The Circus

Nice try, Kim, but no cigar
Tennis lovers will rejoice at today's advent of the annual smashfest at Melbourne Park, where Belgian wonder Kim Clijsters is among the favourites for the women's title.

Clijsters made headlines by winning last year's US Open – her first Grand Slam tournament after taking a two-year absence to have her first child with husband and pro basketballer, Brian Lynch.

An impressive effort no doubt, but The Circus feels Kimmy needs to lift her game even further to be considered a true great of Melbourne's sporting landscape.

You see, to be considered an athletic deity in the city by the bay, you need to have ink, and lots of it. Grand Slam titles, superhuman sporting efforts and multi-million dollar bank balances don't pass muster by themselves.

In a town where idols include tattooed AFL footballers Dayne Beams, Dane Swan and Kyle Reimers, the woman formerly known as 'Aussie Kim' has some ground to make up.

She's made a half-decent start by inking the name of her daughter in the inside of her left wrist, but Kim had better get busy if she seriously craves sporting street cred in Melbourne.

Take that, Taity – and that, and that, and that

Purists can rag on Twenty20 cricket all they like but its popularity and entertainment value is undeniable.

Where the expected crowd for a Sheffield Shield clash between Victoria and Tasmania would be roughly two men and a mangy canine, the Big Bash fixture between the two states drew more than 43,000 people to the MCG last week.

The punters didn't flock to the 'G to see an absorbing struggle between bat and ball, or a tense fifth-day denouement that pitted two hapless tailenders against an arsenal of fired-up quicks intent on decapitating their prey.

No, they came to see batsmen clobber the living bejesus out of the Kookaburra.

Bushrangers veteran Brad Hodge delivered in spades for his side and NSW tyro David Warner did the same for the Blues on Sunday evening against South Australia.

Warner smashed the second-fastest 50 in the short history of the Big Bash tournament, including four sixes in one over from Australia's fastest leather flinger, Shaun Tait.

Although the game was done and dusted within nine overs of NSW's run chase, few spectators would have felt short changed.

Comparative reactions from those attending Bellerive Oval for Australia's expected final-day steamrolling of Pakistan in the third Test would be interesting, to say the least.

For the love of the game
An interesting snippet crossed The Circus' newsdesk over the weekend, announcing the start of the national disc golf tour in Tasmania.

While it was tempting to dismiss disc golf as a quaint hobby practised only by those on the southern side of Bass Strait, further investigation soon proved otherwise.

The sport, also known as Frisbee golf or frolf (no, really), boasts its own professional association, a suitably officious logo and codified rules and regulations.

But the most excellent trivia about Frisbee golf can be found at that most venerable and accurate of sources, Wikipedia.

Despite a claim that one in five rounds of golf played in the US in 2009 would be Frisbee golf, not every wild 'fact' was off the mark.

It seems the founder of both Frisbee golf and the Pro Model Frisbee, 'Steady Ed' Headrick, took his devotion to the sport to new levels – quitting his job to promote disc sports of all kinds.

Not even his death in 2002 could halt Headrick's obsession with all things Frisbee.

His family carried out his bizarre wish for his ashes to be mixed into a limited edition series of Frisbees that were sold to fund a museum devoted to the sport.

And if, like us, you're gutted that you didn't snap up one of those macabre mementos, you'll be delighted to know they are still available today for the low, low price of US$200.

The numbers game
3.5 – the number of hours that St Louis Cardinals fans waited to catch a glimpse of their new batting coach Mark McGwire
2 – metres: the approximate width of the narrow hallway where McGwire's subsequent press conference was held, much to the chagrin of the media pack
6 – minutes: the length of the chaotic press conference
0 – questions that McGwire answered about the barrage of criticism he has received from past players after admitting to almost a decade of drug use

Quote of the day
"I certainly felt better today than last year, but last year in this event I felt a little like a monkey screwing a football."
- If anyone knows exactly what Lance Armstrong meant when describing his efforts in the 2009 Tour Down Under, can they let us know?

Headline we'd like to see
Tiger quits USPGA to take up Frisbee golf


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