Most of the Finishes Are Neck and Neck

Summer is typically a slow time in sports, but for folks in East Dublin, Ga., the excitement is just beginning. The Redneck Games will be held Saturday.

What started as a spoof of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta -- and the embracing of the rural stereotype -- has since attracted nearly 100,000 spectators. What’s not to like? Mud-pit belly-flopping, armpit serenading, hubcap hurling and redneck horseshoes (played with toilet seats) are some of the activities.

There’s also bobbing for pigs feet, and local resident Melvin Davis is a four-time champion. “I’m proud,” he told Associated Press. “But when I done it, I felt a little silly.”

Trivia time: Name the only major league player to win the batting title in his first two full seasons.

More redneck humor: At the recent NASCAR race at Sonoma, Tony Stewart was asked if he considered himself an athlete. His response, according to the San Jose Mercury News: “With a gut like this, what do you think?”

Asked if he had a workout regimen, he added, “Yeah. Channel up, channel down.”

What’s the point? World Cup organizers are planning to impose heavy fines for streakers at next year’s soccer tournament in Germany. “You can’t assume these so-called streakers will always have peaceful intent,” explained Wolfgang Niersbach, vice president of the organizing committee. “We don’t want to imagine, for example, what would happen if one had a knife.”

Which begs the question: Where would one hide the knife?

Ring envy: Tom Reed of the Akron Beacon-Journal is distressed that Russian President Vladimir Putin now has a Super Bowl ring. “It’s bad enough that Cleveland fans have watched indignantly as bitter rivals such as the Denver Broncos, Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers got Super Bowl rings before them,” Reed wrote.

“But now the Kremlin? The Steel Curtain is one thing, the Iron Curtain quite another.”

Scary team: The Houston Astros, left for dead after their dreadful start, have climbed back into the playoff hunt. Or such seems to be the impression given by Richard Oliver of the San Antonio Express-News. “A funny thing happened during the autopsy a few weeks back,” he wrote. “They found something interesting. A pulse.

“And, here the Houston Astros are today, bloodied and shuffling inexorably forward like the night stalkers in George Romero’s latest zombie-fest. Dead men walking.”

Short on tact: Vijay Singh played a round last week at Baltrusol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., site of next month’s PGA Championship. How long was the course playing? “If you’re Corey Pavin, you need a lot of woods,” Singh said.

Trivia answer: Tony Oliva of the Minnesota Twins, who batted .323 in 1964 and .321 in 1965.

And finally: Not all baseball players are like Kenny Rogers and portray such a tough-guy image. The Florida Marlins’ Dontrelle Willis, for example, confessed in ESPN the Magazine that he is intensely afraid of flying.

“I do OK until the turbulence starts,” he said. “But when I see the seatbelt light turn on and hear that bing, I start to shake.”