GtFB field trip: Madison
October 30, 2009 at 3:33 am | Posted in Minda's Take | Leave a commentI’ve only met a handful of other bloggers in real life before. They just don’t roam around in Omaha that often. But this weekend, a bunch of us nerdy basement dwellers will be taking in a Wisconsin Badgers game and celebrating Halloween together, in real life. I’m sure it will be unbearably weird, and we’ll all retreat to the safe area behind our laptops and talk on Skype, even when we’re in the same room.
So I’ll be taking a (much-needed) break from Husker football for the first time in my life, and probably proving that bloggers shouldn’t try and socialize. You can check out my personal Twitter (as opposed to the GtFB one) for some random updates from Madison. I finally figured out Twitpic, so I’ll do pics too.
But when I get back, I’ve got some really cool stuff I want to share that I heard in class today from the publisher/CEO of the Omaha World-Herald. Should be fun to write up.
Jorge Posada = Fievel
October 29, 2009 at 12:17 am | Posted in Awkward, Baseball, Idiocy, Major League Baseball, Minda's Take | Leave a commentOnce upon a time, one of the astute Ladies… noticed the strongest celebrity resemblance in sports history:
Yankees catcher Jorge Posada, and Fievel. Gospel truth.
And then, somehow, through a random conversation on Twitter, Ladies… alums Texas Gal and Metschick and I determined that a Photoshop needs to exist of Posada in that one hat that Fievel wears that always falls down over his eyes.
And because I have six billion things to procrastinate…here!
He is just so frustrated about that hat...he had to tell the press.
It's a problem on the streets of New York, too. Snarl!
So…there’s that. These are terrible. Oh yeah, and some World Series stuff happened. The Phillies won, so Posada and his Yankees lost, so I guess I’m supposed to cheer now? Woo!
Serious internal conflict: The World Series Edition
October 28, 2009 at 7:39 pm | Posted in Baseball, Idiocy, Major League Baseball, Minda's Take, Playoffs, Sports fans | 6 CommentsWe’re less than an hour away from Game One of the World Series (wheee, capital letters!), and I still haven’t decided where my rooting interests lie. Phillies….Yankees….double fudge….Angela….This is hard!
The fifty or so “To Do” lists around my desk suggest that a list is the answer to this fierce internal debate.
The Yankees
PROS:
I prefer the American Leauge and think the NL is just rather adorable. Like, it wants to be a real MLB league when it grows up!
Hmmm….Joba Chamberlain pitched for my Huskers.
Joba’s dad is awesome.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have minded if NY had won the World Series. It was 2001; the people of New York had literally had hell rain upon their city, and could have used a pick-me-up. They didn’t win it then, but I still know in my head that I did once sorta halfway begrudgingly root for them, so there’s precedence.
A few bloggers I enjoy are Yankees fans. (On that note, I’ll be hanging around the liveglog at Walkoff Walk tonight. Won’t you join me?)
CONS:
A lot of people I don’t enjoy are Yankees fans.
The Yankees are the Yankees. They abused the Royals back in the ’70s, when the Royals were a fairly new expansion team and couldn’t defend themselves from being used as an extra farm team by New York. I hate the Yanks on behalf of all Royals fans old enough to remember that, and always will.
The Phillies
PROS:
This ain’t 2001. I can return to my usual feverish level of rooting for anybody but New York. The Phillies happen to be that “anybody.”
The Phils are trying to be the first NL team to repeat as champs since the Big Red Machine. Oh look, an excuse to mention that one book! You could totally order it now, read it yourself, then give it to someone as a Christmas gift! Look at me, watching out for your bottom line. I’m so nice.
Where was I? Oh yeah, reasons to root for Philly. The most important one is most definitely
MATT STAIRS.
I am still clinging to the glory days. I miss Matt Stairs!
CONS:
Who am I kidding? No con could ever counter the mighty pro that is Matt Stairs. And there’s no way I’d actively root for the Yankees, ever.
Go Phillies!
A moment of nerdery: One letter off famous quotes
October 25, 2009 at 12:57 am | Posted in Football, Idiocy, Media, Minda's Take, NCAA football, Nerdery | 2 CommentsThe Husker football team had more turnovers than points today (8 and 7, respectively) in what some are calling the worst loss in team history. Only really crappy teams lose to Iowa State, and only historically sloppy squads turn the ball over EIGHT TIMES in one game to a team like that. Or at all. (Sorry, ISU fans. It’s the truf.)
It was a dark day to be a Husker fan. It really would be best for me to not think about that crapfest of a game any more tonight, or ever again.
So as a distraction, I turn to Twitter. Joe Posnanski got on a roll tonight, posting a series of famous quotations with one letter changed. Here are some of my favorites.
This is SporksCenter.
“I’m mad as well, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” -Joe Posnanski
“Like sands in the hour glass, so are the days of our liver.” -JoePo
“Man, the Force be with you.” -JoePo again
“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to dig.” -Amanda Rykoff
““The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall now be infringed.” – OldHossRabourn
“The beers are who we thought they were!” -Andrew Bucholtz (of course, this could have been said about that main team in BASEketball!)
“…in order to form a more perfect onion…” -my account, but my brother thought of it.
“The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with ham.” -Biff Whammy
“We’re gonna need a bigger goat.” -Shakey
“Goodness gracious, great balls on fire” -Lee Taft (Yikes!)
“This is SporksCenter.” -my account, but another of my brothers thought of it.
Here’s the search page for all Tweets tagged #OneLetterOffFamousQuotes. I’m sure I missed some good ones – add your favorites in the comments!
Buzz Bissinger: Sample size only applies when bashing Moneyball
October 20, 2009 at 8:28 pm | Posted in Baseball, Major League Baseball, Media, Minda's Take, Nerdery, Playoffs | 1 CommentTags: Buzz Bissinger, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, MLB postseason, Moneyball, New York Yankees, Philidelphia Phillies
Buzz Bissinger is just sure that this postseason proves that Moneyball is dead. The four teams who are left – the Yankees, Angels, Dodgers and Phillies – are each among the top ten payrolls in baseball.
Bissinger goes on to blast Michael Lewis’ 2003 book ‘Moneyball,’ which is somewhat of a hobby of his. What Bissinger and the rest of the old guard keep telling us is basically that Billy Beane’s then-revolutionary method of team-building can’t possibly be right, because it’s not the way it’s always been done, and it doesn’t fit with people who like to whine about market sizes and Evil Empires.
Whatever. Trying to rip Bissinger for another tired diatribe against something he may or may not even understand is futile, as he’d probably just foam at the mouth and curse for a while. But this little phrase stood out to me [emphasis mine]:
Looking largely at the narrow time frame of 2000 through 2002, Lewis attempted to explain the phenomenon of how the A’s had done so well (they made the playoffs all three of those years) with such little dough.
Funny that three seasons is a “narrow time frame” when it’s someone else’s argument, but one postseason is a big enough sample size for Bissinger to call a time of death on Moneyball.
Montana football coach doesn’t like this whole “1st Amendment” thing
October 18, 2009 at 6:47 pm | Posted in Football, Media, Minda's Take, NCAA football, Team violations, Writing | Leave a commentVia Deadspin, here’s the story of how the Montana football team is no longer talking to the school’s student newspaper because the paper had the audacity to write a story about a couple of players who were allegedly involved in an assault. The nerve!
Obviously, I don’t know all the facts. I guess it’s possible that the paper, like, totally made up the story. Maybe the two players had nothing to do with the assault. But one teacher, a writer for Esquire and ESPN the Magazine, stood up for the reporters who wrote that story:
“There is definitely a code of silence over the team,” [Chris Jones] said. “Bobby Hauck is mad because of good reporting and the Kaimin should not apologize for good reporting.”
From where I sit, it looks the kids did what they could to get the story right. It is damaging to any sports team when its members get in trouble like that, but what else were the reporters supposed to do? Sit on the story, just because other local outlets had failed to report it?
Journalism students may, in general, be annoying*, but banning the paper from covering the football team is not going to look good no matter how you slice this situation. I don’t think suppression is ever the answer.
*and I say this as a jounalism student. Oooh, look, crappy indie bands and ironic glasses! Stereotypical j-school kids really are intolerable.
Props to the paper for their solution: They just started featuring Montana opponents instead. No point in profiling players who aren’t allowed to talk to you, right?
No longer winless! Chiefs def. Skins, 12-6
October 18, 2009 at 5:20 pm | Posted in Chiefs fan experiment, Eye candy, Football, Minda's Take, NFL | Leave a commentI accidentally became a Kansas City Chiefs fan last year. Two of my brothers, who formerly had no NFL allegiance, decided to start rooting for the Chiefs this year since they’re already die-hard Royals fans. This is how it’s going.
The Kansas City Chiefs have won a game. They may still be hapless, but they are not winless.
And I am guessing Ryan Succop’s back hurts like heck after carrying the entire team. The rookie kicked four field goals, accounting for all but two of the Chiefs’ points. And I somehow never noticed before today, but he’s really cute. (I never said I wasn’t allowed to be shallow here, right?)
From his college days as a 'Cock...what a dreamboat.
(Photo from this gallery. Credit where it’s due.)
Anyway, Redskins fans at this point have to be pretty fed up. Washington has been the first win for three awful teams now – Detroit, Carolina, and now KC. Look at the Pig Pen – there are tears flowing in DC today:
Because this is how adults behave and dress...?
Perhaps this will be the final nail in Jim Zorn’s coachly coffin. Even if not…the Chiefs won a game. That’s a pretty big deal.
And YOU thought YOU were a fan…
October 15, 2009 at 3:05 am | Posted in Football, Minda's Take, NCAA football, Sports fans | Leave a commentHave you ever stirred yourself from a coma, just to see your team play one last time? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
With apologies to the fabulous Catherinette, who requested some stories about her Penn State, I have one more Husker story. (And by “one more,” I mean one more for today. God only knows what the weekend will bring.)
A Lincoln, Neb., man was in his deathbed, you see, but hung on long enough for the Huskers’ stirring come-from-behind win over those detested Tigers of Missouri.
From the Omaha World-Herald, the paper I grew up reading:
Rex Plock, 89, of Lincoln, died Sunday — but not before he fulfilled his dying wish: to watch Nebraska defeat Missouri in a televised football game last Thursday.
Plock had fallen gravely ill with pneumonia about two weeks ago, according to family members.
At Lincoln’s BryanLGH Medical Center East, he was placed on a respirator and heavily medicated in hopes that his fluid-filled lungs might recover. After six days in an induced coma —the day before the Nebraska-Missouri game — Plock was unhooked from the machines.
He announced that no matter how ill he was, he was planning to stay alive long enough to watch the game Thursday night.
And he did. Go Huskers.
Unbelievable fact of the day:
October 13, 2009 at 8:03 pm | Posted in Futbol, Minda's Take, Sad panda, Sports injuries | Leave a commentNot everyone in the car pictured below died when it crashed.
No, not everyone died. Emerging star of the US men’s national soccer team Charlie Davies survived, but his injuries could mean his career is over.
TBL’s Ty Duffy breaks down what Davies’ absence will mean on the field for the team:
Davies, 23, is one of the brightest stars of U.S. soccer. He has 17 caps and four goals for the national team. He assisted Conor Casey’s first goal on Saturday.
Should Davies be unavailable for [the 2010 World Cup in] South Africa, it would be a terrible blow for the U.S. team. Davies’ pace is crucial. Landon Donovan could replicate it, but moving him from the midfield position where he has flourished would be undesirable.
If the U.S. stays in a 4-4-2, it would be a more staid version, perhaps with Casey or Dempsey partnering Altidore. Bradley could also play a 4-2-3-1 with Torres, Donovan and Dempsey attacking in the whole behind the striker.
My thoughts go out to Davies, and to the woman who lost her life in the wreck.
Oh, crap!
October 12, 2009 at 9:55 pm | Posted in Baseball, Major League Baseball, Minda's Take, Playoffs | 1 CommentI am an idiot.
I made the Rockies lose.
From my last post: “now that Colorado has taken a lead in Game 4, this series might actually last the full five games.”
Son of a gun! After I posted that, the Phillies came back with 3 runs in the 9th to beat the Rockies 5-4 and advance to the National League Championship Series.
The Rockies would have been a nice World Series story – they scraped their way back from an awful situation when they had to fire manager Clint Hurdle in the middle of the season, and made their way to the postseason. Who doesn’t like a redemption story?
But the Phillies are trying to make a story of their own: If they were to go all the way, they’d become the first NL club to win back-to-back World Series since the Big Red Machine.
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