I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but at some point in time, apparently, American sports have become the equivalent of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on the global stage. OK, maybe that's an exagerration, but what's going on here? We're awful.
Sure, we've already laugued at/cried over the struggles of our basketball, baseball, soccer, and hockey teams in recent times. That's old news. But this past week we may have hit a new low. In a mere matter of days, the following happened:
- Our golfers lost the Ryder Cup to the Europeans. Again. The most excitement the Americans stirred up was probably Tiger Woods taking exception to pics of his wife displayed in a magazine.
- The women's basketball team, which always seemed to do us proud while our men embarrassed themselves, fell to Russia in the semifinals of the world championships. The only good thing was that I recently switched to DirectTV (which gets the NBA channel) and I actually caught a few minutes of this game. (Don't laugh at me.) Anyway, Russia has some hoop hotties, which made the loss bearable, although Australia has the best idea with their one-piece, tight spandex uniforms. Even if you would never dare watch women's basketball, do yourself a favor and catch a few minutes of an Australia game. Those unis, my friends, are a stroke of genius. When will the rest of the women's basketball world catch on? (The Aussies won the gold medal, by the way, so maybe there's something to the unis.)
- Andy Roddick lost a fifth set marathon to some Russian dude I had never heard of as our men tennis team dropped out of the Davis Cup. Man, Russia must be living it up at our expense this week, eh? Too bad John McEnroe isn't the Davis Cup coach anymore. I mean, maybe we would have at least seen a priceless McEnroe meltdown.
Yup, apparently, we stink at most everything these days. Maybe it's about time we create a new sport or two that we could dominate. That's why we made snowboarding an official Olympic sport, right?
