Laughable sports bytes

Seen/heard on a recent sports talk show. "Is it time to start paying attention to and rooting for Tiger Woods again?"

Well dang. If the talking heads, scribes, and the announcers on the PGA tour events paid any MORE attention to him, they might as well cancel the charade of a tournament and just call it what it is.

The Tiger Woods show.

At least 80% of the air time is devoted to Eldrick already. See Tiger hit every single shot. See Tiger walking up fairways or standing on greens pondering his next play while the action of so many others on the course is ignored. And, of course, see Tiger mumble his occasional f-bomb and almost, but not quite, throw a club in frustration. Some things just aren't going to change.

And BTW, isn't this the same guy that, at last look, was ranked somewhere around #388 in the world, hasn't won a major in a decade, or anything else in the last 4-5 years? THAT guy? The serial wife-cheater?

Lo and behold, Sir Eldrick Tont finished tied for second at the Valspar tournament. Well gee. Sound the trumpets and bring on the eighty virgins for his everlasting enjoyment.

Never mind that most of the top players in the world weren't even there. No Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Rickey or Bubba. No Jason Day or Phil, who's probably still celebrating his win in the Mexican World Championship last week.

While yours truly strives to remain objective and fair-minded, he is getting so-so-so sick of Tiger this and Tiger that shoved down his throat at every turn. I woke up in the middle of the night, flipped on ESPN, and what did I see? Tiger highlights, though he didn't win anything.

This hero-worshiping stuff is out of control, I tell ya. Here's a thought. How about if da bum exactly WINS something for a change before the ignorant masses swoon at his very presence? Is that asking too much?

I can't help but chuckle when I hear or read of "experts" critiquing how the NCAA has seeded the various teams. Somebody always gets "jobbed", and somebody else always has an "easy" road.

Hey. It doesn't make any difference. Never did. If a team/school wants to be champions, they have to win six games against any and all competition. Period. All the rest is just whining and homerism. A few short weeks from now, nobody will care about what the original match-ups and seedings were. Good grief, a year from now, nobody will care who won THIS year's title. Who's kidding who?

For that matter, why has the "Final Four" become such a pillar of excellence? This, along with the "Frozen Four" of hockey (to a much lesser extent) in which making it to the semi-finals is considered having reached a pinnacle of some sort. Nonsense.

Here's the deal. Including the pitiful "play-in" games, which amounts to no more than cannon fodder for vastly superior teams to obliterate anyway, 34 of the original field will be eliminated after the first round of games. Another 16 will bite the dust a couple days later. These were all pretenders to begin with, just there so their school can send off their teams, and bands/cheerleaders to be slaughtered so said schools get a big cha-ching for having qualified.

Of the original 68 teams, at least 55 of them have no chance -- ZERO -- of competing for the title.

Many want to expand the college football playoff to eight teams, which would have included Central Florida this past go-round -- the only undefeated team -- that never got a shot. Count me among them. How does anybody know how they might have fared against eventual national champ Alabama, until and unless the Knights of UCF get a chance to prove or disprove it? One way to find out. And it would only involve one extra week of games in December. What else are college football players doing during that time? Studying for finals? Puh-leeze. Most of those guys couldn't pass a 7th grade equivalency exam given 10 tries.

But by the same token, the hoop tournament has become WAY too much about the money to the point it's been watered down to the point of being ridiculous.

Can't help but laugh at the late night hype over Scott Van Pelt. You know, the same guy that used to have a TV/radio simulcast in the afternoons. The latest schtick is "where in the world ISN'T Scott Van Pelt"?  And then they'll show one pitiful person after another trying to imitate him, or maybe even just getting caught on camera happening to look somewhat similar.

Where ISN'T dear SVP?

Well, I'm pretty sure we won't see his mug showing up on hair care commercials for shampoo and the like. Or starring in a Rambo type action movie. Or gracing the fold out of Playgirl magazine any time soon. Or actually competing in, instead of talking about, any sort of athletic contest. This dude and his late-night cohort Stanford Steve give off more glare with their chrome domes than your average ten o'clock AM glare through the windshield driving due east on a sunny day. Blinding.

Something is definitely wrong when one wakes up in the middle of the night, flips on ESPN to catch the latest sport updates, then has to scramble for their shades to watch a show.

But clicking to another channel brings us even MORE Eldrick?

It's just about enough to drive somebody to watch Congress in session, or sign on to be a presidential tweet-o-maniac follower.

And that's not one bit funny.

Scary, actually.