Now Pitching...

Hey Folks-

I'm a little bummed that I didn't get to my sports blog this week, though I admit I have no idea what I would have written about. My show has me getting home pretty late and I can't really blog from work (which... you know... is a reasonable expectation on their part.) In any case, I figure that since I've got a couple of hours this morning, I'd come up with something fun on the fly. Or at least fun for me.

Today we're gonna do the Disney Character Sports Round-Up. This idea has been jostling around in my head for a while, though it really stems from one thing, which I'll get to later. The general idea is that I'll be taking certain Disney characters and deciding what sport they'd be best at.

Let's get underway...
Cruella de Vil, NASCAR. Yeah, yeah.... I know that I dogged Cruella (haha) pretty badly in the Villains tournament, but I think she'd be a great stock car driver. She's insane. She's aggressive. and most importantly, she's the most reckless driver in the Disney Universe. C'mon... look at that car! She'd make Tony Stewart pee her pants.


Nemo, Water Polo (Special Olympics...you know...cause of the fin.) Yes, an easy joke. Sue me. In any case, Nemo obviously is a great swimmer, because of the whole being-a-fish bit, but I was most impressed with his "ball control" with that pebble that he shot into the filter. If that's not a Croatian-level Water Polo move, I don't know what is.


Aladdin and Jasmine (Pole Vault). Doesn't it seem like in a lot of those small countries that are represented in the Olympics that there are like... 2 team members and they play the same sport and they're married to eachother? Well... maybe not A LOT, but I've seen it. That's how I picture this... somehow this tiny (but wealthy) country from the Middle East has 2 world class pole vaulters, and they happen to be a happy couple. Jasmine is a medal threat, but Aladdin would also do his country proud.

Stitch, MMA. It was tempting to give make Stitch a surfer, but that seemed too obvious. Here's my argument for Stitch as the World's Greatest MMA fighter. First, he's a total badass in general, so it makes sense. Second, he'd be the first small fighter to ever shirk the notion of weight classes. He'd kick Kimbo Slice's ass just as easily as he would some tiny dude using the Brazillian Jiu Jitsu. Third, I think he's got this whole "Lulled into a false sense of security thing going" due to his crazy adorableness. It's impossible to see that he's a killing machine. Fourth, he's so freakin hilarious. It's probably the only thing that'll get me into MMA after the whole burst cauliflower ear fiasco. That was disturbing.


Hercules, Decathalon. Okay, it's probably cheating to assign anything to Hercules due to his being a part-god and whatnot, but I don't care. It fits too well... The guy is Greek (like the decathalon!) and he can do whatever. He's got strength, speed, excellent hand-eye coordination. It's the perfect event for him. He'd set the world record for sure. Not that anyone can follow that insane scoring system. He even demonstrates most of the things within the movie. (Plus, it gives me an excuse to post one of my favorite screen shots.)


Tarzan, Gymnastics. Can you imagine the upper body strength needed to swing around on those vines all the damned time? I figure it's pretty similar to the strength needed to perform a solid still-rings routine. He also seems kind of idiosyncratic like a lot of those gymnasts. A little flaky. I am sure that in Tarzan's case, that mostly has to do with the whole "raised by gorillas" thing and the occasional "fight a leopard with his bare hands" thing. I wonder what Rav Bhavsar's excuse is.


Captain Hook, Baseball. I'm telling you right now... I have no reason for this other than the fact that "Captain Hook" would be the coolest nickname for a curveball pitcher ever conceived. This is actually the entire impetus for this blog entry. I started thinking about what characters would play different baseball positions, and it just seemed so natural that Captain Hook would be a dominant curveballer. In fact, if Barry Zito had a cool nickname like Captain Hook as opposed to Reefer Face or Ganja Daddy or whatever it is that he's going by these days, I bet he'd be a lot better these days. A name like that bolsters a guy. So I'm convinced that had baseball been around during Captain Hook's day, he'd have made sure he knew how to drop the hammer. (By hammer I mean "His curveball.") Alternate sport: Bowling. Same reason.