Mother's Day Magic and Misery

Every year on the second Sunday of May, husbands and children everywhere buy flowers, cards, and chocolates for dear Mom to show her how much she means to them and to thank her for everything she does for them.  Baseball players break out the pink bats in order to raise awareness for breast cancer, baseball teams have honorary "bat girls" in the dugouts, and SportsCenter anchors start their broadcast with a classic "Hi Mom!".  Mother's Day can be a really good day for you and the special Woman in your life...or not so much.  You can either be a winner or a loser.  Here are some of the winners of Mother's Day 2011 followed by the losers (hopefully you were not one of them, too):

Winner - Derek Jeter:  The 36-year old Captain snapped out of his early season funk and silenced the doubters by doing his Mom proud with a four-hit, two home run day against the Rangers in a 12-5 Yankee win on Sunday.  Jeter's two home runs were no-doubters, landing deep into the right-center field bullpen - both shots estimated at over 400 feet.  Said Jeter, "Everybody needs a day like this."  Yes, Derek...including Mom.

Derek Jeter is all smiles after his performance on Mother's Day.  Derek, Yankee
Fans, and of course, his Mom, hope that it is a sign of things to come in 2011.

Winner - Dallas Maverick Bench Players:  In completing their four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, the Dallas Maverick bench stole the show in the 122-86 demolition of the world champions.  Jason Terry went 11-14 from the field, including 9-10 from three-point range.  Peja Stojakovic turned back the clock to go 6-6 from three-point range, and even little JJ Barea went 9-14 as the Dallas Maverick bench outscored the entire Laker team against, ironically enough, the NBA Sixth Man of the Year, Lamar Odom.  Although maybe Lamar is still kind of a winner since his reality show hasn't been canceled...yet.

Winner - The #5:  Even useless stats and numbers are winners on Mother's day as all American League games finished with either the winner or the loser of the game scoring the same number of runs - you guessed it, 5!  According to STATS LLC, it was the first time in 18 years that such an odd and coincidental occurrence had taken place when all 7 National League games had a team with exactly 2 runs.

Fives were wild on Sunday in the American League when every game involved
a team that scored five runs.

Loser - Andrew Bynum / Los Angeles Lakers:  Andrew Bynum's mid-air shove of JJ Barea in the series-ending loss to the Dallas Mavericks was one of the biggest cheap shots I have ever seen in a professional basketball game.  Bynum, clearly frustrated by his worst performance of the playoffs (6 points, 6 rebounds), unfortunately ruined legendary coach Phil Jackson's potential final game of his career.  The Lakers were the seventh defending NBA champion to be swept in a playoff series and their 36-point loss was the largest margin of defeat to end any of those sweeps.  Each of the Lakers should offer a sincere apology to their coach for their pitiful and classless performance on Sunday - not to mention their mothers, too.

Andrew Bynum will have to answer to his Mom after his performance and
classless flagrant foul against JJ Barea.

Loser - Disruptive Airplane Passengers:  A man who has been working as a New York City cab driver was taking a flight on Sunday to California when he decided to grab the cockpit door and start banging on it approximately 30 minutes before landing.  Another passenger on a plane en route to Chicago tried to open a cabin door in midair.  A fellow passenger choked the man into unconsciousness and later told authorities that the disruptive passenger told him that "he had a rough Mother's Day".  Reports have confirmed that the apparently suicidal man was not a member of or a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers.