by John Walters

Holy Birthday Cake, Batman, the Boy Wonder himself, Burt Ward, turns 70 today

It’s All Happening!

Japanese keeper Ayumi Kaihori falling down on the job….

1. Drone Strike

It’s one thing to record a hat trick.

Another to do so in the first 16 minutes of a match.

Yet another to do so in the World Cup final.

And yet on another plane altogether to make the third goal a shot taken literally from the midfield stripe.

New Jersey’s own Carli Lloyd did all of that on Sunday as the USA beat Japan, 5-2. I’ll leave the rest to Andres Cantor of Telemundo.

2. A Marathon Race That Is Not

Forsberg’s time of 47:48 broke the existing record by nearly 3 minutes

It’s called the Mount Marathon Race because that’s the name of the mountain that looms over the town of Seward, Alaska. But the race itself is barely more than a 5K. It has been staged on the 4th of July each year since at least 1915, perhaps earlier. No one is sure.

Contestants start in the downtown area, run up a 3,022-foot mountain, then clamber back down. It’s dangerous. Legs are broken. ACLs are torn. Three years ago a woman suffered a lacerated liver and another man, Robert LeMaitre, vanished. His body has never been found.

When you reach the top, you’re only halfway there. That’s Forsberg.

But on this 4th of July something bizarre happened as well: both the men’s and women’s champions set new time records. Emelie Forsberg, 28, of Sweden, ran up and down Mount Marathon in 47:48. And the men’s winner, Kilian Jornet of Spain, set a new men’s record of 41:48.

Jornet, 27, actually lives in Chamonix, France. With Forsberg. They are a couple.

3. Pride Goeth Before a Fall

Your family tree may not resemble this

If your kitty cat has ever been stuck in a tree, you can empathize. That’s 15 lions in Tanzania, recently snapped escaping flies. Related: I love animals. Why would anyone harm one?

4. Car- Nival

Dillon went Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the field at Daytona

Austin Dillon survives this crash at the Cooke Zero 400, a race e that did not end until after midnight earlier today. Dale Earnhardt, Jr., won.

Meanwhile in Scandinavia, the finish here of the World RX of Sweden road rally will leave you gob-smacked. Though it seems as if he should be disqualified, no?

5. Playing with Fire(works)

It was reported that New York Giant defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul “severely” hurt his hand in a fireworks accident. And so you wondered if JPP had lost any fingers. He did not, and Pro Football Talk went so far as to report that the rumors regarding JPP’s injury were…”overblown.” Paging Horatio Caine on that one….

The latest news is that the G-Men are pulling their $60 million offer to JPP, but wonks say he wasn’t about to accept it, anyway (don’t judge: We’ve all turned down that amount of scratch at one time or another). Either way, JPP is a defensive end. He really doesn’t need his fingers, which most likely suffered nerve damage and lost some flesh, to work all that well. He’s an edge rusher, not a pianist.