Category: sports

sports

Vancouver Couldn't Get It Up

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Call it a case of either stage fright, possibly too much alcohol or just good old fashion erectile difficulty.
Last night, when the time came last night for the Olympic cauldron to be assembled and lit at the end of the 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies, one of the large “Fortress of Solitude” styled “ice spiers” that was supposed to form part of the “base” of the cauldron was completely unable to rise to the occasion.
Olympic Fail!

art

12,000-Faceted Diamond

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The NY Times has all sorts of specialty blogs devoted to different topics and their Lens Blog – which features photography, video and journalism – just had a great post which tells the story of the Yankees recent World Series victory in time lapse photography – 12,000 shots to be exact. Sick.
Mr. Caplin, who is just 26, said he wanted the montage to seem as if it had been made a hundred years ago — “You know when you look back at old movie footage and they were cranking it? And it was really jumpy and slightly faster than normal?” The game is played to Chopin’s Waltz No. 5, a score Mr. Caplin chose to complement the antique sensibility of the piece.
I love the punny way that diamond – baseball and jewels – has been used. I love the movie and itself. Hopefully you will too. Happy Friday.

sports

Team of the Decade, Again

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When the Yankees played the Braves in 1999, the media hyped the event as a battle for the title “Team of the Decade.” The Yanks had made the playoffs five times in the ’90s – in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 – and won the World Series twice: in 1996 and 1998. If the Braves had won, they would have had won the same amount of championships (2) but with more playoff appearances they would have taken the title. As we all know, the Yanks swept the series 4-0 and rightfully claimed the title of “Team of the Decade.”
The next year, the start of the Aughts (as this decade is commonly known) ushered in a Subway Series for the first time in over 40 years and NYC was in a flat out tizzy. The Yanks picked up right where they left off and beat the Mets (thank the good lord) in five games to complete their quest for a third title in three years.

Now, with their 27th Championship (I’m happily watching the City Hall “keys to the city” ceremony in the background as I write this post), the New York Yankees can be considered repeat winners of the “Team of the Decade” title. Over the past ten years, the Yankees won more regular season games than any other team, made the playoffs nine times, made the World Series four times (2000, 2001, 2003 and 2009) and won it all twice (2000 and 2009), winning in the first and last years of the decade. No other team made the playoffs has many times as the Yankees. No other team appeared in four World Series. No other team won more than two. Once again, the Yankees rightfully have claimed the title of “Team of the Decade.”
Let’s see what the next decade brings. With Hal and Hank leading the charge, the Baby Bosses are ready to keep fielding teams that not only have a chance year in and year to make the playoffs but to win it all. A “Team of the Decade” three-peat sounds pretty good to me…
UPDATE 1: I just called into NY1’s live broadcast from City Hall and basically talked about this post and how the Yanks are the team of the decade, again. The “Sports on 1” anchor Tom McDonald said to Pat Kiernan at the end of my comment,

“Aren’t you impressed Pat when people call up, Jeff had all of the numbers (Pat chuckles in the background) as to when the Yankees were doing this, when they were doing that, you know, and when you do what I do for a living, you think you know a lot and then you hear from your audience and you realize they know as much if not more…”

I’ve often said that I know more than the television announcers. Now a television announcer has confirmed this belief. Nice.
UPDATE 2: ESPN has a page up on its site about this very topic titled “The Decade of the Yankees?” The page basically is a lead in for a poll and comment thread and right now, 67% of the nation believes the Yankees are the team of the decade.

sports

Bleed It Out

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Lyoto Machida is a bad, bad man.
First, being a music fan, I love to critique the intro music of any athlete and Machida came into UFC 98 with “Bleed it Out” by Linkin Park blasting. This song has been my go to pump-me-up song for the past two 5Ks I’ve run so I immediately dug his chances.
Then, in the second round, he absolutely destroyed his opponent. To quote Smokey’s address to Debo at the end of “Friday,” Rashad Evens got knocked the fuck out. He is so good, he only gets hit one out of every 2.5 rounds. Seriously.
Below is an interview with Dana White, the head of UFC, talking about the fight.

sports

List Mania: Super Bowl

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I have recently been obsessed with how I am “forgetting” things that I used to know and have started to make lists to try and re-memorize these facts.
For starters, I just re-memorized the “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech from MacBeth that I originally memorized when I studied The Sound and the Fury as an undergrad.
Now today, in an article I read about how Kurt Warner is one of a few QBs to play in three different Super Bowls, I saw that John Elway was 2-3 in Super Bowls and could only remember three out of five, the ones he lost against the Giants and Redskins and the one he won against the Packers. After ten minutes of trying, I just could not remember the other missing to so I went over to official Super Bowl site and looked up all the past scores and saw that oh yeah, they lost to the 49ers and beat the Falcons. In case I forget again, I’ll just need to check out my blog.
Look forward to my Presidential list coming soon – I am in the process of trying to memorize all 44 Presidents. Its pretty sad because as much as I love politics, while I might be able to recite a list of all 44, there is no way I can give them to you in order. I think I’ll do that next week.
Without further ado, here are all the Super Bowl scores, starting with the most recent first:
XLIII Feb 1, 2009 Pittsburgh 27, Arizona 23
XLII Feb. 3, 2008 New York 17, New England 14
XLI Feb. 4, 2007 Indianapolis 29, Chicago 17
XL Feb. 5, 2006 Pittsburgh 21, Seattle 10
XXXIX Feb. 6, 2005 New England 24, Philadelphia 21
XXXVIII Feb. 1, 2004 New England 32, Carolina 29
XXXVII Jan. 26, 2003 Tampa Bay 48, Oakland 21
XXXVI Feb. 3, 2002 New England 20, St. Louis 17
XXXV Jan. 28, 2001 Baltimore 34, N.Y. Giants 7
XXXIV Jan. 30, 2000 St. Louis 23, Tennessee 16
XXXIII Jan. 31, 1999 Denver 34, Atlanta 19
XXXII Jan. 25, 1998 Denver 31, Green Bay 24
XXXI Jan. 26, 1997 Green Bay 35, New England 21
XXX Jan. 28, 1996 Dallas 27, Pittsburgh 17
XXIX Jan. 29, 1995 San Francisco 49, San Diego 26
XXVIII Jan. 30, 1994 Dallas 30, Buffalo 13
XXVII Jan. 31, 1993 Dallas 52, Buffalo 17
XXVI Jan. 26, 1992 Washington 37, Buffalo 24
XXV Jan. 27, 1991 N.Y. Giants 20, Buffalo 19
XXIV Jan. 28, 1990 San Francisco 55, Denver 10
XXIII Jan. 22, 1989 San Francisco 20, Cincinnati 16
XXII Jan. 31, 1988 Washington 42, Denver 10
XXI Jan. 25, 1987 N.Y. Giants 39, Denver 20
XX Jan. 26, 1986 Chicago 46, New England 10
XIX Jan. 20, 1985 San Francisco 38, Miami 16
XVIII Jan. 22, 1984 L.A. Raiders 38, Washington 9
XVII Jan. 30, 1983 Washington 27, Miami 17
XVI Jan. 24, 1982 San Francisco 26, Cincinnati 21
XV Jan. 25, 1981 Oakland 27, Philadelphia 10
XIV Jan. 20, 1980 Pittsburgh 31, L.A. Rams 19
XIII Jan. 21, 1979 Pittsburgh 35, Dallas 31
XII Jan. 15, 1978 Dallas 27, Denver 10
XI Jan. 9, 1977 Oakland 32, Minnesota 14
X Jan. 18, 1976 Pittsburgh 21, Dallas 17
IX Jan. 12, 1975 Pittsburgh 16, Minnesota 6
VIII Jan. 13, 1974 Miami 24, Minnesota 7
VII Jan. 14, 1973 Miami 14, Washington 7
VI Jan. 16, 1972 Dallas 24, Miami 3
V Jan. 17, 1971 Baltimore 16, Dallas 13
IV Jan. 11, 1970 Kansas City 23, Minnesota 7
III Jan. 12, 1969 N.Y. Jets 16, Baltimore 7
II Jan. 14, 1968 Green Bay 33, Oakland 14
I Jan. 15, 1967 Green Bay 35, Kansas City 10

sports

The Year in Strange Baseball style

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Happy new year! To start off my 2008 recapping (I know, I’m later than the MSM as they do this type of stuff in Dec but I don’t care), ESPN has a great Strange Year in Review article about all of the flat out wacky shite that happened in the 2008 season. My favorite is from the Suspended Animation Department:

Thanks to the miracle of the literal-minded suspended-game rule, this Orioles-White Sox game was played in two installments, four months apart, and produced all sorts of semi-impossible developments for us Strange But True devotees: Orioles rookie Luis Montanez got credit for the first hit of his career on April 28 — even though he didn’t make it to the big leagues until Aug. 5. And the box score says he got that hit in Chicago, even though he’s never played there. Orioles pitcher Alberto Castillo won his first big-league game on April 28, even though he didn’t arrive in the majors until July 8. Baltimore reliever Rocky Cherry collected his first save 3½ months before he became an Oriole. And when Junior Griffey walked for the White Sox, it technically enabled him to reach base for two teams in the same day. (He also singled for the Reds on April 28. And look at the mess that dumped in the hands of our ESPN.com day-by-day compilers, who had to convince our computers he got traded to the White Sox for the afternoon.) Sheez, is there a more fun rule in the whole rule book than that suspended-game fine print?

You can’t even invent that kind of stuff. Love it!

sports

There's Gold in Them Thar Hills

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Its nice that someone other than Michael Phelps has won a gold medal. Nastia Liukin took the women’s all around title and the head of US Gymnastics Bela Karolyi goes nuts while watching the routine. Gotta love the enthusiasm. I believe his exact words were, “Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful! Yeah! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! She’s an Olympic Champion! I’m telling you. I’m telling you. I’m telling you. Wow. Wow. Wow.”