Law enforcement news

I think these are the funniest posts that I do, these explorations into the seedy underbelly of crime in America and across the planet. Of course, this is generally how I make my nearest and dearest friends, like Ben Repinski.
This one takes place in St. Louis Park. This is about young Steven Mansfield, whom I have decided goes by Stevie. Let's see where the police encountered Stevie... "driving a golf cart heading south on the northbound shoulder of Hwy. 100 near Hwy. 7".
Let's see you talk your way out of THAT one, Steve-o (He's Steve-o now).

Mansfield, a bit unsteady on his feet, told the troopers that he worked for a golf course and was returning the cart, but he could not name his employer.

I love two parts of this. "A bit unsteady on his feet" is such a gentle way to describe it. Was he a nervous nellie? Yeah, that's probably it! Also, I like that Stevie (Stevie again) couldn't come up with a golf course. He could come up with a golf cart, but not a golf course. Don't they usually have that on like, the key, or the cart or somewhere prominently written SOMEWHERE? Stevie is a bit unsteady thinking on his feet. 

He then told them he took the cart from nearby Westside Volkswagen so he could get gasoline for a friend who ran out of gas.

A) They have a golf cart at the Volkswagen dealer? Sweet gig, if you work there
B) What a champ, getting gas for a friend, even if it is via reckless golf cart
C) So, is he going to get charged with stealing the golf cart? I mean, he was going to bring it back

The troopers declined to have him perform standard roadside balance tests for fear he might hurt himself.

Yeah... Stevie was a little bit more than "a bit unsteady on his feet." I am trying to figure out how drunk you have to be to hurt yourself while trying to touch your nose.


Also, this is totally a sports post, since it involved a golf cart.

Golf IS hard

The past two days of my little 4 day break, I have spent the time on golf courses in the greater Twin Cities metropolitan area. I usually take a cart, and I have to tell you, despite that, I am completely exhausted. My body is sore from the swinging, I'm totally sunburned, I'm mildly dehydrated, and having to get to tee times 45 minutes away from my place means I am a little overtired, what with the getting up before 8 on days off. I have a whole new respect for professional golfers.
Also, I am the master of the overtly comedic shots. I am a decent enough golfer for most of the game, but I fall apart in pretty spectacular fashion. I shot a 12 on one hole, because I couldn't hit it anywhere. I once lined a ball off an out of bounds post into a pond. The very next hole I smoked a tree... back into a pond. I 5 putted a hole today. Most people laugh at least once when they play with me.
It's a challenging game, but the fact of the matter is, I would love to play almost every day. Only 38 more years until retirement...

It's Sunday, Here's Charles Barkley Golfing.

With the final round of the PGA Championship ongoing, here is a remainder of just how bad a bad golfer can be.

How does a 19 year old celebrate?

With beer, naturally. After winning the Women's US open, Inbee Park was doused in what appears to be Bud Light. Stop sullying the good name of golf, ladies! Beer is not meant to be poured over other members of your group, but rather drank!
But seriously, if you are going to shower an underaged golfer in beer, at least make it local. For shame.

Photo Carlos Gonzalez, Star Tribune

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I don’t like golf. I know, I probably shouldn’t admit that here, but so be it. But let’s clarify this: I don’t hate it because I think it’s dumb or people who play it are talentless. That's not true at all. I just have no desire to play it or watch it. It’s not my sport. That being said, golfers are amazing athletes. Even the great Wayne Gretzky agrees with me: "You ever tried to golf? You better be a good athlete if you try to golf."

I’ve always thought Tiger Woods was an amazing athlete. What he’s done for the sport both through playing and publicity has been stunning. In a sport where a non-fan (such as myself) viewed the average competitor as a middle-aged white guy, Tiger Woods came in and broke the racial barrier and age barrier.

We’ve established the golfers are athletes (if you disagree, take the argument up with Gretzky). We’ve established that Tiger Woods was phenomenal. Thus, I really respected Tiger Woods.

But recently he was asked about NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs. Game five was an amazing game: it went into a third overtime before the game was finally won by the Penguins, who were trailing in the series, having only won one of the first four. It was a sudden death overtime that, had the Red Wings won, would’ve meant death to the Penguins. Pretty exciting. If a basketball playoff game went into three overtimes, I’d be impressed with the excitement.

Tiger said about the hockey playoffs: "I don't really care," he said with an impish smile. "It's all about the Dodgers. I don't think anyone really watches hockey anymore."

If he had left off the last statement, things are okay.* To be honest, baseball had started, the Wild were out of playoffs…I didn’t follow the Stanley Cup Championship series much--I knew the Red Wings were ahead in the series (and won), and that they were playing the Penguins. I heard about the triple overtime game. But I didn’t watch any of the games. I didn’t go off searching for articles about it. I didn’t really care--it’s all about the Twins. But there was absolutely no call for the last statement by Tiger Woods. Just because you don’t watch hockey doesn’t mean no one is. If that were true, I could say that no one watched soccer (football for the Europeans). I don’t care about it, and I don’t watch it. But even I’m smart enough to know that stadiums are filled with fans all around the world--more than any other sport, if I understand correctly.

It’s okay to joke around, but you better add addendums to your statements. “I don’t think anyone really watches hockey anymore. :short laugh: It’s been a great playoff series and a nice win for the Penguins.” If you haven’t been following it, just admit it, but don’t disregard the fans who are watching.

I know nothing about golf, but I wonder if more people paid to watch hockey (at all levels) last year than paid to watch golf (at all levels). Irrelevant. As a professional athlete, Tiger should be showing respect to other professional athletes, rather than dismissing them. You don’t hear brain surgeons saying that what heart surgeons do isn’t important. It’s professional respect.

(And this applies to fans, too. Just because Yankees fans as a whole are obnoxious is no reason that you must be obnoxious back. Moral high ground, people.)

*Or if he were a well-known hockey fan. For those in Minnesota, Twins first baseman Justin Morneau could make that statement because it’s well-known that he’s a big hockey fan. In fact, if you buy NHL 2K8, you could even pick Justin Morneau as your goalie.

For Mother's Day, I'm talking about clothes.

Everyone knows all about golfers and their apparel. Jesper Parnevik is famous at this point for his insane get-ups and the late Payne Stewart was heralded for his 1800's area trousers. I don't particularly understand this, given that you can find nice khaki's and sharp polos at any clubhouse or golf shop you go to. Why the need to stand out? Perhaps it's because PGA fashion sense is so bad that people like Parnevik and Stewart need to go above an beyond, just to make a mockery of the other stooges on tour. The Players Championship was played on Sunday, with the respectably dressed Sergio Garcia winning the tournament. The PGA website has a photo gallery of the event, and, frankly, I shouldn't the fashion guy, but wow. Even I know to make fun of a sport that not only has it's competitors wearing mock turtlenecks, but short sleeved mock turtlenecks, as was seen on runner up Paul Goydos.

And then there was third place finisher Jeff Quinney. I don't have a problem with the pink shirt, since it's mothers day and all, but, well, is that a Phoenix Coyotes logo on there? For shame. But hey, a third place finish is one any 'Yotes fan should be proud of.

I may not be able to hit the ball straight or put or marry Swedish models, at least I can dress myself without looking like a complete douche. And yes, this was a blatant attempt to get another "apparel" tag.

More photos available here.

One Masters related post

Often times, we see an athlete become champions of something, be it the Super Bowl or the World Series, or, in today's case, the Masters. Many times, we're taken by how overjoyed the athlete appears, how they seemingly can't believe what they have attained. Today was no different. Zach Johnson all day had the look of a guy who couldn't believe where he was at, what he was doing.
I'm of course, talking about LAST years champion, the guy helping Trevor Immelman with his jacket. A year later, he STILL can't believe that he pulled off the Master's. So much for an athlete's inflated ego, eh?

The First Post on Golf

Originally posted on "Is It Sports?" by Ryan. I think this might be the last post on golf too...

Here’s an interesting little statistic. We’ve been operating this site since January, a sports site, and this sentence is the first mention of Tiger Woods. Really. Use the search engine and see for yourself. But I didn’t want to use the Tiger just for the sake of saying Tiger. After the first round of golf of the year, played with my father, whom we shall call “Dad” and my brother, whom we shall call “Kyle”, I am unduly impressed that someone could make a career out of a ridiculous game such as this, much less consistently dominate. My round, which ended up in the low 140s, was a testament to the game’s absurd popularity.

Every time I take a practice swing, more knowledgeable persons, such as Dad or other members of a well-versed foursome comment on my excellent form. Then I promptly do one of the following things: a) hit the ball of the heel of my club, into the woods b) Find the nearest pond and put it in there c) top the ball and roll it to the women’s tees, or d) launch it about 200 yards landing in the middle of the fairway. On the adjacent (probably to the right) hole. It got to the point where I preferred hitting out of the rough, because when I was in the fairway, I just didn’t know what to do with myself. The grass was just too darn short.

The other particularly frustrating thing, aside from looking good but playing bad (think Anna Kournikova playing tennis), was the short game. It was always an adventure when I pulled out the pitching wedge. Would I launch it over the green? Would I bump it a mere two feet forward, and not yet to the green? Or would I mercifully hit it on the green and have it roll across to the fringe where I could take out the putter, finally? To say my chipping skills are inadequate is a wild, dangerous understatement.

Now, I have a history of being quite the geographer, having been to two state Geography Bees in middle school, and being well known as the walking atlas of St. Hubert’s School in Chanhassen, Minnesota. This made it more painful when my exemplary spatial skills still would not allow me to successfully read a green’s topography. The phrase of the day was “Ryan four-putted.”

Making matters worse was the weather. It was cold. It was raining. It had clearly been raining for some time, as mud permeated everything. Also, we went on a day where they were aerating the greens and topping them with sand, so while the wet greens suggested a slow roll, they were actually moving quite quickly and accumulating an inch of wet sand every putt. And keep in mind, there were four every hole for me. If I had decided to only putt for the day, I would have shot an even par, but instead I decided to play the whole course.

So why do we play this game? Why do we pay people to play this game? These soggy hills in Belle Plaine could have just as easily been used to grow wheat and feed another Nicaraguan village, and I would have stayed warm, clean and mostly unaggravated. I think it has something to do with the human ego. The margin for error in golf is very small. We play the game because any shot could be the shot of our life, any hole can be the hole of our life, and every round has the potential to be some of the best four hours of our lives. We pay people to play the game because we want to see someone succeed at the game, and a small part of us wants to see the professional do something we could do at Deer Run Country Club.

Make no mistake about it, there is something to be said for the game, even for me. I only go when I’m with Dad and Kyle, and it’s a chance to gauge how grown up we’ve become, or how childish we remain. It’s something I can usually say I’m better than Kyle at, on most days, and something Dad still has over us. It’s a chance to spend some time outdoors, though today was one I would have rather spent indoors. It’s something we can always get better at.

I’m beginning to think though, that Tiger has it all figured out. Even though he’s the best golfer in the world, he’s not a perfect golfer. The answer Tiger Woods has given me? Well, I’m now in the market for a Swedish supermodel. - Ryan