Pens/Flyers Open Thread

Nothing beats NHL playoff hockey. This series is going to be brutal, too. These teams hate each other.

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Augusta Georgia is just no place to be

I’ve never played golf, but I like watching it. How about you guys? Or talk about something else.

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Open(ing Day) Thread

April baseball, where hope springs eternal and a Royals/Nationals World Series is still plausible.  Reds open against the Miami Sound Machine at 4 this afternoon.  For once, it’s not 45 and rainy for Opening Day here in Cincy, but expected 60-ish by first pitch with the sun breaking through.  Thanks global climate change!

Allons-y, people.  Make with the chatter.

[UPDATE]  Miami Pound Machine seems to be the actual preferred nickname for the slightly relocated Miami Marlins these days.  Also, Royals/Nats is merely mathematically plausible at this point, where each team hasn’t, you know, lost 100 games yet.

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That Was Kind of Fun

Just got back from a charity basketball game pitting various members of Bethany College sports teams, fraternities and sororities, and faculty up against the Pittsburgh Steelers charity basketball team. Lots of WVU boys showed up to represent the Steelers- Corey Ivy, Ryan Mundy, and the newly acquired Wes Lyons (and I am thrilled about that), as well as Ramon Foster, John Clay, and the one I couldn’t believe, LOUIS LIPPS! The tip-off was funny, pitting 6’8” Wes Lyons against a 5’ NOTHING Bethany sorority girl:

Here’s a pic of the rest of the Steelers:

The Steelers weren’t even trying, just passing the ball over everyone’s heads and shooting three’s, and generally not taking it seriously at all, but every now and then one of them would forget this was a charity event and you would get a glimpse of how very fast and athletic they are as they would race down the court, then sort of remember this wasn’t serious, and just hold up and shoot a three.

And Ramon Foster is really funny, hamming it up with the crowd and just generally being amusing.

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March Madness Open Thread

So who we rooting for, Kansas or Kentucky?

Either way, it isn’t Duke and that scumbag Coach K.

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Some Football, Fuẞball, Fútbol, Futebol, Calcio Notes

First of all, Fabrice Muamba should change his name to Lazarus. I was watching that game on March 17 and sat stunned, convinced that a young man had died and had unpleasant memories of Marc-Vivien Foe. Quite a classy move by Thierry Henry, I might add.

Okay, which is the bigger miracle in the past week: Fabrice Muamba’s survival or the fact that Fernando Torres scored two goals in the past week?

I’ve picked on Peter Crouch before, but his goal in Saturday’s game against Manchester City was arguably the EPL goal of the year.

Liverpool’s run of form in league play is contrasted by their run of form in cup competitions: The Carling Cup is already in the bag, they’re in the quarterfinals for the FA Cup, while struggling to hold on to seventh place in the league, with three wins in the last fifteen games, and no league wins since January 31.

Theo Walcott’s play in Saturday’s victory against Aston Villa underscores why he’s so frustrating: he had a terrific game, showing impressive pace and the way he brought the ball down from long passes reminded me of Thierry Henry. One merely wishes he could play like that consistently.

It’s worth noting that Arsenal’s 3-0 win against Aston Villa was the first time since 1997 that two English players had scored in the same league game for Arsenal.

Not by choice, but by circumstance (the Scottish Premier League is not usually on in the US) I saw my first entire Old Firm Derby today. I don’t know if it was typical, but it was exciting: three goals for Rangers, two late goals for Celtic, four sent off including Celtic manager Neil Lennon. Did anyone else see it?

Could Apoel Nicosia have had a worse draw in the Champions League quarterfinals? It’s 11:59 and 59 seconds in their Cinderella story. I shudder to think how many goals Real Madrid will score.

Share your thoughts on the rest of the Champions League quarterfinals matches.

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God, I Just Love the Jets

This is too funny:

Right now, the Tim Tebow trade is on hold because the Jets and Broncos are haggling over language in Tebow’s contract, as first reported by ESPN Insider Adam Schefter.

There’s a chance this trade could be nullified and, unless they come up with a plausible explanation, the Jets could look real bad.

The Denver Post, citing details from the disagreement, suggests the Jets agreed to the trade before reading Tebow’s contract. The contract has a clause that states, any team acquiring Tebow has to kick back $5.06375 million to the Broncos in advance salaries from 2012, 2013 and 2014, according to the paper.

This is complex stuff, but the bottom line is this: If the Jets pay $5 million to the Broncos, it would make a bad trade worse. They already agreed to give up two draft picks. It makes absolutely no sense to that kind of money to backup quarterback/specialty player. No sense whatsoever.

Love it.

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Just End the Season

Two pieces of football news:

1.) Tebow was traded to the Jets for a 4th round pick.

2.) The NFL just dropped the hammer on the Saints over the bounty scandal. I don’t recall any punishment like this in the NFL ever.

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Thanks, Hines

Ward does the right thing:

Hines Ward believes he can still play football. The longtime Pittsburgh wide receiver known for his high-wattage smile and his bone-crunching blocks just couldn’t stomach the thought of doing it in some strange uniform on some strange field with nary a Terrible Towel in sight.

“I just wouldn’t feel right,” Ward said.

My favorite Steeler of all time.

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March Madness Open Thread

Go EERS!

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March Madness Open Thread

By request.

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Some Football Notes

My life’s been busy and exhausting lately, nothing bad but precious little time. As a lot has happened since I last posted anything meaningful, here are several short takes.

I believe that England is in real trouble heading into Euro 2012. It’s not merely Wayne Rooney’s suspension for the first two games of group play, but the coaching situation with Fabio Capello’s resignation and the impending disunity on the back line if both Rio Ferdinand and John Terry are selected, given that it’s Ferdinand’s brother that Terry is accused of racially abusing.

André Villas-Boas has some formidable coaching skills, but I don’t believe that he was quite ready for the egos that make up Chelsea FC. Hindsight is 20-20, but another year at FC Porto would have served him well. That being said, he’s not responsible for Daniel Sturridge completely botching a one-on-one against West Brom’s goalkeeper last weekend, nor is he responsible for the fact that Ashley Cole hasn’t scored a goal for two seasons (I know he’s a defender, but he never had a dry spell that long at Arsenal). The team is aging and they were just barely able to beat 10 man Stoke City today.

I believe Real Madrid will win La Liga this year. Barcelona has too great a gap to make up and I don’t see Real Madrid losing to some of their remaining games – except against Barcelona at the Camp Nou on April 21.

At least one commenter has accused Leo Messi of diving, something for which I see no evidence. Consider the replay at 6 minutes 35 seconds of this clip and you’ll see him being pulled back by a much larger defender to no avail. His acceleration to get the return pass is astonishing.

Honestly, is there any team more nerve-wracking than Arsenal? Losing weakly to Sunderland in the FA Cup a week after they rallied heroically against them to win in a league game. Getting crushed by Milan at the San Siro and then nearly making up the difference at home. A solid victory against Spurs and a shocking win against Liverpool at Anfield. Not for the faint of heart. I would imagine that every time Robin Van Persie hits the ground, Arsene Wenger’s heart skips a beat.

About a year ago I said that Andy Carroll will be a more cost-effective purchase for Liverpool than Fernando Torres was for Chelsea. I was wrong: both have been huge disappointments.

It looks like my Kaiserslautern Red Devils are headed for a return to the Bundesliga’s second division. Well, at least I’ll get a good price on my jersey purchase when I’m there in May.

I just finished watching Tottenham lose to Everton. They may yet hold on to third, but they’re still a work in progress. That’s three in a row by a 9-2 aggregate. Suddenly much of the talk of Harry Redknapp for England manager seems to be quieting.

 

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Open Thread: There Is Power in A Union, NCAA Edition

College sports, as reported by the NYTimes’ business columnist Joe Nocera, “A Union Stands Up for Players“:

“I hate bullies,” said DeMaurice Smith.

Smith, a former white-collar criminal defense lawyer with the high-powered law firm Patton Boggs, has been the executive director of the National Football League Players Association since 2009. That is to say, he runs the union that represents professional football players. Last year, he wrestled with the bullies running the N.F.L., who locked out the players when they couldn’t reach a labor agreement. Now he is setting his sights on an even bigger bully: the N.C.A.A.

It’s about time. Over the past few months, as I have been looking into the practices of the N.C.A.A., I have been struck by the fact that the players, exploited by everyone else in the system, have no one to advocate for them. The N.C.A.A. likes to say it exists to “protect student-athletes,” but it’s a laughable claim. The N.C.A.A. exists to rationalize the tawdry fact that the labor force of a $6 billion business — the estimated revenue of college football and men’s basketball — receives no compensation. (That’s what amateurism in big-time college sports really is: unpaid labor.) Coaches, athletic directors, conference presidents, the N.C.A.A. itself — they all take advantage of the teenagers who are making them rich, knowing their young charges have no recourse…

I don’t watch college sports—I managed to spend 16 years working at a Big 10 university without ever attending a game—and I am objectively pro-union. So maybe I’m biased, but when civil rights historian Taylor Branch writes an Atlantic cover article on “The Shame of College Sports“, maybe there’s more to discuss than this year’s lineups?

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BigMouth Strikes Again

This takedown of David Brooks, titled “The Worst Column Written About Sports Ever Published,” is a must read. A sample:

So his job is hard, or at least he makes it look really hard. Still, this happened, and even on the “I-am-an-alien-writing-about-HUMANN-behavior” scale, this is akin to crashing a broken tricycle into a vat of toxic waste going uphill past signs warning you about the very stupid thing you are about to do.

Jeremy Lin is anomalous in all sorts of ways. He’s a Harvard grad in the N.B.A., an Asian-American man in professional sports. But we shouldn’t neglect the biggest anomaly.

He has webbed toes, associates smells with colors, and also tucks shirts into his sweatpants. A veritable platypus flying an F-22 of a human being just walking among us, that Jeremy Lin.

This seems like a really loose definition of anomaly, but it’s not completely inaccurate or insane. This, however, is:

He’s a religious person in professional sports.

Conclusion: “David Brooks” has never been to a professional sporting event.

It’s like Brooks has decided to branch out and find new things to be wrong about, and since much of politics is like a sporting event to the bobbleheads, he thought he might give the NBA sports beat a shot.

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I Hope This is Not the End

Please re-sign Ward, and if not, please retire, Hines.

Dermontti Dawson, Tunch Ilkin, Casey Hampton, and Hines are my all-time favorites. I really hope they bring back Hines.

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