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Tuesday, October 23, 2007NFL Week 7 ThoughtsIt's been 4 weeks since I have enlightened you with my NFL Thoughts. For that I apologize. Here they are though:
 Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, ESPN, Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots, New York Giants, NFL Tuesday, August 28, 2007All Vick...All The TimeLast night I was watching Michael Vick coverage because I am very interested in what 7,000 different & random people think about it. So it was nice to hear some newspaper writer from Atlanta, who by her own admission doesn't like football and doesn't follow the Falcons or Vick, tell me her deepest feelings about the whole situation. It was good to hear her opinion of the impact Vick's (who, I repeat, she doesn't pay attention to) legal troubles are having on her city. It was nice to hear Chris Mortensen report 55 times about what is happening with the case RIGHT NOW. It was nice to see Suze Kolber. (no seriously, I like her. Like Joe Namath said.) It was nice to see the game crew interview the "ESPN legal analyst" for 3 segments...asking him the same questions over and over again. By the way...do you think Roger Cossack was mad he didn't get the face time? I bet he was. Isn't he supposed to be ESPN's resident legal expert? I can only assume his head exploded after being on every single ESPN show for the previous 10 hours. Otherwise, they would have flown him in, right? It was nice to see video of Vick apologizing to everyone in the world for what he did. It was especially nice to see it multiple times. Although it seemed to me that he was more sorry that he got caught. He wasn't so apologetic when he lied to the NFL, the Falcons, and the Police and plead not guilty. But NOW he is sorry. Of course he is. He is trying to avoid jail time. Now is the exactly perfect time to "be sorry". It was nice to hear that now it is just time to move and and the rehabilitation of Michael Vick can begin. Ummm...why? Hasn't the bad stuff just started for him? He still has to go through sentencing. oh yeah...AND PRISON. HE HAS TO GO TO PRISON FOR AT LEAST 1 YEAR!!!! How can it be time for everyone to move on...it literally JUST HAPPENED. LESS THAN 24 HOURS AGO!!!! But here's the thing that bothered me about last night. I'm sitting there trying to enjoy some Michael Vick analysis, minding my own business. And every once in a while they would start talking about the football game that was being played on the field in front of them! Ridiculous! I didn't turn on Monday Night Football to watch and hear about football!! I turned on Monday Night Football to watch and hear about Michael Vick. All I have to say is that if I turn on football again this week and they are talking about the game instead of Michael Vick...I might kick my dog. (just kidding...I'm not going to kick my dog. Put down the phone...leave PETA out of this) Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: ESPN, Michael Vick Tuesday, August 21, 2007More ESPN InanityESPN had an all out attack today on Fantasy Football. ESPN.com made it the headline story along with a number of side stories from the past week. Who should you draft first? Who is a sleeper? Who is a dud? Should Larry Johnson be drafted above Stephen Jackson? SOOO MANY QUESTIONS!!! But here I am...preparing for my draft...I've got all the magazines, read all the articles and I'm ready for war. But something is missing...what is it? Oh...there it is. From 6:30-8, ESPN showed a LIVE Fantasy Draft. Chris Mortenson, Nick Backay, Cato June (?) and others participated in a live draft. It went just like any other fantasy draft would go...a bunch of friends getting together to make their picks and rag on each other. No problem there. Except these people aren't friends. This thing was so contrived and forced, I'm actually embarrassed I watched 5 minutes of it. I mean, in the end I am glad because now I have something to blog about...but still. There is nothing like watching Chris Mortenson try to playfully insult Nick Backay (a comedian/writer). hmmm...actually now that I re-read that sentence I was probably using hyperbole a bit. Actually that happens a lot...every time some nerd loser gets paid to attempt to playfully insult someone else. Now...to be fair...I like fantasy football. I play it every year. I have fun with it. But what drives me crazy is that it becomes the only thing people talk about. Here is a typical conversation on Mondays: Fantasy Footballer: Oh man!! Did you see how many points LT put up! It was awesome! Me: Please don't talk about your fantasy football team. No one actually cares about anyone else's team FF: And then...right before the games started I decided to switch out Dallas' Defense for Kansas City's Defense. I don't even know why I did. I just had that feeling...you know? And then KC put up a shut out with 2 TD's and 4 INT's!!!11!!!!!11a! Me: I hate you Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: ESPN, Fantasy Football, NFL Sunday, July 22, 2007Yea for Soccer!!!!Christ has returned to Earth...and his name is David Beckham!!! Or that's what the announcers on the ESPN telecast tonight would have us believe. I decided to watch the game tonight to see Beckham play. I don't like soccer, I think it's boring. But I have always liked David Beckham for some reason. Probably because he is pretty attractive. Although it is always weird when he starts talking because he sounds like some pansy British guy...which I suppose he is. Anyway, he only played for 15 minutes because he is injured, but ESPN doesn't care! That showed his reactions to everything. They kept telling us how much he was into the match. Of course he was! He is a professional athlete! He cares who wins! They (almost) all do! But the best part was when Beckham finally game onto the field...er, pitch...whatever. The announcer said something along the lines of: This is a moment you will tell your grand kids about!! You will be able to tell them where you were when David Beckham debutedUmmm...no one is going to care by Thursday. David Beckham cannot "save" soccer in America. We just don't like it. There is nothing wrong with that...we just don't. As it ends up...they don't really like American Football in Brazil. That's OK with me. No problem at all. There were a couple examples tonight of why we don't like soccer. First, people kept flopping like they got cut down by a snipers bullet when they got touched. Americans don't like wimps. If you get seriously hurt...go down. Otherwise, don't flop you jerk. Second, one of the announcers kept talking about how "unlucky" the Galaxy were. A player would pass the ball to the other team and he would say, "ooo...that was unlucky". NO. It wasn't unlucky. It was a bad pass. Don't make excuses. When the Reds bullpen gives up 8 runs in the 8th inning I don't talk about how "unlucky" they are. They are just terrible. blah...even the soccer announcers makes me mad. Third, nothing ever happens. They just run back and forth not scoring goals. Hey, if we won't watch hockey, where at least they fight and bleed and stuff, because nothing ever happens...we certainly aren't going to watch a bunch of crybabies run in circles. Anyway...I am very excited to follow Beckham in his attempt to save soccer. I suspect it will fail miserably, but it should be interesting to see. My prediction is that he will go back to England in 5 years grumbling about how Americans hate soccer. Check back in 5 years to see if my prediction was correct. Labels: David Beckham, ESPN, Soccer Friday, June 29, 2007Dick VitaleLast night I was watching the NBA Draft and Dick Vitale came on the screen to scream some analysis. Mikah was sitting next to me on the couch, NOT watching the draft. She heard Vitale and made a terrible face. She said, "Who is that terrible man?!? What is wrong with his voice?" So apparently Dick Vitale causes people to stop what they are doing to listen to him...I suspect he likes this. On the other hand, everyone who stops to listen immediately hates him...I suspect he does not like this. But I guess we already knew he was loud and annoying. Labels: Dick Vitale, ESPN, Mikah, NBA Monday, April 9, 2007WWJRD?What would Jackie Robinson Do? What would Jackie Robinson say? ESPN.com columnist John Helyar thinks he knows. I should warn you before you read that column though: it is filled with a bunch of Nantz-like drivel...sprinkled liberally with a bunch if ignorant, racist commentary. Cover your children's eyes. Now that we have that out of the way...the article says that Jackie Robinson would be furious with the fact that there are so few black baseball players. In a chart he notes every black player, which totals up to 68 out of 750 players. That is 9.1%. The black population in America is about 12%. {editors note - this chart has since been removed. It refuted his point, so he probably took it down.} That's pretty close considering the tiny sample size of the MLB. He does not go on to list all the Latin, Korean, or Japanese players. My guess is the percentage of Asian players compared to the general population is lower too. Should we write long boring columns about that too? Maybe we should limit the number of Hispanic players so we can fill quotas from other races. We could squeeze some more Blacks and Asians in there. Then I could write a long boring column about the company that I work for. They probably have about 10% black employment. RACISTS!!!!!!! Or how about we do this...let's find the best 750 baseball players in the world and let them join the league. We will ignore their race and color and just judge them on baseball ability (as well as we can). Then we'll count out the percentages and see where they are. Wait...it looks like we did that. It looks like about 9.1% of the league at this time would be black. It also looks like the majority of the league is Hispanic. OK...let's just move on to other sports. First basketball. ooooo...no let's just skip basketball...that won't help prove our point at all. How about football. Yikes, that's not going to help either. We could just limit our scope to quarterbacks, I suupose. No wait, I've got it. Hockey! HOCKEY IS RACIST. EVEN AFTER THEY LET THOSE THREE BLACK DUDES PLAY. PLUS TWO OF THEM ARE CANADIAN SO THEY DON'T EVEN COUNT. HOCKEY IS RACIST!!!!! See...now I have the same amount of journalistic integrity and quality as the idiot who wrote this piece. I forgot his name already. And that shows how little journalistic integrity I have! As for Jackie Robinson, he is a great guy and I would legitimately place him in the "hero" category. I also believe Jackie Robinson would say that he is very pleased with the current make of up Major League Baseball. He would be happy that so many different races are represented on the field. I don't think he would pout around about there only being a 9.1% black population. But I don't think Robinson was racist or ignorant or an idiot. So maybe this clown writer shouldn't try to speak for Robinson. Labels: Baseball, ESPN, Jackie Robinson, racism Friday, March 9, 2007Josh Hamilton - ESPNToday there were two columns written about Josh Hamilton and the Reds. Josh Hamilton, for those who don't know, is a baseball player who has been out of the league for 3 years because of a bad drug addiction. The Reds picked him up in the Rule 5 Draft in the off-season. The first column was written by ESPN.com baseball columnist Jayson Stark. It is your classic feel good story. Man is on top of the world, man falls off the edge, man hits rock bottom and realizes he has to turn his life around, man turns his life around. The story talks about his support group and how he made it out from addiction. Impressive. By the way - I am not being sarcastic...there are plenty of people who do not make it out from addiction. Every single one of those stories is a heartbreaker, no matter the circumstances. In this case, we should applaud and root for Josh Hamilton that he continues to turn his life around. We should also applaud that he is willing to talk about the mistakes he has made. He meets with kids and tells them not to do what he did, which is laudable. Now...on the baseball side the story also comments on how well he is playing this spring. I have not had the chance to see any games, but from what I have read he is really lighting it up...apparently he hit a 500 foot homer the other day. {side note - I once hit a ball over 600 feet in one of those virtual video games at Dave & Buster's. I'd like to see Hamilton do that} It's exciting. I hope he makes the team. And that brings us to the second column, written by former Mets GM and ESPN baseball analyst Steve Phillips. In this column, Phillips congratulates Hamilton for what he is doing...and then proceeds to call out the Reds for potentially putting Hamilton on the roster. Phillips writes: The decision to acquire Hamilton and give him a chance to be a major league player without doing anything to earn it over the past four seasons makes a statement to current Reds major leaguers and especially to the organization's minor league players. This one decision contradicts everything the organization claims is important.To me it sends the signal to the players (and the fans) that they are willing to take a small risk to vastly improve the ball club and win. The reason it is a small risk is because if Hamilton doesn't work out, they can just send him back to Tampa Bay with $50,000. Small price to find someone who could potentially be a superstar. Later Phillips writes: They are told to work hard, stay committed to their careers, make good decisions, be professional, be a good teammate, etc.Isn't this what Hamilton is doing? Yes, he made some bad decisions previously. But isn't he working hard now? Isn't he making good decisions now? From what I hear he is a fine teammate. I just don't understand why you would hang someone forever for some bad decisions. I think Phillips needs to get off his pedestal and check out the view from where normal people live. I do agree with him that Hamilton would not be getting this kind of treatment if he wasn't a 5 tool outfielder. But just because people get unfairly treated poorly, does that mean everyone should get the same bad treatment? That's bad logic. Plus, this isn't a fair world anyway. Different people get different treatment based on their circumstances. Maybe it shouldn't be that way...but it is. If the Reds gave Hamilton back to the D-Rays, it would be a terrible baseball decision. No matter what the "message" is to other minor leaguers. To me, this risk says the Reds might actually be serious about winning. Between this move, signing the top two starters, and Adam Dunn's potential resurgance...I am actually excited for the Reds winning chances this year. Especially in what looks to be a weak NL Central. So kudos to Jayson Stark for his puff piece on Hamilton...at least it made sense. Boo to Steve Phillips for his arrogant rebuttal to Stark. Labels: Baseball, Cincinnati Reds, ESPN, Josh Hamilton
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