have been trying to avoid the Olympics, but I'm a huge sports fan so wherever I turn right now the talk is of Michael Phelps and his amazing run at history in Beijing.
It's the talking head sports pundits that are really driving me crazy. Today the question has been "Where does Phelps now rank as an all-time sports great?" Most of these jackasses are saying things like "he's great, but c'mon...it's just swimming" or similar douchebaggery. The name that keeps coming up is Tiger Woods. "He's no Tiger Woods, but he's a nice story" they will say.
Now, I'm not putting Tiger Woods down here. His level of play and his level of dominance is ridiculous. But in terms of pure ATHLETICS? C'mon, man. It's no contest! Phelps is doing some outright impossible things in that weird building halfway around the world. And my Mom can golf.
I'm not a great golfer. Hell, I'm not a good golfer. But I can do some of the things that Tiger can do. I've had 300 yard drives. Not often, but I've hit a couple. I've had birdies and even an eagle once. I've made 40-foot putts that seemed to come out of nowhere. I've holed out from a sand trap from 20 yards out. Of course, never over an entire round of golf or at courses nearly as tough as the ones that Tiger plays. But I've done some of the things that Tiger can do. Better yet, I can certainly aspire to do the things that Tiger can do. Such is golf.
As for Phelps? No way! I'm not a strong swimmer (I tried embedding the video, but Youtube no longer has it and the AOL version starts to play immediately. Stupid AOL version!- Earl), by any means, but I can't even begin to imagine doing what he is doing. My imagination just isn't that great. I can swim, sure. Just like I can golf. But that is where the comparison ends. I'll never have the luck of doing something like hitting a great 5-wood from fairway bunker and putting it 10 feet from the hole in the swimming pool. The correlation just isn't there.
So for all those idiot pundits putting Phelps down, jump into that cool, deep pool* and show me what you got! Go ahead Michael Wilbon or Woody Paige or (ugh) Skip Bayless. Show us that swimming isn't difficult, douchebags!
*I don't know much about nuthin', but why is the pool used for the races in Beijing deeper than most? They say that one of the reasons that all these records are being set is because of the deep and cold pool. But shouldn't Olympic sized swimming pools all be the same size? Makes sense to me, but then again I don't know much about nuthin'.
PS - go check out Avitable's dirty poems, you sickos! - Earl
Random Wiki: I read this entire article on the Population dynamics of fisheries because fishing, and in particular, overfishing is a topic that fascinates me. I didn't really find anything new, and I was a bit offended by all the math there at the end, but all-in-all not a bad Wiki article. Holy crap! I'm such a geek.
