Late Correspondence

I know, the weekend is almost over. And nary a post from the HoG's designated leisure time employee.

Thing is, I have a crazy lack of regular and unfettered computer time in my life. Either I wait to access my wife's work laptop, which I'm using now, or I use the awesome powers of my mind. Soon enough this problem will be a thing of the ancient past, like cuneiform or automats, but for now it's a figurative stick in the collective imaginary eye of HoGNation. So, my apologies.

Saturday ended as one of the biggest days on the year's sports calendar, what with the Kentucky Derby, NHL and NBA Playoffs, some fine baseball and a boxing match that ended up being a pretty big deal even though its organizers tried their hardest to let it slip under the radar. The whole thing was positively fraught start to finish: Chien-Ming Wang missing out on a perfecto late after we HoGsters applied our awesome Power O' The Jinx, the Utah Jazz bludgeoning Tracy McGrady with their familiar Cro-Magnon hooping, some horse no one outside of the old folks home or the New Jersey mafia had heard of until last week earning a brief few weeks of fame and, of course, "Pretty Boy Floyd" beating "The Golden Boy" in the Match to Save Boxing.

You know what boxing needs? Fewer gay nicknames. "Iron Mike" was a nickname. "The Greatest" was a nickname. Hell, "The Bayonne Bleeder" was a nickname. No wonder no one cares about the sport these days--this coming from a guy that actually likes boxing.

Still, it's hard not to like the way Mayweather fights. In a sport dominated by enormous, craftless Russians and a million nondescript tomato cans, he kills with guile, speed and unbelievable defense. Would he have beaten the De La Hoya of 10 years ago? I say yes. Lesser boxers did. But Mayweather is at a spot to which only a few guys--Ali, Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson--have ascended: he can legitimately claim to be Greatest Ever. He isn't, but he can claim it. And no one will tell him no...at least to his face.

De La Hoya, on the other hand, could care less if he won or not. He could have sex with any woman in the American southwest, is worth something along the lines of a shitload and actually promoted this fight himself, via his Golden Boy Productions company. Making millions of dollars to get pummeled is nice; making millions more than the pummeler is even better.

And basketball. I haven't even addressed the Nuggets' latest postseason failure, but since they get more ink and airtime in this town these days than my beloved Broncos do, I'll keep it short and to el pointo--they need someone, anyone, who can reliably shoot a three-point shot. Let Camby go, get something in return, let Nene continue to develop into a dominating power forward ala Elton Brand, let Blake go and bring in a point who doesn't look quite so much like this guy and they'll be fine. Really.