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Pine Nuts: The ultimate performance enhanced competition

McAvoy Layne
Pine Nuts

What might happen if we were to legalize all types of performance enhancing drugs, including anabolic steroids, androstenedione, human growth hormone, erythropoietin, diuretics, creatine, and Sunoco Green E15?

Sunoco Green E15? Isn’t that the high octane fuel engineered for NASCAR engines?” Exactly my point. Sunoco Green E15 is performance enhancing.

“You’re suggesting if we were to ban Sunoco Green E15, we would effectively be banning NASCAR racing.”



Exactly. NASCAR racing is not a sport. It is the definition of “Ultimate Performance Enhanced Competition,” and should rightly be called UPEC Racing.

The history of golf is chronicled by Wikipedia and condensed for this record. On a Monday in December of 1650, a party of men came to the Jansz Tavern after having played a round of “kolf” for brandy.

“But NASCAR or UPEC drivers are athletes, are they not?”



No, UPEC drivers are eternal teenagers who get behind the wheel with their hair on fire and are told to “Drive as fast as you can! You will discover your limit when you spin out of control.” UPEC racing is not a sport, it’s a spectacle, and as such, should have its own page in the newspaper and not impugn the sports page.

“Well, what about the spectators of UPEC?”

They need to get off the Sunoco Green and get a life, and while I’m worked up, I might like to maintain that golf is not a sport either, but a game, and should not be covered on the sports page. Here is a game that is played by amateurs who are half in the bag, and need stimulants to endure four hours of chasing a little white ball around a cow pasture. And yet, the Professional Golfers Association is an organization that prohibits the very stimulants that gave birth to the game.

The history of golf is chronicled by Wikipedia and condensed for this record. On a Monday in December of 1650, a party of men came to the Jansz Tavern after having played a round of “kolf” for brandy. Sometime during the celebration Teunis Seylemaecker accused Janszes’ wife of tampering with the scorecards. Two of the men, Pietersz Lademaecker and Steven Jansz began fighting and ended up killing each other, but managed to apologize to each other before dying. This is but one account of the birth of golf.

I remember Bing Crosby, right here at Old Brockway, decrying the fact that bandleader Phil Harris had to drop out on the eighth hole because his golf bag sprung a leak. No, golf is not a sport and should be relegated to the pages that feature darts, shuffleboard, and beer pong.

“So what can be said about the spectators of golf, the ‘Go in the Hole!’ guys?”

These folks are at least off the couch and into the great out of doors. Besides, without hearing “Go in the hole!” during their backswing, many golfers would miss the ball entirely.

Just here I should invoke Mark Twain, who tells us, “Good sportsmanship is not picking up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.”

Now, this Tahoe curmudgeon is off to Edgewood for the Celebrity Golf Tournament to see if he can get Charles Barkley’s autograph, and maybe Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s autograph, too.

Learn more about McAvoy Layne at http://www.ghostoftwain.com.


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