This Week's Random Observations

There's a lot of stuff going on in the world of sports right now.  Instead of focusing on just one topic today, I decided to do one of those posts where I make a bunch of random observations about some of that stuff and give some comments on them.

• I can officially cross "NCAA Investigator" off my list of dream jobs (not that it was there in the first place).  The summer's supposed to be a lean time on the college sports front, but evidently nobody bothered to tell these guys.  I certainly don't envy them.  In the last 18 months, there have already been investigations into the football programs at USC, Auburn, Oregon, North Carolina, I'm sure there are some others that I'm missing.  As if they didn't have enough to do with our buddy Terrelle Pryor and the mess at Ohio State, now we have the ugly situation at Miami.
• While I'm on the topic, Miami's screwed.  If you haven't yet, check out the Yahoo! Sports article about booster Nevin Shapiro, who blantanly broke several pretty serious NCAA rules with 72 football players for a period of eight years.  People are talking "death penalty" (which the NCAA has only issued once, to SMU's football team in 1987) as a possible punishment.  I don't know if Miami'll get the "death penalty," but this is bad.
• Not that any NFL preseason games are actually worth watching, but why do they insist on putting the absolute worst ones on national television?  Last week, we had Bucs-Chiefs.  On this week's slate?  Falcons-Jaguars.
• Danica Patrick has announced her plans to move to NASCAR full-time in 2012.  Bad move Danica.  Look what happened when Dario Franchitti tried to do it.  He was back in IndyCar the following year.  I don't think she'll be anywhere near as good.  More importantly, she's the face of IndyCar.  She's the only open-wheel driver who's not known for being somebody's husband (Franchitti) or the winner of a reality show (Helio Castroneves).  In NASCAR, she'll just be another driver.  Albeit a good-looking one.
• Now that she's actually healthy, I think Serena Williams is going to be a major factor at the US Open.  She's once again playing like the best player in the world and has won two straight US Open Series events.  Serena's ranking is back up to No. 31.
• Speaking of the US Open, ESPN.com did an investigative report questioning whether the random draw is truly random.  They went through the men's and women's draws over the past 10 years and discovered that the No. 1 and 2 seeds ended up playing the low-ranked American wild cards in the first round more often than regular chance would suggest.  I don't see a problem with this.  The top two seeds are probably going to win in the first round anyway (not a single No. 1 or 2 seed has lost in the first round since they started seeding 32 players instead of 16), so you might as well give the young Americans a chance to play under the lights on Arthur Ashe Stadium against the world's best player in the first round of the US Open.  Yes, they're more likely to lose to Rafael Nadal than if they were to play, say, Janko Tipsarevic.  But would you rather lose to Tipsarevic in an 11 a.m. match in front of 100 people on Court 14 or against Nadal in front of 23,000 people, on television?  That's something to tell your grandkids about.
• Every single athlete at the upcoming Track & Field World Championships will be drug tested.  This is a great move by the IAAF.  However, since they all know they'll be tested as soon as they get to Korea, I wonder how many athletes are going to withdraw because of "injuries" before the Championships start.
• I'm still not buying the Diamondbacks, but the Brewers are going to be tough once the playoffs begin.  Milwaukee's a ridiculous 45-15 at home and currently has the second-best record in the National League, which means the extra home game in the Division Series.  Speaking of which, if things stay the way they are right now, we'll get a Brewers-Braves Division Series.  That's a phenomenal matchup...and the winner would actually have a chance against the Phillies.
• The Tigers are still the team to beat in the AL Central, but look out for the White Sox.  With their pitching, they actually have a chance to make it a three-team race down the stretch in that division.  Detroit will still win, but won't be able to coast into October.
• The Little League World Series starts tomorrow.  A team from Uganda made history by becoming the first African team ever to qualify, but there were eligibility questions about some of the Ugandan players (read: they're overage), so they weren't issued visas to play in the tournament.  As a result, the team from Saudi Arabia that wins that region every year got to go again.  There's something inside me telling me that it's incredibly wrong to make a prediction about who's going to win the Little League World Series, so I'm not going to make a pick.