LAY OFF ME, I'M STARVING!

And by "I," I mean "we." That is, we, the American sports fans, are starved for some sort of high-level sports action that's watchable.

It's not so much to ask, is it?

	I don't know what Ninja Warrior champion Makoto Nagano is selling, but I sure as hell am buying it.

Well, apparently since the calendar rolled over to the sixth month, it's been downright impossible for the average sports consumer to find something palatable to view on television. The NBA Finals? Perish the thought. June baseball? Snoozefest. The Stanley Cup? LOL. There is just nothing worth watching. I've spent many of my nights so far in June finding the most entertaining televised competition to be the American rebroadcast of Ninja Warrior on G4 at 10:30 et.

But today we get the U.S. Open, the most demanding of all the PGA's major events; the event that makes the pros look a lot like me and Kopech at a public course on a Sunday afternoon. People are so fired up about this tournament that every Tom, Dick and Harry is trying to watch this sumbitch online while at work. So many people, in fact, are trying to follow the Open at work this morning and afternoon that this should be a familiar sight to many golf fans flocking to usopen.com:

Status : 504 Gateway Time-Out

Description : Unable to connect to origin web server. The web site you are attempting to access is currently unreachable. This may be due to a network outage, or the web site might be experiencing technical difficulties.

	If Johnny Miller is selling Callaway gear... well, damn, I've already bought it.

That's right, we want SO BADLY to see something good that we, the American sports fan, have nearly crashed the USGA's servers in the first 5 hours of competition. Needless to say, NBC Sports must be salivating after their recent ratings humiliations.

That said, seriously, thank god for the U.S. Open. Since The Left-Handed Golfer yanked one off the hospitality tent at Winged Foot, people have been waiting anxiously for another potential Mickelson-vs-Tiger showdown at a major (or for one to ever happen at all). Add to that the requisite U.S. Open "HARDEST COURSE EVAR!!!!" hype being bandied about by ESPN and NBC, The Left-Handed Golfer's trash-talking new swing coach and bum wrist, Rory Sabbatini begging anyone to listen to him and Jed DeMuesy's never-ending love affair with Tiger Woods' 'ball bag,' it's no wonder we are all so excited to see the Open today.

And that's not even mentioning that we get to see Johnny Freaking Miller on the tube in a couple days on NBC. Miller on TV during a major, in and of itself, is worth its weight in gold these days -- especially when you consider how AWFUL non-TNT broadcasts of live sporting events have become.

Tiger has already held up his end of the bargain with a 1-over 71 on Thursday, but we're already getting lots of "Phil's wrist is worse than ever! He may have developed leprosy!" reports on the ESPN telecast. Here's hoping that's not the case. The U.S. Open is off to a great start and I, for one, am praying that it doesn't disappoint. I don't think I can take another mediocre major sporting event.

Oh, you want my pick? Sure: Aaron Baddeley.