Morning Wind

There is no football for another four months. My Cardinals have collapsed and are 8 1/2 games back. The Suns, the only fun team to watch since Golden State got bounced out of the playoffs, are on the brink of elimination, and hockey slips deeper into obscurity as Ottawa is poised to win the Stanley Cup.

It doesn't leave a lot of sporting events to choose from for somebody who keeps their TV tuned to ESPN about 12 hours a day.

However, I've really gotten into the Louis Vuitton Cup lately--it's the 'playoffs' leading up to the America's Cup. Normally, I don't give a rat's ass about yacht racing. I love sailing, but racers are a different breed than 'cruisers'. Racers obviously want to go fast and get somewhere. Cruisers are already there, as they say.

Normally, when I have a few extra bucks in my pocket and a day off, one of my favorite activities is to head down to Barnes & Noble and grab a copy of every sailing magazine on the rack, then head out somewhere for a nice lunch and linger over the pretty pictures of boat porn and enjoy a couple of cold beers. But I always skip right past the parts where they talk about racing. It doesn't interest me in the least.

I consider myself one of the world's most experienced armchair sailors, as I haven't gotten behind the helm and felt the sea breeze on my face in over four years, but I spend several hours per week visiting various sailing websites and reading everything I can get my hands on. However, nothing makes my eyes glaze over faster than reading about yacht racing. I'm sure it's a lot of fun for those involved, and I *know* it makes one a better sailor, but the tone of the journalists writing about it is so off-putting that they drive people away from the sport. It seems like yacht races are populated by the polo-and-khaki wearing crowd, sipping wine, wearing blue blazers, white captain's hats, and calling each other Commodore more often than old southern gents addressing each other as Colonel down at the Kentucky Derby.

But from a casual fan's perspective, any kind of racing where the first person across the line doesn't win the race is pretty damn stupid and pointless. When you have to wait for everyone else to cross, and then wait for your 'corrected' time based on all kinds of outside factors, it just drains all of the fun out of the activity. Maybe I feel that way because I'm hyper-competitive, and never got into sports where a 'handicap' was given. I don't like to play golf, first of all because I'm no good at it, and second of all, even if I played against my buddy Eddie B every day for a year, he'd kick my ass by 20 strokes every time.

So then he "gives" me 20 strokes one day to make it more competitive? Whatever. Unless I beat him by 21, we both know that he still beat my ass fair and square.

I guess that's why Nascar it'll-always-be-Winston-to-me Nextell Cup racing is enjoyable to watch. The cars are all pretty much even, and the outcome depends on the driver, the crew, strategy, and luck. Not corrected time based on PHRF ratings or waterline length or whatever. Could you imagine Jimmy Johnson crossing the finish line first at Daytona after 200 laps and then waiting 20 minutes to find out where he placed?

Nope, neither can I. That's why sailboat racing appeals to only a small segment of the population, and not even a majority of the sailing population, either, I suspect.

Don't even get me started on the constant 'protests' either.

Anyhow. Now that I've alerted everyone to my disdain for sailboat racing, here I am saying how much I am enjoying watching the Louis Vuitton Cup every morning. The semi-finals are taking place in the Mediterranean, off the southern coast of Spain, and unfortunately, the Good Guys (BMW Oracle) are getting their asses handed to them by the Italian Luna Rossa team, down 3-1 in the best-of-nine series. Of course, in these races, the first one across the line actually wins...

Also, the Kiwis are beating down the Spaniards by the same margin. The winners square off with each other after this round, and the winner of that round gets to face defending champion Switzerland in the America's Cup.

Wait a minute. Does Switzerland even have a coastline, a harbor, or an ocean fer cryin' out loud? No?

So how did they win the America's Cup??? Oh yeah, the whole crew is from New Zealand...

I think I'll leave that rant for another time, but if you get a chance to watch any of the races this weekend, they are quite entertaining, especially with the accented play-by-play announcers reminiscent of the early days of ESPN when all they showed was Australian Rules Football.

The races are being shown on the VS. channel, formerly the Outdoor Channel, more commonly known as The Channel Where Hockey Went to Die.

I'll be watching, and even though I don't own a blue blazer, I might be found sipping on a glass of wine at 8:30 in the morning.

Because, as my favorite sailor once said, it's five o'clock somewhere.

Mikey