On this Thanksgiving weekend, what would it be without yours truly giving ‘Thanks’ for various sports related things…such as…
- Thanks to Brett Favre aka Jet Favre, for proving that he’s far from washed up and that this isn’t a Joe Namath going to the Lambs in the late 70s move. Thanks to Jet Favre and one other thing I’ll give thanks for in a bit, the Jets are thinking Super Bowl for the first time since 1998 in a legitimate fashion after beating the Titans rather handily last week in Tenn-a-kee.
- Thanks to What’s His Face for killing Tom Brady’s season. For without his hit, most likely the Pats would be running away with things right now in the AFC East. His hit has allowed the Dolphins to be over .500. THE DOLPHINS!!!
- Thanks to the Giants for proving that February’s win was NOT a fluke. Oh and while I’m at it, thanks to the Browns for waking the Giants up. (I’ll get to this in a bit.) While I’m all but convinced the Giants won’t repeat as champs, they’ve more than proven that they’re for real like it or not. Eli’s not exactly his brother and quite honestly, he doesn’t need to be with what’s behind him. He has a better running game behind him and while he doesn’t have the weapons Peyton’s got, he has still found a way to make it work and work very well.
Can you imagine Eli with a playmaking receiver that’s not shooting himself in a club? Wow.
- Thanks to the Browns for basically winning the ‘You’re Not Who Everyone Thought You Were’ award for the 2008-09 season. Thanks to your traditional ‘everyone expects us to do great, so let’s go out and make it as repugnant as can be’ attitude, you’ve ensured that Romeo Crennel or Phil Savage (Plain Dealer doesn’t think it’s out of the question that both are job hunting after next month) will be fired at season’s end. Oh and just a casual observation, when a stadium full of fans are chanting for a studio analyst to come out of retirement during a home game, it’s time to update the resume regardless.
(Random note, I believe that Cowher’s the ONLY MAN out there that can turn this thing in the right direction for Cleveland. He can find the right personnel to make the 3-4 work and I believe he’ll get Brady Quinn along with the rest of these under/non-achievers working towards respectability and beating the Steelers once in a while.)
- Thanks to the BCS for finding new and innovative ways to stay around, amidst public outcry for its upheaval. In roughly three hours or so, the BCS is going to determine who will play Missouri for the Big XII title and an automatic berth to a BCS game. In the case of Oklahoma or Texas, a national title game. However, should Mizzou duplicate what Kansas State did just ten years ago (knocking off highly favored Texas in a game that was thought to be an afterthought), the team on the outside looking in COULD find its way to Miami for the National Title game against the winner of Saturday’s Game Of The Century aka the SEC Title game.
What people haven’t figured out by now is that the more controversy the BCS creates, the more it’s talked about and the more it’s talked about, the more it’s going to stay around. Oh and the good folks at ESPN will have the BCS Series as of 2010, so please believe it’s not going anywhere for a very long time.
- Thanks to the Mets for ensuring I’d have another year of heartache and an offseason to bemoan the women that are playing a man’s game. Omar, I’ve got a letter coming your way before Christmas, please believe that.
- Thanks to the Knicks who finally pulled the plug on Isiah Thomas, even if it might have been too little, way late. Donnie Walsh will find a way to get the room necessary to get LeBron to NY, but can D’Antoni find enough time to implement some defense so that the Knicks can win a title once/if James gets there?
Last, but most certainly not least…
- Thanks to the great folks at SB who allow me to do what I love so much, write about sports while pissing off the masses in the process. :=)
José René Higuita Zapata, famous for inventing the Scorpion Kick, at the age of 42, has just played his first game for his new club, Deportivo Pereira. In honour of the one they call El Loco, here are a few highlights from his career. Sadly, there are no YouTube clips of his involvement in a drug-related kidnapping, but you can't have it all.
Is it just me, or is John Calipari slowly aging into Ray Liotta? Or maybe it's vice versa, depending on which one is older, but the resemblance is getting stronger and stronger as the years go on.
Tonight, as part of ESPN's Orgy Of College Basketball (not their title), he's coaching against his old team of UMass and he's just in full on Goodfellas mode. Or maybe I'm completely insane and just need more sleep. I haven't figured it out yet.
Do you guys see it too, or do I need to invest in some glasses and/or therapy?
Seems the SEC thinks the most excitable NBA Owner ever, Mark Cuban, knew about something going down at one of his old companies, Mamma.com and proceeded sell his entire six percent stake. The sale was the precursor to a ten percent drop in the stock of the company.
In essence, Mark sold his shares on June 28, 2004. The company revealed it was using PIPE funding and the stocks dropped. Time will tell if Mark can outsmart the SEC.
If I were some sort of hack PR rep, I'd say something like, "Late rally not enough as Cats fall to VMI 111-103." Fortunately for me, I'm not, so I can just toss out a reference to the worst Kentucky loss of my lifetime, their manhandling by Gardner-Webb last year. At least this time the Wildcats were competitive, even if they came up short.
At one point in this game, I turned it off. VMI was up by 26 at one point, draining three pointers and pressing the ball like they were a Rick Pitino-coached team from the mid-1990s. They're not, but their impression was good enough to bomb the superior, taller athletes of Coach Billy Gillispie. I guess they out Billy-balled Billy Clyde with the shooting.
I can only imagine how badly the local sports talk radio station is going to jump on Gillispie's case for this loss, but VMI was the best offensive team in the nation last year, and they remain year in and year out one of the best scoring teams in the nation. It SHOULD be easier to slow a team down than speed a team up, but Billy's Boys like to run too, and his prized recruits decided that they could run with the Keydets (Keydets? Really? That's quite possibly the lamest team name since the Gaels.) Given that Patrick Patterson got into foul trouble early (I forsee this happening A LOT this year), there wasn't much option to run the game in the half court, as Perry Stevenson is a shot-blocking broomstick and VMI shot the lights out.
Once again, the Wildcats have a team that can't really shoot the 3, and this year, at least thus far, they can't play defense either. At least DeAndre Liggins looked good, and Stevenson had a decent little double double against a team that wasn't big enough to push his skinny ass around. They just didn't look prepared, and that's Billy Clyde's fault.
I won't be calling for his head (yet), but Fire Gillispie might just join Fire Tubby and Fire Coughlin as the great rallying cries of the Sports Bastards.
Giving it up to a Tennessee based team. Glad to see that a Florida pedigreed QB like you is still giving to our state. Which you vaulted us to 9 and 0 against the NFL. Also, we're 3 and 0 against your NFC North. (Probably 4 and 0, because the last team to defend the honor of the NFC North is the Detroit Lions on Turkey Day. And LenDale is sure to eat the entire buffet and run 2 TDs on them.)
So, again, Rex. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for constantly giving away games to the State of Tennessee.
Signed,
James R. Brown and the fans of Tennessee.
P.S. Good luck in your next job in Kansas City, we hear they might need a good INT throwing machine to tank it until Colt McCoy enters the draft.
Alright, so here's my real comeback column. I've been gone due to some real craptastic conditions and the like (not worth going into here, but if you're wondering where the extra vitriolic venom's coming from that's it), but I am back as evident by my annual NBA preview making the usual rounds it makes. Anyway, I initially was going to go with an anti-Ohio rant on all of its teams just cause I was really pissy, but I changed my mind. In its place, I'm just gonna touch on a few things at random just cause I can.
Starting with...
Conor Hagen, a 26-year-old player for IFA Premiership team Linfield in Ireland, was the unfortunate target of a rocket attack just moments after his side lost the County Antrim Shield to hated cross-town and cross-religion rivals Cliftonville.
The Daily Mail has the rest of the insane pictures.
It's really staggering that, after the hundreds of years of religious warfare in Ireland, fans can still get into stadiums with fireworks. Given how American fans get patted down, metal-detected, and cavity-searched these days, you'd think that the Irish would get even more intense security screenings. Apparently they can't be that good, as someone managed to sneak in and blast a player with a bottle rocket.
The Denver Nuggets rid themselves today of Allen "the Blizzard" Iverson today in a trade that had one man throwing a huge party in Denver tonight for all around and that man is the winner of this trade -- Carmelo Anthony. Who frankly never wanted the Blizzard around. He brought bad weather and left him competing for the spotlight on a mediocre team that really only has room for one superstar.
Not that we're really hear to talk about it, but Allen Iverson (A.I.) is off to join the Detroit Pistons who are sending Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess off towards Denver in the trade. They also decided to throw in for bonus candy center Cheikh Samb for extra candy (someone didn't do enough trick or treating on Halloween) or possibly for something about salary matching. But you know it was really all about bonus candy.
But beyond that, here's what you need to know -- the real winner isn't this trade isn't the Denver Nuggets (even though it clearly is) instead it's twenty-four year old Melo who now is the sole superstar of the Denver Nuggets and no longer has to pretend to the press that he was upset when AI got more attention than he did. No, no, now it's all on him except when Melo is getting suspended for drinking and driving or some other such nonsense.
So, sound off in the comments below -- do you agree? Was Melo the winner of the trade that comes only two games into the NBA season for Detroit. Or who do you think came out the winner in this case? Nuggets, Pistons, Allen Iverson or hell do you think the real winner is the LA Lakers. I'll listen to your comments, though I never promise to agree with them.
By the way who was the loser in all of this? McDyess who is objecting to the trade. He hates Denver and has no intention of putting on a uniform belonging to a team, again, that shares a name with his favorite Happy Meal. He instead is most likely to be throwing a retirement tantrum and will seek to get the Nuggets to buy out his contract. Though if he thinks he'll still get all 13.6 million in salary the Nuggets want him to know he's crazy.
Phillip Fudd... I mean, Fulmer not coming back to U of Tennessee
First the story from Chris Low...
ESPNis link
The Tennessean (NashVegas)
The Local from Nashville
The Knoxville News Sentinel
From UT Land
Now what does this mean to you. If you're a Tennessee Homer, it's the end of an era. But it is what it is... Fulmer is sick and tired. He's been for a good while, since the expectations went up since the National Title. However, if you're a college football person who's outside of the state, it's the end of the SEC old guard.
Fulmer's reign is dead... Long live Fulmer's reign. Now, we begin the ridiculous talks of Jon Gruden and Will Muschamp to Tennessee...
Meet Ben Wilson. He's a 9-year-old peewee football player who hits like a freight train and runs like Jim Brown with an attitude problem. Seriously, this kid is good. Watch the videos below.
I don't get it, honestly. He's smaller than most of the other kids, and he doesn't look like he's faster. Yet here he is, cracking helmets with good tackles and throwing would-be tacklers aside like so many pizza crusts at the buffet table. He's got great technique, so someone coached him up well, but technique doesn't enable you to drag three or four other people with you for touchdown runs, or to throw a guy off of you with one hand so forcefully he flies backwards like he whizzed on an electric fence.
I think he gets the job done by being meaner than everyone else. Good for you, little guy. Keep trucking the nonbelievers!
Sports fans with an attitude, SportsBastards is a humorous take on the life-or-death struggle that is sports. It doesn't matter who wins or loses, but if they cover the spread.
