JUST SAYIN’, with Big Ron Dantomine

JUST SAYIN’, with Big Ron Dantomine
Big Ron on Sports.
I know what I know, and if I don’t know, you don’t either.

JUST SAYIN’ is a new regular feature that will appear periodically at The Weeklings. We are proud to feature Ron and his exhaustive and intimate knowledge of the dark side of the world of sports

HI. MY NAME IS Ron. Big Ron. Bad Ron. Ron-face. I write about sports. Not because I’m not one of those know-it-alls who thinks sports matter, or who place it in a “social context,” whatever that means. But I watch a lot of sports. And I think about sports a lot. And I’m a damn smart guy, so if I think I know something, I probably do.

You know what I know right now? I know that Matt Schaub, a quarterback with a weird name who plays for the Houston Texans, lost part of his ear in a game against Denver last weekend. That’s awesome. It sounds cool as hell, but still, it’s just a tiny little part of his earlobe. It’s awesome, but Schaub got off light.

You know what would be a big deal? I’ll tell you what would be a big deal: When a whole head pops right off.

That’s right—you read it here first: We’re closer than ever to the sports world’s first beheading.

Or first modern beheading, I should say. Used to happen all the time. Ancient Mayan or Aztec basketball—that crazy game with the perpendicular hoop and no frickin’ hands? Talk about one-and-done—you go 0-1 and “you’re cut” takes on a whole new meaning. And there was all that gladiator stuff. I’m sure a few pissed-off lions went for the jugular and just kept right on going, right through the neck. I’ll bet you’ll have a chance to see something like again soon. One of these days, a helmet’s going to roll out of a pile-up at the line of scrimmage and skitter across the turf…with a head in it.

“Off with their heads!” Our ancestors heard it before, and we’re going to hear it again. But where? It will probably happen in football, but there are a few other possibilities. Allow Big Bad Ron to do your thinking for you.

First, football:
The gridiron fight used to have a sense of fairness about it: The big guys were slow, the fast guys were small. How hard were you really going to hit a guy with your leather helmet? How fast were you really going to go in canvas pants and a wool sweater? Now? Everyone’s big, everyone’s fast, everyone’s wearing Robocop costumes. When you see a receiver coming across the middle, he’s going a billion miles an hour, the defensive back chasing him is busting ass, and that safety is about to lay a hit on the poor guy that would kill the average semi-fit young dude, all that’s missing for a head to pop right off is the physics. That hit comes in at the right speed, catches the guy in the right spot with the right part of the helmet and that receiver won’t be late coming over the middle—he’ll just be late of this world.

BIG RON SEZ: Peyton Manning’s neck has to play the Raiders twice this year? Don’t be surprised is all I’m sayin’.

But, it could also happen in baseball.
Oh sure. Remember that bird who sacrificed himself to a Randy Johnson spring training pitch? I swear I’ve watched that a million times. Poof! Exploding animal. I know, I know—that makes me a bad person. But picture this: A baserunner rounds second, loses his helmet, the ball comes in from the outfield and makes its way to some chemically augmented pitcher. The baserunner dives back to second, the pitcher zips a 100 mph laser in there that just happens to hit the poor guy just below the jaw and…

BIG RON SEZ: …Poof! Exploding head. A million YouTube views, easy. Who’s a bad guy now?

Just sayin'

Ultimate Fighting.
I’ll tell you when Ultimate Fighting lives up to its name: When a head comes off. You get someone trained in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or a Ukrainian heavyweight boxer in the megagon squaring off with a Colombian cartel-trained assassin or a pissed-off Canucks fan, and there’s a million bucks on the line…

BIG RON SEZ: You think the geniuses behind UFC are going to stop that fight just because it looks like the Ukrainian is taking the Canadian’s head off? No way!

How about cycling?
You want drugs? The rural northwest is good for meth. Burning Man’s a good place to score some shit no one even understands. Northern California’s sweet for quality weed. And the cycling circuit. Get yourself a light bike, a helmet, a unitard, and a plane ticket to France, and someone will meet you at the airport and dope you up until a) you think you can ride to the top of the Alps, and b) you can. Downside: Spontaneous Cranial Combustion. Just hasn’t happened yet. But it will.

BIG RON SEZ: Right in the middle of the race. Boom. It’ll look like a sniper picked you off from the other side of the valley, but Weeklings readers will know better.

You know it's gonna happen.

Or maybe, and you’ll just have to hear me out on this one: Basketball.
When Big Ron was in college, he tried to dunk a basketball by jumping off one of those little trampolines. Had a nice head of steam, landed on that trampoline, bounced at the rim at about a serious rate of speed. That rim came at my head like a frickin’ bullet, man. You don’t jump at a basket, you jump up and come down at the hoop. Well, hell, I didn’t know that. Lucky for my head, I got my hands up in time a grabbed the rim—my sneakers were up in front of my face about a half second later, and I was on my ass ten feet down a second after that. Scared the crap outta me.

BIG RON SEZ: Some high school kid’s going to come straight to the gym from the GNC with heavy-duty industrial-grade hyper-whey and power-wheat-germ designed for SEAL Team 12 coursing through his veins, and he’s going to leap at that rim like it’s his mommy and he’s not going to get his hands up in time and it’s going to slice him in two from the neck up. Probably won’t be on TV (not live anyway). but his friend will be getting it on his iPhone, and he’ll Twitter the YouTube link before he realizes that makes him an asshole.

I’m Big Ron, and I’m just sayin’.