On to Wembley

I thought this article about Craig Bellamy getting a goal against his former club, Manchester City, to propel his current club and the one he dreamed of playing for as a boy, Liverpool, into the Carling Cup final at Wembley Stadium against his hometown team, Cardiff City, was a nice segue for this neophyte English Premier League fan to talk for just a moment about soccer -- gulp!
I've never been much of a soccer fan (I find the game dull and can't stand the flopping and diving) but have to admit that watching the high level of play of the EPL has changed that a little.  When the same ownership group that owns the Boston Red Sox bought Liverpool, I became curious as to what all the fuss was about.  When I read about the fact that the team they bought was the most storied, and infamous (read about Hillsborough and Heysel), in English pro soccer history, I became interested to learn what the league was all about.

So I've adopted Liverpool as my favorite team, even though I watch very few games (I'm not that big a fan) but what fascinates me much more than the game play is the history and, for lack of a better word, format of European soccer.  I'm going to attempt to explain, with a small base of knowledge, how this works and why I find it fascinating.  Hopefully the other EPL fans here will bail me out.  Every European league has a tiered system where the best teams play in the top tier, the next best in the second tier and so on.  In the English League that amounts to four tiers with around 20 teams per tier.  Every year, amidst the regular EPL season, there is an elimination tournament played amongst all the teams of the four tiers, 92 teams, that is the Carling Cup or League Cup.  The championship game will be played at Wembley Stadium between Liverpool and Cardiff City, a "second tier" team that came all the way through.  Liverpool has won this tournament a record seven times.

Liverpool defeated Manchester United (har har, Rick!) this weekend to advance to the quarter finals of an even bigger English soccer tournament, the FA Cup, where they'll take on Brighton.  Aside from winning the League Cup, which is won solely by accumulating the most points during the season, the FA Cup or Football Association Challenge Cup is the most prestigious in the EPL.  From The Wiki:

The FA Cup was first held in 1871–72. Entry is open to all teams who compete in the Premier League, the Football League and in steps one to five of the FA National League System, as well as selected teams in step 6.^[3] This means that clubs of all standards compete, from the largest clubs in England and Wales down to amateur village teams. The tournament has become known for the possibility for "minnows" from the lower divisions to become "giant-killers" by eliminating top clubs from the tournament and even theoretically win the Cup, although lower division teams rarely progress beyond the early stages. The qualification rounds and a system of byes mean that the very smallest and very biggest teams almost never meet.

Obviously what makes it fun as a fan is that your lower tier teams get to take a shot at the big boys and sometimes even knock them off.  Imagine a semi-pro baseball team that has played in your neck of the woods for a hundred years getting to play in a big tournament every year with the likes of the Yankees.  As a sports history buff, it is this kind of thing that makes European soccer interesting to me.  Manchester United has won the most of these cups.
But wait, there's more -- one more that I'll describe but there's even more than that.  What's notable is the UEFA Champions League, which is another tournament that runs during the regular seasons of all of the major European soccer leagues that pits the top teams (1 to 5 teams depending upon the strength of the league) from each league in a battle to determine the champion of all champions.  There's nothing else like this in any other sport.  The championship game of this tournament is the largest viewed annual sporting event in the world, even bigger than the Super Bowl.  It would be like a dozen countries each having a Super Bowl and then a tournament ensued after that pitting all the Super Bowl champions.  It's like the World Cup, except it's played every year and pits professional teams against each other rather than country all star teams.  Real Madrid has won this tournament the most times, 9, with Liverpool having won it 5, the most of any EPL team.
Liverpool is obviously favored to win its 8th Carling Cup and is in good position in the FA Cup tourney, although there are still many good teams remaining at this point.  Since Liverpool did not finish high enough in the EPL last year to qualify to play in the UEFA Champions League this year and are not going to win the EPL league title this year, winning the Carling and possibly the FA would be a very big deal for this storied club.
I'm also writing this post as my punishment for not having the guts to blog challenge Rick regarding this weekend's match between Liverpool and Manchester United...missed opportunity.  I won't hesitate if that opportunity presents itself deeper in the tourney, RJ.

Ranking the Super Bowls

This should be an interesting exercise, even though I don't intend to rank all 45 games; but Peter Schrager at FoxSports.com does just that today in this great slideshow.  I wish there was a way to share the slideshow within this blog but alas...

I'll just make a few comments and observations about his rankings and the games, then endeavor to list my top 5.  I would encourage you all to list your top 5 as well.
I was surprised to see the Patriots' thrashing at the hands of the Bears not be closer to the bottom of this list but Schrager's rankings use an historical factor.  So in his opinion, given the greatness of the Bears defense, he ranks that game near the bottom of the middle pack of games, 28th overall, whereas to most of us it is one of the least competitive games of all time, though it is special to me as a Patriot fan being that it's their first trip to the Super Bowl, that I saw them win a playoff game in LA on the way and because it's the only one where we'll ever see the true Patriot uniform.  If you go through the slideshow, on the right of each picture of each game you can see his reasoning and point system.
He ranks Super Bow XLII as the #1 game, which I would disagree with and not because the Patriots lost.  It was a great game and historic from the standpoint of the Patriots being undefeated going into that game but there are a few more games I found more exciting and competitive.  I see the value of his including a compelling or historical factor, which is why SBs III and VII are so high; but I won't be trying to do that.  I agree with much of his bottom third, which is littered with all those blowouts from the 1980s and early '90s.
My list will not be exactly a top 5.  I'll just take a handful of what I think are the best games and rank just the top one.

• Super Bowl XXXVIII, Patriots over Panthers, he has 13th.  This is one of the most exciting games ever and nearly goes into overtime.  Maybe because it was a defensive stalemate early on is why he has it ranked this low but the back-and-forth fireworks of the second half make this one very memorable.
• Super Bowl XIII, Steelers over Cowboys was a great, great game of the titans of the time.  I'm old enough to remember watching this game, which was littered with all-time-great players, ditto Super Bowl X with the same teams and many of the same players.  I think XIII was the better game.
• Super Bowl XXIII, 49ers over Bengals.  While their first Super Bowl matchup (the Kenny Anderson Bengals) was a very good game, this "rematch" with the Boomer Esiason Bengals was taut and thrilling all the way to the end.  Were you too rooting for the Bengals in this one?
• Super Bowl XXXIV, Rams over Titans.  The underdog Titans played their butts off and contained the Greatest Show on Turf for most of this game.  This is the first one that I really thought was headed to overtime, just a couple of yards and/or a few seconds from it.  Great game.
• My #1, Super Bowl XXXVI, Patriots over Rams.  Yes, I may be a bit biased but Schrager has it at #2.  Regardless of the fact that the Pats lost XLII, I still think this is the better game.  You've got a team called the Patriots, underdogs, playing the Super Bowl of the 9/11 season, coming out of the tunnel announced just as a team, no individual players, who proceed to stifle the heavily-favored Rams, coming up with big plays.  This game is close the whole way and the level of disbelief that this huge underdog just might pull this off was thrilling, coming right down to a last second field goal.  And remember, that field goal is only possible because the Pats shockingly decided to try to drive the ball deep from their end instead of running out the clock and going to overtime.  Adam Vinatieri strikes again!
• Honorable mentions:  The aforementioned XLII -- yes, a great game and a big upset and I'm still very much upset about it, regardless of what happens this year.  To me it's a great game if the Pats go undefeated.  Super III, I was six or seven years old and I don't remember it.  Super Bowl XXV, wide right.  Not as well played as people remember.  I still feel bad for the Bills, since they lost 3 more in a row after this one.  XLIII, Steelers over Cardinals -- this one would stand out even more if it had happened amongst a bunch of '80s blowouts instead of happening around a string of the greatest Super Bowls of all time.  Super Bowl VII, the undefeated season for the Dolphins culminates here.  I guess I should include an honorable mention to Super Bowl XXXII, the John Elway determination bowl.  Aren't I right in remembering this is the first really close Super Bowl since the '70s?

I'm proud to be a Patriot fan, where whether they win or lose, like the Red Sox they almost always play in memorable championship games.  Go Patriots!  Here's hoping that Super Bowl XLVI is a leisurely Patriot blowout, though that would be as big a surprise as any.  Please click the link and watch the slideshow to refresh your memory and to have reason to agree or disagree with the author and or yours truly, then put your top 5ish in the comments.

It’s Almost That Time Of Year Again

Did you know the Rolex 24 at Daytona is almost here? The Grand-Am series will begin a new season this weekend and Speed HD will be carrying approximately 13 hours of live racing coverage starting at 11:30am PST on Saturday morning. The network will carry the race up until 7pm PST and then resume at 6am PST on Sunday morning until the race concludes.

I’ll be rooting for McDreamy (aka Patrick Dempsey) and his Dempsey Racing team as they defend their Rolex 24 at Daytona championship in the hotly contested GT division in their Mazda RX-8. This year there’s 45 other GT entries so McDreamy and his crew will have their work cut out for them this time.

NASCAR drivers competing in this year’s event include Juan Pablo Montoya, Christian Fittipaldi, Michael McDowell, Max Papis, A.J. Allmendinger, Jeffrey Earnhardt, Travis Pastrama, Michael Waltrip and Boris Said.

A contingent from Corvette Racing that includes Antonio Garcia, Oliver Gavin and Jan Magnussen will drive the #90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette in the DP (Daytona Prototype) division. And let’s not forget AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson, who will be one of four drivers in the #50 BMW/Riley prototype.

It should be a fun weekend of racing and I can’t wait!

Patriots/Ravens

In response to my sharing a link on Facebook regarding tom-brady-bill-belichick-survive-stupidest-decision-of-all-time-and-other-leftover-patriots-thoughts and sharing this comment ("There are a lot of good insights here regarding the game, though this one is the most "shocking" to me: The rushing touchdown was also just the third postseason rushing touchdown of Brady's career, and his first since the '04 playoffs. Impossibly, those three rushing touchdowns rank third in Patriots history, behind only Curtis Martin (5) and Corey Dillon (4).") one of our authors, who has yet to make a post of her own on this blog, left an excellent comment that I tried to encourage her to use as the basis for a blog post, to no avail.  She's shy and needs some encouragement, even though I've told her she has excellent insights.


So I'm doing the next best thing by taking her comment and pasting it in as a guest blog by ocbananagirl:

I really like this article, or I really like this article after the initial criticism about the pass and the call to pass at that moment of time in the game. I just want to concentrate on all the good and I am not going to worry about that erroneous decision. Honestly I am surprised that the Pats are in the Super Bowl. I mean let's be honest, did we really think this could happen this year? I thought that this year was going to be a rebuilding year. I did not think the defense could do it looking back on this whole season. The defense though was the shining star in this last game, and even though Flacco had the Game of his life (believe me it was the game of his life, he was my fantasy QB for 2 years) the defense was able to contain Ray Rice, who for most of this season was unstoppable. That in itself was unbelievable and I didn't realize that they had it in them, or really I thought they were working up to this level but I didn't think we would see it this season, I shouldn't have had any doubt though with Mr Hoodie crafting this up like some wizard putting together potions.. Yeah, Yeah I know Brady looked bad but not as bad as the last game with the Jets last year, and then we found out that he was injured and I have a feeling that this may also come to be also. Now Brady has two weeks rest and two weeks to think about the Giants, and luckily for Patriots Nation we have never ever seen him have two bad games in a row. So I am feeling more confident with the next game than the game before, although I really don't want to think about it - something along the lines of " better to have gone to the Super Bowl and lost than to have never gone to the Super Bowl." For me it's not the Super Bowl; it is putting big blew blue in their place, I want a smack down! So Bill, please leave your pensive thoughts alone, I need you to get your hoodie on and do your wizardry for one more game and please, please be that jerk who smacks down the Giants, do it for Patriots Nation!

 Rereading this makes me think we need to encourage her to write a weekly fantasy blog next season.  Wouldn't you agree?  She's also an excellent cook/chef who owns a seasonal cafe on the Jersey coast, and I've tried to encourage her to post a pub food recipe for us.  So let's give her the encouragement she deserves.  This place could use a woman's perspective.

He Facebooked It

"I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People. This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government. Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL." – Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, on his Facebook page, January 23, 2012.

And as an individual exercising my rights as a free citizen I believe noted Glenn Beck devotee Tim Thomas and his Gadsden flag hockey mask are full of it.

Where was all this indignation from Thomas when things in this country were more screwed up two years ago? He would have made a more credible partisan, anti-government statement if he had sat out the 2010 Winter Olympics instead of skipping out on the Bruins’ celebration at the White House. With the exception of a few petulant Pittsburgh Steelers a few seasons ago, athletes always attend events at the White House honoring them regardless if they agreed with the President’s politics or not. Even Scott Niedermayer, who from all accounts is on the other side of the world in political ideology from Thomas, attended the White House ceremony when President George W. Bush honored the Anaheim Ducks.

Today’s actions weren’t about Tim Thomas, the free citizen. They were about Tim Thomas putting himself above the team, disrespecting the current President of the United States in a way only petty, spoiled athletes in other sports do and embarrassing the NHL.

I’m highly disappointed in Tim Thomas. I would have had a lot more respect for him if he had said he couldn’t make it to today’s event at the White House because Peggy from USA Prime Credit didn’t pay his cab fare rather than this passive-aggressive excuse of a (non) political statement on his Facebook page.

A Vancouver Fan's Angry Retort To Bruins Fans

It is a good touch using clips from the Daily Show.  And if this means that I am a Bruins hater for liking this, then I guess that is what I am.  It does bring into question though, does each fan base for their respective sports teams practice hypocrisy? 

Happy Non-Anniversary

Ten years ago today, the Oakland Raiders were screwed by the NFL and the New England Patriots went on to win a Super Bowl they did not deserve to be in.

Anyone who lives outside of New England knows the “tuck rule” was an obscure (censored) call the refs pulled out of their (censored) just to screw the Raiders out of getting their fourth Lombardi Trophy. Tom Brady fumbled. I will maintain that view until the day I die.

The above is video of the game with audio from the Raiders broadcast team of Greg Papa and Tom Flores. Now you’ll have to excuse me while I go pelt my buddy Zebster with a  snow ball.

Stay Classy, Crimson Tide Fans!

Alabama might be winners on the field, but their fan base leaves something to be desired.

Alabama walked away from the BCS championship game last week with a 21-0 victory over LSU, but the joy of their second BCS title in three years has been dampened by a viral video showing an Alabama fan sexually assaulting an unconscious LSU fan.

Some background: the video taken from a cell phone first appeared on the YouTube channel for “BamaSportsForum” (which has since been deleted) and was picked up by Deadspin.com two days ago. The incident took place at a Krystal restaurant on Bourbon Street the night of the BCS championship game.

The video, about five minutes long, features several Alabama fans hazing, poking and taking pictures of the unconscious man. Then, one individual exposes himself and places his genitals on the unconscious fan before a restaurant employee steps in to disperse the crowd.

Stupidity by fans is becoming more and more common, both in the professional ranks as well as the amateur ranks.  This is one of the downsides of sports.  Fans become brainwashed into thinking that harrassing, fighting, and humiliating fans of the other team somehow makes them a real fan of their team.  Most of it comes from getting blitzed by the alcohol that the stadiums sell and by the booze that is smuggled into the venue.

But here it seems that an LSU fan drank himself to unconsciousness because his team had an offense that looked like a grade school quarterback was running it.  Anyways, instead of anybody there that saw the man passed out and decided to call the cops or get management from the restaurant out there, Tide fans decided to humiliate this guy.  He deserves to be humiliated because I am almost certain that the guy was trying to get to his car and drive away plowed.  But not to be humiliated by Crimson Tide fans by poking him, hazing him, and then one of the idiots deciding that the guy would look good as a ball sac resting place.

This thought process that we have to denigrate and humiliate our opponents and their fans needs to stop.  In hockey, it has happened to fans of the visiting team in news reports in Montreal, Boston, New York, Philly, Chicago, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Vancouver.  I am sure that it has happened in the other cities as well, but hasn't made the national news.  In football, fans have been attacked in Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, New York, Kansas City, Baltimore, Minnesota, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Houston.  Those are ones that I can remember off the top of my head.  And it happens in the college ranks, as noted above, and high school ranks as well.  The sports that America has are not supposed to be bloodsport.  And usually it isn't on the field.  Off the field, that is now debatable.

The Beauty of Pro Football

I'm probably going to take some heat from the fellas after this post, but I need to lead in with an anecdote first.

About 5 years ago, I used to work in the corporate offices of a Fortune 500 IT-based company.  I was told that one of the employees was a Washington Redskins cheerleader.  I didn't know her and never met her, and honestly never thought about trying to meet her.  A year later, I lucked up on a 40-yard line, Section 141, Row 5 ticket--damn near on the Redskins sideline.  Throughout the game, the "Redskinettes" divided themselves into fourths--with a quarter of the squad stationed in quadrants:  between the endzones and the 35 yard line, on both sides of the field.  At each quarter, they'd rotate quadrants.  Throughout the game, I was treated to some pretteh...pretteh...pretteh...pretteh...pretteh good looking ladies.  No--hell no, they were damn, outstandingly HOT ladies!!!  In the 2nd quarter, my eye caught one particularly vulcanic blonde.

You know the routine, they jumped and bounced and bent over doing their cheerleader thing...(Lord help me!).  I remembered this particular blonde because I couldn't get her "bend over" routine out of my mind!  Anyway, two days later (Tuesday), I found myself in a meeting in the corporate conference room about to be briefed on our project by an engineer.  To my surprise, in walked that blonde--the Redskin cheerleader everyone was talking about!  It turns out she was the HEAD cheerleader (and I know why!)  But peep this:  She was the engineer giving the brief!  Brothers, let me tell you--I had no idea what she was saying because for 15 minutes my mind was consumed with the picture of the previous Sunday's "bend over" and I was secretly trying to Googling her picture on my BB.  Yep, it was her!

Now, why did I tell you that story?  (...here comes the part where I'll probably lose my "man card"...)  Brothers, for the life of me, I can't figure out WHY there are cheerleaders of any kind in pro sports, especially football!  I mean, think about it:  Most folks in the stadium are actually watching the game (I know I am--about 80% of the time; the other 20% is spent standing in line for that $6 hotdog or looking around for the $9 beer man.)  But I always ask myself:  Why are these gals here?  And I don't mind calling them "gals" when every Sunday, nothing but a 3-inch swath of cloth separates my eyes from "Ms. Hoo-Ha!"  Whom are they here for?  The majority of the fans at FedEx field (those of us in the upper deck) can't even see these girls.  Those in the lower deck can't see them unless you're sittig in Row 5.  You could say on any day, half of the fans in the stadium are women--so are the sexy cheerleaders being sexy for the women, too?  Somehow, I doubt it.  An easy third of the fans are kids--certainly the "bend over" isn't for little Joey (I hope not....not yet!), and half of the kids are girls (probably dreaming about growing up to be a cheerleader!)  You can't hear them do any cheers--for the most part, they don't say anything, they just bounce, and giggle, and bend over.   And if you could hear them, I've never seen 90,000 fans react to the cheers of the Redskins cheerleaders!  ("Sis-boom-bee!  Kick 'em in the knee!  Sis-boom-bass!  Kick 'em in the other knee!")

So, what is the pay off for NFL cheerleaders?  What's their purpose?  What does the team get out of their presence?  Other than TV exposure and a trip to the Pro Bowl, what do they get out of it?  And do we as fans really care??  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm as red-blooded as the next guy, but I just don't understand the purpose of the cheerleader!  And to be honest about it (and maybe I'm being a little prudish), I have a big problem with the blatant objectification and exploitation of women, and I get a little dismayed when I see them exploit themselves (then I get pissed when those same women try to get self-righteous at me for buying what they're selling:  "Hey!  What are you looking at, old fart pervert?!")  (sheesh!  I didn't tatoo words across your clevage or give you the BCT (butt-crack tattoo), then make you wear a low cut blouse and low-rise jeans!) 

I found myself very troubled by that cheerleader project engineer.  I mean, how could I take her seriously when once a week she's mooning me with her bouncing the jublies--cajoling and begging me to look at her butt.  One day she's giving me and 90,000 of my best friends the public soft porn act, and the next day, she's talking to me about algebraic topology of locally Euclidean metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold!  I don't get it!!!  Oh, and have you noticed, except for the usual pom-pom shaking, the networks don't show ANY cheerleader routines on TV-broadcasted games, you have to be at the stadium (in Row 5) to see that show.

The NBA has cheerleaders....and now the NHL has them....why?!?  Thank God baseball has remained unspoiled to the evil influence of curvaceous, brainac, super model wannabes!  I wouldn't be able to take much more of it!  ;-)

Respect for the Competition

If you always respect your competition, you always have a chance.  Ray Lewis may have a man crush on Tom Brady but it's out of respect.  But it's mutual too and there's no fiercer competitors than those two guys.  It should be an interesting game this weekend, a battle of wills between Ray Lewis and Ed Reed on one side versus Tom Brady and his weapons on the other.  Don't get me wrong, the opposite sides matter too; but if the Ravens can't contain the Pats offense, I don't think it matters how well the Ravens' offense plays or how bad the Patriots' defense plays.  If the Ravens do a decent job of containing the Patriot offense, then the game could then be decided on the legs of Ray Rice but probably more so on the arm of Joe Flacco.  Put another way, the game in my opinion will be decided by the Patriot offensive line, which is very good but is it good enough to keep a determined Raven defense off Tom Brady's back.  I think so but we'll see.
If you've never seen the clip below of Ray Lewis and Darrelle Revis waxing poetic on Tom Brady, it's pretty cool.  Couldn't you listen to Ray Lewis read the phone book?