Out of Context: 2008

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

MLS Kickoff 2008

Does anybody care? Seriously.

Now, I'm a soccer fan...a huge soccer fan to be more precise. But I have to tell you that the domestic soccer league we have in the United States is, to quote our English cousins, absolute rubbish.

Soccer is never going to be as popular as the big three sports (lets face it, hockey is no longer in that discussion) but it does have its die hards in this country, like myself.

The problem is us die hards are watching the European version of the game most of the time, and on occasion, the South American version. We see the Manchester United's, the AC Milan's, the Real Madrid's on a weekly basis.

It's not to degrade any players in MLS, but good god man, the game is painful to watch in this country. The pace is too slow, the players are just not fun enough to watch, and the commentary of the games is so poor that you want to cry.

An example of English Premier Commentary -- courtesy Martin Tyler and Andy Gray of Sky Sport.

An example of ESPN's abomination of soccer coverage. How the hell do you do an interview during the freaking game?!?

Everybody was expecting David Beckham to make the MLS this international powerhouse. Here's the problem: for all Beckham's skill as a player, he uses just his right foot, is only effective crossing his balls (hehe) from the right side and good at free kicks and corners. Not much else. He's not a guy that scores 30 goals a season -- he's appreciated more by a refined connoisseur of the game.

Unfortunately, America is a bit short on that type of fan for the MLS game.

Notice two other things. The passion of the game. When Stevie Gerrard hits that ball into the back of the net for Liverpool, the stands, which are nearly right on top of the field, explode in, to quote the great Ray Hudson "explode in orgasmic jublation."

The MLS game, the stadium is a ways off the pitch and the atmosphere is mild. Now, listen, to compare an MLS friendly against Celtic versus a Champions League game with everything on the line for Liverpool is unfair -- but the point is simple. We have no idea how to cheer this game.

There are good players that have come out of MLS -- Clint Dempsey, Brian McBride, Eddie Johnson, even Freddie Adu, the oldest looking 18 year-old ever have all made some type of mark abroad. We need this league to become good because...well, I just think it's a travesty that the most popular game in the world is so unpopular here.

Now, I'm going to start my own petition to get Ray Hudson to commentate MLS games. Because that's what these games need -- flair, passion, pizzazz, all the elements of the the beautiful game that need to be described in a manner that we can feel.

Man, Dave O'Brian sucks at any sport he commentates.

For anyone that cares MLS kicks of March 28th or 29th. And no, this is not bitterness by me because MLS didn't want me as an intern because the human resource person didn't want to take my calls.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Devil Rays, Devil Rays, Devil Rays, Devils Rays...

Some have questioned naming the team for a marine animal not widely known in these waters. Others disliked the devil reference and predicted God would doom the team because of it. ..."There are some that don't have a positive reaction to the word devil," Silverman said.

Because cosmic forces are to blame for your inability to score. This type of forethought and reasoning will clearly serve your squad well in its future efforts to reimagine itself.

Good job, guys! Stay tuned for the commemorative game-worn underwear promotion.

Oh, and way to invoke a team comprised entirely of middle-aged gas station attendants named Ray. And hey, look at that logo. Looks like it should be on a bottle of motor oil or hemorrhoid cream.

Other naming options that were considered and tragically scrapped:

The Yankee Farm System
Certified Steroid-Free
Scott Kazmir's Team
The Rockettes
The Tampa Rele-Gators
Hannah Montana Concert Spectacular, Tickets Free

Actual Devil Rays the world over would like you to know that you can keep your fancy new name. They didn't want to say anything, but you've been embarrassing their species for years.

You Bracket Like a GIRL!

Here it is, you freak. You've been waiting for it all year. People keep going on and on about their stupid "real" sports and, in the back of your head, you froth in anger. Where's the purity, you say. Multi-million dollar contracts? Pffft, you say. That's not sports.

But then, one glorious day in the middle of March, you stop X-ing out the dates on your Babes of Star Trek calender, and you can barely contain yourself, you're so happy.

Selection Sunday, people. Finally, FINALLY, you can lord your mad college hoops knowledge over those lesser fans of professional football and baseball. Sure, that entire season of watching St. John's probably didn't do you any good, but you're in the know.

So you swagger into your office the next day and smirk smugly when someone hands you a bracket. You got this, you say to the cute but clueless girl in accounting. She giggles (cutely), and picks up a bracket, too.

'What the hey,' she says, 'I'm not really into all that college stuff, but it looks like fun.' You resist the urge to pat her head but knock out some finger guns before making it back to your cubicle.

You're totally gonna use the pool money to take her to Applebee's.

But then it happens. UNC starts to falter and...what the HELL is the five seed doing and...no, no, no, this can't happening. You regroup and a few of your teams advance. You carry a miniature laminated version of your bracket with you everywhere you go and try to figure out if you still have a shot...why is VILLANOVA STILL IN THIS?

Then one day it's over, so over. You haven't felt this bad since Brett Favre retired (why, why did I have to remind you of that?). You go back to the office the next day, so much less of a man, and you hear it:

"Omigoodness! I WON! Whoo! That's soooooooooooooooooooo cool! Thanks for telling me, Pat."

It's possible that you've never hated anyone more than you hate Mandy from Accounting right now. Even Mr. Brooks, the sixth-grade teacher who was always rubbing your shoulders, gets more charity from you than Mandy. At least he knew what a field goal was.

Thing is, it's a truth universally acknowledged that any woman in possession of absolutely no college hoops knowledge is 23.7 percent more likely to snuff you come bracket time. This percentage somehow skyrockets if you're one of those guys whose entire reason for living rests on the broad shoulders of entitled 21-year-olds with third grade reading levels.

But have no fear. There is a resource.

It just so happens that I'm a girl.

It also just so happens that I have no working knowledge of college hoops. Hell, I just spent the entire weekend in the middle of nowhere at a bootleg basketball championship that shalt not be named for a publication that shalt not be named. Non-professional basketball can go die a slow, painful death, for all I care.

So, without further ado:

Top Tips for Making Your Picks, Chick Edition.

Your amazing basketball knowledge? Toss it out. Unless you've watched every team multiple times and retain copious knowledge of each key player, this is useless. That time you spent watching college basketball in preparation? Hours that you will never, ever get back. Basically, you sat around as your life continued its inevitable death march. Congratulations.

About a fourth of your picks should be lower-seeded underdogs. Chicks love that stuff almost as much as they love romantic comedies and imported chocolate.

No, you idiot, that doesn't mean you should pick UTA over Memphis. Chicks love fake, secretly talented, underdogs. Like the "sweet dork" who's actually just a hot guy in glasses and a mussed button-down shirt. It makes them feel less shallow. They hate actual losers. Contemplate this.

Team names are very important. Since most girls haven't actually watched any of these guys play, they can't choose based on team colors. You want romantic sounding names, like the aforementioned Villanova, and Marquette and Xavier. Yes, 'Nova is risky, but it's got the double-whammy: underdog and cool-sounding name. The bracket-ologist in you says they have Cinderella history and they're a 12 playing a 5. This internal voice knows nothing. If they win, it'll be because if their name. Like Gonzaga.

USC! WHOOOOO! Caaaaaali! Yes, geography matters. Boston and Cali teams are most likely to get picked, because it's nicer there.

Finally, when a pick isn't immediately apparent, us girls gravitate towards stable-sounding schools. The Volvo teams, if you will. Notre Dame, Indiana and Tennessee all sound like schools you could bring home to mom and dad.

For everything else: Close your eyes and let your finger fall where it may. It's March Madness, baby, live a little.

And DUDE, buck up. Maybe Mandy will take you to Applebee's.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Madison Square Garden and James Dolan. Need I say more?

Isiah Thomas and the New York Knicks. All I have to do is write that and you automatically snicker.

The Knicks might be the worst franchise in the history of sports. I'm not kidding, the history of sports. The first caveman that decided to put a ball in a hole or hit something more than the caveman next to him was more organized than the friggen Knicks.

Forget about Isiah being a failure running the CBA into the ground and his various other stops along the NBA reality tour of crappy basketball...let's take this summer under context, shall we?

- Madison Square Garden is sued by Anucha Browne Sanders for wrongful termination and sexual harassment. According to Browne Sanders, Isiah Thomas, the President, General Manager and Coach of the Knicks made unwanted advances to her.
- Jim Dolan, Chairman of Cablevision and winner of the luckiest sperm lottery decides to fight the case.

Now let's say your JD. You're a publicly traded company, you've got billions of dollars and you already are considered one of the dumbest owners in sports. It would be easy to just chase this case away, settle and move on with your life.

-But no. You decide to fight the case, despite the fact that this is going to expose your company, your franchise and yourself to scathing attacks about how your company does business and how completely friggen inept you truly are.

-During the trial, the following is exposed about you, your President, GM and Coach and your franchise point guard:

- You're exposed as an ass, a person who has little to no respect for your employees and have everyone wondering just how does one become qualified to run Cablevision.

-One of your chief executives of the company calls another co-worker "a bitch" asks her why he didn't "get any love of her", makes a distinction for white man calling a black woman a bitch, says he doesn't give a damn (well, not damn, but this is sort of a family blog. Sort of.) about white season ticket holders.

-Your franchise point guard is a CHARACTER WITNESS FOR THE DEFENSE AND ADMITS TO HAVING SEX WITH AN INTERN, and calling the plaintiff a bitch. Sorry about all caps but seriously...what kind of dumbass lawyers are you hiring?!?

Look, if your life depended on it...honestly now...would you really want Stephon Marbury as a character witness? I mean seriously.

I present Exhibit A as evidence --- the infamous Mike'D Up segment on NBC. (Thank God for Youtube!)

Exhibit B -- Starbury defending Michael Vick.

Anyway, after all that, you expectedly lose the trial. You decide to fight on, because damnit, you know you're in the right on this one.

Then you settle for $11.5 million a few months down the line.

Am I missing something here? Seriously, you could have save yourself and your team all this freaking trouble if you just settled to begin with. But nooooooo, you're Jimbo Dolan, big guy who laughs at criticism.

You see Jimmy, when the press goes after the Garden, it's not because they're doing it because they want to make up copy. They're doing it because that's literally how it is under your control. Caesar Dolan running the Knicks like he's Caligula. Because that's exactly what the Garden has become, a place of filth, apathy and embarrassment. Not just for the Knicks and their fans, but city of New York as well. Although we just had our Governor get caught paying $5500 dollars for sex an hour and asking to do "unsafe" sexual acts, so what do we know.

To top it all off, the Knicks suck, are going nowhere and the team has quit on Isiah in all his capacities -- as a coach, a GM and as President. And yet he still has a job???

This guy, who sent the point guard home, had the team vote on if the point guard should comeback, ignored the team vote, played the point guard while his father was heading to the hospital dying, acquired Zach Randolph to team with Eddy Curry, realizing it failed, then saying that "it's a small man's game."

Scott Layden was an embarrassment on the court. Isiah is a an embarassment all the way around.

Here's the nightmare scenario. The Nets move over to Brooklyn in three years, LeBron James does a solid for Jay-Z and the Knicks stay the same. (Isiah would have probably ended up signing a 10 year extension by then) Let me be perfectly clear. As of right now, no one can give a flying monkey crap about the Knicks.

And JD...you're the one to blame. Ass.

Dive! Dive! Dive!

So apparently FIFA is maybe being harangued into introducing not-so-instant replay to that most pure of sports, fútbol.

Um, qué?

The moderately corrupt (but only in a fun, European way) officials are thinking that maybe diving is killing the sport. Yes, diving. Solution? TV. They want to bring about video evidence so that refs can more enthusiastically punish players like Dida, whose sanctified noggin was not actually grazed, no matter how many acrobatic “reaction” flips he busted out.

Getting caught diving is an automatic yellow card, by the way, for the 93 percent of the people reading this to humor me. Bad diving in big spots means bigger penalties and the eternal scorn of the acting community.

Now, at first blush, this is horrible. A sacrilege, perhaps. Isn't soccer supposed to be a little dramatic and maybe even slightly off-kilter?

But let’s think: could the advent of stricter regulations somehow force footballers the world over to, gasp, man up? No more writhing in pain, no more rolling around on the ground after being struck by a stray piece of grass, no more tears. Like Johnson and Johnson! See:

It’s uncanny.

It’s two-sided, though. On the one hand, I don’t have to be shamed by some of the top players in the sport. On the other, diving is kinda of awesome. I mean, the level of skill in executing a good dive – it’s Brian Boitano-esque. If a dive is especially good (rolling around, shin clutching, gritting his teeth in pain), I’m likely to overlook any eventual loss of masculinity and simply applaud.

Do you snicker when Burt Reynolds cries after his daughter/mother/girlfriend/pet/best friend from high school/scuba diving partner gets brutally murdered in Death Wish, parts I to IV? Of course you do. But you still wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley afterwards. (And I’m just assuming he cries. I can never get past the movie description on my TV.)

Final thoughts: Let the boys cry, yo. Let ‘em cry. Bad dives are instantly apparent to the refs and should be punished for what they are. The Meryl Streeps of soccer need to breathe for their art.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Brett Favre to Retire?

Oh, heavens no!

According to Jay Glazer of Fox Sports, who is usually accurate, Football Christ has decided to call it quits. After sucking mightily in 2006, Favre bounced back and played well last year, breaking all the remaining significant career passing records and leading the Packers to the NFC Championship game and getting his ass kissed along the way.

Favre's last pass, ironically, was a game-losing interception to Giants' previously-a-bust cornerback Corey Webster.

And with this news, there should be a suicide watch in Green Bay, Bristol and at the headquarters of every major media outlet in the United States. For without Favre's cherubic charm and charisma captivating the country, life is but an abyss.

"We live in a two-room house with our six children and their six children," said Earl, the moron pictured above. "What money we do bring in, we spend on season tickets for Brett Favre and Brett Favre stuff so we can support the Brett Favres. But now, if Brett Favre's gone, who's gonna take the pain away on Sundays? ... I'm gonna go drink a gallon of kerosine and throw a lit match down my throat."

Remember these quotes from January?

"And you know what? I don’t care whether people are Packers fans or whatever, I’ll reiterate what we said: rooting for Favre is like rooting for America." - Chris Berman

"Brett Favre is back. This guy has captured America." - Bill Plaschke

"The rebirth of Favre is great news for football, sports and, when you think about it, life." - Jay Mariotti

Fear not, media. Tom Brady's got a dick and enough leftover inches for those who weren't already on it. As long as John Madden doesn't call dibs and reverse-cowgirl.

Breaking News: Sports Illustrated columnist Peter King was found dead in his home this morning, clad in a gimp outfit with "4" stitched into the back. Several empty bottles of Zyban, Xanax and Scotch were strewn across his bedroom floor.