Friday, January 25, 2008

That Ain't No Djoke...

Yesterday, I made mention of the Brian Leetch ceremony to be held last night at Madison Square Garden and Roger Federer's inevitable victory at the Australian Open. While the former was incredible and something that brought back memories I forgot I had, the latter is a fallacy, as Roger Federer was defeated in straight sets by Novak Djokovic early this morning.

With respect to the Brian Leetch retirement festivities, there are too many snippets to mention; suffice to say that I, along with 18,000+ in the Garden itself, along with another 2,500 in the Theater at Madison Square Garden, alternated between cheers, applause, shouts of approval and tears of joy. It was almost as shameless and embarrassing as was the similar ceremonies dedicated to Wayne Gretzky's and Mark Messier's numbers being retired by Madison Square Garden and the New York Rangers. The only exception was that in the case of Brian Leetch, his retirement was marked by the facts that a) he was and is and will remain a true career Ranger, despite the fact he played for Toronto and Boston at the tail end of his career; and b) his exceptional humility and decency during the ceremony, as well as during his playing days, reminded me that nice guys do finish first sometimes.

Congratulations to #2 and his family.

As for Federer, his loss is akin to Dewey defeating Truman, the Cyborg T-1000 losing to Michael Biehn and Sarah Connor, and Joe Namath's Jets beating the Colts, all wrapped up with the shock of a cold morning toilet seat that has been treated with dry ice.

Or as EMF once observed, it's unbelievable.

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