Sport would be much less diverting if the players and their hangers-on clammed up.
Sport would be much less diverting if the players and their hangers-on clammed up.
Say what you like about sport, it sets tongues wagging. Before consigning the 2019 sporting year to the archives, herewith a review of the pronouncements – apposite, unintentionally revealing and unaccountable – that captured moments and caught our attention.
“I didn’t change his life. I didn’t hit a shot.”
American professional golfer David Berganio
Jr, who withdrew from the Rocket Mortgage
Classic in Detroit after an airline misdirected his clubs. “I’m 50,” he said later. “I know some kid behind me was wanting to get in and I didn’t want to take up a spot.”
That kid turned out to be 353rd ranked Nate Lashley, aged 36, who’d failed to qualify for the tournament, a not-unusual outcome for someone whose lack of success persuaded him, at one stage, to give up the game and sell real estate. When Lashley was at college, his parents and girlfriend were killed in a plane crash. They were on their way back to Nebraska in a single-engine Cessna piloted by Lashley’s father after watching Nate play in a university tournament in Oregon.
Lashley won the Rocket Mortgage Classic by six shots, the golfing equivalent of the length of the straight.
“The ball has to go through the umpire’s ring-piece before they can start the game again. I used to have one when I were umpiring. I had no idea what they were for.”
English cricket commentator
David “Bumble” Lloyd gets lost in translation while on the subject of the device used by umpires to ascertain whether the ball has gone out of shape. for tax fraud. And Boycott may also have stayed shaken and un-sirred but for a single admirer, handily placed.”
The Guardian’s Matthew Engel reflecting on outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to bestow a knighthood on her hero, former England batsman Geoffrey Boycott. Boycott was already the most polarising figure in English cricket when, in 1998, he was convicted in a French court of assaulting his lover.
“I just think I’m a very limited player.”
Black Cap BJ Watling, who has an irresistible claim to being the best wicketkeeper-batsman playing test cricket today.
“If New Zealand are the team that do great things that barely get noticed in the wider cricket world, BJ Watling is the New Zealand of New Zealand.”
ESPN-Cricinfo writer Andrew Fidel Fernando.
“This is the minute that millions around the world have waited for. Waited for years.”
An American golf commentator as Tiger Woods prepared to tap in the putt that won him the 2019 Masters, his first victory in a major tournament since 2008. In the intervening years, Woods had fallen spectacularly from grace after being exposed as a serial adulterer, undergone four back operations and dropped to as low as 1199th in the world golf rankings.
“The comments I saw were sexual abuse … It was repulsive and made me uncomfortable. As soon as I’m uncomfortable with that, that’s what I would call sexual abuse on social media. Something needs to happen. We can talk all we want but they’re not listening and they’re probably smiling that we’re talking about it.”
Women’s Aussie Rules star Tayla Harris after a broadcaster-tweeted photo of her in action brought the creeps and trolls out in force.
“They have my permission to play all the indoor games they want, but my daughters are not going to be competing in public sporting activities. The feminists can say what they want; as a conservative Pakistani father, I’ve made my decision.”
Former Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi who retired, aged 43, in 2018. He has four daughters.
“If the choice is either to prevent the All Black tryline being breached or preventing your sweet, wonderful 90-year-old grandmother being torn to pieces by a pack of wild dogs, I feel the term ‘our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of dear Ellie at this time’ would be trotted out.”
Former Irish lock-turned-columnist Neil Francis suggests the All Blacks’ will to win has skewed their priorities.
“It wasn’t just a subtle smirk; it was arrogant and theatrical. It was the smirk of a villain walking free from a courthouse. It would have inspired bloodshed in a congregation of Quakers and I wanted to bop him on the nose.”
Stuff columnist Rosemary McLeod is apoplectic that England captain Owen Farrell had the temerity to observe the All Blacks’ haka with a quizzical half-smile.
“If you want to spend some time outside, I’ll give you a rugby education.”
Then-All Blacks coach Steve Hansen to a journalist who’d asked whether the team had failed to turn up with the right mentality for their Rugby World Cup semi-final against England. A few weeks later, Hansen conceded that, after thrashing Ireland in the quarter-finals, “subconsciously, I think all of us may have just relaxed a little bit and let go of that two per cent of desperation that we had”.
“We are having problems playing this right now, please try again later.”
The message displayed on screen during Spark’s gremlin-plagued live-streaming of the All BlacksSpringboks Rugby World Cup pool match.
“I drive from Florida to California all the time and it’s flat to me. I do not go up and down at a 360 º angle and all that stuff about gravity.”
NBA hall-of-famer Shaquille O’Neal comes out as a flat-earther.
“His life is on the line – and I do mean his life. I’m still trying to get me a body on my record.”
WBC heavyweight boxing champion Deontay Wilder repulsively pushes the trash-talk envelope ahead of his bout with Dominic Breazeale. Recent US research shows that, since 1890, more than 1500 boxers have died from injuries received in the ring.
And the Sporting Quote of the Year is:
“I’m not going to the f---ing White House.”
Megan Rapinoe, co-captain of women’s soccer world champions USA, when asked if she was excited at the prospect of an invitation from President Donald Trump.
“Subconsciously, I think all of us may have just relaxed a little bit and let go of that two per cent of desperation that we had.”