About Last Weekend: All A-Rod Everything

In case you were busy buying gray-market signatures of 20-year-olds off eBay, here’s what you missed in sports last weekend:

  • Yankees manager Joe Girardi said that he has beleaguered slugger Alex Rodriguez penciled in to start Monday, despite rumors of an impending multiyear ban due to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. “Oh lord, Alex is a goner,” said Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, outfitted in a garish naval uniform. “Girardi’s pencil-ins are just a sack of lies. ‘Sure Brian, I know you’re down, hey, why don’t we pencil in some time where you can come over and spend some time next Saturday on my boat with the family?’ And then Friday rolls around and he texts me saying his daughter has ‘scarlet fever,’ and he’ll pencil me in next month. Well, I showed him. I’ve been sleeping on his boat for weeks. Call me Captain Cashman.” After a pause, Cashman bulged out his eyes and yelled, “Now! I’m your commanding officer!”
  • The Atlanta Braves stayed hot, winning their 10th straight game, 4-1, over Cliff Lee and the Philadelphia Phillies. Craig Kimbrel, who recorded the save while lowering his ERA to 1.25, said, “Remember when I looked mortal for a week back in early May? That was a test. Some of you passed. Some of you did not pass.” When asked what he meant, Kimbrel looked serenely into the distance and said, “For all there is a time when judgment will come. I promise only that the believers shall be spared any suffering.” Kimbrel then picked up a water bottle full of wine and smiled.
  • Kasey Kahne passed Jeff Gordon late to deny his teammate and win the Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway. When asked after the race what he would do having been named the GoBowling.com 400 champion, a dejected Kahne responded, “Go bowling on the Internet I guess.” Kahne then muttered something about Shockwave games crashing his browser before trudging off the podium without his trophy.
  • Tiger Woods coasted to his eighth victory at the Bridgestone Invitational, shooting even par Sunday to win the tournament by seven strokes at 15-under. “We’re excited to connect our name with Tiger’s yet again,” said Bridgestone CEO Masaaki Tsuya. “It’s a perfect match. Bridgestone and Tiger Woods both have a reputation for excellence, dominating our respective fields, you know that one thing, and performance under pressure. Hopefully he wins here again and again so people can think to themselves, Huh, Bridgestone is good again, I guess I’ll start paying attention to tires again, year after year.”
  • 18-year-old American swimmer Missy Franklin became the winningest female simmer in World Championship history, capturing her sixth gold medal in Barcelona by swimming the lead leg on America’s 400 medley relay team. Franklin will be at her physical peak for the Olympic Games in Rio, and may attempt to threaten Michael Phelps’s record eight gold medals at a single Olympics. Meanwhile, in unrelated news, a 27-year-old American sports blogger strained his calf building an IKEA bookshelf in Seattle this weekend, and then sat in a La-Z-Boy for a few hours in what he casually referred to as “the first leg of his rehabilitation program.”
  • U.S. men’s national team captain Clint Dempsey has moved back to MLS, joining the Seattle Sounders on a $9 million transfer from Tottenham Hotspur. The move was disappointing to transfer news watchers, who would have preferred that no actual deal occurred so they could continue Googling YouTube highlight reels of 20-year-old Eastern Europeans who are the “Messi of a former Soviet state.”
  • The Royals captured their 11th win in 12 games, beating the Mets, 6-2, at Citi Field with the help of two sun-induced Marlon Byrd errors. The Royals will try to continue their run starting tonight against Minnesota, while Byrd will continue his run of the performance art piece, “ERROR homeAGE: A Tribute to Metropolitans Past,” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in collaboration with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in November.
  • Are you ready for some football? Not really? Perfect! The Dallas Cowboys won the NFL’s annual Hall of Fame preseason game in Canton on Sunday, topping the Miami Dolphins, 24-20. These weren’t your father’s Cowboys or Dolphins either; no, your father could have named numerous players on those teams. Did you guys know Kyle Orton is on the Cowboys? He is! It’s kind of football!

Filed Under: About Last Weekend, Alex Rodriguez, Atlanta Braves, Clint Dempsey, Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins, Nascar, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Tiger Woods