By Erik Kendall
Does anyone really realize how close we came this past Sunday to the end of modern sports as we know them today? For those of you who did not watch this weekend’s Open championship, 59-year-old Tom Watson who is a five time champion of this event was not only near the top of the leader board for all four days of the event, but actually had about an eight foot putt to win the tournament on Sunday. This guy is just a couple of years from being able to claim social security and was about to be on top of the golfing world again. Talk about unbelievable!
Now Watson went on to miss that putt, thanks to a complete jinx by ESPN’s Andy North, who called for the put to drop seconds before it grazed the right edge of the cup. And there soon after, lost in a four hole playoff to Stewart Cink by a wide margin. For once in the entire weekend Watson played his age.
Although it would have been a wonderful story, both for Watson and near-60’s everywhere, I was thinking what the repercussions of such a feat would have been, and actually began to be grateful for Cink’s effort.
Just think what the world of sports would be like if that putt on the 72 hole actually dropped.
I’m talking about aging great athletes thinking they might still be able to do it, and giving it one more go. Pete Sampras would make an attempt to regain his majors record over Federer, Wayne Gretzky would be strapping up the skates one more time, Bill Russell would see if he could still man the middle for the Celtics, and Dan Marino would warm up that right arm for one more go at an elusive championship.
Imagine a world where a 60-year-old athlete thinks he can compete again. it would be disastrous.
Micheal Jordan would, of course, make another come back, Randy Johnson could consider making a run at Cy Young’s win record of 511, and Brett Farve, all of a sudden, wouldn’t look so crazy anymore.
We would be looking at injury reports of broken hip after broken hip, and more bad backs than you could even count.
So although I was pulling for Tom Watson just about as hard as anyone could, in retrospect it was probably all for the best. We don’t need a bunch of 50 somethings running around, thinking they can do the things that they used to. The only people that would benefit would be the entire profession of physical therapy. So for that I say thank you Stewart Cink. Who knows how many lives, and even more hips you have saved?




By Erik Kendall
It was that match-up of personalities that both the NBA and it’s fans were crossing their fingers for. But a funny thing happened on the way to the inevitable meeting between the two giants, The Cavs got beat! And they were beaten handily by a very good Magic team that had been overlooked all season.
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