This past sports weekend featured a lot of whiners out there. Between Heat fans complaining of AC, California Chrome’s owner getting emotional and the Rangers losing Game 2 due to a controversial call, these were all the perfect ingredients for a bunch of whiners this weekend.
It started Thursday night, when the air conditioning broke in San Antonio, LeBron James suffered debilitating cramps and had to be carried off the court, and the Heat then blew a fourth quarter lead and lost game 1. This led to a sensory overload of discord, like a group therapy session where the analyst has lost control.
First came the cries of conspiracy over the AC. These had their origins in two places.
This exact thing happened back in the ‘80s, more than once, when the Boston Celtics admittedly used to screw with the climate control in the old Pit of Hell Boston Garden to try to gain an advantage over the Lakers.
In addition, this is the NBA, where conspiracy theories happen like rain in Seattle. The lottery was fixed so the Knicks could get Ewing. The refs handed the Lakers that game 7 against Portland. Should you feel sorry for the NBA? No you should not. They invited this when they basically admitted, starting in the Jordan era, that there was a different set of rules for NBA superstars.
So now everyone thinks everything in the NBA is fixed anytime it doesn’t go their way because, after all, the NBA admits that they use different rules for stars. Morons.
Speaking of morons, there was a cacophony of stupid after Lebron James suffered his game ending cramps and had to be carried off.
People questioned James’ “toughness” for failing to finish the game.
This in spite of a long history of star players who have gotten hurt in key moments and did NOT get their manhood questioned.
This in spite of the fact that James is hardly a “fragile” player and is one of the more durable stars in sports. Ask Derrick Rose how periodic cramps sounds compared to what he’s got.
Let’s face it: haters gonna hate. James is the greatest player in the world. Getting leg cramps doesn’t change that at all.
Why isn’t LeBron shooting lasers out of his feet?! He sucks!
Next you had California Chrome owner Steve Coburn making the mistake of running his mouth when he was obviously devastated over his horse losing the Belmont Stakes.
Because he was emotional about this, I’ll give him a partial pass, but what he actually said was idiotic.
By whining that his horse lost to a horse that hadn’t run the two previous legs of the Triple Crown, Coburn highlighted exactly what makes the Triple Crown special, and particularly hard to do.
There’s a reason Secretariat appears on lists of the greatest athletes of all time alongside names like Muhammad Ali, Jim Thorpe and Michael Jordan. Coburn’s comment amounted to the loser in election complaining that the only reason the other guy won is that he’s more popular than I am.
California Chrome lost because he’s not an all-time great horse. He’s still a very good horse and did some amazing things. But winning the Triple Crown is like batting .400 in major league baseball; and no one’s done that since before the sport integrated.
Coburn might want to plan out your post-race speeches a little better next time.
Finally, you had complaints coming out about the third goal scored by the Los Angeles Kings against the New York Rangers being the result of goaltender interference. PLEASE!
The Rangers blew a two goal lead in game 1. They blew another two goal lead (three of them, in fact) in game 2. The great Henrik Lundqvist, who was going to single handedly win this series for the Rangers, gave up 5 goals in game 2.
The Kings are better than the Rangers. The Rangers were, at BEST, the third best team in the Eastern Conference. They caught a break when they got to play the Flyers who were without Steve Mason for the first half of that series. They got another break when the Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins for them, because the Bruins were surely the Beasts of the East. Then they got another break when they got to play the Canadiens without Carey Price.
They weren’t supposed to beat the Kings and they’re not gonna beat the Kings.
The only reason you even hear any whining about this at all is because they play in New York, and New York fans are smart enough to know that good Rangers teams only come down the pike every so often, so it is likely to be awhile before they get this close again. In the meantime, of course, they should shut up. Whine is good with cheese, not sports.
