- The TNT cameras caught Kobe Bryant using a homophobic slur to a referee. As you can imagine, it is a big story...and it should be. Look,you are naive to think that professional athletes don't use terms like this on a daily basis. It is what alpha-males do. But that in no way makes its acceptable. If we ever want to exterminate hate from our culture we need to start small and work our way up. Kids idolize Kobe. If such a word is ok for him, then it must be ok for them. It might be a small thing but it has legs. It will spread.
- The tragedy at Dodgers Stadium last week is completely unacceptable and frankly a little scary. I have seen fights at many games but never have I felt scared that one of the combatants was going to be seriously hurt. We can all hope this is simply an isolated incident and not the start of something worse.T
- he NBA announced that LeBron's jersey was the top seller for the 2010-11 year. How interesting is that? Seriously. I thought everyone was supposed to hate him? Is he actually becoming trendy?
- I watched Sports Show with Norm MacDonald on Tuesday night. Unlike Sports Soup or Sportsdome, this was actually funny. I also heard Norm on the BS Report and was laughing the whole time. Many say he is an acquired taste - luckily he satisfies my tastebuds
- Thanks to two easy quarterfinal wins, Barcelona and Real Madrid are scheduled to meet four times in the next 18 days. First its league play. Then Copa del Rey. And finally two Champions League tilts. The thought of it all has every soccer fan salivating.
- I heard someone call the 76ers 'America's Team' because they play the Heat in the 1st Round. Let me be clear: never ever ever should a Philly team be embraced. Period. On top of that, why would anyone want them to win? I know there is a lot of hatred towards the Heat, but don't we want to see Heat-Celtics in the second round??
- The Portland Timbers play their MLS home opener tonight. If you go to there website and check out the virtual tour of the stadium, you will be treated to an interesting site: a picture of the scoreboard with the Timbers beating the Sounders 4-0. I mean, wow. I think we should be honored that beating us means that much to them.
- Here's a secret not many know. I know a lot about the WNBA. In going to Minnesota, Maya Moore has suddenly made the Lynx a title contender. Combined with Lindsey Whalen, Simone Augustus and Candace Wiggins they are going to be damn good. Watch out Storm.
- This season's final episodes of The Office are quietly upon us. As we know, Michael Scott is leaving and NBC is doing a fine job of ramping up speculation as to his replacement by bringing in Will Farrell, Will Arnett, Ricky Gervais, James Spader and Ray Romano for guest appearances. I wonder though if the best choice is to promote Jim. It probably won't happen since they previously put him in charge for a few days, but I think this would continue the Jim-Dwight rivalry as Jim would be Dwight's boss but Dwight would own the building. It might not be sexy as bringing someone else in, but it might work.
- I said I wouldn't watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs and I lied. I am totally intrigued by this Vancouver-Chicago series. I watched the third period last night and absolutely loved the intensity.
- The Mets are straight up bad right now. I promised my friends that I was not going to jump ship so early, but their play is soooo reminiscent of the past two year. It is hard not to be down on them (hey, at least Reyes is playing well and Beltran is playing!).
- So far so good with my fantasy team. Jared Weaver and Troy Tulowitski have been absolute studs. I hope they can keep it up.
- I just can't stand John Tortorella. He is the perfect coach for the highly unlikeable Rangers.
- An all-time low attendance of 12,40 for the Mariners game yesterday. I hate to say it, but I think that is only the start. Look, this team is bad. The only things they have going for them are Felix Hernandez and Ichiro. The MLB season is way to long and in a poor economy, an underachieving team is going to struggle to draw. Add in that this is Seattle and their are going to be a lot of empty seats.
- Look for a new weekly segment I call Obscure Sports Weekly in the next few days. It is dedicated to my boy Gorman and should help me get back to my roots.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Thursday Brain Dump
I got a lot of small things on my mind - none enough to write an entire blog post on. So I am going to dump them on you all at once. Call it a 5-Pack Lite
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Now that the NHL playoffs are underway, let me know if you want to catch a game.
ReplyDelete-JWill
You forgot to mention that Man Utd took out Chelsea on Tuesday and are starting to look dangerous, obviously el clasico (Real V Barca) is the plum semi but United against Schalke will be interesting too. If we beat Schalke and make the final, I am trying to figure out who I would prefer to face, Real have Cristiano Ronaldo (would love to show him why it was a mistake to leave us) and Barca means revenge for the school they put on two years ago against us.
ReplyDeleteMariners are just plain awful. It already feels like their season is over and its not even half way through April. The negative vibes out of Safeco are so depressing these days that I cant think of a good reason to go their unless to eat nice (but overpriced) food and drink way overpriced beer.
I'm just glad that United got the job done because I didn't want to hear you wail about the reffing again. We know that Chelsea gets all the calls :)
ReplyDeleteHaha. Well I stopped moaning about the Chelsea calls after we finally got one at Stamford Bridge last week! Chelsea is the one team that particularly irks me so getting one over them was a nice feeling. Also, to see Fernando "Potnoodle" Torres suffering with his $50M price tag is interesting. Although if my theory for the Sounders to sign Drogba is to materialize, he does need to show some life before the end of the season. Manc Derby tomorrow morning at Wembley, should be interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you make of the Timbers opener last night? I can see the rivalry emerging now, they have a good setup down there and a good fanbase, but it does seem they have an inferiority complex about us, the media was painted with "best atmosphere", "most realistic fans", "no disrespect to the other franchises but this is the most European like atmosphere" bullshit. Us, Whitecaps, Toronto, and dare i say it LA, have great franchises with knowledgeable fans. I dont think Portland have any right to call themselves "Soccer City USA". We all know how we feel about the Cowboys doing it for football....
I have heard the Drogba to Seattle rumor as well. Part of me wants us to stop importing all these players and try to be homegrown a little, but hell, if you give us Drogba I wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating crackers (that one's for you JW).
ReplyDeleteAs for the Timbers, they totally have an inferiority complex towards us. And they should should. Let me be as clear as I can. Portland is the Philly of the West Coast (except that it is more beautiful, has less crime and doesn't smell). Just like Philly wants to be NY, Portland wants to be Seattle. Simple as that.
As for the call of the game, you know everyone was given the script of what to say. Garber wanted it to be successful last night and he wanted to stay in Portland's good graces. They hate being compared to us, and so I'm sure they were in his ear about being better than us. Interestingly enough, Ives put RSL fans in the same group as Seattle and Toronto.
So The Wife asked me last night if we were going to lose to Portland this year. I hate to admit it, but I can totally see it happening. They will be more pumped to play us and if they get the first goal it will only build some confidence. I don't know what the next two games against Philly and Colorado will bring, but I have to think Portland has a great shot of coming to Qwest on may 14 and getting a tie. But maybe I'm way too paranoid.
Any time local derbies come up, form goes out the window (look at United versus Liverpool a while back, and Barca whalloping Real 5-0 a few months ago), so I dont know how the Portland games will go but I sure am looking forward to them. The atmosphere at both will be electric. As for their players being more pumped up, I put that down to John Spencer, he relates to their players, they feed off him and you can see they want to bust a gut for him. I have never got that impression from the Seattle players towards Sigi, he seems cold towards them whereas Spencer is hugging and high fiving his guys when they come off the field.
ReplyDeleteForgot about RSL, they do have a great system over there, although I think I may have overlooked them due to the fact its hard to think of anything in Utah to be passionate and vociferous ;-)