Best week ever

The past seven days have been utopia for sports fans

Posted: Monday June 19, 2006 10:22AM; Updated: Monday June 19, 2006 3:52PM

	This past week in the sports world had a little of everything. AP

By Dick Friedman, SI.com

As most viewers with cable know, VH1 has a weekly show called Best Week Ever whose facetious conceit, for someone, is that the seven days just passed were, in fact, the best week ever. If VH1 were to telecast a special sports edition, it would be shown tonight, because for folks who crave top-drawer, continuous TV sports viewing -- well, we just had the best week ever.

To be technical, it was a little longer than a week. It began on Sunday, June 11, when we awoke to one of the most anticipated tennis matches of recent times, the French Open final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. The day continued with three first-round World Cup games. In late afternoon we got a thrilling near-holeout by Se Ri Pak in her sudden-death playoff with Karrie Webb at the LPGA's McDonald's Championship. The night ended with the Dallas Mavericks whipping the Miami Heat in Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

That was a mere hors d'oeuvre. For the seven days thereafter, on and on (and on and on) it reeled, with productivity plummeting across the good old U.S. of A. Truly, there was no rest for the bleary. We were up with the sun for World Cup, which, taking place in Germany, provided convenient daytime kickoffs in the Americas. In the evening, an exciting and unexpectedly to-the-limit Stanley Cup finals alternated with the NBA series. On Thursday, ESPN and NBC commenced all-day coverage of the U.S. Open, absorbing us through Sunday. Nor could we neglect the normal nuttiness of midseason baseball, in which interleague play resumed on Friday -- the same night that, for the irredeemably hard-core, ESPNews showed live (or, as they say on Univision, en vivo) a minor league rehab start by Roger Clemens.

After a while, of course, it all began to run together. Was that a red card they gave Jerry Stackhouse for his flagrant foul on Shaq? Was nonpareil play-by-play man Mike Emrick describing an offsides in Edmonton-Carolina or USA-Italy? Were those scantily clad women Heat cheerleaders, or just very red-blooded fans of Brazil?

At times, sitting in front of the set could be an ordeal. Only the strong of bladder survived -- plus those with a high tolerance for human frailty and disaster. How many missed free throws (yo, Shaq!), shanked drives (yes, you, Phil!) and bungled timeout calls (surely you're joshin', Josh!) could we take? Oh, the humanity! By week's end, we were wrung out, our poor psyches as battered as U.S. World Cup player Brian McBride's mug after it was rearranged by Italy's Daniele de Rossi.

We also endured an auditory assault. We had to sit there and listen as Chris Berman, at the U.S. Open, brought his SportsCenter sensibility to the links. (Boomer dubbed Jeff Sluman "Seattle Sluman" and noted that if Kenneth Ferrie performed well in New York, he'd become "Staten Island Ferrie.") Hubie Brown, generally perceptive, had some moments when his hoopspeak was less comprehensible than the yelps of the Spanish-language announcers on Univision. The latter are a total kick. Even if you don't understand a syllable beyond "Gooooooooooooo1!", you can still decipher exactly what's happening from their singsong rhythms and their up-and-down decibel levels.

Si, it was the best week ever, and we may not see its like till the next World Cup in four years. And that's a good thing. After these last few days, a lot of us need either to get back to work -- or to go on a nice, long vacation.

Top Photo Galleries

	Top 10 Stories in Baseball for 2009
	Orlando Magic Dancers
	NFL Cheerleaders: Week 16
	Tweets of the Week
	2000s: Top 10 Goalie Masks