posted by Baggiesboy

(Our man in Beijing, the ever-elusive Baggiesboy, filed this the other night as his first piece for The Mas as he mans his post deep in the beating heart of the Olympic city. Expect a lot more from the Bag, unless of course whatever bit of espionage he’s up to over there goes sour and he has to assume go on the lamb, not exactly uncommon territory for a gentleman of his stature. -L)

The first movie on my long, long flight to Beijing was ‘Fool’s Gold.” This treasure-hunt caper proves once and for all that Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson are not, and never will be, Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. It also sums up Barcelona’s attitude to Lionel Messi’s quest for Olympic gold here in China.

The Catalan giants crave Champions League gold, and despite being the symbol of an Olympic city, the club could care less about Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s quadrennial sports extravaganza. Which is a pity, as the upcoming tournament will set a new gold standard for the men’s Olympic soccer tournament.

For Olympic champs Argentina, Beijing is a 2010 World Cup preview. Along with the amazing Messi, Sergio Batista’s stacked squad includes such prodigies as Sergio Aguero, Fernando Gago and Ever Banega , La Liga stars all. With a motivated Juan Roman Riquelme and Liverpool’s grinder Javier Mascherano on board as overage players, the expectations for Argentina are higher than Diego Maradona in his Napoli pomp.

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People, as you know I augment my duties here at the Mas with quite a bit of writing elsewhere, primarily The Sporting News. And today marks the debut of a new daily feature I’ll be doing over there called “Large Screens TV” which is in essence the old No Mas TV Guide, only, you know, over there and not here. It will live for now on a new blog that TSN is bankrolling called “First Cuts,” which is very No Mas in its mission to cover all manner of sports in pop culture – movies, books, sneakers, video games, etc. Along with the daily TV thang I’ll be contributing a lot of material to First Cuts, so I do hope you’ll stop by now and again.

Also, I want to direct you to my Weekly Boxing Notes over at The Sporting Blog, where I rue the current state of Oscar De La Hoya’s plans for a farewell extravaganza. Here’s a taste:

Margarito beating Cotto is turning out to be even more disastrous to Oscar’s retirement plans that Money May’s abrupt departure from the scene, because it sets De La Hoya up to look very, VERY cowardly if he fights anyone but Margarito, particularly to the Mexican community, with whom Oscar has had a long, tortured relationship.

Large Screens TV (First Cuts)
Round by Round: Weekly Boxing Notes (The Sporting Blog)