The Weekly Rundown

By Bryan Jeon

Big Brown Wins Kentucky Derby

Favorite Big Brown was victorious in Saturday’s 134th Kentucky Derby, beating runner-up Eight Belles by 4 3/4 lengths. Surprisingly, Eight Belles, the lone filly in the race, broke both of his front ankles and was so severely injured, he was unable to be taken off the track and euthanized by injection on the spot. Now, PETA is demanding a suspension for the jockey and a revocation of the $400,000 second prize, insisting that the horse suffered the injury before the finish and not during the gallop out. Notwithstanding the commotion in this year’s race, I realized that this is an event I have to make a trip to once in my lifetime. Some interesting facts from Big Brown’s win:

• It was just the second time a horse from the No. 20 post won, the other was in 1929.
• It was the first time since 1915 that a Derby winner raced just three times previously.
• Jockey Kent Desormeaux became the 8th jockey to win the Derby three times (1998, 2000).
• The colt earned $1,451,800 with a finish of 2:01 in the 1 1/4 mile race, raising his total to $2,114,500.
• Up next for Big Brown: the Preakness in two weeks with a chance to become the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed in 1978.

De La Hoya Victorious Against Forbes

Oscar De La Hoya was absolutely dominant against Steve Forbes Saturday night at the Home Depot Center in Carson. De La Hoya, who marked this the first of three fights this year, lost just one round on two judges’ scorecards and none on the other. The Golden Boy was unable to knock down, however, the former 130-pound champion fighting at 150 pounds, making it all 38 fights now that the runner up of the Contender series has not been knocked out. De La Hoya will likely get a September rematch against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and if he wins that, a match with perhaps Miguel Cotto in December as his swan-song fight, assuming that the 35-year-old actually retires.

NHL Playoffs – Conference Finals Set

Detroit garnered the only sweep of the round although there wasn’t much drama in any of the series. The Red Wings scored 21 goals, including eight in the series clincher, and now face a Stars team coming off of a 4-OT, 5-hour, 14-minute game that saw Marty Turco make 61 saves in the 2-1 win. Pittsburgh has won eight of their nine playoff games but now face a Flyers team they dropped five of seven to in the regular season. Sidney Crosby leads the Penguins’ attack with 2 goals and a playoff-high 12 assists. This is the furthest Sid the Kid has gone in his short 3-year career. Will the buck stop here for now?

Western Conference

(1) Detroit beat (6) Colorado 4-0
(5) Dallas beat (2) San Jose 4-2

Western Conference Finals:

Game 1: (5) Dallas @ (1) Detroit – Thurs.
Regular Season Series: Red Wings 3-1

Eastern Conference

(6) Philadelphia beat (1) Montreal 4-1
(2) Pittsburgh beat (5) NY Rangers 4-1

Eastern Conference Finals:

Game 1: (6) Philadelphia @ (2) Pittsburgh – Fri.
Regular Season Series: Flyers 5-2

Go !

MLB – SC’s Players of the Week

Matt Kemp, LAD – RF: 7 R 0 HR 11 RBI 6 SB .407 AVG (11-27)
Season totals: 18 R 2 HR 22 RBI 7 SB .324 AVG
Kemp has a nine-game hitting streak going, raising his average 51 points in the process. More impressive are his six steals in a five-game span after swiping just one base in the first 23 games, leading the Dodgers to an eight-game win streak that just snapped.

Roy Halladay, Tor – SP: 16 IP, 1-1 13 K 1.12 ERA
Season totals: 57.0 IP, 3-4 38 K 3.00 ERA
The Blue Jays ace has continued to rack up the innings, pitching at least seven innings in each of his seven starts and piling four straight complete games under his belt. Halladay beat the White Sox Sunday to break out of three straight losses.

Quote of the Day: Ozzie Guillen

Before Sunday’s loss to Toronto, outspoken White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen went on yet another tirade. This guy wouldn’t survive in New York:

“Right now everyone in Chicago is making lineups — ‘Call up this guy, call up that guy.’ … If we had 50 people allowed on the roster, we could do that. That’s what ticks me off about Chicago fans and Chicago media: They forget pretty quickly. A couple of days ago we were the [bleeping] best [stuff] in town. Now we’re [bleep],” Guillen said to the Chicago media before the game. “We won it a couple years ago, and we’re horse[bleep]. The Cubs haven’t won in [100] years, and they’re the [bleeping] best. [Bleep] it, we’re good. [Bleep] everybody. We’re horse[bleep], and we’re going to be horse[bleep] the rest of our lives, no matter how many World Series we win. We are the [bleep] of Chicago. We’re the Chicago [bleep]. We have the worst owner [Jerry Reinsdorf]. The guy’s got seven [bleeping] rings, and he’s the [bleeping] horse[bleep] owner.”