Pro Athletes

Hey IC Humans. How is everyone? I hope you're having a nice weekend. Did anyone hear that Roger Federer lost in the Austrailian Open semis? I did. Eleven times. Really. In a span of about 20 hours, I was alerted on 11 separate occasions that Roger Federer had been upset. Seeing that Federer will be in the tennis circuit at least five more years, I got to wondering...Which members of the IC might feel similar, constant athlete comparisons? And if so, what athlete is most often associated with them? Here goes...

Marc Miller and Teddy Bruschi

Intense, mean, good hairlines and desert friendly (Bruschi played on the `Desert Swarm' Univ. of Arizona team. Also, if you had to pick one IC member who would suffer partial paralysis and return six months later to demolish people (like Teddy did), my vote would be Miller-tant.


Chambers and Doug Christie

Wiry, lanky, tatted up and contributors in many statistical categories, Chambone and Christie have more in common than you might think. For example, Christie often had bone spurs and bad ankles. So did Chambers. Christie led his high school team to their first ever State Final Four appearance. So did Chambers. Christie's mom is white, Dad is black. Just like Chambers.

Also, in maybe the oddest athlete finding, Doug Christie's wife is insane, including the following of the team bus, disallowance of female reporters giving interviews, annual re-weddings and a form of sign language they speak to each other. Ya know, Chambers has been known to be a victim of puppy-love textamania. Just saying.

Christie also has a show `Christies Committed' on BET. Here is the insane article about their love life. It's worth the read: http://www.hifiny.com/020808_christie.html


Bear and John Daly

Soulmates? I think yes. Power? Check. Nicknames? Long John/Bear. Check. Claims to have drank a fifth of Jack Daniels every day during the year he was 23? Check, Check, Check. Both have calmed their rambunctious lifestyle choices, however, though Daly said the following quotes, well, if Bear were a little rougher around the edges, don't you think he'd be capable of saying:

"There are probably some things I could do to keep my flexibility up, but I'd rather smoke, drink diet Cokes and eat."
"Seems I used to do everything like I was on a mission. If it was alcohol, I wanted to drink till I couldn't see straight. If it was golf, I wanted to beat everybody's brains out. If it was driving, I can get there faster'n you can... I was stubborn as hell. I had no direction."
"I believe nicotine plus caffeine equals protein."


Clint and Rob Dibble

Nicknamed the `Nasty Boy', Dibble is a rough-and-tumble brawler turned refined analyst. Sound familiar? Be it analyzing baseball games or analyzing stocks, the similarities here are, well, eerie.

Clint Brown thrives on efficiency. Dibble once struck out 3 batters on 9 pitches. Eerie. Clint Brown bodyslammed a hog and rode a bull. After a game, Dibble threw a baseball into the outfield seats and struck a lady in the head. Eerie. Clint Brown's initials are CB. Rob Dibble's are RD. All four of those letters are found in the alphabet. There's a word that describes such a coincedence. Eerie.


Weiss and Bernie Kosar

If this were an SAT analogy, well, hot dog: bun as Weiss: Kosar. After Bernie K. left Cleveland, where he was adored, fans sang `Bernie, Bernie' in place of `Louie, Louie' in that one song. Oddly, `Brian Weiss' is also mentioned in pop song lore, as in one of Shakira's Spanish rants, she says `Brian Weiss'. This has been confirmed sober and high. Apparently, Kosar is known to get mad when `Elway' is mentioned around him due to the time Elway beat him on `the drive'. This is similar to Weiss, who gets mad when you mention that kid `Ab' who talked too much and was pretty dumb.


Mazur and Paul Lo Duca

Hey Michael, what's your favorite minor league baseball team? Oh, really? The San Antonio Missions, well, did you know your big brother, Lo Duca `spent many years with the San Antonio Missions, finally achieving a breakthrough year with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2001'. Oh, hey Michael, what language did you study and what anestory are you? Oh, just wondering because, `Lo Duca draws comparisons to catcher predecessors Mike Scioscia and Mike Piazza, all three are of Italian-American ancestry'. Ragazzi Penne Pasta. Also, Lo Duca catches most people who try to steal, like the night you saw Lubahn at 3am trying to steal the Murano.

Other similarities:

As a child, Lo Duca's mother would toss pinto beans to him in the back yard and he would use a broomstick to hit them. Hmm...kind like how: `As a child Michael's dad used to hit him with a broomstick in the backyard while calling him `pinto bean boy'.

Lo Duca did roids to get big. Just saying.

Lo Duca was known as "Captain Red Ass" in the Mets clubhouse. Mazur is known as `Captain Monkey Sodomy' amongst the IC.


ADub and Louis Scola

If you were playing the game `Memory', the matching card for `A-Chub' would be `Scola'. We look alike, we yell alike, we are both sweaty, we both speak Spanish, we both have Houston ties, we both have the first Shakira album (that's 2 Shakira references if you're scoring at home), we both don't think Raefer Alston is fit for an NBA point guard, we both have tubesocks and we both throw up at midnight to ring in a new year and have matching scars from falling running home from a bar. We both also hooked up with Mallory.


Faust and Martina Navratilova

Yowza. This one is like finding fate. Both are the number one ranked tennis players, (Faust: IC, Martina: World), both are known for ultra-competitiveness and small blow-ups and both are blatant lesbians. Because the two have intertwined souls, it has been rumored that, not confirmed, when Monica Seles took over Martina's number one ranking, it was Adam Faust, age 11, who stabbed Seles during her match in 1993.

Maybe the most telling connector in the saga of these two is as follows:

In Martina's autobiograpgy, Being Myself, Navratilova says that she had romantic crushes on teachers of both sexes. She had her first same-sex relationship at age 18. Hmm...I always wondered why Faust `transferred' to TCU. Put the pieces together people. Put the pieces together.
Martina, also a clothing designer, made the shirt that Faust wore on New Years.


Portillo and Valderrama

The look, the name, the flair, the ferocity, the fur, and the weird hobbies. Knock, Knock Lee. Who's there? It's me, your identical DNA match, Carlos Valderrama.

Valderrama is known as `El Pibe'; Portillo, `El Poncho'. Valderrama is known for his head hair, Portillo his sweater-vest chest hair. Valderrama was a great passer and shielder. I bet Portillo was one Hell of a shielder. Valderrama likes to take pictures of himself travelling on different modes of transport. I bet he's done skiing, horses, donkeys and Freestyle walking, just like Portillo. Lastly, on November 1, 2007, Valderrama was ejected from a Colombian league match after waving cash in the face of a referee for calling a penalty that ended his team's hopes of qualifying for the playoffs. I guarantee you that Portillo would do this if Dick Bavetta called a late foul on Ginobili in the Western Conference Finals.


Lubahn and Nancy Lopez

If we were playing the game `Guess Who?' and Brent showed up on one card, there's only one viable match: Nancy Lopez.

Did you know Nancy Lopez married baseball player Ray Knight and goes by Nancy Lopez-Wright now? What do you think of that Brent Lubahn-Darling?

Lopez and Lubahn are both members of the LPGA, and both are lauded for their boring, half-swing, lamely consistent play. It is also said that when Lopez joined the LPGA, Lopez was heralded as a symbol of a progressive woman of color. Coincedentally, she is the First woman of color that Brent Lubahn ever saw. He is still scared to talk to her, however.

Lopez got her break when she won the U.S. Girls' Junior Championship twice. Brent finished third and sixth in those tournaments, respectively.


Bye!