Mid Summer Awards

In conjunction with last week’s mid-summer classic, baseball’s talking heads give out their mid-season awards to the top performers In the same spirit, I find it imperative to give out awards to the best thus far of the first half of the summer, as well as second half predictions. Without further adieu…..

Best Performance at a Sporting Event: Turkey’s Triumph

If you think this is a runaway victory for Tiger’s mastery of the greens at Torrey Pines, your view of the world and the games its’ people play is likely narrow (or you don’t have cable…one of the two). The June romp by the Turkish national team in Euro 2008 was nothing short of miraculous. The Turks, led by such household names as Semih Senturk and Rustu Recber turned the beautiful game upside down and came from behind to win not once, not twice, but three times in as many games. Eldrick will win himself a few more golf tournaments over middle of the road competitors, but you will likely never see a more miraculous performance from a football team in a major event. While Turkey did not win the tourney (lost in the semis to Allemagne), they performed much better than the boys from England, who didn’t even have the will to qualify. Use this as a precursor for World Cup 2010 in South Africa….anyone care to join?

Best New Album: The Carter III

I didn’t like Lil’ Wayne. Of course, I was a sucker for “Go DJ”, “Fireman”, and “Tha Block Is Hot” (for those old school Wayne listeners), but I had no intention of procuring the third Carter, after having a low opinion of the first two efforts. On a whim, I listened to it, and was floored. Wayne lures the mainstream crowd in with the absurdly crude “Lollipop,” yet brings the pain for finds ways to gain the attention of all crowds with various tracks that tie together well. I could write you a book on the quality of this album, but instead, just go get it and listen. This album is flyer than beetlejuice, beetlejuice, beetlejuice. Key Tracks: Mr. Carter, Tie My Hands, Mrs. Officer, Let The Beat Build.

Best Up and Coming Celeb Gathering: NBA Summer League In Vegas

David Stern is a smart man. By creating the NBA summer league in Vegas a few season ago, Stern accomplishes three things.

1) Generates even more excitement for the incoming rookie class, and upcoming season- While people talked all spring about how players such as Ovinton J’Anthony Mayo would adjust to the league, the summer league brought a forum for him to not only hit a 70 foot (give or take a foot) shot to end a quarter, but single-handedly ruin Hilton Armstrong’s summer by dropping one of the nastiest dunks in a while (look it up on Youtube). I guarantee ten more people just bought season tickets in Memphis. What does this, along with Donte Greene’s 40 point game, Kevin Love’s solid rebounding and Color Me Badd facial hair, and Kevin Durant’s surprise cameo mean? $$$$

2) Props up the slumping Vegas economy- This event not only brings the rookies to come play, but their much more well off teammates and their twenty person entourages to Sin City in their slowest months of the year. Something tells me Mr. Wynn and the Maloofs didn’t just stumble into this by dumb luck (note: Throughout the summer league, coaches stay at the Wynn and players stay at The Palms).

3) Takes Attention Away From Baseball and Football- July used to be time to talk only about baseball and maybe a bit of chatter about training camps. Now, the NBA has turned into a year round topic. This holds peoples attention, meaning that more will watch/ attend games during the season, which means (eventually) more ad dollars flowing into ABC/ESPN/TNT/NBA.com, and eventually bigger rights contracts. Again, all about $$.

Other bests to read about:
- Best Game You Never Heard About: Steve Nash’s Celeb Soccer Game in NY.
- Best Summer Event- McCarren Pool Parties in Williamsburg Brooklyn
- Best Roy Hobbs Imitation: Josh Hamilton in the Home Run Derby

2nd Half Predictions:

1) Millions more young adults pledge support to Obama: Said millions still unclear on what Obama actually is running his campaign on.
2) Cubs Win! The NL Central that is. They face Arizona in the Wild Card round and get shut out in three straight games by Brandon Webb, Dan Haren, and Micah Owings.
3) DC becomes the new fun place to live on the eastern seabord, replacing the rotten apple- a bit biased maybe....