It won't be the same without Jeff Gordon

I used to hate Jeff Gordon. I admit it. 

It wasn't just that he won all the time, although it was. I know there's a belief that dominant champions are good for a sport because everyone wants to see if they'll get knocked off, but I've never bought it. Unless it's who you're rooting for, why watch when you know who's going to win?

But not only did he win all the time, he was just so ... perfect about it. He had the good looks (after he got a decent haircut and shaved his cheesy mustache), the beauty queen wife, the crew chief who seemingly always made the right call (and with just a whiff of wondering if chicanery was involved, for instance the red car in the top picture), the owner who had all the money and always spoke like he was reading from a PR handbook.

It's like someone he was pressed in a factory somewhere and programmed.

And God, was it annoying.

Yet reading the news today that Gordon won't be racing full-time after this season didn't leave me with the sense of glee that it once would have.

Because you see, somewhere along the line, I stopped hating Jeff Gordon. Yes, part of it was because he stopped winning all the time, but he also stopped being so perfect. He had ups and downs in his personal life (a divorce, remarriage and children), grew a beard once in a while, laughed at himself and even got into a couple fights.

He was, dare I say, human.

And when he became human, he became a lot harder to hate.

So while I don't exactly root for Jeff Gordon, I don't spit and sputter at the thought of him winning (that would be the younger Busch brother), and I can say with respect that if he's not in the lineup of the 2016 Daytona 500, it won't be the same.

The dumbest stories in sports (Part 2)

The NFL schedule for next season was released tonight, and apparently that is cause for much rejoicing.

The NFL Schedule will be released tonight. Block off your Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays accordingly.
— ESPN (@espn) April 23, 2014

So that got Mrs. Last Honest and I to thinking ... what sporting events would happen between tonight (April 23) and the first game of the NFL season Sept. 4? Here's what we came up with:

• The remainder of the NBA and NHL playoffs.
• More than four months of the Major League Baseball season, including the All-Star Game.
• The College World Series.
• The Little League World Series.
• The Baseball Hall of Fame induction.
• The NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL drafts.
• The World Cup.
• The end of this Premier League season ... and the start of the next one.
• The French Open, Wimbledon and most of the U.S. Open.
• The British Open, the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship.
• The Indianapolis 500, Coca-Cola 600 and Grand Prix of Monaco ... all on the same day.
• The WNBA regular season. 
• The Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont.
• The opening of the Canadian Football League season (by the way, they announced their schedule in February).
• The Tour de France.
• The Floyd Mayweather-Marcos Maidana fight.

But by all means, let's obsess over the NFL schedule.

If you tell me not to watch, I won't

Yes, yes and yes from Jeff Gluck on one of NASCAR's standing problems.

"NASCAR can use gimmicks to make for a better show, but what would really get fans' attention is to have drivers racing door-to-door at 200 mph, lap after lap.
After all, isn't that why people plop down on the couch on a Sunday afternoon? It's about seeing the moments that are promoted so often in NASCAR's TV ads and highlight packages. It's about rubbing fenders or making a daring pass for the lead, about tempers and, yes, even the occasional crash." ...

..."To get people to tune in with the same passion they once did, NASCAR has to become appointment viewing again. It has to be must-see TV, not like the NBA where only the last five minutes seem to matter."

Substitute "last 20 laps" for "last five minutes," and you have the essence of the problem, and those last 20 laps aren't always the most-exciting thing in the world, either. I'm hoping the new Chase format helps in that regard, but what about the rest of the race?

Sometime this season, and it won't take long, a driver will be taken out in an early accident. He or she will be released from the infield care center to a waiting interviewer, and will say something along the lines of the following:

"It's really a shame. The (team name/sponsor name/car brand here) was really fast today, it's just too bad that (other driver involved in crash) doesn't realize that there's no need to race that hard this early. You're not going to win the race in lap (number of early lap here)."

He may not have been the first to espouse this philosophy, but I attribute it to Mark Martin, who for years dutifully pulled over if he was challenged at the beginning of the race, because "there's no point holding up the faster car now" and "to finish first, first you must finish."

And now every driver seems to have that attitude.

But I have an idea..

I don't know if you can force drivers to race harder from green to checkers, but you can keep them from telling the viewing public that there's no point in watching 95 percent of the event, especially when it's a four-hour event on a Sunday afternoon when there are a lot of other things people could be doing.

After all, you don't see LeBron James telling Doris Burke "Well, Doris, we're going to go about half-speed for 40 to 45 minutes or so -- gotta make sure you don't pull those hamstrings -- and then we'll go hard at the end" before a Miami Heat game, do you?

So when I become Supreme Ruler of the Sports World (which I swear will be a blog post someday), where I make all the rules by fiat, any driver who complains about someone racing too hard will work for free that weekend. If that's not enough, take points away. If that's not enough, take a win away.

And if it's a Sprint Cup driver dabbling in Nationwide or the trucks who complains that those drivers don't understand how to race ... well, they don't have to be there, and they won't.

Seriously, how stupid is it to tell the people who consume your product that most of it isn't worth consuming?

Almost as stupid as trying to sell a car on the premise that it will rat you out to your wife.

Early thoughts on NASCAR's potential new Chase

One of these cars would likely make the Chase under any format. The other... maybe not so much.

Word is that NASCAR is contemplating some major changes to its Chase format, with the major points being as follows:

• The Chase expands from 12 to 16 drivers, with the field being the top 16 full-time drivers who won in the first 26 races. If fewer than 16 drivers win (last year, 12 did, including part-timer Brian Vickers and Tony Stewart, who would have missed the Chase due to injury), it would be race winners and then the drivers highest in points.
• Eliminations of the lowest four Chase drivers after the third, sixth and ninth races.
• A winner-take-all final race between the top four drivers at Homestead, with the driver who scored the most points being the champion.

Unlike the majority of the commenters on the story linked above, as first glimpse I think I like the idea. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about any reseeding that leaves drivers with the same number of points, particularly for the finale, but that's what you'd need to have for a true playoff system, and always having four contenders for the title at Homestead should be exciting. 

(By the way, angry commenter folks, the reason why the "stick-and-ball" sports have elimination-style playoffs that sometimes mean the best team over the course of a season doesn't win the championship is because they work and people like them. If you don't think so, what will millions of people be doing this Sunday, two Sundays after that and most of March?)

Anything that encourages harder racing is good -- Other than drivers not racing for the first half to three-quarters of the race, and complaining about those who do, my biggest complaint about NASCAR drivers is when they have a chance for a win, but don't go for it because they don't want to jeopardize a "good points day" by taking a risk. 

But a system that means winning a race means making the Chase, there's more incentive to take those risks. Then once the Chase starts, drivers will have to do whatever is necessary in order to make the cut every three races. In the words of the late Jim Valvano, it's "survive and advance."

Smaller teams (and Marcos Ambrose) should be thrilled -- David Ragan won at Talladega last year. Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500 in 2011. Regan Smith won the Southern 500 the same year. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes teams outside the top operations score a win, but they're not consistent enough over 26 races to make the Chase, even with the wild cards for race winners in recent years.

But under this format, they would have made the Chase, except for Bayne, who like Vickers was a part-timer. Now, a surprise win likely lands a team in the Chase, which could also mean more sponsorship for the teams who can convince businesses that they can win with more resources. Maybe the Wood Brothers even try to get enough funding for a full season, although it likely wouldn't be with Bayne, since he runs Sprint Cup races on loan from Roush Fenway Racing.

And Ambrose, who is decent on oval tracks but a serious contender on the road courses, with two wins at Watkins Glen, now has at least two great chances to make the Chase.

By that same token ...

Daytona and Talladega just got that much bigger -- If a surprise win is going to happen -- think Bayne, Ragan and even Smith at Talladega before he was judged to be below the out-of-bounds line -- it's most likely at one of the restrictor-plate tracks. 

After all, these drivers all had top 10 finishes at Daytona or Talladega last year: Smith, Danica Patrick (who for all her other problems, is fast on plate tracks), Michael McDowell, J.J. Yeley, Ragan, David Gilliland, Scott Speed, Aric Almirola, Casey Mears, Jamie McMurray, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Paul Menard.

At Daytona and Talladega, if you can be in the top 10, you can win it.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. should perhaps be concerned -- Dale Jr. has had a nice career resurgence the last two years with the (unfortunately, departing) Steve Letarte as his crew chief ... two Chase berths, a lot of top 10s, more top-five finishes and fewer races where he and the car are out to lunch and he rides around in the back all day.

But he has only won once, at Michigan in 2012.

Imagine the nightmare scenario under a new Chase format: Ragan, McMurray and Patrick (because it would be fun to see how the people who hate her for reasons they refuse to admit would react) take the restrictor-plate races and Ambrose and Martin Truex Jr. or A.J. Allmendinger win on the road courses.

That's five races, and doesn't even account for a result like Vickers (now a full-timer) at New Hampshire last year. If the guys who normally win races -- Johnson, Kenseth, Stewart, etc. -- get their wins, all of a sudden there aren't a lot of races left and the number of winners starts to get really close to 16.

Even if all those things don't happen, I'm not sure anyone would want to take their chances on fewer than 16 drivers winning and being one of the tops in points among non-winners.

So it would behoove Dale Jr. to put the 88 in Victory Lane as soon as he can.

Being told I'm full of crap (and maybe I was)

When I posted my blog post about Danica Patrick on Twitter earlier today, I tagged the person I was writing about, because I thought it would be really weak if I wrote about her behind her back with no way for her to see it or respond.

Well, she saw it, and she responded.

@LastHonestSport @SportsBlogRT @IrelandOPatrick @DanicaPatrick You never bothered reading the reply... (cont) http://t.co/RGWl9zn0Ki
— Allison Duncan (@adny103074) August 25, 2013

@LastHonestSport @SportsBlogRT @IrelandOPatrick @DanicaPatrick And next time don't hide behind a blog-
— Allison Duncan (@adny103074) August 25, 2013

To review, this is what I based the post on.

@GinaV24 @jeff_gluck My daughter just said that she needs to get in the kitchen...
— Allison Duncan (@adny103074) August 25, 2013

However, she said there was more to it than what I saw, so here it is.

It was someone else who made the jealousy crack, but otherwise, it was all me.

And we've been having a conversation ever since.

@LastHonestSport @IrelandOPatrick I am not the only one who has noted her inability to 'change gears' in a race. I think it of many men too
— Allison Duncan (@adny103074) August 25, 2013

@LastHonestSport @IrelandOPatrick What was wrong was your insinuation of what I am teaching my child.
— Allison Duncan (@adny103074) August 25, 2013

@LastHonestSport @IrelandOPatrick Thank you.Funny enough my kid grew up with my dad who did all the cooking/cleaning & i worked(not at home)
— Allison Duncan (@adny103074) August 25, 2013

@LastHonestSport @IrelandOPatrick I am a fan of SHR so it kills me each week to see a car where they say their goal is 25 and not wrecked
— Allison Duncan (@adny103074) August 25, 2013

@LastHonestSport @IrelandOPatrick it is words that were bought on by something seen on tv, words are not bothersome- actions are.
— Allison Duncan (@adny103074) August 25, 2013

And yes, during the conversation, I asked the question ... and she replied.

@LastHonestSport @IrelandOPatrick She is not getting any better, if anything she has regressed.If it happened I would be glad to compliment
— Allison Duncan (@adny103074) August 25, 2013

Kudos to her for that.

I said it in the conversation, and I'll say it here. If there was something I missed, that led me to the wrong conclusion ... I'm sorry.

Chickening out

There was this very odd incident in the NASCAR race at Bristol last night when Danica Patrick was coming off pit road just as a restart happened, and were it not for some evasive action, there could have been a huge pileup.

Oh man. Danica just got in the way of the leaders! That was ugly.
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) August 25, 2013

I don't think Gluck would be offended if you said he was skeptical at best about Danica's NASCAR career to date and her prospects going forward, but there have been a few times where she has done something well and he has given her credit for that much. I am also well aware that such relative open-mindedness is not universal, and since I sometimes enjoy exploring human nastiness, against any semblance of good judgment, I decided to read the replies to Gluck's post.

Where I found this.

@GinaV24 @jeff_gluck My daughter just said that she needs to get in the kitchen...
— Allison Duncan (@adny103074) August 25, 2013

I have been known, once in a while, to start an argument or two or 1,000. Most lately have been about Alex Rodriguez, but I even got into it with someone lately over whether a team from Westport, CT, should represent New England in the Little League World Series.

@BreettR4763 @Marc_Bertrand @TonyMassarotti Ummm... Connecticut is part of New England. Would you say Williamstown isn't in New England?
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) August 9, 2013

@BreettR4763 But Williamstown is closer to Albany than Boston, and it's still New England. Whether it's rural doesn't matter.
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) August 9, 2013

@BreettR4763 I'm not being OCD. I'm reminding you that Connecticut is part of New England, even if parts are close to New York.
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) August 9, 2013

@BreettR4763 And your point is? By the way, you're obsessing over who gets to be New England in the Little League World Series.
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) August 9, 2013

There was more, which I'll spare you, but we ended on a more-or-less friendly note.

But as much as I wanted to (and as much as Mrs. Last Honest, who hates when I argue with people, wanted me to), I couldn't start what could have been quite the argument with the question I was dying to ask ...

... Who is teaching your daughter to think that way?

Saying a woman belongs in the kitchen, meaning that's all she's good for, is one of the most sexist things you can say about a person, along with saying all she's good for is sex.

I don't think all of the criticism of Danica Patrick is because she's a woman. I'm sure there are people who legitimately feel her accomplishments-to-attention ratio is skewed -- although they should probably take that up with the broadcasters, particularly Fox, as it seems that TNT and ESPN have not played her up as much -- but for some reason, it's more personal when it comes to her. Can't imagine why.

(Multiple times, I have asked critics, including Kyle Petty, what they would do if she ever got good. The rare times I do get an answer, it's "She never will," which avoids the question for what I think is the same reason I have trouble engaging critics on Twitter ... too many questions.)

So why did I chicken out in the face of what looked like completely obvious sexism?

Because it involved her daughter.

A friend of mine home-schools his children, and we were having a discussion of it one day, and I made the point that while in the public schools the teachers have to be licensed, it's not required for home-schooling. Since it's his wife that teaches their kids, he took my comment VERY personally, and the conversation got kind of ugly for a few minutes.

If I had asked the question I wanted to ask last night, not only would I have called her out as sexist (which is personal enough), I would have pretty much stated that she or the girl's father was a bad parent. I don't know the woman or the girl's father; they may be outstanding parents other than one awful comment.

And that's what stopped me from pulling that trigger, not that everyone had that problem.

@adny103074 @ginav24 @jeff_gluck @danicasshoes pretty IGNORANT thing for one female to say about the other. Another jealous catty woman. ugh
— Ireland O'Patrick (@IrelandOPatrick) August 25, 2013

@danicasshoes last night the most vicious tweets about Danica came from women.Will never understand how hateful women are toward each other
— Ireland O'Patrick (@IrelandOPatrick) August 25, 2013

Jimmie Johnson hatred is no shock

In the hours before what is surely going to be 400 miles of insomnia therapy at Indianapolis Motor Speedway today -- hint to NASCAR, please go back to Eldora, but don't make it the week of Indianapolis unless you want the Brickyard 400 to keep suffering in comparison -- I came across this on the Twitter machine.

@JennaFryer amazingly enough, JG is now less hated than 5-time.
— Adam Samrov (@asamrov) July 28, 2013

JJ is Jimmie Johnson, and JG is Jeff Gordon, but unlike Mr. Samrov, I'm not the least bit surprised that Johnson is not hated more than Gordon. In fact, it's only logical if you look at history.

Probably the primary complaint about Johnson is that he wins too much, much like Gordon back when he was dominating. Unless it's who you root for, what's the point of watching if you know who is going to win all the time? It's not as easy (or as much fun) to hate Gordon now, since he doesn't win that much.

(Strangely enough, my mother was a big Gordon fan back in the day but swore off NASCAR last year because she got tired of Johnson winning. The illogical nature of this has been pointed out to her multiple times, but I fear still may be lost on her.)

Now add that Johnson, much like Gordon was, is much more successful than all his Hendrick Motorsports teammates (one in particular, who we'll get to later), and it's not hard for fans to think that he's so good because he's getting all the best stuff and leaving the other drivers with leftovers.

In Ray Evernham and Chad Knaus, Gordon and Johnson, respectively, had or have crew chiefs who always seem to always make the right move and are willing to push the rulebook right to its limits. True, Evernham was never suspended for cheating like Knaus has been, but then again, does anyone remember the T-Rex?

Sure, it was legal, but NASCAR told Hendrick to never race it again.

Both Gordon and Johnson have been thought of as being "too slick" or "too polished," which I actually don't think is fair to Johnson. Gordon's old interviews sounded like they were programmed by some PR firm, and Johnson seems to have a decent sense of humor about the #BlameJJ hashtag on Twitter.

Rained out... #BlameJJ
— Jimmie Johnson (@JimmieJohnson) June 30, 2013

Say what!?!? Find a new store ASAP. “@Dodgechic49: @JimmieJohnson @twitter The liquor store is out of my beer. #BlameJJ”
— Jimmie Johnson (@JimmieJohnson) June 3, 2013

That's a big 10/4 “@brettonscott88: can I use the #BlameJJ excuse when I forget to take out the trash or finish the "honey-do" list?
— Jimmie Johnson (@JimmieJohnson) June 3, 2013

Yes it's my fault @Twitter crashed... #BlameJJ
— Jimmie Johnson (@JimmieJohnson) June 3, 2013

And you also can't forget the Earnhardt factor. When Gordon was coming up, Dale Earnhardt was the main man in NASCAR, and here was this kid, this milk-drinker knocking their man off the throne. That will earn you some hate.

Now Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are not only teammates, but shop-mates, yet Earnhardt somehow never manages to have cars as good as Johnson, and we Earnhardt Jr. fans are still waiting for Johnson to repay him for the finish at Talladega in 2011, pretty sure it's never going to happen. (This is a frequent topic of conversation between That_Sports_Chick and myself on Twitter.)

They share a shop, but seemingly not much else.

Basically, Jimmie Johnson is what Jeff Gordon used to be in the eyes of a lot of NASCAR fans. That's why they hate him.

Some questions for Kyle Petty

Dear Kyle Petty:

So you said some stuff about Danica Patrick.

I'm a fan of hers (and my wife, who otherwise couldn't give a darn about NASCAR, bought one of her hats when we visited Stewart-Haas Racing while we were on vacation), so I hope she eventually proves you wrong. However, I'm not here to disparage you, your driving career, your family or your work on TV; in fact, I love what you guys do on TNT and wish you covered the whole season.

And I have no idea what your ponytail has to do with anything, either.

However, if you are reading this ... first, thanks! ... there are a couple things I'd like to ask.

1. In your opinion, is Danica the only bad driver?

One of the things that has always bothered me about NASCAR announcers is their refusal to criticize anyone or say that someone isn't good enough. Now I understand that the worst driver in NASCAR's lowest-tier series can do things with a racecar that the average person could never dream of, but there are Sprint Cup drivers who are out of their league.

Have you ever talked about any of them?

Like I said, I'm not here to rip you for your opinion. You said what you honestly thought, better that than some marble-mouthed answer that you don't really believe. And if you said what you said in response to a question, has anyone else ever asked you about a driver you didn't think was very good? What did you say?

Or is Danica Patrick the only bad driver?

2. What if she does get good?

Maybe as she gains experience, Danica will become a good Sprint Cup driver. I'm not talking Jimmie Johnson, or even someone who wins one championship, although that would be cool. I'm talking someone that runs in the top 10 to 20 most of the time, makes the Chase as often as not and even picks off a win once in a while.

You see, it's hard to argue with people who say Danica isn't very good, especially given the amount of publicity she receives, although I'm still waiting for the Venn diagram of Tim Tebow fans who complain that Danica "gets too much attention." She's not very good right now.

But what if she gets good? I wouldn't expect you to make a big show about being wrong on TV, but would you admit she's better than you thought she would be?

What do you think Danica's other critics will do? Will they admit she's better than they thought, or will they always find some reason to criticize her? And if they do insist on criticizing, will it be about something other than her ability?

Thanks for reading.

Sports travels: Bristol Motor Speedway

I was recently merging photos I had stored on various computers onto a single thumb drive, and came across photos I had taken from visiting sports venues over the years. So I figured I'd share some of them, along with some stories behind them.

* * * * *

Several years ago, Mrs. Last Honest and I were contemplating a vacation around a friend's wedding in Durham, N.C., when she came to me with an idea.

We could fly into Raleigh, then drive to Asheville, which is one of our favorite places, for a couple days. Then we could drive a couple hours down out of the mountains to Knoxville, TN, for the University of Tennessee and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame ...

... "and if you're good, you can go to Bristol."

Apparently I was good, because when we left Knoxville, we drove the couple hours up to Bristol Motor Speedway. The first thing I noticed about the track was before we ever got there, namely that it is out in the middle of nowhere. It actually appears to be nowhere near the city itself or the famous sign indicating Bristol straddles the states of Virginia and Tennessee.

It was quite the chore just getting there.

Yes, I stood in the middle of the road to take this picture.

We weren't sure how much we were going to be able to see once we got there. I had called ahead about tours, and there weren't any the day we were going to be there, as there was supposed to be some kind of testing going on that day, I think for a Late Model series of some kind. But the woman said we could watch the testing if we wanted.

However, when we got there, we were told the track wasn't open at all. I registered some displeasure at this, and the woman told me there was one open gate I could go through if I wanted to see the track, so long as I stayed in the stands.

I was cool with that, so off to the track we went.

I would have been OK with this.

After a little while gazing around some the bleachers, someone (I have no idea who) told us that we could walk down on the track if we wanted to, as long as we didn't bring our car on the track.

I didn't run through the fence, but I didn't exactly waste my time getting down there. Once I was down on the track, it seemed strangely ... small. Being only a half-mile, it obviously doesn't have as large a footprint as a Daytona or Charlotte, both of which we've been to, but I imagined stands stretching up into the sky, and it didn't look that way.

Somehow, I imagined it would be bigger.

Of course, the nice part about Bristol being a half-mile track was that it wasn't very hard to walk around. Walking up, though, was a bit more of a challenge. This was in the days before the track was reconfigured, so the banking was a straight 36 degrees.

It's pretty steep. Notice the tire marks headed toward the wall in the upper left-hand corner.

Check out the gouges in the concrete.

After we had explored as much as we could, we headed out after an unexpectedly up-close look at the track.

Sports on vacation

WELCOME, N.C. -- While Mrs. Last Honest and I were on vacation in the Carolinas last week, I was chatting with the woman behind the desk at the Richard Childress Racing Museum as she was ringing up my purchases, a Dale Earnhardt shirt and two Kevin Harvick die-casts, one of which was autographed, for $20 each ... score!

During our conversation, she mentioned there were people who complained about the $12 admission price.

This isn't the dumbest thing I've ever heard, but it was probably the dumbest thing I heard that day. If you go to the museum, among the things you will see are:

* both of RCR's Daytona 500-winning cars.

* Harvick's car that won in Atlanta three races after Earnhardt died in 2001.

* video of the end of all three of those races, as well as others.

* all of Earnhardt's special paint schemes for the Winston all-star race.

* the car Harvick won his first Busch (now Nationwide) series title with, including the tires he destroyed doing his post-race burnout.

* cars from Childress' racing career.

* other memorabilia from Childress' career.

* a representation of Earnhardt's old shop, which is where the museum is located.

And once you're done with that, you can visit the new shop around the back, where you can watch crew members work on the current cars.

All in all, it's a bargain at twice the price.

What Dale Earnhardt fan wouldn't pay $12 just to see this?

 * * * * *

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Any guess what this is?

Yes, someone use to drive this.

It's the remnants of this, Geoff Bodine's truck crash in 2000, which he somehow survived. 

What's left of Bodine's truck is part of the "WRECKS!" display at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The whole museum provides an impressive history of NASCAR, but the temporary display from some of the sport's most-spectacular crashes, along with a video that plays along with the exhibit, is guaranteed to get your attention. It's a wonder the drivers survived all of them.

If you look carefully, you can see where Mike Harmon was sitting when this happened ...

* * * * *

FORT MILL, S.C. -- Last year, Freddy Garcia was pitching in Yankee Stadium.

Last week, he was pitching in front of a crowd generously listed as 1,377 for the Norfolk Tides against a Charlotte Knights team that not only doesn't play in its home city, until BB&T Ballpark opens next year, doesn't even play in its home state.  

When plans to meet with a college friend of mine fell through, Mrs. Last Honest suggested taking the short trip across the South Carolina border to the game. It was actually a pretty depressing scene, between the tiny crowd and the home team getting blown out. In about the third inning, a bunch of people who I believe had been tailgating came and sat behind us, and while they were pretty obnoxious, they and the guy in our section who randomly yelled "baseball" in a Southern drawl that made it sound like "base-bawl" provided most of the entertainment.

But we got front-row seats behind home plate for $15, and it was neat to see Garcia pitch. At this stage of his career, he pretty much throws slop, and when it's not working, he can get pounded. (I certainly saw enough of that with the Yankees.) But when it does work, he knows what he's doing out there, and can get major league hitters out.

I'm surprised he's not a fifth starter or long reliever for some big league club, and I have a feeling he will be soon.

Don't worry, Freddy. It shouldn't be much longer now.

* * * * *

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Ever since baseball became part of my life, I have always hated rain. 

When I was a kid, rain meant I couldn't play. As an adult, rain means I can't watch. At least when I'm home, if it's raining on the game I want to watch, I can watch another one or something else. But when I'm at the ballpark, all rain does is make me mad.

So after a week of mostly perfect weather, of course it rained the night I wanted to see the Yankees' Class A Charleston RiverDogs take on the West Virginia Power. It started raining when we got the ballpark, and it rained at the 7:05 start time, and it rained, and it rained a little more. And given that the forecast for later in the night called for more rain, I wasn't feeling encouraged.

You never want to see this at the ballpark.

But then it stopped raining. The grounds crew took the tarp off, and they started playing baseball.

And Mrs. Last Honest and I never went to our seats.

During the rain delay, we, like a lot of other fans, hung out upstairs by the picnic tables where it was dry. After the game started, I went to check on our seats, but no amount of paper towels could dry them off, so we stayed where we were. The nice thing about Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park ("The Joe" for short) is that it's small enough so that sitting by the picnic tables isn't too far away.

Not a bad view, and it was dry.

The night didn't start well, but other than Charleston losing, it wound up not being too bad.

What NASCAR fans would write about today

Years ago, my parents got a magazine called NASCAR Scene, until they realized I read it more than they did, so they transferred the subscription to me until the magazine shut down a couple years ago, a victim of the lousy economy.

I used to read it cover to cover (Jeff Gluck, who I still follow, was one of the staff members), but the most entertaining part by far was the letters. Even my wife, who isn't a NASCAR fan, used to read them.

I'll be kind and say that many of the letter-writers weren't completely comfortable with things being different. My wife's and my favorite was the person who wrote, after NASCAR started providing funding to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, that NASCAR already had enough diversity. To which my wife responded, "What, because not all their drivers are Southern?"

Yeah, pretty much.

Most of the letters fell into one of the following categories:
1. National anthem singers/drivers not properly respecting the anthem.
2. Toyota being the worst thing ever.
3. NASCAR having the nerve to race somewhere other than the South.
4. The number of commercials during races.
5. "Fox should cover the whole season!" (in spite of all the helpful editor's notes that Fox doesn't pursue the whole season because of NFL commitments).
6. The merits/lack thereof of Dale Earnhardt Jr.
7. "Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt did not win seven 'Nextel Cup' championships! It was Winston Cup then!"

If the magazine still existed, there's no doubt in my mind what else would be on that list, quite possibly the top of it.

Danica Patrick.

And it wouldn't be pretty -- she wasn't that good in Indy Car/doesn't belong in NASCAR/gets too much attention since she's not that good/has a ride that someone else deserves ... etc., etc.

The thing is, there's truth to some of it. She was a pretty good Indy Car driver, but not a great one, and she has a ton of work to do to get good in NASCAR. And she does a lot of attention because she's famous for her looks and her advertisements. (Go ahead and look. I don't mind. Just come back.)

But then again, no one gets more attention than Dale Earnhardt Jr. ... a guy who is going on four years without a win (I'm writing as the Coca Cola 600 is in progress, and I hope he wins) and has maybe seriously contended for a championship once.

Yet even if some of the criticism of Danica is valid, there seems to be a vitriol about it, that people seem to find her an affront. I can't imagine why.

I couldn't be ... could it? No....

This guy is a word that starts with "a," and it's not "awesome"

I've rooted for Danica Patrick since the beginning, but it's because of guys like this that I really want her to succeed.



And for people who make the argument, "Well, she doesn't have to do those Go Daddy ads," Jim Palmer didn't have to pose in his underwear, either, and I bet he didn't have media members calling him "sexy" all the time.