Many big happenings in sports

Jayadev Athreya

Well, summer sports are in gear by now, with baseball nearing its halfway point, the WNBA starting up strong, tennis having its most prestigious championship, boxing staging its biggest prize fight ever and the NBA staging its two-round draft.

Instead of going into detail on just one of them, I’ll try to mix it up a little bit by talking about all of them.

The baseball season, which is a little too long in my opinion, is getting to its halfway mark. All the divisions have tight races except the AL East, which is tightening up. The Orioles, led by Ripken, Alomar, Brady Anderson and a fabulous pitching staff are burning the World Series Champions Yankees by eight games. The NL East is the most competitive with four teams —New York, Atlanta, Montreal and Florida — in the race. My prediction for the World Series is Baltimore versus Florida, with Baltimore winning in six as Jimmy Key outduels Kevin Brown.

The WNBA had a fun opening game, and the games have been a lot like men’s college games.

A lot of strategy, not much scoring and a heck of a lot of fun.

The uniforms are neat, but are they so out of logos and names that they have to imitate their brother franchises?

Also, either Minnesota or Chicago needs a franchise (my opinion is biased by geography).

Wimbledon has had two straight days of no rain (in other news, the temperature in Hell was measured at 32.001 degrees Fahrenheit), and they’ve been very exciting. Especially “People’s Sunday,” where the home favorite Tim Henman won a rousing five-set victory in a wonderful atmosphere.

He won 14-12 in the fifth, but another seed, the temperamental Croat Goran Ivanisevic was defeated 14-12 in the fifth.

That has to be some kind of record!

The Tyson-Holyfield fight was nothing short of disgraceful.

Though I did not see the fight, I learned that Tyson lost the first two rounds on the judge’s cards and then did the strangest thing. He bit off part of Holyfield’s ear. I mean, I wanted Holyfield to win, but not by losing part of his ear in a tainted victory.

Tyson’s excuse was pretty pathetic.

If Holyfield did intentionally headbutt Tyson, Mills Lane, who is one of the most respected boxing officials ever, would have called it. Heck, the Tyson camp forced the other official to step down so Lane could officiate the fight.

Hopefully, Tyson will not be allowed to fight again. But with Don King behind him, he probably will.

And last, but not least, there is the NBA draft, where our own Kelvin Cato was drafted 15th; slightly lower than I expected. I think it’s good he went to Portland instead of Dallas. He can add a lot by way of defensive presence to an already successful team, instead of being a go-to guy on a weak, weak team.

Interestingly, the Blazers also got C.J. Bruton, a guy who was supposed to go to Iowa State — in addition to Cato, a guy who went to ISU. Willoughby is going to be the next Voshon Lenard: a guy who wasn’t drafted but who will certainly be a good player.

More creativity later.


Jayadev Athreya is a sophomore in math from Ames.