Hotdog & Friends

For those of you not paying attention to women’s golf (and it had better be all of you), good news. There is now an acceptable reason to follow the sport. Natilie Gulbis has won an LPGA event and is now a legitimate pro. If you have never seen Ms. Gulbis, then enjoy the following picture, which demonstrates why she is important.

And there you have it. As it turns out, she is gorgeous. If you want to see more pictures of her and are tired of reading, skip the remaining text and go here.

Most people in the golfing world have clued into Gulbis’ good looks by now, as she appears in national commercials (also featuring Lee Trevino and Alice Cooper) and has numerous endorsement deals with companies such as Taylor Made, adidas, Canon, and Amstel Light. There are some, however, who haven’t gotten the memo yet though. Namely the LPGA.

The LPGA brass does not seem to understand Ms. Gulbis’ obvious marketability, as they do little to nothing to promote her to the American public. Most American sports fans have no clue who Natalie Gulbis is (other than the fact that she is the hot chick in the national commercial with Alice Cooper), and as you can see above, that is a shame.

Compare that to Anna Kournikova, who did nothing as far as winning tennis tournaments goes, but who’s impact on the visibility of women’s tennis can hardly be measured.

Gulbis, on the other hand, is not only ridiculously good looking, but ridiculously good at golf as well. She has won on the tour. She finished 6^th on the money list in 2005 with over $1 million in earnings (I did some actual research for this here masterpiece). There is no reason not to make her the face (and body) of women’s golf. Instead, the LPGA seems content to let Michelle Wie dominate the headlines, which is a joke, because she hasn’t won a thing and is not attractive (even personality wise).

This is an outrage! A debacle! An outrageous debacle! We should all shake our heads disapprovingly and then carry on with our daily lives because this is also women’s golf we are talking about and that reaction displays the appropriate amount of emotion and energy to devote to the situation.

Ummm… that’s really all one can I suppose. Go look at that website with the Gulbis pictures if you haven’t already.

By Constable Echelon

Note: “Established” writers would advise one to put up columns prior to or immediately following the conclusion of the sporting event discussed. In the real world Echelon does things half way, abandons them, and then decides to submit the old thing instead of trying to create something new almost a week after the fact. This is like deleted scenes: only for the heads. PS Who blogs about cycling? Echelon, that’s who. And now the show…

A lot of Euro journos have been declaring le mort de la Tour de France. Moi? I love it!!

Too European for you? I’ll bring it back. Here’s a pertinent exchange from Talladega Nights.

Ricky Bobby: Heck, I just read in the newspaper they put a pig heart in some guy from Russia. Do you know wha, I mean, do you know what that means?

Lucius: No I don’t know what that means…I guess longer life.

RB: Well no he didn’t live.

L: Oh he didn’t live.

RB: It’s just exciting that we’re trying things like that.

That’s how I feel about these Tour de France blood doping. It’s just exciting we’re trying things like that!

Pre-tour favorite Alexandre Vinokourov was recently removed from the tour after winning two stages in three days. The reason? He had two types of red blood cells in his body. Illegal blood transfusion!!

This is not like steroids, folks. This is organic. Who was the genius that took the leap from theory to application in this?

“I posit that your blood is tired. Here is new blood. Now race.”

How did Vino (as Vinokourov is known) actually execute the blood transfusion? The Tour de France does not go from metropolis from metropolis, due to the existence of just the one. Or un. I’m not sure how it goes down exactly, but I assume the riders are living in weird camps of luxurious motor homes. That means they had to sneak a doctor in. Or more excitingly, maybe there was no doctor involved and this sport is so fucked that the riders know how to do blood transfusions themselves.

I have even more questions. Dare I attempt a rhetorical question chapter? (Wrap your head around THAT.)

Do the other riders on his team know when the blood transfusion guy is showing up to perform his dirty deeds? Do they look the other way? Where exactly do they procure the blood? Under what auspice do they procure the blood? Do they purport to perform minor elective surgery at home based on some Time Life series?

Now I actually enjoy the Tour without all of the doping because it’s just so…other. Castles and fields of sunflowers. Haybails stacked up in the shape of bicycles. World class athletes in crazily colored outfits pedaling around France like zombies chasing bizarre prizes.

First place? You get a yellow shirt. Racer who gets the most accumulated points by sprinting to arbitrarily designated spots along the course? You get a green shirt. Racer who gets to the various peaks most consistently over the duration of the race? You get a polka dot shirt.

You see the natural progression. Yellow to Green to Polka Dot. Somebody clearly panicked after coolly choosing two colors.

Unfortunately as of this past weekend, this most bizarre of elite sporting events has drawn to a close. As one of the 34 people in the country who get the Versus network, I can say I’m actually upset about this. The 7am time slot has always offered meager options in terms of live sporting events. For three weeks a year there’s something wondrous on while you get ready for work. Now I’m forced to watch reruns of “Who’s Now” Sportscenters during that hour, which I imagine is what hell is like. But that’s for another time. Right now?

Echelon misses the peloton.

If, like me, you get frustrated when Chris Reitsma or Ryan Hyphen-Smith gets knocked around in the late innings of a close game, you must remember that it didn’t have to be that way. For the past couple months, a perfectly serviceable Major-League reliever has been wasting away at AAA Tacoma.

His name was Julio Mateo.

Bill Bavasi, who apparently is the arbiter of all that is good in the world, made the unilateral decision that Mateo would never pitch for the Mariners again after he was charged with domestic violence in New York City. And so he was suspended for 10 days and sent down to rot while the Mariners half-heartedly tried to trade him.

In a move that received little public attention, Julio was traded Tuesday to the Philadelphia Phillies (the arch-rival of the Rapadelphia Rappies) for a minor-leaguer.

Now it’s generally not a good idea to knock women around, especially if you’re an athlete. But I think an exception should have been made in this case - in addition to being a solid pitcher, Julio is a guy that toiled in the Mariners farm system for over a decade.

Instead, without hearing the details or waiting for the criminal justice system to do its work, the organization turned their back on him in an instant. Is that the way to treat a valuable employee? What message does that send to the rest of the team - one mistake and you’re gone and forgotten?

And while it’s difficult to toe the line when it comes to domestic violence, I do think our country has gotten a carried away with zero-tolerance policies. The fundamentalist fervor that surrounds these policies has resulted in toddlers being expelled from kindergarten, high-school honor students losing their diplomas, pre-teens spending weeks in adult jails, and other drastically out-of-proportion measures.

(That article also states the zero-tolerance policies can be inherently racist, which I fully agree with.)

The Mariners definitely did Mateo dirty by shoving him out the door like that. Instead of throwing him in triple-A purgatory, Bavasi should have just released him after the incident in May and let him help another Major League team. Choosing to make an example of him, or whatever he was trying to do, was an extraordinarily vindictive.

So in the end, we have traded Mateo back to the person who stood to gain from these transgressions - former Mariners GM Pat Gillick, the current GM of the Phillies. Oh well. The guy we got back from the Phillies - Jesus Merchan - was hitting .330 (7 - 41) at double-A ball, so maybe the crony system will work out for the best.

I wish Julio the best in Philly. I think he’ll do great there - they love wife beaters.