[Update: Mr. Gullible once again ignored the old adage - when it's too good to be true, it probably is.  Thanks to Ron and John who pointed out that this was, in fact, an ad for Gatorade that was never televised.  It's still very cool.  I wonder why it never got airtime outside of the YouTube universe.]

I’m a big work ethic type guy.  Effort and hard work wins almost always.  Check out how this professional ball player gets totally shown up by someone who actually wants to make the Play.  Totally wild!

Popularity: 18% [?]

Who knew, right?  One of the biggest sporting events in the world and, potentially, the most grueling, and I can’t even watch it on TV.  My local cable provider has opted out.  Such a shame, it really is a terrific event, even if you’re not a cyclist.

Of course, the economics of carrying the event probably make no sense.  It’s long - 21 stages over 23 days, each day taking many hours - and there probably aren’t enough sponsors in the US to even fill all the available slots, let alone make money at it.  Finally, if you’re in the US, there are only 4 American riders in the race - 3 of them with one team, the new Garmin-Chipotle team.  Even though Americans have won 10 of the last 22 races (not Including Floyd Landis’ doping-enhanced “victory”), four contenders from the country is hardly enough to build any fan base of cycling outsiders or noobs.

In any event, Americans do have something to be excited about.  Christian Vande Velde of the Garmin-Chipotle team (an American on an US-based team) is currently in 5th place, only 39 seconds behind the leader.  Only 49 seconds separate the leader (wearing the Yellow Jersey) from the 6th place rider.  Danny Pate, also of the Garmin-Chipotle team and another American came in third today, 10 seconds behind today’s stage winner.

Overall, a pretty good showing for the new American team and two American riders so far.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Maria Sharapova is an immensely talented tennis player who, at 21 years of age, has 19 career titles, has been ranked as a top-ten player since Wimbledon 2004 and, in 2006, was the highest paid female athlete in the world.  Today, she was dismantled 6-2, 6-4 at Wimbledon in the third round by another Russian player, Alla Kudryavtseva.  I cheered for the 154th-ranked David (Sharapova Goliath-killer) the entire match.

What pisses me off about Sharapova is that she has made the U.S. her residence for the last 14 years having moved here when she was 7 years old.  All the while making a big deal of the fact that she’s a Russian tennis player.  Yeah, yeah . . .  this is a great country and we make that your choice.  Just because we adopt you, doesn’t mean you have to adopt us.  I just don’t like it.

So, it appears that Maria the Great requested that she be the flag bearer for the Russian team at this year’s Olympic Games in China.  Apparently, the Russian coach said:

I don’t want her to spend three or four hours in hot weather waiting to march in the opening ceremony. We want her to be fresh, not tired, during her matches.”

It turns out her first match isn’t until two days after the opening ceremonies AND she has decided not to stay with the team and will be moved to a hotel so she can get her beauty rest.  My guess is that the coach feels the same way about Sharapova as I do.  She’s clearly a prima donna - more proof that she really is an American.

Popularity: 16% [?]

If you hadn’t yet heard, last night, the Boston Celtics beat the L.A. Lakers 131-92 in the sixth and final game of the 2008 NBA Championship.  A 39 point victory in the regular season is almost unheard of.  In the playoffs, it’s an embarrassment.  The Celtics not only won the championship, but made sure the world knew that they were the best team in the NBA, period.

In sports, defense wins games, and the Celtics had loads of it.  In the first half of last night’s game, the Lakers had exactly zero (0, none, nada, nessuno, the null set, 4-3-1) offensive rebounds.  Wow.  Kobe Bryant, arguably the NBA’s best shooter, was locked out of the paint for most of the night, forced to shoot from beyond three-point range . . . with at least one Celtic in his face all night and pesky Rajon Rondo steeling the ball from him more times than I could count.

It wasn’t only the players that made the difference in this game, season and championship.  Doc Rivers, the Celtics’ head coach, did a fantastic job all season and continued his brilliance in the playoffs.  At the beginning of the season, I really questioned whether he was the guy.  I was wrong.  Not only was he able to manage three huge talents and their egos (Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen - the Big Three) and get them to play as a tight team with a very young point guard and center, but the guy is the definition of a class act.  Virtually every move he made during the playoffs, even the ones that seemed whacked, were all great in the end.  A smart coach and a great leader.  Congrats, Doc.

So, in the last year, Boston teams have taken the World Series and the NBA Championship; have been in the Super Bowl (man, it would have been cool to have won all three), the MLS Cup and the NHL Playoffs (OK, every team gets into the NHL playoffs).  If you’re a sports fan, the Northeast corner of the country is a pretty cool place to be.

Popularity: 16% [?]

While the dynasty that once was the mighty Boston Celtics waned in the ’90s and ’00s (the last NBA championship won by the Green was in 1986 - it was the team’s 16th) the memory of their legendary battles against the LA Lakers remains firmly in the heads of most Celtics fans - even younger ones.  The refrain, “beat LA,” being chanted by the Boston Garden fans and, for that matter, everyone in or around Boston proper, might be the strongest memory of all.

Having grown up in Philadelphia, I always hated the Celtics.  76ers fans thought of the Celtics as our nemesis and that the Philly-Boston rivalry was the center of the basketball universe.  Battles between LA and Boston happened far more frequently, though, and when Milwaukee was thrown into the mix . . . well . . . the Sixers were good, but they just never were the Celtics nor even a perpetual rival to them like LA was.

As a Boston-area resident, I eventually broke my allegiance to the sports franchises of the town I grew up in and adopted their Boston competitors as my teams.  The process took me about a decade.  It might have taken longer, but in the Celtics case, at least, the fact that they so consistently won championships made it easy for me to side with a winner.  I’d be a crappy Cubs fan . . .

I think that most Bostonians are a little hesitant to reconnect entirely with the Celtics at this point.  There have been so many hard years as a fan, especially when the Celtics are so closely identified as NBA champions (the team’s 16 NBA victories are the most in the league and include an entire decade - 1960-1969 - in which they only lost one championship).  While the town is abuzz with the concept of going for number 17 (their 17th championship), the team’s status is still only discussed after the previous night’s Red Sox scores and the latest news from Patriots mini-camp.

A new championship and a promise of a few more years of success should quickly change that, though.  While it’s unlikely that they’ll ever get billed ahead of the Sox, they ought to be able to easily take over the number 2 slot from the Pats.

In the mean time, the chanting of “beat LA” seems to be growing in volume every day.  A victory tonight, in the first game of the NBA championship series - held in Boston - might raise the volume somewhat.  A victory in the series might result in a roar announcing the Celts’ reemergence as a charter member of Title Town (yeah, that’s Boston).

Popularity: 17% [?]

If the Celtics ain’t in Boston, Toto, they just can’t win a game.  So strange for the team with the best road record in the NBA this season.  Thankfully, for Celtics fans, the Green team has home court advantage throughout the playoffs.  And they really needed it today to finally put the Cleveland Cavaliers away in the Eastern Conference semifinals.  The Celtics won 97-92.

In yet another Celtics playoff series this season, it was all tied up 3-3 after 6 games (OK, it’s only been two series’, but it seems like a lot more).  Cleveland winning the three games on their home court and Boston winning three games on its home court.  The decisive seventh game, played in Boston, was a nail-biter, especially at the end when the Cavaliers trailed the Celts by just a single point with just 1:40 to go.

The reason for the close contest was clear - superhuman efforts by each team’s season stats leaders.  LeBron James was incredible and could have hardly done much more for his team.  He had 45 points and 6 assists.  Paul Pierce almost matched him, though, with 41 points and 5 assists.  A great game and a great series.

Eventually, the Celtics are going to get beaten on their home parquet.  What do I know about coaching basketball, but it seems to me that figuring out how to take one or two on the road might be a good idea.

Now, on to Detroit.  Actually, the Detroit Pistons come to Boston (thankfully) on Tuesday for game 1 of the Eastern Conference championship.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Great offense is fun to watch, but killer defense is a total blast to witness.  Today, the Celtics beat the Atlanta Hawks by 34 points - holding the Hawks to only 65 points in 60 48 [Doh! Thanks Lorne] minutes of basketball.  The Celts fourth victory in the best of seven series was their fourth at home.  The green team lost all three of their games on Atlanta’s turf.

Interestingly, the other three home victories were by 25, 19 and 23 points.  One would think that a team that can win so convincingly on their home parquet AND had the best regular season record in the NBA, might have taken fewer than the full set of seven to win the series, but it was not to be.  Strange.

Bring on the Cavs.  Hopefully, we’ll get to witness more defensive masterpieces in the second round of the playoffs and beyond.

Popularity: 23% [?]

I’ve been quiet about Boston sports since the debacle in Glendale in February.  Actually, I’m still recovering from the deep wounds and emotional trauma that game left in me.  Leave it to Boston’s professional sporting dominance, though, to lift my spirits.  In the last year, the Red Sox won the World Series, the Revolution played for the MLS Cup (losing to Houston), the Patriots went 16-0 in the regular season, even the Bruins are in the NHL playoffs.  Now the Celtics have completed a 66-15 season - well ahead of any other team in the NBA.   Ahhh, it’s good to be a Boston sports fan.

The Celtics’ record gives them home court advantage for all playoff series’ and provides momentum in their attempt for a 17th NBA championship.  Not bad for a team that went 24-58 last year.

Anyone who pays attention to basketball knows the reason for the drastic year-over-year change.  The team moved away from it’s strategy of surrounding a single all-star player (Paul Pierce) with a group of young, aggressive players, to one of leading with a group of experienced players augmented by a handful of select newbies - mostly off the bench.  In the off-season last year, the Celtics traded away many of their young players in order to acquire Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett.  Two of the most talented players in the game.  With Pierce, the troika represented a scary force on the floor against any opponent.

Many nay-sayers believed that egos and established playing styles would prevent three great players from working together on one court.  The combination of Doc Rivers’ (the Celtics coach) coaching and/or the overriding desire of the three big men to win has dispatched that concern in all but the harshest critics.  The results speak for themselves, of course.

I don’t know how the playoffs are going to go down, but the Celtics are looking very strong.  The big men have been resting for a couple of weeks now since few of the games were critical and the three seem to be eager to show the world that they can bring the Celtics’ 17th championship home to Bean Town.  I do know that the team is a blast to watch and the NBA playoffs are going to be fun again for Boston fans.

Popularity: 28% [?]

As Michael Wilbon of ESPN says, “I’m sick and tired of Boston, when will you people stop!”  The Red Sox won the World Series, the Patriots are undefeated and, likely, the best team in football and last night, the Revolution (soccer, for those of you who don’t know we play the sport in the US) won the MLS Eastern Conference Championship to advance to the MLS Cup (yes, that’s the final, championship game).

Oh yeah.  The Celtics are undefeated, too.

“We are the champions, my friend.  And we’ll keep on fighting to the end . . .”

Update: Just saw this picture in the latest Sports Illustrated.  I guess Wilbon was right.

Popularity: 53% [?]

I just saw this quote from Ottawa Senators forward, Dean McAmmond, in Sports Illustrated and thought it worthy of passing on.

I don’t feel I have a concussion problem.  I have a problem with people giving me traumatic blows to the head.”

Yup.  That pretty much sums up ice hockey.

Popularity: 36% [?]