Archive for June 6th, 2006
Continue Reading June 6th, 2006
Well, it’s a big night in Lexington; Roger Clemens is coming to town, to pitch with his son Koby at third base. It’s the first of three minor league stints for Roger, all of which, of course, have a definitive financial incentive for Roger Clemens. (The other two games are for teams Clemens partially owns.)
Considering the Astros are four games under .500 and we just saw Clemens pitch three months ago — which he lost, by the way, inspiring the lead paragraph, “Roger Clemens was looking for a much better finish to his brilliant career” — we’re having a hard time firing ourselves up for the extra hour of “SportsCenter” being devoted to the experience. But it’ll be on anyway, where we can hear Harold Reynolds say, “He’s still got it!” and John Kruk grumble a bit, make an armpit noise, maybe pass gas.
We do wish Roger good luck. We do remind him, however: The minor leagues have a different testing policy. So be careful while you’re down there.
(Sorry!)
Lexington Legends [Official Site]
Roger Gets The Jordan Treatment [Deadspin]
Continue Reading June 6th, 2006
A helpful reminder for anyone thinking of buying some scalped tickets for Thursday’s NBA Finals, from our friends at The Consumerist: Beware, buyers.
They tell the tale of a guy who tried to buy four Mavericks tickets from Craig’s List — we’ll confess; we thought Craig’s List was just for buying old couches and trying to set up 3 a.m. trysts — and ended up, with some rudimentary sleuthing, realizing that the guy was a con artist. (Good rule of thumb: If the ticket price is the same as a regular season ticket, you’re gonna get screwed. Nobody dumps Finals tickets.)
Though, to be fair, it’s important to realize that if the seller comes to you with a “@blogmaverick.com” email address, not only are your tickets going to be legit, but they will also come with lectures on journalism, inspirational movie tickets and incessent referee rants. Buyer beware, indeed.
NBA Finals: Caveat Emptor [The Consumerist]
Continue Reading June 6th, 2006
The World Cup begins Friday and ESPN/ABC are showing every single game of the tournament, so it’s about time you brush up on your soccer. To that end, there’s no better place to do it than at WorldCupBlog.org, where the guys are already in Germany blogging away on all 32 teams (Ecuador leads the way with 489 posts) and will be there for the duration of the tournament with news, commentary and, most importantly, fan taken and submitted photos and video.
Here’s a small yet highly recommended sampling of their work to date…
· Guide to USA player nicknames
· Secret video of Italians practicing the flop
· English fans’ bizarre attempt to “Heal Rooney”
· 6′7″ UK striker Peter Crouch’s “robot dance” celebrations
· Crouch singing ‘Here Comes the Hotstepper’ and USA midfielder Clint Dempsey’s rap video
· The Oliver Kahn Overpass near the Munich Airport
I never thought I’d have this much fun with anything soccer-related. Kudos to the fellas at WCBlog, and drop in and say hey now and throughout the Tournament. They’re sure to enjoy hearing from us filthy Americans while over there in the middle of Euroland.
More to come from them, I’m sure.
Continue Reading June 6th, 2006
We’ve been sitting here trying think of ways we could make soccer interesting, and outside of this elaborate thing with random ejector panels at select point on the pitch (???), we’re at a loss.
Then we remembered that normally we write about NBA basketball, the greatest sport in all the land. The logical thought was “Which set of NBA stars could go over there and win the World Cup?”
Therefore, we decided to go with “Which set of NBA stars could go over there and win the World Cup?” Here then, is our “Official set of NBA stars who could go over there and win the World Cup.” We have no idea how many dudes actually go on the soccer pitch (!!!), so we’ll guess 8 and run with it.
We’re totally serious here, too. With two days of practice, these guys could win the whole thing.
1) Goalie - Kevin Garnett. “If you see the ball coming, don’t let it get past you. This will happen like four times in 3 hours, so save your energy. If you do happen to get the ball, kick it the other way as hard as you can.”
2) Forward - LeBron James. “Get the ball, run faster than and barrel through those small greasy people, and kick it in that net while faking them out.”
3) Forward - Dwyane Wade. “See what LeBron’s doing? When he’s not doing it, you do it.”
4) Defender - Allen Iverson. “Jesus A.I. - even you’re bigger than most of these weinies. Just go get the ball and kick it the other way as hard as you can.”
5) Defender - Kobe Bryant. “There’s a ball - when it comes your way, take it from whoever has it and kick it the other way as hard as you can.”
6) Center - Steve Nash. “You actually know what you’re doing, eh? Okay, then just go out there.”
7) Testicler - Reggie Evans. “Do what you do.”
8) European - Ben Gordon. “Go make nice with the other guys - talk about crumpets and how you can take trains everywhere and whatever it is you do over there. Oh, and if you see the ball, get it and kick it the other way as hard as you can.”
X) Bench Guy - Steve Francis. “Go in for Reggie.”
X2) Head Coach - Phil Jackson. Not that it matters - all the coach needs to do is say exactly what we’ve written above and determine the right time to switch Testiclers.
You throw these 8 dudes out there to run around and kick a ball with all those people, they’re pretty much gonna dominate. They’re bigger, faster, stronger (just like our high school workout program), and they’re all phenominal athletes.
In case there are more than 8 guys on the pitch (>>>), we’ll take Shawn Marion and Manu Ginobli, who can go incognito and steal the other team’s intricate game plans. For example, what’s “get the ball and kick it as hard as you can the other way,” translated to German?
Continue Reading June 6th, 2006
Last July, a young minor league Cubs outfielder named Adam Greenberg finally made it to the big leagues after years of toiling through Iowa and other farm system teams. He stepped to the plate in Miami to make his first major league at bat. And the first pitch hit him in the head.
He hasn’t been back to the majors since, and last week, at his own request, the Cubs released him. He has been diagnosed with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo after the hit, which, we’ll be honest, doesn’t sound like a real disease to us. But Greenberg still has our sympathy.
Speaking of fun Cubs prospects, CUBDUMB introduces us to Carlos Marmol, a relief pitcher who’s off to a nice start for the Cubbies. Even more impressive when you consider that he once stabbed a teammate with a fork.
But hey: At least the Cubs have prospects.
Deep Within Transactions Column [Serafini Says]
Moonlight Graham Sequel [Chicago Tribune]
Gotta Like This Kid’s Makeup [CUBDUMB]
(UPDATE: By the way, a reader informs us that this vertigo is very real.).
Continue Reading June 6th, 2006
If you’ve been reading this stuff and think we’re making fun of soccer, or that we don’t like soccer, or that we don’t understand soccer…
…you’re probably onto something.
Continue Reading June 6th, 2006
While this day is surely giving you everything you could possibly need in terms of World Cup blog content, there’s much more out there to be had, particularly at the World Cup Blog itself, which is actually composed of 34 different blogs, one for each team in the tournament.
Being American, we’re drawn immediately to the USA blog - we want, need, and want and need to find out what’s happening with our squad over in Germany.
Turns out we beat Angola yesterday, although there aren’t too many details to be had out there.
Details are scarce, but the US beat Angola 1-0 in a behind closed doors game.
A spokesman said that Brian McBride scored the only goal, but wouldn’t reveal who played, what formation was used or any other details, presumably to stop nosy Group E rivals Czech Republic, Italy and Ghana from knowing too much.
Awesome - there’s no better way to excite an indifferent fanbase than by being secretive about a sport that few know much about.
Now when that first game rolls around, we can be all like “Hey, there’s…um…” and “Yes, it’s my favorite player! Go…you…”
Yeah, we know we could go watch and read about old games, but why would we do that, when there was a game yesterday we should be knowing about? This is pure and typical soccerish weirdness.
How much strategy is there to hide anyway? What, is one of them secretly using their hands or not booting it down the field as hard as they can?
Anyway, from what we can gather, our best player is this Landon Donovon guy, who…why? Why do they do that? Keep your clothes on, sir - there’s still a game going on.
Continue Reading June 6th, 2006
In response to our post on BALCO-ape man Victor Conte from yesterday, a reader (actually a caller) points out that not only is Conte a musician, but he was the bass player for Tower of Power for a time in the 1970s … albeit for only a little more than a year. His brother, Bruce Conte, was the more accomplished musician, having been TOP’s lead guitarist from 1973 through 1979 (it’s Bruce Conte’s guitar you hear on Don’t Change Horses in the Middle of a Stream and Squib Cakes). The caller continues:
Bruce Conte is returning to Tower of Power after a twenty-something year’s absence. Iit was his brother who got him fired in the first place. When he was in the band, Victor was always scheming, looking for angles and trying to run scams. Finally they got tired of his meddling and got rid of both Contes.
Actually, most of this is in Game of Shadows, the book that keeps on giving. And it’s no stranger than the fact that Charles Manson wrote a song that was recorded by the Beach Boys. Not that we’re comparing Victor Conte to Charles Manson. Conte is far worse.*
* = By “far worse” we mean “not even close to as bad.”
Victor Conte Is Ready To Bring Some Rawk [Deadspin]
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