Weekly Zoot - 2/19/10 - Zooting Gingerly

The Weekly Zoot is all the info you needed to know some time ago, soon
Tiger Woods stood up Friday in front of a small group of friends, and the tens of millions of people who dropped whatever it is they were doing to watch through the camera lens that Tiger spoke to directly. The press conference today was almost a no win situation for Tiger, but I think he did about as well as he could have. He seemed sincere, and I liked what he had to say. But I do wish he had taken some questions from the media. Like maybe these for example:

-Tiger, how did you get all those extra hours into your day?
6 months ago, we all thought that Tiger was the most focused and driven athlete any of us had ever seen. I thought Tiger was thinking about golf when he fell asleep, dreamed about ways to improve his short game, then woke up with new ideas about how to navigate amen corner. I was sure that he spent so much time on the golf course that he wouldn't be able to confidently pick his own children out of a lineup. I applauded his focus and drive, and I thought it was the reason he won. Now, we find out that Tiger was all over the map, living a party lifestyle that you only see in the music videos they play after 4 am on BET (anyone who is an insomniac with more than basic cable knows exactly what I am talking about). I have no idea how he was able to find time to star in a Juvenile video 24/7 and still be the most dominating athlete on the planet. I am totally against cheating, but that is pretty impressive. How many majors do you think he'd have now if he wasn't busy slaying the entire cast of Flavor of Love? Now he says he's going to focus solely on golf, and all I can think is that Jack must be seriously bummed out; I'm more confident he'll get to 18 now more than ever.

-Excuse me, Mr. Woods, what exactly did happen to your face then?
El Tigre made it very clear in his press conference that Elin did not hit him in the head with a golf club, nor was she the claws behind the scratches on his face that resulted from a car accident on thanksgiving. I wasn't there that night, so I have to take Tiger's word for it I guess. But if Elin didn't clock him, and if she wasn't chasing him, what exactly led to the car accident you got in? I'm not going to speculate because there is no way to be sure, but there must have been a reason that Tiger navigated his own driveway so unsuccessfully. I don't think it was his first time driving down it, but it could have been his first time doing so at 40 or so miles an hour. And also, am I the only one who was a little bummed out to hear that Elin didn't mess up Tiger's face? I thought she deserved the opportunity to take out some aggression on tiger, and using a golf club, the tool with which he built the lifestyle in which he lived, was so beautifully ironic. The story definitely got a little less interesting at this point.

-How awesome is a 45 day sex therapy clinic?
This question is based on my own warped and probably completely false conceptions of sleep away sex rehab. I've watched enough celebrity rehab to know how it works with drugs, i think. You check in, they make sure you have no (and I mean NO) contraband on you, then you sit around with other addicts and complain about how much you miss drugs while smoking 25-30 cigarettes a day. But in sex rehab, how do you remove the contraband from the situation? Its not like they can make tiger relinquish his 1-wood (wordplay!) at the door. Maybe I've seen too many movies about it, but I really can't see a group of sex addicts living in the same environment for too long before giving into their vice. I never think about Sex therapy as rehab, I think of it as a large collection of the easiest girls Tiger will ever meet (which is really saying something having seen some of the girls he did take home, including one that is an actual factual porn star. No really, look it up. She just came out with a video called "Tiger's mistress number 7"; can't you just feel her self-respect in that title?)

Unfortunately, Tiger didn't give the media the opportunity to ask these, or even some slightly less ridiculous questions. All in all, I think he did a pretty good job today in what was essentially a no-win situation for him. I was a Tiger fan before this all came out, and I will be again the next time he laces up his spikes. He took a significant hit to his reputation, but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he becomes a better man for it.

Weekly Zoot - 2/11/10 - Most Wonderful Time of the Zoot

The Weekly Zoot is all the information you needed some time ago, soon


Don't look now, but this coming weekend might be one of the best sports weekends out of the entire year. I say that with all due respect to the Super Bowl and all its pomp and circumstance; which not only crowned the under-dog everyone was rooting for, but was also as good of a game as anybody could hope for. If you're still buried under about 3 feet of snow like I and everyone else in the mid-Atlantic is, than this weekend will make sitting on your couch for 40-50 straight hours slightly more tolerable than it has been so far this week. Stretch those flipping thumbs out and check out this schedule:

Winter Olympics:
Let me preface this entire section by acknowledging that nobody really cares about the Winter Olympics, or as I like to call it, the Olympic's Dollar Menu. It has a few events that are interesting, but for the most part its sports that we are not familiar with, let alone passionate about. NBA makes Figure Skating their flagship competition, and that immediately alienates half of their viewership, and "Be Good Johnny Weir" isn't helping. In some ways, I kind of even feel bad for Curling; it has come to completely represent the Winter Olympics, and that is an unfair comparison for the sport, and the games. Having said all of that bad stuff, the Opening Ceremonies are still engaging, and they start Friday. It will be your opportunity to enjoy the Winter Olympics before the competition starts and you rememeber how bad the Winter Olympics are. I personally don't watch the Winter Olympics that much. I usually just watch the Ceremonies, then at some point in the next two weeks I have this 5 minute exchange with my television.

-Flipping through the channels I see the Winter Olympics are on, and they are covering Bobsledding. I briefly remember Cool Runnings and how much I like that movie, then I wait to see if the next team that is going to race is the Jamaican one while I sing, "We got the one Derice and the one Junior, the fastest of the fastest of Jamaican sprinters..." - which of course it never is. I give the Olympics one, maybe two more runs to produce the Jamaican team, and when they refuse I decide to just put the movie on instead.

That is the only roughly 270 seconds I will spend watching the Winter Olympiad, save for of course the Opening Ceremony. At the very least, its something worth having on mute while you're at a party or with a group of people. Its a conversation piece basically, but still worth watching.

All-Star Weekend:
The NBA goes on vacation to Dallas this weekend for its annual All-Star festivities, which now has more events and competitions than the aforementioned Olympics. There's the (ranked in order of how much I care about them)

Legend's Three Ball Competition: One legendary player, teams up with no greater from the third best player currently playing from the team they used to play for, and a WNBA player who plays in the same city, team up to play a game that makes no sense and doesn't matter. Its basically an excuse to make fun of old men who can't really play anymore. They retired for a reason, yet we keep dragging them back just to see how fat they've gotten, and how broke their jump-shot is. I have no reason why we do this.
Celebrity Game: A pick up game made up of B-list celebrities and athletes trying to piss of their team's owner. I guarantee you say, "O wow, Whats his face - I could have sworn he died" at least three times in this game. Only silver lining is TO returning to Dallas, hopefully he does something that sparks some sort of small riot.
HORSE Game: I'm not going to explain this because I know you all grew up in America and have an extensive history playing HORSE. Israeli's first NBAer Omri Casspi, will face my personal hero Rajon Rondo (pronounced entirely in falsetto) and defending champ Kevin Durant. It could be interesting, as Paupl Pierce has said that Rondo is the best player he's ever played HORse against, ever since Rondo was a rookie. Apparently he can spin shots off the backboard like no one else can, so tht something to look out for I guess. And the Durantula (Just heard it on Sportscenter, kinda like it, taking it for a walk to see how it feels) is always worth watching)
Rookie-Sophomore Game:
You know how there is no defense in the actual all-star game? Well this is an all-star game featuring players who haven't even learned to play defense yet. It's almost exclusively Alley-Oop Dunks and Threes. Luckily, we like that kind of thing.
3-point contest:
Would be better if it was actually an indication of who is the best shooter, not just who is the hottest that particular night. Last year's champ Daquan Cook is shooting 31% from behind the arc this year. It also favors guys with a fast release. Paul Pierce is shooting 47% from beyond this year, but he has virtually no shot to win this competition because of his pace and mechanics. Its pretty entertaining, but its like the Kid's Choice awards for Shooters, it doesn't really mean anything.
Dunk Contest
This should be at the top of the list, but it has become to watered down over the last decade or so. I find it shocking that Lebron will go through his career never having participated in a dunk contest. I would have expected someone who is so well-versed in the history of the game to understnad how important it was in building the legends of Michael Thompson, Dr. J, 'Niquw, Michael, and more recently Kobe and Vinsanity. No one of note is participating in the contest this year. There are some good dunkers in the competition, but the best the contest needs to be between stars, not rising stars. It's just a shame no one wants to participate anymore. I'm calling Demar Derozan to win it all the way from Friday's Dunk In; book it. That man can fly, I know from experience - I'm the guy with the white button down standing under the hoop with his arms crossed: true story.)
All-Star Game
Like I said before, the All-star game is a no defense display of dunks, but isn't that why we watch? A lot of people are critical of the all-star game because they want the players to take it more seriously - usually they just showboat until there are about 6 minutes left, then they play for the win. But I think this is how the game should be, an unbridled display of offense. It's like Ms. America, but the whole thing is the swimsuit competition. Exciting plays is why we watch, so why not make the whole game one big highlight? Either way, that's what it is, and if you like basketball, it is definitely worth watching. In continuing to toot Rondo's horn, he's the type of player who can steal the show in an all-star game. If he gets the playing time, he'll have double digit assists, and a chance at MVP.



When you add all of that with a full slate of College Basketball games, its almost too much handle - or the perfect amount if you cancel everything else you have scheduled. There's enough good sports on, that if you're proficient enough at flipping you won't have to sit through a commercial break all weekend.