Manslaughter

Manny Pacquiao should have been arrested for attempted manslaughter last week.

After just watching the replay of the crime… er, fight… against Oscar de la Hoya at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, there is no doubt in my mind that Pac-Man should have been hauled into the local jail for how badly he decimated his opponent.

You know, it’s one thing if you were watching a popular, future Hall of Fame athlete go down valiantly in the throes of defeat. If some flashes of the physical prowess that allowed him or her to become one of the all time greats are still evident in that performance, then at least you could walk away knowing that the game did not completely pass him or her by.

Yet, in brutally physical sports such as football, boxing or mixed martial arts (as it’s now old enough to have a history), the greats rarely, if ever, look as their former selves. De La Hoya looked not only every part of his 35 years of age against Pacquiao, but he looked like a reluctant amateur who just took up boxing as a workout instead of serious business.

De La Hoya looked like Johnny Unitas in a San Diego Chargers uniform, Willie Mays as a New York Met, Emmitt Smith as an Arizona Cardinal. Or for those born in the last few months, Randy Couture not too long ago.

While De La Hoya had been considered more of a face than a fighter throughout his career, once upon a time, he was a boxer with world-class speed and an effective lead jab. He once moved on his feet with the likes of champion welterweights like Pernell Whitaker, Ike Quartey, Felix Trinidad and Shane Moseley.

Suddenly, Pacquiao was Travis Coates in the sport’s latest episode of Old Yeller.

Ouch.

One

There are two birthdays to observe today.

First and most important (personally), a shout out to RS. Won’t mention the age because you know where I live. You have a lot of dirt on me. Your military husband and the Ben-10 clone you call ‘son’ might hurt me bad. Happy birthday, Number 3!

Secondly, happy first birthday to Scribe.

Sure, there’s just a few celebrating this one year anniversary – okay, just me – but just as any infant, it takes time to building into a fully-functioning… thing.

Scribe began a few days after the folks in Las Vegas were counting the final pennies from boxing’s biggest payday in its 100+ year history. There had been this ongoing debate about mixed martial arts supplanting the sweet science in the sporting conscious. While in Sin City to cover some of the fights prior to Floyd Mayweather Jr.s’ win over Oscar De La Hoya, I had spoken with some of the most impassioned sports fans I have ever encountered about this supposed decent of boxing. With so many insights from fans that flew from across the globe, the event provided more than enough inspiration to start blogging again.

As you read recently, blogging for some people is an exercise in demonizing athletes and celebrating a culture of hate in sports. It was one of the reasons why it was easy to walk away from the platform after being a part of Version 2. Another reason was there were too many blogs that just weren’t updated frequently enough to make an impact.

Yet, those reasons that were difficult to overcome were the reasons to come back to it last May 15th.

The overall purpose of Scribe (and this whole sports media gig of mine) is to add something more to the pile of news and opinions you can get from multiple sources. Instead of ripping folks apart (unless there is no way around it and is deserved), it was important to show one another a different angle to what we see, read and listen to on a daily basis. It’s to foster conversation – though there needs to be less offline comments and more online comments – and provide food for thought.

It was also born in order to bring up topics that may not garner the heavy media coverage in a certain region or the country overall. That’s why you have seen an array of not only game and player observations, but business or socially-focused pieces. It’s why you’ve seen the major sports mixed with those with a smaller spotlight so that in passing, maybe we will pay more attention to what could become something special to the industry.

While I hope that has not been an issue for the three of you that reads this, the main issue has been keeping things fresh.

While the previous blogging efforts lacked frequency, they did not lack thought or conversation. It was a great experiment that provided some lessons to apply if there would be a chance to make this successful. What Scribe has been doing and must build upon are those smallest of nuggets and the biggest of dissertations.

There just needs to be more.

Those five days in Vegas reminded me that we all want more; whether you are obsessed or casually drifting by for the moment. Going into a second year of this blog, my hopes are that there will be.

Thank you all (again, the three of you) for reading, commenting, forwarding along and asking about Scribe.

Anyone have a kazoo?

Say What?!?!: Seriously. Does anyone have a kazoo?