Dumping Them Out: The Cincinnati Open
Welcome back to another episode of Dumping Them Out. Today's episode is brought to you by tennis. Mostly. I attended my first career professional tennis tournament yesterday. The Cincinnati Open. So I'm going to write about tennis until I'm out of thoughts about tennis.
The crowd at a professional tennis tournament is much like the crowd at a professional golf tournament, in the sense that there's a lot of, "This guy definitely dressed for the possibility that Carlos Alcaraz will roll his ankle, then look up in the crowd and say, 'Hey you! You right there! Take my racket! I need you to finish this match for me!'"
Tennis really should make that a thing. Like an emergency backup goalie situation. Because tennis players have to "retire" from matches due to injury. I almost saw it happen yesterday. We had tickets for the Saturday nighttime session, which included the men's semifinal between Carlos Alcaraz & Alexander Zverev. In the second set, Zverev basically just quit. I'm not 100% what the reason was, but it was 90-degrees and sunny on a court with zero shade, and he had Type-1 Diabetes. It seemed to be some sort of diabetes situation.
Credit to him for finishing out the final set. But if only he could have subbed in that one dude I saw standing by the bar who was wearing a sweatband on each wrist and a breathe-right strip on his nose. If I was a bigger asshole, I would have snapped a picture. It was pretty remarkable stuff.
Speaking of possible overheating situations, the real highlight of the Cincinnati Open was in the first set of that Alcaraz/Zverev semifinal, right when everybody got super quiet so that Alcaraz could serve in peace, somebody in the row behind me screams "EMERGENCY!". I look behind me and there's a dude passed out on top of a bunch of people, laying across the row of seats. Everyone starts yelling. Play on the court was stopped. Carlos Alcaraz was concerned.
A whole bunch of doctors appeared out of nowhere (if you're going to pass out anywhere, a professional tennis tournament is a pretty ideal place for having stray doctors about). To be honest though, the response time from the actual medical staff at the Cincinnati Open was kinda pathetic. The critical care doctor who took charge of the situation told my wife to go get him some ice, and she was able to run down to the concessions stand and return with ice before any of the actual Cincinnati Open medical people showed up.
Also, at some point during the incident, somebody yelled "Call 911!". So I dialed 911, but then hung up before they answered because I was told the paramedics were already on their way. But when the 911 guy called back, he was completely undecipherable. He sounded like a robot underwater. I couldn't even begin to make out what he was saying, but I could tell it wasn't a recording. So I just explained the situation into the phone a couple of times hoping he could hear me. He eventually hung up. But that's kinda fucked up right? For the connection to 911, the most important phone connection in the world, would be so bad that you can't even hold a conversation? I feel like that's something Cincinnati 911 should get a handle on.
The guy ended up being ok. We saw him come back up to the stands at the very end of the match. But apparently that was the third time this weekend somebody passed out in the stands at the Cincinnati Open. It happened in the last match Alcaraz played, and it happened in one of Sinner's matches. They gotta get some more shade in that place.
One quick football thing to wrap this up. At the end of his career… even if it ends right now… somebody is going to be able to cut an Anthony Richardson highlight tape that years from now will be able convince someone that Anthony Richardson was the greatest quarterback to ever throw a football.
In the history of the NFL, when winding up to throw, I'm not sure there's ever been a more "anything in the world could happen right now" quarterback than Anthony Richardson. On a given play, he legitimately might have the highest ceiling, and the lowest floor out of all quarterbacks. He could launch an 80-yard missile across his body while rolling out in the opposite direction, and hit his fastest receiver in perfect stride. He could also attempt a 5-yard out and murder a child in the 400 level. It's fascinating to watch. I almost want him to be the Colts quarterback forever, just for the thrill of it all.
Also, on that play from yesterday, his running back was hilariously wide open. Somebody tried to tell me that Anthony Richardson had "already started his throwing motion". But c'mon, guys… C'mon, fellow Colts fans… I don't want to root for Daniel Jones every Sunday either. But we can't pretend we weren't hoping that Anthony Richardson would be able to recognize this mismatch with a linebacker when stepping up into the pocket by now.
If only Anthony Richardson wasn't so injury prone. Even if he never got much better at reading defenses… if the Colts could actually rely on him as a runner without worrying about him being hurt every play. Between him and Jonathan Taylor, they could have the best rushing attack in football. And if Anthony Richardson could hit just a few big plays a game on top of that… the Colts might really have something right now.
