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Blackouts, choke jobs and an improbable season
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Monday August 20, 2001 |
Blackouts, choke jobs and an improbable season
It's hard to believe that you could be 28 years old and washed up. It's hard to believe the best days of your life would be spent face-first on the ice - unconscious - waiting for the stretcher to wheel you off. It's hard to believe for most, but it's reality for Eric Lindros.
But today, Lindros will add $40 million to his already large bank account.
The New York Rangers took the walking headache off the hands of Bobby Clarke and the Philadelphia Flyers. A headache who hasn't played a game since getting knocked unconscious with his sixth concussion in the 2000 Playoffs.
Lindros has been creating headaches for his teams from his first day in the league. Drafted in 1991, he refused to play for the then-Quebec Nordiques and demanded to be traded to a more prestigious franchise.
In his latest stunt, he and Bobby Clarke had a staring contest that lasted well over a year, with neither blinking as Lindros sat out the season. Lindros said he would only accept a trade to the Toronto Maple Leafs first, figuring that Clarke would move him rather than put up with his crap any longer. When the Leafs wouldn't make an offer that Clarke liked, the GM said he would let Lindros sit out until his contract ran out after the 2004 season. And while Clarke didn't follow through with his threat, it's not because the two finally saw eye to eye. It's just that Clarke found a team in the Rangers that was stupid enough to meet his ridiculous trade demands.
The fans of Philly won't be shedding any tears over the spoiled star being traded. Flyers fans realized that he not only had a ceramic vase for a head but that he was also a cancer in the clubhouse. The only people who were upset that this crybaby refused to play were the local neurologists who saw this guy as a walking gravy train.
Lindros will be given another chance to convince people he's still the player he once was, as well as the opportunity to prove that he's not hockey's equivalent to Ryan Leaf - another guy with all the talent in the world and enough psychological issues to make Freud quit his day job.
And maybe Lindros will be successful next year and do something that would shock me and lots of other hockey fans - stay conscious the whole season.
ooo
Yesterday I spent my afternoon on the couch watching everyone's favorite choke artist in golf up to his old tricks again. Phil Mickelson, the pride of Scottsdale, once again failed to lose the label of 'best player never to win a major.'
This effort at the PGA Championship was Mickelson's best chance to date to finally win one, and fell short by one shot. Going into the last three holes tied, Mickelson was simply outplayed by a relative unknown, David Toms. Now Mickelson will have to wait until April for another chance at shedding his image as a premier golfer who can't win the big one.
I find it hard to feel sorry for someone who plays golf for a living and scored an amazingly beautiful wife. Hey Phil, if the pressure continues to get to you, give me a call - I think I might be willing to switch places with you.
What does a professional golfer really have to worry about? Should I stay at the Ritz-Carlton or the Four Seasons next time I am forced to trek to Maui in the middle of January?
I love golf and don't take anything away from the talents that professional golfers possess, but a sport where you can chain smoke, drink whiskey like water and walk around with sweat stains on your chest and still be called an 'athlete' doesn't qualify as truly stressful or hard.
But Mickelson will feel the heat from the media, while drinking a refreshing mineral water at the next press conference
Don't worry Phil - your time will come. But if it doesn't, don't worry - you've still got your wife and that "job."
ooo
If you aren't sold on the Seattle Mariners yet, I hope that you saw some of their series this weekend against the Yankees. Winning two of three in the "House that Ruth Built" is an impressive feat.
I have been waiting all year for this team to cool off just a little bit, much like the Twins and Cubs have, but they continue to roll.
They are a great team, but still haven't really won anything. Regular season wins don't mean anything - just ask Bobby Cox and the Braves.
If the Mariners want to have a chance to be spoken in the same breath as the elite teams in the history of baseball, they will have to win the World Series in some amazing way. The 1998 Yankees won 114 games, rolled through the playoffs and swept away a Padre team that didn't have such a bad season themselves. And that team may not be the best Yankee team in history, either.
I am rooting for the Mariners because I am so sick of seeing Rudy Giuliani and his son sitting next to the Yankees dugout come the World Series.
Will the Mariners continue to win and build a dynasty? Doubtful, unless John Olerud finds the fountain of youth and Bret Boone continues to hit like a Hall of Famer. But regardless, this is a special team in yet another amazing year in baseball.
But winning a three-game series in the Bronx in the middle of August is a lot different than winning a series there in the middle of October.
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