The sports world has long seen big-time athletes abruptly, and sometimes mysteriously, hang ’em up.
Barry Sanders is the most notable athlete of somewhat recent memory, who retired too early. The bizarre thing about Sanders’ retirement was that he was still, arguably, the best in the game and was just 1,457 yards short of snapping Walter Payton’s NFL career rushing record when he called it quits.
“The reason I am retiring is very simple,” Sanders said in July of 1999. “My desire to exit the game is greater than my desire to remain in it … I’m just really not feeling like playing. It’s just getting to that point. It’s not the same game.”
Okay. Fine. It happens.
People get tired of doing the same thing,day after day, week after week, year after year. And when that thing involves being smacked around by 355 pounders, we understand how that could get old in a hurry.
Sanders, that day, was honest with the public about why he was retiring.
That brings us to Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas, who exactly one year ago today was the biggest name in the NHL. His dominating effort throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs was the main reason as to why Boston earned its first Cup in nearly four decades.
Thomas inexplicably announced he would take a year off from hockey over the weekend. He’s certainly old enough to have grown tired of hockey, he’s 38. He’s certainly accomplished more than he ever thought possible in the sport that he once loved. And he certainly deserves to spend more time with his family if he so pleases.
But Thomas left all of us hanging this past weekend. He did not tell the truth as to why he is walking away and it seems that he truly relishes the drama. He adores the attention.
Maybe he thinks that people flooding his Facebook page (it’s actually a shocker that he’s not a MySpace guy), will get people to buy in to his kooky ideas about the world. Maybe he’ll get a couple of Bruins fans to switch from Obama lovers to Obama haters (if you haven’t heard, Thomas is not a fan of 44).
In the end, Thomas wants us to read between the lines of his wacky Facebook wall. So, let’s do just that.
Posted Monday, June 4:
For whosoever will save his life will lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Matthew 16:25-26
Translation: These brownies I just made are friggin’ awesome.
Posted Saturday, June 2:
See why hockey’s just not that important right now?
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/former-hedge-funders-fearful-forecast-we…
Translation: Pro hockey and all professional sports are rigged, dumbasses. Halliburton financed our Stanley Cup run last spring.
Posted Friday, May 18
“I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire…. the man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply.” – Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild, of the Rothschild international banking cartel
Translation: Damn it. Stop & Shop just ran out of tin foil.
Posted Thursday, March 22
Quote for the Day:
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get Hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!
Translation:
Jay Pharoah trashes Paul Pierce
Jay Pharoah has officially supplanted Frank Caliendo as America’s best impressionist.
His take on Jay-Z is perfect, his Will Smith is hilarious and he simply nails ESPN’s Steven A. Smith’s delivery:
But like Caliendo and Darrell Hammond before him, Pharoah’s chops as a straight-up comedian are lacking.
He had this to say to the First Take crew regarding Celtics small forward Paul Pierce:
“Paul Pierce should be traded to the Actor’s Guild next year, he’s the greatest actress I’ve ever seen.”
Pharoah also goes on to say that nobody touches Pierce on most of his fouls and that he deserves little-to-no respect.
That’s fine commentary from a bitter Knicks fan, but Pharoah needs to understand his timing better.
Not only can he be Robin Williams-like spastic at times during his routines, he definitely could do better than referencing something that happened four years ago (i.e. Pierce’s ludicrous wheelchair incident in the NBA Finals).
