CrimeBeat!: Better Never Than Late Edition

So yeah. In God’s ongoing quest to drive me insane using ten thousand tiny frustrations, last week’s best Crime News I Could Use came out an hour or so after I posted a disjointed bitchfest about how nothing good (for purposes of this column) had happened over the traditionally Target Rich Environment that is Gunpowder Christmas. On the other hand, I might do a standalone Virginia McCaskey/Cocaine Bear article, so I guess it wasn’t completely wasted.

BRING FORTH THE ACCUSED!

EVERY MAJOR AMERICAN SPORTS LEAGUE

CHARGE: Withholding our medicine, man…c’mon, I’m getting the shakes here…

As the All Wise Scrolling Bar has noted, this is the shittiest sports week in the entire calendar, and no one can tell me why. I get that baseball gonna baseball, and that no amount of THIS TIME IT COUNTS REALLY WE SWEAR PLEASE WATCH is going to make the All-Star Game watchable, unless they implement my plan for randomly-detonating bases. Also, every time a manager makes a pitching change, they have to spin The Wheel to determine the fate of the pitcher they just yanked.

And don’t give me any bullhockey about the “All-Star Festivities” either, cuz those fucking suck. Brainwashed nostalgia-junkies often point to the Home Run Derby as something that is “fun to watch”. It isn’t, and hasn’t been since at least 1998/1999, when Griffey pulled out back to back wins over the first full wave of Roided Up Mutants. The only potential bright spot is that with his pending departure from ESPN, this might be the last time we had to suffer permanent brain damage from Chris Berman’s idiotic, contrived home run call every two minutes in the Derby. We know it’s backbackbackbackbackbackbackback, Chris; that’s the entire point of the goddamn event. This is a bright spot only because I used to think only the sweet release of death would stop The Bermanator from tormenting my dreams with his insipid chant.

But really, this deserted sports wasteland is as much every other major sport’s fault as well. There is absolutely no rational reason why the NBA couldn’t delay either the draft or the start of free agency until this week. The NFL has contrived so many minor things into Broadcast Events that I’m sure they could manufacture something to fill the week- shit, have an Undrafted Free Agent Bowl and I’d lap that up.

I’ll give the NHL a pass, because 1. all their shit is apparently calendared based on the start of the Canadian Lunar New Year or whatever (Year of the Arctic Grayling!), 2. they can’t afford to step on ESPN’s dick over the ESPYs, since they already have enough trouble finding broadcast partners, and 3. it’s already ridiculous that the playoffs stretch into June- we don’t need any more Ice Football when it’s 95 out.

So what do we have? Whelp, you could watch the WNBA. No, seriously, you could. Hell, you could probably get them to fly you out to a game and give you courtside seats just to give them one camera angle where it doesn’t look like the arena is 80% empty. But you’re still not going to do that. Because you’re sexist.

Alternatively, there’s “Major” League Soccer. Which is totally cool, if you’re into that. I mean, I’m not…it’s just not my thing. I believe that you’re born MLS, and that all those people who say it’s a “lifestyle choice” or that you can “pray away” the Beckham are just Crewphobic.

The CFL has made a hero(u)ic effort to save us all by having three games this week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately for the majority of us, ESPN has chosen not to air ANY of those games on ANY of their 300 subnetworks. Fuck you, ESPN.

Or you can watch the ESPYs. Please note- if you are sufficiently desperate for sports-related content that you even consider watching the ESPYs, please seek help. And I don’t mean like addiction-help or mental-health-help. I mean a doctor, because you have very likely experienced a severe blow to the head and should be evaluated by a neurologist or trauma doc.

GIVE ME WOMEN’S CURLING OR GIVE ME DEATH!

DENARD ROBINSON

Charge: Making me feel like an asshole for posting too early.

Yes, yes, yes. As BFC gleefully noted, news broke very shortly after last week’s column posted that Denard Robinson, “offensive weapon” for the Jacksonville Jaguars, was found unconscious in his car with an equally-unconscious female passenger. But this wasn’t the traditional Tony LaRussa. No, what makes this special is that the car was allegedly sinking into a retention pond into which Robinson had driven. According to the po-po, they knocked on the side glass, which caused Robinson to wake up and immediately fall back asleep. Not to be outdone, the female passenger awoke, rolled down the window to ask the police “What’s up?”, then tried to roll the window back up after being informed that they were in a sinking car. Apparently both Robinson and his passenger resisted leaving the car, and Robinson had to be told three times to get out the passenger side because the driver’s side door was stuck underwater.

A couple of notes:

1. Denard was driving a late-model Chevy Impala. Good on him for choosing an affordable domestic car.
2. This reportedly occurred at 4:20 a.m. I bet I know where this is going…
3. According to both the accident report and the teevee story, the unplanned amphibious excursion was the result of Robinson taking a wide (wiiiiiiiiiiiiiide) left turn, going over a sidewalk, down an embankment and into the water. While he was apparently unconscious, because there were no skid marks or other signs of avoidance. Ooooohhh, can’t wait to hear what exotic chemical cocktail they busted him for…I bet it was pot and ketamine with a Purple Drank chaser…
4. No charges for driving under the influence, reckless driving or any other offense were issued to Robinson.
5. Wait, what?
6. Yes. Nothing. Not even a ticket for improper lane usage, even though the retention pond was clearly over a double-yellow line.
7. An officer at the scene apparently determined that Robinson was “not impaired”. No word on how the officer reached this conclusion- the sheriff’s department is apparently curious as well, as it has opened an investigation on the officers’ conduct.
8. Then again, he did play 4 years of college football without noticing that his shoes were untied, so maybe that’s just him.

POKEMON GO

CHARGE: Get off my lawn!

No, seriously. Pokemon was a ghastly parody of dog/cock/chimp fighting already.

I’m not going to go down the Nancy Grace “WE ARE CREATING A GENERATION OF CHILDREN WHO HAVE LEARNED THAT IT IS FUN TO RAISE AND TRAIN ANIMALS TO FIGHT FOR THEIR AMUSEMENT!” path, but there is something sinister about that aspect.

But hey, they’re just digital or card representations in a game, right? I mean, I grew up on video games and to this day I can walk by a turtle without the slightest urge to jump on it and then use its shell as a weapon. So no real harm done by your Pokestuff, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. Because now Your Weird Shit has transgressed the borders of My Shit, which makes it My Problem. I nearly hit two teens while I was driving last evening because they were darting across the road in an effort to “catch’em all”. Apparently someone decided it was a good idea to make the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. a “PokeStop”, meaning that children and adults alike can make one of history’s greatest tragedies a fun afternoon out.  Plus, this is a gateway drug for “augmented reality” shit like Google Glass, and we all remember that shitshow. Actual Reality is a bad enough trip already, and if I start having to try and distinguish whether something I see is actually “there”, I’m fucking done for. I ducked the familial history of schizophrenia, and fuck me if I’m going to do it to myself.