A Thought or 2 - Sports World & Viewing

Whoa  . . . what a variety and line-up the last week or so.  Momentous times for sports fans in L.A., Texas, South America and all around the world.  The Los Angeles Kings won their second Stanley Cup in the last three seasons.  Notably this playoff run through Northern and Southern California, Chicago, and New York clearly seemed to garner more of the local metropolitan attention than the team's first championship in 2012.

Photo by Harry How / Getty Images

Photo by Harry How / Getty Images

Prior to the Kings' predictable win in double-overtime against the Rangers last Wednesday evening at The Staples Center, a three-year-old thoroughbred named California Chrome put forth a courageous effort to become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978 by winning the Belmont Stakes in New York the afternoon of Saturday, June 7th.  Alsa, such gallant history for the first time by a local (i.e. Santa Anita) horse was not to be, and the likelihood of ever again celebrating a Triple Crown winner (all hail Seattle Slew, Secretariat, Affirmed, et al.) is an extreme long-shot under current horse-racing industry regulations, procedures, and conditions.

Benoit Photo / via Newslocker.com

Photo by Andrew Renneisen / New York Times

As previously noted, the FIFA World Cup playoffs in Brasil kicked-off on Thursday, the 12th.  Within the hour, the U.S. team will begin its first match, versus Ghana, on another long-shot quest for a global-sporting championship.  The most favored and home team, Brasil, went off at early / pre-tournament odds of 3 to 1 while online betting sites such as 'Oddsshark' listed the Estados Unidos squad at 100 to, Mexico at 125 to 1, and longest of the lowly, Iran, at 1000 to 1. The graphics via email and online at ESPN are spectacular:

Graphic Illustration by / via espn.go.com

Of lesser note, (to me personally), was yesterday's Game 5 win by the San Antonio Spurs to win the NBA championship and Martin Kaymer's wire-to-wire victory in the U.S. Open Golf Championship that was held at Pinehurst, North Carolina from Thursday through Sunday.  Anything else?  How about a NASCAR win for Jimmie Johnson on Sunday at the Michigan International Speedway site in the scenic Irish Hills area of southeastern MI which I visited when a youngster c.1970.  An episode during that period of the racetrack's history is well documented in this online article but what I recall most clearly from that particular field trip is a replica T-Rex holding a cigarette between his awkward dinosaur claws (a strangely memorable scene from one of those tacky tourist trap attractions . . . ;-)

Photo by Carlos Osorios / AP