About Last Weekend: Sweet Home, Chicago
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In case you were busy bounding home incredibly after being left in the woods by your family, here’s what you missed in sports last weekend:
- The Blackhawks are one game away from a Stanley Cup championship after Patrick Kane scored two goals in Chicago’s 3-1 Game 5 win over the Boston Bruins. Kane’s anticipation and hand control carried the day, which he explained as coming from “being like any other boy. You know, you’re lonely, looking for things to do, and your hands naturally you know.” When met with a decidedly awkward silence, Kane said, “What? I’d practice wristers and close control by myself. What? Oh. Oh. Ohhhhh. Well. Hmmm.”
- After extensive negotiations, the Los Angeles Clippers have their man: Doc Rivers will take over as the team’s head coach with a first-round pick headed to the Boston Celtics as compensation. “This move is just what the doctor ordered,” said Clippers general manager Gary Sacks, before receiving a call from his physician Dr. Pete Shulman reminding him that the acquisition will not be a suitable replacement for the Atorvastatin prescribed to help Sacks maintain control over his high cholesterol.
- Italy advanced to the semifinals of the FIFA Confederations Cup despite a 4-2 loss to Brazil. The Azzurri suffered a number of key injuries in the match, including one to striker Mario Balotelli, ruling him out for their upcoming semifinal match with Spain. Balotelli was reportedly confused by the quadriceps injury as it occurred on the field and not while riding an elephant through the streets of Rio while wearing a fright wig and hurling lit cherry bombs mindlessly into the air.
- Josh Johnson secured his first win of the season, and the Toronto Blue Jays won their 11th straight game with a 13-5 takedown of the Baltimore Orioles. “Feels good to get that Blue Jay off my back,” Johnson said after the game. When asked if he was referring to a monkey, Johnson replied, “No, that fucking mascot, Ace. He keeps razzing me, yelling Johnson when I’m warming up, flapping at me, pecking my chest. Apparently he does that with all the new pitchers until they get a win.” When asked what was going on, Toronto actor Phil Gipson, who plays Ace three days a week, said, “Oh, that’s not true. I just don’t like Josh Johnson. Never have. And I’m certainly not going to let up now.” Gipson was later relieved of his duties, and forced against his will to turn in his badge and his beak.
- The Pittsburgh Pirates scored three runs in the ninth and four in the 10th, which was just enough to nudge them past the Los Angeles Angels in a 10-9 extra-inning win. Angels closer Ernesto Frieri blew only his second save in 19 chances this season after his cries for parley were denied by a ruthless Pirates side that refused to abide by the Pirate code, allowing them to steal a victory that they proceeded to bury on an unmapped Caribbean island.
- Ken Duke won his first career PGA event, holding off Chris Stroud in a two-hole playoff to claim the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut. “Cromwell is my duchy, and I will use my winnings to purchase all of it,” Duke declared after the tournament, only to have it explained that the small yet affluent community would prefer to continue to be governed by a body of selectmen, and that his winnings of about a million dollars were “a quaint sum; perhaps enough to buy a manor in a bygone age, but come now. This is Cromwell. Fucking Cromwell. Come now.”
- Raul Ibanez hit two home runs and Kendrys Morales hit a three-run walk-off blast as the Seattle Mariners completed an unlikely series win over the Oakland A’s with a 6-3 10-inning victory. Ibanez, with 17 home runs, is on pace to become the most prolific 41-year-old home run hitter in MLB history, outpacing both Barry Bonds’s 28 and Ted Williams’s 29. You know what? That’s not going to happen. I will eat my hat if that happens. So, it looks like it’s time for a brand new About Last Night feature: Spike Friedman Will Eat A Hat If Raul Ibanez Breaks Any Record Held By Ted Williams. If Ibanez hits 30 home runs this season as a 41-year-old, I will eat a hat, and post the video right here on About Last Night. That’s my promise to you, people of the Internet. Thus concludes the first episode of Spike Friedman Will Eat A Hat If Raul Ibanez Breaks Any Record Held By Ted Williams.
- The Big Ten has added two new bowls to its postseason slate, picking up the Holiday Bowl and the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. “Oh thank god, our boys have been fucking starving,” said Nebraska director of athletics Shawn Eichorst. “Two more bowls at the ol’ postseason slate will help with that.” When told that it wasn’t a bowl of food, Eichorst protested, “It’s a bowl to fight hunger. I have hungry young men. It’s a bowl of food.”
Filed Under: About Last Weekend, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Clippers, Oakland A's, Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners, Stanley Cup, Toronto Blue Jays
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