I want to start this blog by saying welcome to Mancave Sports! I’m James Gillespie and I, along with the other half of Mancave, Marshall Coley, want to share our love of sports with the world. During this quarantine we decided to create Mancave to give us a space to talk about what we love and share it with you guys.
We are almost one week back into live sports, and I’m talking about sports people actually enjoy watching. Who gets up at 5:30 in the morning to watch some average Korean Baseball? (Okay, I did a couple times and goddamnit Tigers, you couldn’t cover once?)
Anyway, sports came back last Saturday with the German Bundesliga league taking the WNBA model, no fans in the stands. I in no way, shape or form, consider myself a soccer fan but I sat there for 90 minutes glued to the TV just for the love of sports. The thrill that came back was one I hadn’t felt in months. Dortmund (-225) handedly defeated Schalke 4-nil, (yeah I picked up on some terms) and let me tell you, this dude Erling Braut Håland is the real deal. He’s a scary looking SOB, gives me Ivan Drago vibes. The way he moved and worked the ball at 6’4, 200 pounds was crazy. Be on the lookout for that kid.
The next day, we had a double whammy of golf and NASCAR. Current world number one, Rory Mcilroy and former world number one Dustin Johnson (-200) took down Rickie Fowler and young gun Matthew Wolff in a controversial finish at the beautiful Seminole Golf Club. Seminole has never been seen like this, they don’t host tournaments, yet are one of the most exclusive clubs in America. Hell, TB12 couldn’t even become a member until last year. I absolutely loved this, the guys were rusty, seeing DJ hook a drive into the water, then Rory completely flub a chip, and Wolff’s god awful swing made me feel a lot more confident about my game. The players were all mic’d up and you could hear cheap shots being thrown, including Rory reminding Wolff he’s been in the spotlight before, winning $25 million at the FedEx Cup Playoff and then Wolff hitting a sore spot with DJ, asking him “Hey DJ, is this an unmarked bunker?”, reminding him about losing the 2010 PGA Championship after grounding his club in an unmarked bunker cost him two strokes. I think we learned Matthew Wolff is here to stay, outdriving two of the most notable drivers in the game, repeatedly, changed a lot of people who said he didn’t belong in this match’s minds. The teams played a skins match that came down to the wire and eventually ending up in a closest to the hole game to decide the winner. All I’m gonna say is they should’ve measured. Rickie looked closer than Rory to me. Could also just be because I put my money on Rickie/Wolff. In the end it was a fun day for those guys and the winner was the charities. Each team had their Covid-19 relief charity of choice that they gave the money they won too. Can’t wait til the match next Sunday, Tiger/Manning vs Phil/Brady.
I hate to admit it but next week you might catch me sitting on my couch, packing a lip, Mountain Dew in my right hand and a shotgun in the other, watching NASCAR. I didn’t think that I would ever enjoy watching cars go around and around 3 hours, but it was pretty cool. It may have been the desperate sports addict in me just needing a bump, but I found it to be pretty entertaining. And I guess I learned one of the first rules of NASCAR, Kyle Busch sucks. He purposefully hit the back of Chase Elliot’s car when he was in second place, causing him to crash and not finish the race. I took to Twitter to see if this was legal and learned Busch does this a lot and is known as the jackass of the NASCAR world. Elliot hilariously responded by flipping off Busch when he came back around, something all the viewers were probably doing to their screens as well. Denny Hamlin eventually ended up winning the race in Darlington, beating out Busch (karma) and wearing the best mask I’ve seen this whole pandemic, one with his smile on it. Kyle tried to play the crash off as an accident after the race but Twitter called his bluff and day one of watching racing I now have a least favorite driver.
