CELEBRITY
GAMING
MOVIESAny fan of an NFL team loves his or her team for reasons deeper than the actual X’s and O’s. It might be allegiance to a city or player they grew up watching. Perhaps their fandom might have been handed down from generation after generation. Maybe they even chose their team for much more superficial reasons, and their love became something more than that. Whatever is is, you don’t love your team just because of what happens between the sidelines. It’s how the drama of life outside the sidelines is unfolded by the teams battling in between them. For me, I love the New York Jets because they still make me feel like a kid, and my love for the team is symbolized by my Wayne Chrebet jersey.
When I was in high school and college, I played pickup football most weekends. When we played, I wore the jersey of my favorite player Chrebet. Over time, I wore that thing out. The jersey is a little ripped, the big “80″ on the back has faded, and there are still grass stains from diving for loose footballs, or diving for the endzone. Read More
This time, they’ve gone too far.Last night, in a home game against the Boston Celtics, the LA Lakers went retro…by wearing the ultra-short, old school, “John Stockton” shorts. Now, I understand the gimmick of wearing ugly, old uniforms so that teams can have another jersey to sell fans and make a buck. But why change a part of the uniform? Do we really need to see Luke Walton’s hairy thighs? The Lakers lost, obviously, because they were playing in boxer briefs. I would expect this out of Duke, but not from any NBA team. Now, I fear other sports trying gimmicks like this one. (NHL teams not wearing helmets, NFL teams wearing leather helmets, LPGA golfers wearing female haircuts).
From Left: An aging Shooter McGavin, NBA Legend Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, and Evil Bald Man all agree: This is disturbing. Even for LA.
When the NBA decided to force high schoolers to spend a year in college, the impact on college ball was seen immediately last season…when Greg Oden showed how good he is, and Kevin Durant showed how great he is. Now, this college basketball season has been led by freshmen again, and even more of them. So, every year is going to be the Year of the Freshman, but can it get any better than this? Jesus Shuttlesworth would have a hard time cracking the list of Top 5 Freshmen in college basketball this year.
My favorite freshman is Memphis Point Guard Derrick Rose…no freshman in college basketball will be more important this season. Indiana’s Eric Gordon might be the most talented, but DJ White carries that team. UCLA’s Kevin Love is a big man built for March, but Darren Collison and Josh Shipp can put him on their backs if he hits a wall. O.J. Mayo is a human highlight reel, but his team isn’t going to win the title. The same goes for Kansas State’s Michael Beasley, who is an absolute beast and will be wearing a Minnesota Timberwolves uniform next season. Derrick Rose is the floor general for the team that I think will be cutting down the nets this season. Memphis has been great the past few seasons, and with this kid at the point they finally have what they need to get it done.
Rose is not just my pick for the most valuable freshman because of his position…it’s also his nickname. When he was a kid, his grandma gave him the moniker ”Pooh”, and it stuck. He even has a tattoo that says “The Great Poohdini”. Anyone can get a tattoo of a dragon, or a skull, or a snake, or a dragon skull with a snake crawling through it. It’s a real badass who can get a tattoo referring to a happy yellow teddy bear who eats honey and talks to baby pigs and rabbits. He’s putting it all on the line by going as the Great Poohdini, and it’s twisted enough to work. Imagine that a Charles Manson-type serial killer was caught and the police saw he had a tattoo of the devil. Not really too surprising. Now imagine they catch him and discover a tattoo of Buzz Lightyear. Terrifying.
If John Calipari starts dressing up like Christopher Robin, we will know Memphis has made the leap.
Every Major League Baseball team wants to make money, so I can’t blame the Washington Nationals for doing whatever they can to get people to pay attention to them. But anyone else who lives in the DC-Metro area has to agree…the TV Spots for the Nats are ridiculous.
To give you an idea…in one, a fan is jumping up an down getting hyped up that in a 2008 game, Elijah Dukes (a member of the Restraining Order All-Stars) comes up in the clutch with…a bases-loaded walk-off walk! In another, the fan openly admits that he has no idea who the hell (Nats backup catcher) Will Nieves is, but recalls a game in which Nieves drove in a game deciding run in one of the Nationals 59 wins…and now he knows who Will Nieves is. The moral is that you should watch/go to Nats games so that you can learn the names of the players on the team.
Anyways, that got me thinking about how the marketing department of the other struggling MLB Franchises might try to attract an audience. Here’s what I came up with for the teams that already have no chance of making the playoffs:
He can't do this anymore
Hey- did you hear Ken Griffey, Jr. is back with the Seattle Mariners? I bet he’ll make a great coach! Wait, what’s that? They brought him back to play? Ok- now that’s depressing.
Throughout the aftermath of baseball’s Steroids Era, there has been a line drawn. On the outside has been the obviously juiced-up behemoth villains. Bonds (Darth Vader), McGwire (Kingpin), Palmeiro (The Evil Mustache). On the inside, our side, have been the clean ones…the ones who are throwbacks and get colognes named after them. Cal the Iron Man, Junior Griffey The Kid, Jeter The Captain. And there was a controversial hero, but a hero nevertheless, who was going to win baseball’s most prestigious record back to our side. A hero that said, “Yeah so what if a 20 years past her prime Madonna is my soulmate, gotta problem with that?”. Alex Rodriguez was going to save baseball.
Now it’s not that he is going to save baseball, it’s that he already has. For years, everyone hated A-Rod. He had the label of great regular-season player, a guy who could hit 50 meaningless homeruns a season, and come up empty in the playoffs. He makes more money than an entire payroll of many teams…and he’s a Yankee besides. Still, he was going to pass Barry Bonds, seemingly on pure talent, and that made him ok.
- Early in the 2nd Quarter Rosolio and I texted back and forth amazed that the Eagles hadn’t tried double-teaming Fitzgerald. I commented that at least Jerheme Urban was being shut out. Rosolio
replied that before the game Andy Reid promised that he wouldn’t let Jereheme Urban beat them. It would be funny if there wasn’t at least a 98% chance that it was true. - The post game interview with Adrian Wilson almost had me in tears, and I don’t even care about the Cardinals. I was surprised when Wilson never screamed at the top of his lungs, KG-style, “ANYTHING IS POSSIBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
- Do you think Jon Gruden is on a jet to Philadelphia tomorrow morning? He’ll pass McNabb who will be on his way out.
- Kurt Warner locked up the Hall-of-Fame with this game. Matt Leinart locked up a guest appearance on Bromance.
- Brian Westbrook only touched the ball 2 more times this game than Brent Celek. I must have a fantasy football hangover (Westbrook was on my team) because this was really killing me the entire game.
- Larry Fitzgerald is the Anton Chigurh of football. Only he doesn’t give you a coin flip. I could just hear Asante Samuel saying to him all game, “You don’t have to do this!”
- Congrats to the Arizona Cardinals! Either the Ravens or the Steelers will play the part of the bully vs. the sentimental favorite Cardinals in the Super Bowl this year. It’s lining up to be a great matchup.
The NFL has been getting most of the love here lately…so it’s time to turn our attention to two underrated items: The NBA and the Presidential Inauguration. Granted, this is a little bit more of a special inauguration than usual, but I feel that as a country we should make a big deal like this out of every inauguration. Really, it should always be a holiday.
The main point for me here is that as a suffering Jets, Mets, and U of Maryland fan…I am also a happy Orlando Magic fan (I know that’s random, but as a kid I went to Disney a lot and thought Shaq was the coolest ever.) I got the latest issue of SI yesterday and the top had a picture of a Obama with a caption that said, “Barack Obama has been playing basketball his entire life…and now he’s the President” (Or something like that, the implication being basketball has led him to where he is.) So as we are halfway through this NBA season I thought, what if Obama took SI’s thought that basketball leads to political success to heart? If he made up a cabinet of all NBA players, what would it look like? Probably something like this: Read More
It’s pretty obvious that I’ve assembled the best core of players. I have no old men and representation from each of the conference finalists. Let’s start with my first pick…Haloti Ngata. Did you know that “Haloti Ngata” is Tongan for “Bad, Bad Man Who Will Kill You If You Look Him Directly In The Eyes”? True. Ed Reed is the most spectacular Ravens defensive player, and Ray Lewis is the most legendary. Yet Ngata is the anchor, and the success that Reed and Lewis (who was reborn into Ray Lewis 2000 this season) can be attributed to Ngata literally eating 3 offensive linemen per play. (Yes, literally) So Rosolio, great choices…but your boys need Ngata up front.
