The defender trials for the America's Cup got underway last week off the coast of San Diego.
Whoopee!Just what we need, another sports cup. Aren't the Stanley Cup, World Cup, Davis Cup, Grey Cup, Whitman Cup and Dixie Cup enough?
Sorry, but my cup runneth over.
I wish somebody would drill a hole in the bottom of Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes boat. Excuse, me, his yacht.
Same with fellow millionaire challenger Bill Koch's America3 - pronounced America Cubed - and his Jayhawk as well.
Sink them. Sink them all. I'd rather watch a tractor pull.
My feeling is, why even bother racing on the high seas when the whole thing will end up being decided in a courtroom anyway. Remember the last time they held this race?
"The boat you used wasn't fair."
"Was so."
"Was not."
"It wasn't a boat, it was a catamaran."
"A catamaran is a boat, so there! Na-na-na-na-na-na! Besides, you're the one who cheated by using that top-secret keel."
"No way!"
"Yes way!"
"Give me the cup!"
"No, it's mine!"
You know how native Americans take offense to sports team nicknames like Indians and Braves and Seminoles? Well, as an American citizen, I object to this boat race using America's name in its title.
Instead of the America's Cup, it should be called the Very Rich People In Double-Breasted Blue Blazers And Funny White Caps Cup.
Sailing fans - all three of them - claim the Very Rich People In Double-Breasted Blue Blazers And Funny White Caps Cup is the Super Bowl of yachting. Yeah, right. Tell me, who's ever heard of an armchair yachtsman?
Has anyone ever asked you to an America's Cup party? Like, "Hey, guys, let's buy a keg and some sub sandwiches and watch Dennis Conner kick tail on those blokes from Down Under!"
Or how many conversations have you had around the water cooler at work like this: "That Dennis Conner is as cool in the clutch as Joe Montana. Did you see him in his two-minute spinnaker drill yesterday? Wow! He's the greatest athlete I've ever seen."
By the way, just when will Nike's new "Air Conner" shoe hit the shelves? Or I suppose they'll christen it the "Sea Conner."
And surely Topps will come out with a series of new sailor trading cards.
Personally, even if Topps did, the only skippers I would want a trading card of are Gilligan's skipper and Christopher Columbus.
What's all the excitement about sailing around in circles and triangles? I say, let's hold the race from Spain to America. Retrace Columbus's voyage. First one to America wins the cup.
Can't you see the headlines? "1992, Dennis Conner sails the ocean blue."
And to make it more exciting, forget these zillion-dollar space-age yachts. To give you an idea, Koch calls his Jayhawk the "rocket ship." He's barely exaggerating. Jayhawk was built at Hercules Aerospace.
Isn't that kind of like entering a Porsche in a soap box derby?
Koch has two boats entered already and has another two new rocket ships in the works. Before you know it, he'll have an entire naval fleet entered in the America's Cup.
It's crazy. Can the Buffalo Bills enter two teams next season in the Super Bowl trials? Does Wimbledon allow Boris Becker to enter twice, using a different racket in each draw?
I say only one boat per competitor. And no rocket-ship boats. No fiberglass, no fancy keels, no computers. Make them race with just a compass and the seat of their Dockers. And make the boats out of wood. Maybe make them sail replicas of the Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina.
I would allow cannons, however. Wouldn't that be exciting? Let Conner and Koch and the other skippers really battle on the high seas. Let them try to sink each other. Turn the America's Cup into the Monitor-Merrimack II.