Sportsman's Twelve Days of Christmas

It would seem that the holidays are upon us once more. By holidays I of course refer to the celebration of the birth of the sweet baby Jesus (sorry Jews). Christmas is a time to reflect, a season of giving, peace, and love. It is also a season filled with cheesy songs with syrupy lyrics that often times make me throw-up a little in my mouth. Unfortunately, my children love to listen to Christmas songs “from summer ‘til Santa comes down the chimney” (thank you Dr. Dre for that little tidbit). Because of my girl’s affinity for everything yuletide I got to thinking about my least favorite Christmas song of all time “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” I hate this song both because of its length and its gayness.

Though I will not attempt to completely rewrite the lyrics to this song, I will give a sports related rearranging of the twelve things my true love could send to me in order to make my holidays bright.

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me Larry Bird in a pear tree...Because who really wants a partridge anyway? I mean David Cassidy was a douche and Danny Bonaduce is a train wreck. Now when I say I want a Larry Bird in a pear tree this would have to be Larry Bird in his prime, like the ‘85-’87 Larry, because what good would a 2008 Larry do me? He’s like 60 years old. Hell if I had to choose between the 2008 version of Larry Bird and any other avian named ballplayer I’m afraid I would have to take Brian Cardinal in a pear tree, or Sue Bird for that matter. But of all the birds I could choose for my pear tree Larry Bird would be the bird I love the most.

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me two Johan Santanas…Turtledoves? Really? Does anyone want turtledoves anymore? Now if my beloved New York Mets couldn’t at least win the division with two Johan Santanas then to hell with the whole bunch of them. I’m tired of hearing about the rumors. Will they sign K-Rod? Will they get Brian Fuentes? Can Doc Gooden stay off the blow long enough to pitch 200 innings? Enough already, and I actually love the Mets. This whole New York saga must be mind numbingly brutal for those of you who hate the Mets but still have to hear about them in the media. Omar Minaya just needs to clone Santana and let the good times roll.

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me three French Canadian Hockey players…I can’t think of a single instrument that I would want less than one French horn let alone three of them. I’m sorry if that offends all one people in the world who play the French horn, but three of them is about two and a half too many. There are so many Canadians to choose from that I can hardly narrow it down to just three, but I wanted to stick with the whole “French” thing so here goes. I’ll take Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, and Mario Lemieux. And if hockey is not your thing I can’t blame you because it’s not mine either. In that case I’ll take three Ned Hanlans, French Canadian Champion Rower, played by Nicholas Cage in “The Boy In Blue.” That’s right, I’ve never even heard of that movie or that guy, but boy that Ned Hanlan sure could row.

On the forth day of Christmas my true love gave to me four guys who imitate birdcalls on really late night ESPN…Instead of calling birds I went with bird callers. Genius, and if you’ve ever watched those guys do their birdcalls it’s funny as shit too. I don’t think you can TiVo it and watch it in the middle of the day if you really want to get the most laughs out of it. In order for you to laugh until tears stream down your face you really need to watch these hayseeds do a goose mating call at three o’clock in the morning when the insomnia has really taken root and you would prefer death to being awake. That’s when the bird callers are solid gold.

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me five NBA Championship Rings…Now this would be really nice for most of the franchises in the NBA (like you Utah Jazz) but for me five Championship Rings would be about twelve too few. What I would really love is if this current group of Celtics could scratch out four more rings to go with their one they won last year. I know that’s a lot to ask for because some of those guys are getting older and it is unheard of in today’s NBA for a franchise to run off even three Championships in a row, but a guy can dream can’t I, especially on Christmas? I guess I might have to be happy with the second ring they are going to win this year and then the one they are probably going to win the year after that and then we’ll just have to see. KG, the Truth, and Sugar Ray deserve as many as they can get and in my song it’s “Fiiiiiiiive NBA Championship Rings!” Sung very angelically, so deal with it.

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me six Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition models a-laying around my house…I mean come on, if you’re going to have anything a-laying around do you really want it to be geese? Have you ever been to a park where they let geese a-lay around some pond so that kids can feed them some scraps of bread? Well I have and let me tell you the acres of goose poop that you have to walk through to get to the semi-aggressive geese, that will FYI try and take your kid’s hand off if they don’t think the bread crumbs are coming fast enough, is some repugnant shit. I’ll take Marisa Miller, Heidi Klum, et al a-laying around my house any day. Just imagine it. There’s one on her hands and knees on the couch, one pressed up against the refrigerator in high heels with one foot lifted off the ground and her head thrown back in mock laughter her golden tresses perfectly fanned out to let the light from the fridge shine through, and there’s one trimming the Christmas tree if you know what I mean. I don’t even know what the other three are doing, but it would be fun to watch.

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me seven Michael Phelpses a-swimming…Who needs swans when you’ve got Phelps? If the entire US Olympic swim team was made up of seven Michael Phelpses we would have like a gajillion gold medals and probably some in diving too. I know that the Olympics are lame and that swimming is even lamer, but you have to admit that seven Michael Phelpses a-swimming would be a tough team to beat. I probably could have gone with the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models again, but I already had them just a-laying around my house and my wife reads this blog so I went with seven Michael Phelpses a-swimming to keep things pleasant between her and I.

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me eight maids a-milking…Now this is one of the lyrics that I would not change because who in their right mind doesn’t want to see eight maids a-milking? I imagine them to be French maids in corsets, with bosoms heaving, all while they sit on three legged milking stools just a-milking away, but your visual might be something entirely different. If, after they were done a-milking, you could then have them compete in a lumberjack competition, also a staple of late night ESPN, all the better. They get done a-milking and then they have to compete in the underhand chop, the standing block chop, tree climbing, the Jack and Jill crosscut (minus the Jack), and the hot saw competitions. Throw in the log rolling balance thingy and I dare say this sporting event is as close to perfect as it gets.

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me nine ladies dancing…Again I stick with the original lyric and for good reason I might add. Over the years my wife and I have often had the argument as to what is and what is not a sport. Of course she says that gymnastics is a sport and I say that it is not because the score keeping is too arbitrary and nobody plays any defense. She will then go to ice skating, diving, and swimming. No, no, and no. All of these things are competitions and do require a certain skill set to be good at them, but they are not true sports. I will add to the list bowling, golf, and NASCAR so the ladies don’t think that I’m only disqualifying the things that they like. Then the conversation moves to dancing and this is where I will make a slight exception. I’ll sit down and watch “Dancing with the Stars” with my wife for two reasons; one, she thinks that I am finally enjoying one of her shows, and two, the ladies dancing on that show are hot and I’ll take nine of them please (not the fat one, give me two Julianne Houghs if we need to make up the numbers). Hey, it’s still not a sport, but I said my exception was slight.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me ten former NBA Dunk Champions a-leaping…Tell me that this contest wouldn’t be the most awesome thing you’ve ever seen. Can you imagine the line up? Dominique Wilkins, Kenny Walker, Michael Jordan, Spud Webb, Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, Jason Richardson, Josh Smith, Dwight Howard, hell I’d even let LeBron James participate so that I could make my ten lords a-leaping the best ten leapers of all time. The judges would be throwing up 50s all night long and I think the thing would finally have to be decided in a bare-knuckles boxing match which I think LeBron would win because the dudes a beast. And before you say what about Dwight Howard he’s a bigger beast than LBJ just look at how much the dude smiles out their on the court, he’s soft and LeBron would punch him once in the throat and the thing would be over. However, you should never underestimate the little guy in a fight. With little man’s complex running wild Spud Webb would probably fight until he was burger. Where was I? Oh yeah, the dunks. The dunks would be awesome baby!

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me eleven guys on offense for the Chicago Bears who actually know how to play football…Eleven pipers piping? What the hell does that mean? It sounds gay whatever it is. I would just like to see the Bears put it together again like they did in ’85. Sure the ’85 team’s offense was not their strong suit, but at least they had some guys that you can remember (i.e. Walter Payton, Willie Gault, Jim McMahon). I love the Bears but would be hard pressed to name you six guys from their starting offense. Please sweet baby Jesus just let them put an offense together that doesn’t throw games away like the one they’ve assembled for the last twenty three years. A great defense should not be wasted the way that the Bear’s has been for as long as I can remember. You may want to keep your pipers piping, but all I ask for is a quarterback who can accept the ball from center without fumbling it, step back in the pocket with some confidence, survey the field with intelligence, and make an accurate throw to the guys wearing the same color jersey that he is wearing. Is that too much to ask?

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me twelve Ray Lewises playing defense…Again the drummers drumming is nothing but lame, but think about twelve Ray Lewises playing defense. I know that he would have trouble covering fast receivers, but imagine the pass rush. The quarterback wouldn’t have time to take a three-step drop before at least four Ray Lewises were in the backfield pressuring the hell out of him. Running backs would be putting themselves on the “physically unable to play” list for the game against the Ray Lewises before the season even started. I realize that there are only eleven people allowed to play defense on any given play so most of you would think that the twelfth Ray Lewis would be completely unnecessary, but you’d be wrong. What if one of the Ray Lewises kills a couple of guys outside of a nightclub and then has to pin the rap on one of his entourage and while doing community service is forced to miss a couple of games? What then? I bet you wish you had another Ray Lewis to fill that Ray Lewis’ roster spot so that you didn’t have to bring in some other dude who might bring the intensity way down. I like to think ahead. That’s why in my song I asked for twelve Ray Lewises instead of eleven. Booya!

And so it is with great pleasure that I bring to you the Sportsman’s version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”
Lyrics by me
Music by Frederic Austin

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me twelve Ray Lewises playing defense.
Eleven guys on offense for the Chicago Bears who actually know how to play football.
Ten former NBA Dunk Champions a-leaping.
Nine ladies dancing.
Eight maids a-milking.
Seven Michael Phelpses a-swimming.
Six Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition models a-laying around my house.
FIIIIIIIIVE NBA Championship Rings!
Four guys who imitate birdcalls on really late night ESPN
Three French Canadian Hockey players
Two Johan Santanas.
And a Larry Bird in a pear tree.