As we celebrate America's indepedence from that not-really-that-tyrannical British Empire, most of us have been blessed with the most American of traditions, the three-day weekend. Okay, this year some of us are in the midst of a 94-day weekend, but let's not get too depressing.
Surely, on this great patriotic holiday, we have developed a great stable of sporting events to watch as we prepare for afternoon grilling feasts and the bombs bursting in air this evening.
No, we get Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest at noon. That's the most American thing we could come up with, and Japanese competitive eating superstar Kobayashi even managed to win that six years in a row. Joey Chestnut won the past two years, but we'll see if we can continue to hold onto the title.
NASCAR, of course, has managed to fill the void. The Coke Zero 400 (formerly the Pepsi 400) runs at one of our two racing shrines, Daytona International Speedway. Brilliantly, the race fires up at 7:30 p.m. eastern time, meaning that it falls during fireworks for the eastern and central time zones. Over 77% of the U.S. population lives in those two time zones, and given that the vast majority of the other 23% is in California, you could definitely assume at least 90% of the NASCAR television audience will have to choose between racing and fireworks.
So what else is on? Wimbledon gives us the ladies and mens doubles finals. If you want to know how American that event is consider that they're officially called "The Championships at Wimbledon". Plus, they're over by the early afternoon. (To be fair, it's an all-Williams womens final, the Bryan brothers are in the mens doubles final, Andy Roddick is in the mens final, and the Williams sisters are in the womens doubles final).
Le Tour de France starts today. We're very friendly to the world's greatest bike race, but most Americans won't care.
Regular season baseball continues, though seven teams are already at least nine games out...from the wild card. The Nationals, not exactly America's Team, are a full 20 games out in the NL wild card race.
At 3:30 p.m., NBC will be showing Motocross. Then they switch to beach volleyball.
Also, the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders and British Columbia Lions go at it at 3 p.m.
The PGA gives us Tiger Woods and the AT&T National this afternoon, which is a strong entry. Much stronger than the LPGA's Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic.
World's Strongest Man. US Wrestling Championships.
Forget all that noise. If we cannot come up with a marquee Independence Day sporting event, I'm going to watch the most brutal, physically demanding, sport on television. Sydney is at Adelaide in Aussie Rules action at 5p.
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A glance at the TV schedule today makes that proposal to stretch out the Triple Crown and put the Belmont on July 4th seem much more logical. It won't always fall on Saturday, but most people will be off work whereever it falls.
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