Best weekend of the year. Well, kinda.

It's hard to believe that it's already been four years to the day since I wrote the article that eventually launched the thousand ships of my Sue Bird fandom. (Note to self: don't force a metaphor like that again.) It was only my fifth ever article here at SP. Also hard to believe. We've all grown a little since then, and I thought it would be a fun idea to revisit the column idea this year. Little did I know that I'd actually be wrong about that. Read on to find out the hows and the whys.

It's worth noting that when I wrote about the weekend four years ago, that the weekend's events were: Women's NCAA semis on Friday, Men's on Saturday, Women's finals and the first MLB game on Sunday, Opening Day and the men's final on Monday.

This year? I don't know why or when they messed with the order, but this year...

Friday: Nothing. Big fat lot of nothing. I played some video games and unpacked a little bit more in the Alex Living Facility (I expect the unpacking phase of the move will last into June).

Really, I just don't understand why ESPN wouldn't schedule the women's tournament in this Friday/Sunday slot. I know that it would mean a short turnaround after the regional finals, but it would still be at least two days. I mean no offense to the ladies, but the media coverage for their Final Four isn't as intense, so they don't need extra lead time, and two days rest should be enough. The benefit is obviously that they'd have absolutely no competition for anyone who'd want to watch some good sports on a Friday night. The bottom line is, ESPN has managed to screw this up somehow.

Saturday: Meh. Watched the Twins last spring training game at noon. Top of the order looks good. And then we get runners at second and third with one out. Up come Cuddyer and Batista. Two strikeouts later and the inning's over. I have full faith that Castro would have done the same with the next spot in the order. But maybe the top of the order will be good enough for our great pitchers.

Then we get to the men's national semifinals (aka The Final Four) starting early evening. First game pits the Cinderellas of George Mason against the Florida Gators. The first half was interesting, as GMU was keeping it close, but do you know what I remember from it? The CBS analysts' insistence on beating a point into the ground. The point in question for this game? Florida is long - they've got a lot of length. That's a nice way of saying their tall players are skinny. That's either good or bad, it depends on your opponents. If your opponents are just as tall, but bigger, you're in trouble. If your oponents are shorter, well then the height plus wingspan differences gives you opportunity to reach over and around them. Since they just wouldn't shut up about Florida's length, I think you'll realize that we're talking about the latter scenario.

And then Florida went and made the second half into a snoozer, so I headed off to wadE and Chelle's for drunken board game night.

Yes, this does mean that I missed the second game, which by all reports was also a snoozer. I do want to say one thing, though. UCLA does not have a winning tradition in any kind of relevant way. Yes, they won what, ten in a row under the legendary John Wooden? Something like that. Wooden retired in 1975. As I was born that year, I can tell you it was 31 years ago. In all that time, they've won once. So they don't have a relevant winning tradition any more than the Minnesota Gophers do in football (they won five national championships in the late 30s/early 40s!).

As for drunken board game night, since we're keeping track of competitions here, I was part of a spectacular loss at Music SceneIt, although I contend that I'd be gangbusters if only there were a Hair Metal SceneIt. We then changed teams to align with gender, and the boys whupped up on the girls in Cranium and Taboo. And there was much boozing and general banter, so all were filled with joy.

Sunday: Need more proof that the weekend has been watered down? I give you the fact that ESPN was showing a tractor pull at noon! A freakin' tractor pull. Bah.

So the afternoon was slow, but the evening threatened to make up for all of that. The women's Final Four kicked off with a game that was easily better than both of the men's games right out of the gate. The University of Maryland, led by Shay Doron, vs. North Carolina, led by Ivory Latta, who I'm convinced just might be a zombie. She scares me, frankly, but she's damn talented. Oh, and I'll mention that Shay will always have a place of honor here just for that answer to the question about why she wears number 22. Plus she's cute.

So anyway, the game was up-tempo with a lot of scoring, and close fought. We come out of halftime and it's more of the same, and I'm getting ready to do some serious channel flipping between that and the White Sox/Indians season opener on the Deuce and...

My power goes out.

Or, to parahprase Billy Connolly's great bit: Aye... I cut your power!

So, I was without power for 45 minutes. On the bright side, daylight savings time saved me from having to hunt for a flashlight that had been packed away in an anonymous box in the dark. I have to admit that was nice. But, when the power came back on Maryland was finishing off UNC, and I'd missed all of the opening festivities from Chicago. Boo-urns. But by the same token I do enjoy a Carolina loss on any level, I will tell you that.

And then the baseball game was showing signs of becoming interesting, with a flurry of 3 runs for each team... followed by a 3 hour rain delay. So ended Sunday. (Note: there was a second women's game, in which Duke beat LSU in a game that never threatened to be anything but boring.)

Monday: The best sporting day of the year, and I will brook no arguments on the subject. I have a doohickey (that's a technical term - I'm in the business) on my desk that allows me to watch TV on my computer. It's a great invention. So far today I have kept an eye on the Mets/Nationals and Red Sox/Rangers games at work, and since coming home have caught part of Braves/Dodgers, Cubs/Reds, Angels/Mariners, and Padres/Giants, and coming up tonight I intend to watch Astros/Marlins and A's/Yankees. It really doesn't get any better than this for a full day of sports overload.

Oh, and there's also this thing called the NCAA Men's Championship tonight. The Length of Florida vs. The Winning Tradition of Excellence of UCLA. Personally I'm gonna echo Will's assertion that this game will not be memorable unless there's a bench clearing brawl or a quadruple overtime. I just don't think anyone particularly cares about these two teams. At the very least, I certainly don't. That said, I'll probably flip to it sometime after the Prelude, but before the One Shining Moment (I refuse to watch both).

And then Tuesday will feature the NCAA Women's Championship. Yes, I'll watch it as much the scheduling conflict with the Twins opening game will allow for channel flipping. Yes, I'll continue to cheer for Shay and MD. But I can't help but think that I'd have cared a lot more about the outcome if I'd been watching it on Sunday night.

Except of course that my power would have been cut.

It's still the best weekend of the year, though. Sue would agree.

-- 04/03/2006