Saturday and Sunday were two of the busiest (and craziest) sports days this year. Especially in the New York area. It's weekends like this that make sports great.
The weekend started in the waning hours of Friday night/wee hours of Saturday morning, when six Mariners pitchers combined to no-hit the Dodgers. (Honestly, I didn't even know about that one until Saturday afternoon.) Then if you got up early, you had the pleasure of seeing Maria Sharapova complete a career Grand Slam by winning her first French Open title. Staying in Europe, but moving a little further east to Ukraine, the "Group of Death" was in action at the European Championships with heavyweights Germany and Portugal facing off (then a surprise win by Denmark over the Netherlands).
Back in New York, we had the adidas Grand Prix track meet. There are always some great performances at this meet, and this year was no exception. David Rudisha almost set a world record in the men's 800, and Sunette Viljonen had the longest javelin throw ever in North America. Not to mention the great races in the girls' high school mile and women's 5000. And some of my favorite American stars, who clearly look ready for the Olympic Trials. I go to this meet every year, and the competition never fails to impress. This year was certainly no exception.
The track meet ran long, so NBC had to delay its trip from Randall's Island to Long Island by a few minutes. After I'll Have Another was scratched and there was no longer a chance at a Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes became very anticlimactic. But that was some stretch run by Union Rags! Our friends at the Peacock Network then traveled across the bridge to Jersey, where the Devils stayed alive against the Kings in the Stanley Cup Finals (they had no such luck tonight in LA). Meanwhile, at Yankee Stadium, there was this little event known as the Subway Series going on.
I haven't even yet mentioned the stuff I didn't watch on Saturday night. The Celtics and Heat played a Game 7 for the right to go to the NBA Finals. For those of you who actually care about that sort of thing, LeBron's team won to set up a matchup with the Sonics in the Finals. I didn't watch the basketball game by choice. An event that I would've loved to have watched, but didn't have the opportunity was the Manny Pacquiao fight. Pacquiao lost in a controversial split decision, giving Floyd Mayweather another excuse to avoid fighting him. Now we're definitely not going to get that Mayweather-Pacquiao fight everybody wants to see.
Fast forward to Sunday. Let's go back to Paris, for Rafa-Novak Part IV. Frankly, I'm getting a little bored of the Djokovic vs. Nadal Grand Slam finals, so the fact that the men's final was suspended by rain midway through the third set was fine with me. I didn't even bother to watch the conclusion this morning. As sick as I am of the same two guys in the finals, Nadal winning the French Open every year has really gotten old. (Seriously, his "surprised face" at the end of Grand Slam tournaments is about as annoying as Taylor Swift's "surprised face" at her concerts. Enough already. You're actually surprised? Really? You win the freakin' French Open every year!)
But all of that pales in comparison to Stony Brook. The little no-name school from Long Island (which is located approximately 10 minutes away from my parents' house), which has only been D-I for a decade and isn't even big enough to be considered a "mid-major" program, is going to the College World Series. The entire Northeast was rooting for the Seawolves. They're the first team from the region to make it to Omaha since 1986. College baseball in the Northeast suddenly just got a whole bunch of validation. (And they won't be the only party crashers in Omaha. Kent State, which beat Kentucky in 21 innings in its first game of the NCAA Tournament, will also be there.)
Weekends like the one that just transpired are why we love sports. There was something for everybody, and the competition was great across the board. It wasn't the first great sports weekend. And it won't be the last. But let's savour it anyway. It was a good weekend to be a New York sports fan.
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