Watch out for these guys this summer, ok?

Read it, don’t read it, I don’t care…just needed to get some things off my chest.

In no particular order of chronology or importance…

On the clock.  Day rant.  Speed version.  Let’s turn and burn.

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1)       Greetings and salutations, people.  Thanks for joining me.  Mini blog today, as I hit a lot of stuff yesterday in my one sentence themed blog, and I just have a couple things to add that are on my mind.

2)      I don’t care if this Ibaka injury is smoke and mirrors or not.  I still love OKC to take this whole NBA thing down.  Worse case, it will be a time for backup Steven Adams show the public why I think he is a star in waiting.  It will be an interesting game to watch tonight in Game 1 vs. Spurs.

3)      Basically, I am not going to be surprised if the Spurs win tonight.  Or even the next game.  Why does everyone freak out when a team goes down 2-0 these days?  Back in the 80’s, you were supposed to win your home games and most of the time you DID win them.  Stealing one at their crib was crazy back then as opposed to “need to win” games as they are these days.

4)      I have seen nothing thus far to make me believe the Blackhawks are not winning the Cup.

5)      Someone track down the DeLorean and pick up some more plutonium.  PuJols had two HR’s in ONE game over the weekend.

6)      Djokovic beat Nadal over the weekend.  I guess I will be reading articles about how Nadal is falling off, blah, blah, blah.  Write your silly articles, so called tennis experts.  I feel like Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith came in last summer and blasted the memory of everyone in the sports world.  I catch as much of the French Open as I can every year.  Here is the deal.  Bottom freaking line.  Sure, Nadal cares as a competitor about winning every tourney he is in.  Ok.  But, the ONLY one each year, he TRULY wants to win is the French.  I know this.  You KNEW this before he lost a couple matches.  He flips a freaking switch in a couple weeks, and all of this crap before is just practice.  Nadal WILL take down the French Open again AND maybe this year we can possibly not forget that as the days of the next year roll around.  Dude is a freaking machine.  Ugghhh.

7)      I admit I had to Google the background of the guy who won the PGA event this weekend.

8)      One thing about that surreal liquor bottle crash I mentioned yesterday was that my Sony boom box that I have owned and used for about 15 years bit it on the fall.  Pretty sure they don’t sell those bad boys anymore.  Guess I will have to invest in some mature person sound system.

9)      During the marathon in our neighborhood the other day, I almost chuckled at a very large person running it, but then realized that no matter how I spun it, everyone in that race was doing more than I was that day.

10)   I was asked at our weekend party if I recycled.  I REALLY need to look into being a little more green, as I am not very good presently.  Might have to go out and buy one of those containers.

11)   The Habs are two rounds from the Cup and they lose the one piece you do NOT want to go down as most of the years, the position WINS the Cup for a team.  They lost G Carey Price, and I feel bad for them.  Luckily, we have the St. Louis story going on with the Rangers for us to be ok with cheering for.

12)   In their ultra tough division, the Yankees losing Sabathia for 6 weeks sure as hell doesn’t help things.

13)   Love how Drew Brees is pitching a motorcycle in a commercial and says in it that he knows he can’t ride it due to contract.  That company REALLY wanted Drew Brees.

14)   I would like to thank LeSean McCoy for telling us he is the best running back in the NFL.  Way to fill the down time until mic loving Chris Johnson gets acclimated in his new digs.

15)   Bears WR Brandon Marshall signed his contract extension on The View today (curious).  He donated $1 million to mental health care.  That is great.  If you have ever taken 10 minutes and read his history, you would know that he is basically just giving this money to himself.

16)   Finally, I would like to share something my buddy, Vince, sent along.  In the spirit of us being smack dab in the middle of the Triple Crown races, here are phrases we use every day that came from horse racing.  Some are obvious, some are obvious with a little bit different history than you would expect, and a few are unexpected.  I personally had never thought about “hands down” and its origin.

1. Across the board

Across the board, meaning “pertaining to all categories or things,” originated around 1903 as a betting term in horse racing. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, wagering across the boardmeans betting that your horse will finish “in either first, second, or third place.”

2. Charley horse

You know the feeling: that sudden tightening of your calf or thigh that just won’t stop. So what does a muscle cramp have to do with a horse named Charley?

The term charley horse began as baseball slang around the late 1800s, says the OED. The origin is unknown, but there are a few different theories.

Phrase Finder and Wiktionary both say the phrase might be named for pitcher Charlie “Old Hoss” Radbourn, who suffered from such an ailment. The Online Etymology Dictionary says it may be from “from somebody’s long-forgotten lame racehorse,” perhaps specifically, as Word Originsproposes, a workhorse with a hobbled, stiffened gait as a result of pulling heavy loads, as witnessed by baseball player Joe Quest.

According to Quest, “the ball players troubled with the ailment hobbled exactly as did the old horse,” and so “Quest dubbed it ‘Charley horse.'”

3. Dark horse

Dark, in addition to meaning “lacking light” or having a complexion that “isn’t fair,” also means concealed, secret, or mysterious. By that token, a dark horse is “a horse about whose racing powers little is known,” says the OED. The term was first used by Benjamin Disraeli in his 1831 novel, The Young Duke:

The first favourite was never heard of, the second favourite was never seen after the distance post, all the ten-to-oners were in the rear, and adark horse, which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph. [The Young Duke]

Dark horse now often refers to any unexpected success, while in politics, a dark horse candidate is one who unexpectedly comes up from behind.

4. Front runner

A front runner is the leading candidate in a contest, competition, or election and comes from thehorse racing term referring to “a horse that runs best while in the lead.”

5. Give-and-take

Give-and-take, the art of compromise or “a lively exchange of ideas or conversation,” originally referred to, in horse racing, the give and take plate, says the OED, “a prize for a race in which the horses which exceed a standard height carry more, and those which fall short of it less, than the standard weight.”

By 1769, give-and-take also referred to races in general “in which bigger horses were given more weight to carry, lighter ones less.” It was around 1778 that the phrase gained the meaning, “the practice of mutual yielding,” of which the earliest recorded citation is from one of our favorite writers, Fanny Burney, in her novel Evelina: “Give and take is fair in all nations.”

6. Hands down

To win something hands down means to win it easily. It comes from the practice of horse racing jockeys loosening the reins when it seemed certain that they would win.

7. Home stretch

When you’re in the home stretch, also known as the home straight, you’re almost done with whatever you’re trying to accomplish. That meaning came about around 1860, according to the OED, while the horse racing term is from about 1841 and refers to the final length, or stretch, of the racetrack.

The word stretch refers to “a continuous or unbroken length, area, or expanse,” as in “an empty stretch of highway,” and by extension, “a straight section of a racecourse or track, especially the section leading to the finish line.”

8. In (or out) of the running

In horse racing, those horses in the running are the lead competitors. This term came about in the mid-1800s, according to the OED, while the figurative meaning referring to viable, and not so viable, political candidates originated a couple of years later.

9 A run for one’s money

To give someone a run for their money means to give them a challenge. The term originated in horse racing around 1839, says the OED, with the meaning “to have (or get, want, etc.) a successful race from a horse one has backed, (in early use) esp. when that horse appeared likely to be scratched.” (Scratched here, by the way, means “withdrawn.”)

Around 1874, the term gained the extended sense of getting “value or satisfaction in return for one’s expenditure or exertions.” The challenge sense came about shortly after that, around 1886.

10. Running mate

Running mate is yet another political term that we get from horse racing. It refers to a “candidate or nominee for the lesser of two closely associated political offices.” In other words, a vice-presidential candidate is the running mate of a potential POTUS.

In horse racing, a running mate is “a horse used to set the pace in a race for another horse,” and also, according to the OED, “a horse that runs alongside a trotting or pacing horse in double harness, relieving that horse of some of the effort of pulling a load.”

17)   And SO glad California Chrome will be able to go with the controversial nasal strips.  That would have been one of the dumbest things I would have heard of if that horse was banned from racing the Belmont with it.

18)   That is it.  Hope you enjoyed or are at least more informed.  Will I blog tomorrow?  That is a CLOWN question, bro.  Peace.