Hello, sports fans, and welcome to another edition of the Schwartz Sports Report, brought to you by Seymour Schwartz and Sons, suppliers of pucks to midget hockey tournaments for many, many years. Remember, if it's the minors, it's probably a Schwartz. And, I'd like to remind all our Jewish friends celebrating the Passover Festival that Schwartz pucks are strictly kosher.
Well, the big news of the week had to be the announcement of the rematch between Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler for middleweight boxing champion of the world. This came soon after Leonard surprised everybody, including the judges, by taking a 12 round split decision from the heavily favoured...former champ to be. Former heavyweight champion Muhammed Ali had this to say about the rematch: "...heard about my new car? It floats like a rock and stings like a...what? Another fight between who? Can't somebody stop this madness while they still have a brain in their heads?"
Friends, tired of spitting out the same old tobacco? Rollins has a line of designer chewing tobacco that will make you the envy of everybody in the ballpark. Colours include Single Chartreuse, Pick-off Pink and - my personal favourite - Line Drive Lemon. If you want to stand out from the crowd, why not get a pack of Rollins Designer Chewing Tobacco on the way to wherever you play your favourite game?
In baseball, Cincinnati fans are still seeing red because the first pitch of the season was thrown in Toronto, the first time that America's favourite sport has started outside...well, America. Rumours are that the entire city is planning to sneak across the border real soon and steal all of Toronto's parking meters.
Nice to see they don't hold a grudge.
The Milwaukee Brewers set a new American League record last night when they won their twelfth game in a row from the start of the season, and are one win away from tying the major league record of...that would be 13, I guess. Yeah. Thirteen. "If we keep playing like this," Manager Tom Trebelhorn stated, "We could be hard to catch." If you keep playing like this, Tom, you'll be impossible to catch."
This week marked the fortieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball's colour barrier by being the first black player allowed in the major leagues, so it was only fitting that the Los Angeles Dodgers threw out the first racist of the year. Of course, I'm referring to Al "they may not have the necessities to manage" Campanis. Now, if only other management personnel in the majors were dumb enough to air their racial intolerance on national TV and get fired, we might finally see more minority members coaching.
And, what are my predictions for this young baseball season? I predict that dozens of sports reporters around the world will make all sorts of predictions that they'll come to regret at the end of the season, but that I won't be one of them.
"Hi. My name is Jacques 'Lower the Boom Boom' Cartier. I used to play right wing for the New Jersey Devils. Remember them? If you're too young, go and tell your father to come and listen. Is he here? Good. I'm Jacques 'Lower the Boom Boom' Cartier, and I drink Royal Beer. Royal Beer isn't for those young snots who hang glide, it's for men who really appreciate the beauty of a crippling body check. It's not for sipping at wine and cheese parties; it's for guzzling by the tubful at wrestling matches. They've even got a brand with extra calories, Royal Heavy, because men our age aren't obsessed with our appearance. Make your next beer Royal - it won't make you feel like a king, but it sure as hell will make you forget you're a serf for a couple of hours, and what's wrong with that?"
And, now, the Canadian Football League Deathwatch: an entire week has passed without a CFL team threatening to fold because of financial difficulty or some sports commentator predicting what life without the CFL would be like. And, they said it would never happen!
It was officially announced by the Stadium Corporation of Ontario that Toronto's domed stadium will have artificial turf instead of real grass. Yes, despite studies which show that more injuries occur on an artificial surface than grass, it was the latter that was turfed. Although Chuck Magwood, President of the Stadium Corporation, cited many reasons for the decision, it was hard to miss the dollar signs in his eyes.
Have you entered the Name the Dome Contest yet? I'm kind of partial to Cost Overrun Dome, myself, although I wouldn't mind calling it the Downtown Traffic Nightmare Dome.
This bulletin just in: Pat Lafontaine scored just seconds ago to give the New York Islanders a three to two win in the seventh game of their playoff series with the Washington Capitals in the fifth longest game in National Hockey League history. During the course of the game, three babies were born, eight people died, several operas were completed and at least one nuclear device was detonated. Tired, but happy, the Islanders now travel to Philadelphia, where they are scheduled to ply the Flyers in...six minutes.
And, for those of you still in shock over the Maple Leafs' victory over the St. Louis Blues in their series, I find that a mixture of tomato juice, white wine and tabasco sauce really takes the edge off.
Well, that's the Sports Report for another week. The Schwartz Sports Report was brought to you by Seymour Schwartz and Sons, makers of fine hockey pucks for as long as anybody can remember. And, don't forget, friends: Schwartz pucks are guaranteed not to shatter at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour.
See you next week.
