… Okay, that’s not exactly true. The watch corporation is donating a buck for each person the former Olympic softball gold medalist passes in November’s ING New York City Marathon.

Finch, perhaps the most recognizable softballer in the world (they’re called “softballers,” right?) will start the race dead last. Timex, in turn, will donate $1 to New York Road Runners youth programs for every person she passes over the course of the 26-mile run.

Former New York Giants receiver Amani Toomer also started dead last a couple years ago in the same marathon, which now forces me to evaluate if a solid professional football player with 13 years under his belt is more recognizable than the world’s most famous softball player. Although I’m sure I’d recognize Finch walking around in, say, a Whole Foods before I would recognize Toomer, I think more people would recognize Toomer first.

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A tree limb near the final hole of the course fell, exposing a swarm (or a few hundred swarms depending on how you define swarm) of yellow jackets. And considering bees never do a quick flyby and then move on to greener pastures, you can bet that 60,000 bees mingling around was enough to compel the course officials to halt the UTA / Waterchase Invitational in progress Tuesday afternoon.

The report of the infestation mentions that a beekeeper was called in to handle the situation.

“Um, hello. I’m with the Waterchase Golf Course. I hear you’re a bee wrangler, which is good ‘cause I’ve got a few bees need wranglin’. … Do you have a bee wrangling partner? …Yeah? Good. Bring everyone on your team. … No, all of ‘em. Seriously. … If you own firearms, you might want to throw those in the Buzzmobile too.” 

Wichita State won the tournament based on the Round 2 results from the day before.

There have since been six unconfirmed deaths from the beekeeping crew hired to control the 18^th Hole.*

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* By “unconfirmed” I mostly mean “made up by me just now.” And by “mostly” I mean “totally.”

Belarussian Nastassia Mironchyk-Ivanova lost the World Championships in South Korea after her long-ish pony tail made a sand landing before her feet did, thereby forcing judges to mark the spot her hair hit instead of the spot her feet hit – a difference of about half a foot.

Now you see why this title is so great, right? “By a hair?” It IS fantastic. Thank you for saying so.

Anyway, she captured fourth place with her hair-jump, which is still kind of amazing when you think about it. She technically landed on her head and still almost placed. After she’s done being upset, I’d urge Mironchyk-Ivanova to leverage that into a humble-brag.

“Yeah, I shoulda put my hair in a bun, but still, my hair alone beat out all but three jumpsters around the globe.” I’m assuming here that people engaged in this sport refer to themselves as “jumpsters.” If they don’t, they should.

If nothing else, the Belarussian – and anyone else – should just get enormous hair extensions the day before the event. After tying it into a huge pony tail, take off from the plank and whip the extensions around in front of you. With a little practice, we’ll start seeing all sorts of jumpsters with 9 foot, 10 foot, 11 foot jumps.

Then they can call up the nice folks at Guinness and invent up a new sports record.

You’ve seen “The Karate Kid” at least half a dozen times in your life. If you haven’t, you’re living life wrong. Drop whatever that frozen drink in your hand is and start anew from this point on. Start by buying the original “Karate Kid” and watching it until you reach your sixth viewing. We’ll wait …

…

Done? Nice. What was your favorite part? Wait! Before you answer, don’t just say, “No Mercy!”/ sweep the leg/ final crane kick. Yes, it’s always nice to see Elizabeth Shue running toward the camera, but the end just isn’t the best part. The best part is when Mr. Miyagi hops the fence like Spiderman to whup a pack full of skeleton bullies.

Come on, don’t fight it. Seeing a 300-year-old man* ruin a bunch of toe-headed teens is cathartic, right? Even the 6-year-old me knew it to be true.

Well, there’s a real life Miyagi. She’s a little bit younger (98), a little bit more into the art of throwing (judo) and a little more, um, female. Keiko Fukuda became the first 98-year-old to earn an 10th-degree black belt in … well, anything. If they gave out black belts for staying awake through an entire episode of “60 Minutes,” I’m positive no 98-year-old has ever accomplished that. Only four people have earned that distinction and none of them were old ladies.

In the martial arts world, the unprecedented run on minority factions is equivalent to President Obama having also been Hillary Clinton AND John McCain.

Although earning the degree distinction at such an advanced age is primarily a symbolic gesture, as Keiko is confined to a wheelchair most of the time nowadays, her story is actually a touching one or perseverance against Japanese sexism and makes the argument that she’s only just now being rewarded with something she earned decades ago.

The San Francisco Chronicle chronicled the rest of the story (like they do). Click it if you’re so inclined.

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* approximately

What I am sure of is that any kid who looks to be a) sitting by himself at a public sporting event, b) a fan of highly processed foods, c) familiar with ‘The Goonies,’ and d) adept at intertwining these loves is okay by me.

Keep that freak flag flying, homey.

Full, glorious jiggle here.

Between a public display of Springsteen affection and a series of gripping plays at Sunday’s Women’s World Cup match, I almost – almost! – caught myself enjoying the sport I was born into disliking.

It kind went like this: the NORMAL ME would begrudgingly watch the match and nitpick, then the SOCCER ME would sneak in and point out something kinda awesome happening.

SOCCER ME: Well, at least the females don’t flop as much as the males do.

NORMAL ME: I can’t root for a sport in which the men fall over like they’re wearing heels over a subway grate and listen to club music while the women listen to Springsteen.

SOCCER ME: Okay, but the red card rule is kinda badass. Better than a baseball ump bump, better than two technical fouls in basketball.

NORMAL ME: That doesn’t make up for the fact that we’re in a close game and I have only a vague idea how much time is left in it.

SOCCER ME: What about this shootout?!? You cannot beat a high-pressure shootout!

NORMAL ME: Yeah, but there’s something flawed with a game in which it’s nearly impossible to score during regulation and equally impossible not to during sudden death.

SOCCER ME: The game is 5-4!

NORMAL ME: … Which is equivalent to a 20-17 baseball game! A game most Americans think is boring!

Check and mate, Soccer Me.

We’ll get to your answer in  second. Let’s go back a bit first.

The now-19-year-old accuser has been tied up in court trying to get someone – anyone from her former school – to admit that something – anything had been a miscarriage of justice. At this point, the woman identified only as H.S. in court documents has given up on full vindication and has settled for being a smaller wheel in the cog of justice. Unfortunately, justice is expensive, or the judicial system is, anyway.

After DNA evidence had been collected proceeding the teen’s allegations of sexual assault in October 2008, a backlog of court cases forced the case to remain in limbo for a year. In the meantime, the girl continued cheering and the main defendant in her case continued playing on the teams for which she was cheering. She chose to continue cheering for the team and each individual players except for the one who she accused of assaulting her. Shortly after a playoff basketball game, school officials warned her and then gave her the boot.

Neither of the girl’s alleged attackers had been found guilty by the legal system, nor have any of the school administrators brought into the case. However, the school expelled one student and a restraining order was issued, so it appears something had to have happened. It seems that if one student leveled a legal case at another student, the least the school could do is let the accused stand quietly under the basket while the athlete shoots his free throws. Was anyone really more up-in-arms about her lack of pom-ponning than the fact that she may have been raped?

And so now we’re back to the $45,000 in legal fees and one of the few people who seemed appropriately up-in-arms.

From the Hairballs blog:

A fund-raising effort kicked off, one that featured a special twist: for twenty bucks, Jason Ho of Bongo Comics would do a sketch for you.

Ho says they hoped they’d get 20 or so requests, and indeed on the first day they got 15.

On the second day, thanks to re-tweets by many notable geek/comics bloggers and write ups from some well-known websites, we received over 130 requests.

Ho claimed he’s raised $17,500, which would be 875 sketches, but some people donated money without demanding a sketch in return. Others probably settled for a stick-figure drawing of themselves flying, traveling through walls, or perhaps being invisible. I’m not sure how a sketch of that last one would work out. At any rate, is there any way Ho didn’t kick himself at the end of that second day for not charging $30?

The good news is that in the last month, the U.K. has decreased its number of female mascots by just one. The bad news is that she represented 100 percent of Britain’s female mascots.

To be clear, we’re talking about the person inside the fuzzy suits when we say “female mascots.” To my knowledge there is only one female character representative of a sports team and that’s the Stanford Tree.*

The Doncaster Rovers, a British soccer club, fired Tracy Chandler earlier this month after photos of her posing in lingerie next to the Donny Dog mascot head began circulating. If this were some college co-ed who tweeted the results of a poorly designed dare, this story would end here and you’d go back to your Hot Pocket or whatever. When mascots act a fool, they get fired. It’s simple. Most reasonable fans wouldn’t really question it much. But there are three facts that totally change the tenor of this little story. Are you ready? We’ll wait until you are.

1. Chandler only agreed to strip down for a national men’s magazine if some of the proceeds doing so would produce went toward a charity. The charity, in this case, was the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), an organization the Rovers had already been supporting in ways that required fewer prepatory sit-ups.

2. Chandler isn’t quite the nubile young performer the above picture suggests she is. The professional hairdresser is 40 and has a trio of children. The dog’s a lady and the lady is old(er). So when the club’s directors reasoned that her photos made the club look bad, it’s a bit unclear whether Donny was the problem or the fact that the best person to rev up the Doncaster crowd was a middle-aged woman with a minivan.**

3. The Rovers players posed for a PG-13 rated nude calendar for charity in 2010.

It wasn’t as if Chandler had a reputation for being wild. She’s been the damn mascot for four years, which is 28 dog years – more than enough time to have established a tenured position as Donny Dog.

“I have been to hospitals, schools and visited disabled children as Donny Dog,” Chandler said. “The job has even cost me money because I cut down on my hairdressing work to fit in appointments as Donnie Dog.”

Okay, so a hairdresser that forgoes hairdressing for a couple hours of mingling dressed as a dog might suggest Chandler’s a little kookier than you … what’s that? Oh, you do the same thing, only when you do it you’re wearing a turtle suit? Fair enough. I stand corrected. The point is, far too much of sports and the sports world is predictable. Even unpredictable occurrences like this, end the way they do for no other reason than there had been a pre-standing precedent for it. Sexy photos = firing. Forget the details. The sports world is black and white. A view which, ironically, is how all dogs – including Donny – are forced to see the world.

UPDATE: Chandler was offered her job back by the Rovers. Representatives from the team said Chandler should have let them know why she was posing for the photographs first. That’s true. On the other hand, maybe clubs shouldn’t fire people without talking to them first. As this story showcases, sexy photos don’t always equal necessary firings.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3625703/Club-bosses-blow-whistle-on-saucy-soccer-mascot.html#ixzz1Oj3BEv6O

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* If that thing’s not female, it should be ashamed of itself.

** I’m trying very hard to avoid calls of sexism on this one. It’s not about Chandler’s gender here, so much as it is about her age. Are you telling me there isn’t a 19-year-old in all of Doncaster willing to high-five babies and do the Moonwalk during dead balls once or twice a week? I know it’s a volunteer gig, but asking me to believe that a (literal) soccer mom has more time, energy and desire to throw on a dog costume in front of people is as hard to imagine as a funny episode of “Mike & Molly.”

We were all surprised at his love of Kanye West.

Blanc on the left, Blaquart on the right.

Two weeks ago, French website Mediapart released a report accusing members of the French Football Federation's National Technical Board of racial discrimination. The site asserted that the board conspired to limit the number of young French players with dual citizenship in the French Colonial areas of North Africa.

On Tuesday, France's Sports Minister, Chantal Jouanno, who absolved French national team coach Laurent Blanc of racism, saying only a few members of the board discussed the plan and no one acted on it.

You'll pardon me if I don't let this sleeping dog lie.

Mediapart got hold of a recording from the November 2010 presentation proposing the limit of young talent from training in well known facilities around the country responsible for many of France's previous players. The plan has since been called an unfortunate misspeak that, although tactless, did not break any laws. But it isn't just the quota that sent alarm bells a-ringing, it was also the members in attendance during this presentation, namely Blanc and Francois Blaquart, the newly designated president of the National Technical Board who proposed the quota in the first place.

In the two weeks since Mediapart released its article, the details of the plan and the reasoning behind it have been divided into two points of view: Discriminatory and "Chill Out, That's Not What I Meant." We'll start with the

1. First, the flash point; Blaquart's proposition.

2. Blaquart (which I am choosing to pronounce as "Black Heart") told those in attendance during its initial presentation in November 2010 that the proposition "must not be said."

3. France's Under-21 coach Erick Mombaerts said that two of the country's most successful clubs (Olympique de Marseille and Olympique Lyonnais) have already started their own quota system before Blaquart burped up his proposal.

4. Blanc admits to having said that it was necessary to limit the number of French players with a second nationality and who "leave to play in North African or African teams." The FSM absolved Blanc of any discrimination, due largely to such comments only being "on the edge of racism," according to Jouanno.

5. Blanc credited the world football champion Spanish for having said "we don't have a problem, we have no blacks," upon winning the title.

I'll get to the "Chill Out, That's Not What I Meant" section soon, but a couple thoughts first:

How likely is it that anyone connected with the Spanish National Team said anything like what Blanc claims? While an entire country revels in a momentous victory, someone connected to the team hits pause on the confetti party and credits the whole shebang on the lack of black people? That's like someone from the 1988 49ers claiming to have won the Super Bowl because Lawrence Taylor wasn't on the roster. Interviewer, "Hey Beyoncé, congratulations on your Grammy for best album! How do you feel?" Beyoncé, "Great! I made the whole record without ever having to use a flute!" If it sounds like a ridiculous claim, it's because it's a ridiculous claim; but a claim Blanc was nevertheless excused for alledgedly making.

Blaquart repeatedly hung his hat on the claim that the quota was not meant to exclude races. It was meant to rededicate the team to a different type of player. What differences, you're wondering? Instead of "large, strong and powerful," the team hoped to shift toward "intelligence." Yup. There it is. It's just not a thinly-veiled case of racism until someone ponies up the "we need smart players" meme. Are there no smart players in Africa? 'Cause it could just be that the smart players are all joining other national teams.

Dude, chill out. That's not what they meant. (See? I told you we'd get to it.)

Many reports have pointed out that several members of France's 1998 championship squad have defended Blanc, most notably Zinedine Zidane, Christophe Dugarry, Marcel Desailly, Bixente Lizarazu and World Cup winning coach Aime Jacquet - all character witnesses but Desailly, you'll notice, are white. It's also been pointed out the number of players who train with the French and play for someone else's national team. It's understandable for a country not to want to innovate weapons for countries with which they'll eventually be at war. Frankly, it's entirely likely that long before November 2010, members of the FFF were searching for ways to cultivate national loyalty or, at least, safe guard against players abandoning France. But where there's smoke, there is almost always fire. In this case, there are already some flecks of fire licking the underside of the door.

Minister Jouanno spent about 10 days with members of the French Football Federation and cleared Blanc of racial discrimination.

"There is nothing to suggest that Laurent Blanc in any way gave his support to discriminatory actions," she said at Tuesday's press conference. "The subject was brought up in an awkward an uncalled for manner. It was alluded to in a manner which bordered on racist but there was no project to establish quotas."

Chantal Jouanno

So that's that. Blanc's Spanish National Team quote? You misunderstood him. The desire to limit players of dual nationality? It was just talk, nothing was enacted. And what about anyone other than Blanc? What about Blaquart, who allegedly created this plan and told everyone in attendance to keep mum about it? Jouanno criticized his comportment a little, but nothing more as of the publication of this piece. Even Juoanno herself, who claimed that there is nothing to suggest Blanc supported discriminatory actions (except for the things no one is refuting he said), has spent her recent free time eating Lance Armstrong's lunch because she believes he's used performance enhancing drugs and needs to come clean (pun!) about it. So where's the nothing discriminatory stance there? Armstrong hasn't been found guilty of anything (yet). The only throughline to Jouanno's behavior in both situations are that in both instances she's siding with the side most supportive of France.

The most damning suggestion that something isn't squared with this story is Blaquart's response to it. On April 27, the day before Mediapart published its report, it contacted Blaquart and asked him to respond to the allegations about to be leveled on him. His response was as follows:

"If you prove to me that this has been put in writing, that you have it, that it has been made available to you or that someone is a witness to what you say, I am prepared to hear your questions. But in no case has this been discussed in an institutional way, or in an official way, or in writing, or in reports. That's all. Now when people talk, I don't know, they can take percentages or they can talk about other things. In all discussions there are positions that can be considered as excessive, that is the point of any debate. But in no instance has any decision emerged from any such discussions."

Blaquart could have stifled this story. He had the opportunity. It was right there. He could have said, "no, it's not true." He didn't say that. He said he'd answer questions if there was proof. He said it was not discussed in an institutional way (something we already knew and of which he was not being accused). He said no decisions emerged. He never denied the allegations. If Blanc is off the hook, Blanquart really shouldn't be. He wields the most power on the board, allegedly introduced the plan in the first place and doesn't deny doing so.

Speaking of which, Mombaerts said in response to the allegations Mediapart rattled away, "No, there is no question of quotas for the moment."

For the moment? For the moment.

Look, this is one cranky blogger's opinion, but any time you have some organizational figureheads claiming racist-sounding changes are not racist because they are a) stylistic in nature, b) organizationally loyal in nature, or c) mutiny avoiding in nature, you can bet it's very little of any of those things and very much about race.