The cost of doing business is getting to be too much — especially if you’re not going to get Tiger Woods in your tournament — which is becoming less and less likely for events he doesn’t normally frequent. At least that is the message creeping out, little by little.
Archive for the 'Sports' Category
Former England captain David Beckham will leave Real Madrid at the end of the season and sign a five-year deal for MLS side Los Angeles Galaxy, he told Reuters on Thursday.
The New England Patriots are 6-1 and the Indianapolis Colts are 7-0. And they play each other next weekend. Can you say, “game of the week?”
Does anyone else think these two teams should be required to play each other once every regular season?
The theme song portion of both NBC’s Sunday Night Football and ESPN’s Monday Night Football are similar: They both portray a fictitious football stadium in the middle of a city. Even though NBC has Pink (and I stare at her prominently displayed chest through the whole song), it’s better. ESPN’s theme song ‘video collage’ is awful. Afraid to choose one team to represent the show every week, a nonexistant team with blue jerseys and white helmets (not quite the throwback Chargers) is shown. It’s ugly. They almost look like the Steelers — why not just go with last year’s Super Bowl champ? countless video games have gone that route. Every football fan would see a Steelers uniform before the game and — regardless of the Steelers’ record — would know exactly why ESPN picked that team to play out the intro every week.
Instead, ESPN went with the fake team and bad CGI special effects. Helmets appearing over a guy’s head, followed by the facemask? It all sort of looks like goop, and none of it looks good. One guy gets that (ugly-ass) giant, silver and black Motorola coach’s headset. It does the same thing: manifests out of the ether. Still looks like goop.
Yes, NBC’s Pink makes me cringe a little, but ESPN’s intro makes me groan.
It’s June 25th.
I’m reading an article about Johnny Damon and the New York Yankees. Jeter. A-Rod. Randy Johnson. Giambi. Bernie Williams. Scheffield.
I drive home at night and I crack the moonroof to let some fresh air in. It smells — just a little bit — warm.
I throw shorts on when I get home. I walk outside. Some trees are flowering. Pinks, and a few greens. There’s a hint of pollen in the air.
I think about baseball. I think about sitting in a ballpark on a balmy night, humidity in the air, a light mist visible in the lights. I think about peanuts, and beer, and waiting for the next pitch.
I sit at home, at my computer. I hear aluminum bats making contact across the street at the baseball park at Oglethorpe University.
It’s February 27th. Baseball will be here soon. Summer will be here soon.
Another holy crap moment: Yankees sign Red Sox Center Fielder and Leadoff Hitter Johnny Damon to Four-Year, $52 Million Deal.
This fills the obvious need at center field, and improves the devastating Yankee lineup, but they still need pitching.
I watched SportsCenter after the Raiders-Chargers game tonight, and about ten seconds into “Plays of the Week,” Chris Berman stopped and said, “Let me do it again.” On live television. So the visuals switched to the “coming up on SportsCenter” sequence and Karl Ravich did the voice-over for it. Then about ten minutes later Chris Berman did the plays of the week like nothing happened.
Did anyone else see this and/or think it was strange?
I just read this story on Fox Sports.com: Rangers might want to trade for Ramirez. Are they crazy? Do they remember what happened when they got A-Rod? Nothing, that’s what. They lost financial flexibility (even though A-Rod deferred money every year) and they sucked each of those three years.
Sure, Texas might make a deal with Boston that leaves the Red Sox responsible for, say, half of Manny’s pay. Let’s say that happens, and they still have reasonable financial flexibility. But the deal reportedly would send Alfonso Soriano to Boston in exchange for Ramirez. I don’t like this deal on paper or on the field.
Manny’s got better numbers than Soriano. But Manny bats right in the heart of that monstrous Boston lineup (see: David Ortiz). Put him in a no man’s land like Texas, and teams will pitch around him. On the other hand, Soriano might blossom in Boston, even more than he already has.
Manny is also four years older than Soriano. Sure, we’ve seen hitters like Barry Bonds go crazy after turning 36, but Manny Ramirez doesn’t appear to take care of his body the way Barry Bonds does (steroid speculation aside). Manny in Texas would likely experience an offensively-depressed transition year, followed by one or two years in which he finds some of the magic from his glory years in Boston (but still won’t reside in a Boston-caliber lineup), then sees his stats drop off. At that point you’ll see more “Manny being Manny” clips on Sportscenter and/or Ramirez will ask to be traded in July.
Meanwhile, Soriano would also likely experience a transition year after going to his third team in four years. After that, he would at worst be a solid lead-off hitter, and at best move to third in the lineup if he develops into more of a power hitter.
If I were Texas’s GM I would avoid this deal. But it’s Texas, and they’ll probably go for it. If I were Boston’s GM (Why not me?), I’d jump at this deal — to rid myself of the annual Manny headache and to get a younger player with talent and speed.
ESPN Soccernet has an article up about a new $1 million exception the MLS is likely to approve. This exception would give each team the ability to sign a high-profile, foreign-basesd player. It’s called the “David Beckham Exception,” although $1 million would not be enough to land Beckham today. I enjoyed the article not only for its depth, but its analysis of the league’s future and development into a money-maker from its roots and current status as a money-loser. Read the article here.
The Sports Guy’s latest column at ESPN.com deals with GM Theo Epstein’s departure from the Boston Red Sox.
Maybe I’m biased — I’ve gotten to the point where I look for a new Sports Guy column every day, even though I know it’s not daily (but I don’t know how often it is produced) — but I think this is the best Sports Guy column I’ve ever read. For just a moment it transcends sports, yet barely avoids becoming sappy or turning into an after-school special.
I watched game three of the Red Sox - White Sox ALDS this year and I didn’t feel elation. (Did I write about this already?) I felt somber. I noticed my own feelings and thought that I should feel a kind of manic satisfaction over the Red Sox loss. Certainly I’m not happy to see Epstein leave the Red Sox. Maybe I just root for a guy who’s roughly my age doing one of the most interesting “average joe” jobs in my favorite sport. Or maybe somewhere along the way I developed a healthy amount of respect for the Red Sox. Sure, I don’t like Manny or Ortiz — but I don’t laugh at them anymore.
Maybe I’m sad to see Theo go because I read Moneyball. Maybe I’m sad because his departure is indicative of an epidemic ravaging not only the sports world, but this whole country — young people with genuinely new and good ideas, pushed aside by wealthy old men.
