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Showing posts with the label Sports

NASCAR at the LA Coliseum?

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An oval novelty The old Roman Colosseum had chariot races and now this newer coliseum will have our version. The Los Angeles Coliseum has been around for almost one hundred years. They have staged many events there. Spectacles of all sorts, including the spectators making spectacles of themselves spectacularly. The Rams once were primary residents. The Raiders planted their flag on its field. Their fans have rumbled there. USC football calls it home. There have been 2 Olympics put on. The Los Angeles Dodgers called it home before they built their stadium in Chavez Ravine. It has hosted concerts and events of all types over the years. But the idea of stock cars roaring around a small oval track is a real head scratcher. How fast are they going to go? Faster than on the 405, that’s for sure, but for racing fans, it might seem like a lazy Sunday drive with the family. Bootleggers found NASCAR after prohibition. Junior Johnson tearing up the woods of Carolina, this ain’t. It’ll be like war

Pug

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Pursuing the life of a pug. A boxer. The smell of sweat and deprivation matched the humidity and heat from the lights. There had to be a better way of making a living. That time has passed. Once the taste was acquired, it was all over. I could smell the leather before it hit me. The twist of the hide tore at the flesh, leaving it raw only to be hit again. My arms ache after weeks of repetition and work. The effort that lasted until there was nothing left, only to push it further. The dull feeling of energy quickly dissipating made the body wish it had not consumed so much fast food hidden against orders. The time that should’ve been used to do more roadwork, as the endurance and lung capacity are now being felt at maximum capacity.  A flash of bright light makes me realize I need to bob and weave and move my head as another flash, while I think, tells me to hurry. My calves scream, but my thighs and back are moving perfectly in unison.  A spray of blood surprises me but then makes me

Tyson Fury Needs The Fight

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EMBRACE THE STRUGGLE Focus on motivation While scrolling through YouTube videos, I ran across a snippet of Richard Nixon answering a question during an interview and it reminded me of Tyson Fury. It sounds a bit convoluted but stay with me here. The former president was talking about how life needs a purpose. All the people that he knew from swanky parts of the world spent their time drinking too much, talking too much, and thinking too little. People that were millionaires and spent their time hunting or fishing or golfing or traveling didn’t know life. What makes life worth living is purpose. A goal, a fight, the battle, even if you don’t win. Tyson Fury needs the fight. He needs to train. Tyson Fury needs the distraction because left to his own devices, he spins into the darkness of depression. As the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world, Fury has scaled the heights of his chosen profession. He worked his way up from being an Irish Traveler repaving streets with his father,

Just Kyrie Being Kyrie

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  Iconoclastic Irving I bet you thought it couldn’t get weirder What the hell is up with Kyrie Irving ? His recent posts and statements with anti-Semitic overtones are way out of line. Irving’s refusal to consider an apology shows a lack of empathy for humanity. One thing is clear, he’s not boring. If you write about sports, there won’t be a few weeks that go by that he’s not generating a story somehow or some way. Is he just putting us all on, or is there some kind of psychological misfire that’s happening? Irving, who plays point guard for the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets , is a superiorly talented player. He can do things on the floor with the ball in his hands that other players wish they could do. Kyrie has also was traded multiple times and is also a bit of a coach killer. He’s played for nine different coaches in his twelve year career. His current team, the Brooklyn Nets troika of talent comprising Irving, Kevin Durant , and Ben Simmons should be favorites to win the leagues Eastern

Lakers Have To Move Russell Westbrook

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  When the Los Angeles Lakers acquired Russell Westbrook a year ago, I was hoping for the best. Westbrook is a singular talent. He’s a type that excels at aspects of offence all himself. A player that handles the ball up and down the court. Westbrook averages what the league statisticians call a triple-double. He averages double figures in points, assists and rebounds. The dominant player that can be a one-man team. If he was in show business, he’d be the writer, director and star of his own production. The Lakers won a championship in 2020. They were beating the eventual Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns in the playoffs when disaster struck. Their superstar duo, LeBron James and Anthony Davis, went down injured and they lost the series and their season was over. James isn’t getting any younger, so the Lakers went out and got another future hall-of-famer to give James a break. The three NBA greats got together and agreed to change their way of playing to fit into a system that

"Holy Shit! I'm Kevin Durant!"

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My feet are cold. I tried to pull them back under the covers. But, no matter how much I try, I can’t get them covered. This is weird. The sun is up and glaring through the windows, so I throw the sheets back and twist myself to put my feet on the floor. As my eyes adjust, my knees are eye level. “What the hell is going on?” I stand up and look down. The bed looks like a postage stamp. My dog usually gets up at the same time. He’s awake, but instead of smiling and wagging his tail, he cocked his ears up and he’s looking at me sideways like the RCA dog. Still disoriented, I head to the bathroom and forget to duck until the last second. Did the house shrink? I enter the bathroom and look in the mirror. “Holy shit! I’m Kevin Durant !” I stand up straight to look at myself in the mirror. I’m so tall all I can see is my torso. I put my arms out and flex and realize I am now an adonis! Cool! What to do? Imagining the possibilities is sensory overload. First things first. I have to find someth

Just Rickey Henderson Being Rickey

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Rickey Henderson is the greatest base stealing artist of all-time. Nobody is close and nobody will ever challenge Rickey. When it comes to baseball, Rickey is like Madonna or Elvis or Ali. He’s known by one name. Rickey’s last name is superfluous. Just Google the name Rickey. It will auto fill his last name automatically. There is no more meaningful justification today than that. In baseball, the most meaningful act is to score runs.  Rickey has accomplished the baseball equivalent of the prime directive more than any player in history. It’s another of Rickey’s records that will be unchallenged. Rickey is Major League Baseball’s greatest leadoff hitter. It’s a position that is traditionally meant for a speedster with a premier ability to get on base. Rickey had an eye for the strike zone like an owl has an eye for prey. In 24 seasons, Rickey got on-base over 40% of the time. Rickey wasn’t just a base stealer and on-base machine. Rickey hit almost 300 home runs in Rickey’s career. 81

Eck And Gibby

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Mike Davis took ball four from Dennis Eckersley and made his way to first. Eck got the first two batters out easily. Walking Davis was an uncharacteristic move, but they were teammates the year before with the Athletics and Davis had a good year with 24 home runs. Tony La Russa, the manager of the A’s, decided whoever the Los Angeles Dodgers had on the bench was less dangerous. I was in the cheap seats. The upper of the upper deck on the third base side. We jammed the place. We were all standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder. It seemed like we were all breathing together synchronistically. When Davis walked, we all knew he was the potential tying run and we simultaneously let out a roar. Now the question was, who was going to pinch hit? Mike Davis had pinch hit for the light hitting shortstop, Alfredo Griffin, in the 8th hole. The pitcher’s number 9 slot in the batting order was due next. Kirk Gibson was the Dodgers’ most valuable player in 1988. He had come over to the club that

Son, Meet Baseball

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Son, meet baseball . My old friend.  I was thinking back to the favorite sports conversation we had a few days ago, and I thought that spelling out my love for baseball would help you understand more than just telling it. When I was 8 years old, my grandfather called me into the house where he was watching a game. He sat me down and said, ‘I want you to watch this next hitter. His name is Willie Mays. He’s the greatest player I ever saw. I want you to tell your children that you saw him play.’ That was the beginning of my romance with baseball.  Baseball is unlike other sports for my generation because baseball is truly generational. My father took me to my first baseball game, just like his father took him.  I had the pleasure of attending a game with them both, which gave us a commonality, something of a reference that led to bonding unlike anything else. It was a shared experience that we could relate to.  I played baseball with my friends. The game would take place in an abandoned

NFL Playoffs: Kickers Rule

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So far in the NFL Playoffs the kickers have been displaying pivotal domination.  They’re usually forgotten and disrespected. But, this year, they’ve been the ones left in the lonely high pressure spotlight.  If you look at their stats and how many points they score, you’d think they must be 6’9” and weigh 255 lbs and run like a sprinter.  In reality they might be 5’11” and weigh around 180.  Kickers never catch or even fall on a football. They only touch a football to put in on a tee. A kicker gets to wear a uniform so that a referee doesn’t think a fan ran out onto the field.  A kicker never has to hit the weight room if he doesn't want to. He doesn’t even have to wear pads. A kicker is the only guy on the team that hopes someone runs into him. That way he gets another chance to score if he misses.  You know how some guys watch their diets and wear out exercise bicycles? Kickers could eat pizza and drink beer all day as long as he splits the uprights. Nobody cares how fast he can

NFL Wild Card Weekend

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This NFL Wild Card weekend was great if you’re a football fan. I mean the NFL, and not the international game where they don’t wear pads and where the players don’t automatically collapse in a heap when someone exhales on them. Even in these days of COVID, it takes a few days before exhaling on someone results in them collapsing.  There were five games this weekend and that was enough. There is one tonight on Monday, and that is the game I’m looking forward to the most because the team that I root for, the Los Angeles Rams, are playing the Arizona Cardinals.  The Cardinals are the oldest franchise in the National Football League, having been the first team to join in 1922. They were in Chicago then, and because they don’t win very often, they were kicked from city to city until they ended up in the desert.  That said, the NFL games played this weekend ranged from entertaining to almost unwatchable.  First up was the Las Vegas Raiders against the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals hadn’t w

NFL Receiver Divas

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NFL receiver divas treat Sunday like an unruly child in church. NFL receiver divas are ultra competitive and feel that all passes should go to them. When I’m playing Madden football , I always feel I need to throw to the number one wide receiver at least five times per game.That’s what they demand. As a quarterback, you’ve got to feed the number one receiver even if you have to force the pass into tight windows.  Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford fell for it recently. Last Sunday against the Ravens, Stafford threw a deep pass to Odell Beckham Jr. when he had two other receivers open underneath. By the time the bomb got to Beckham, there were three defenders on OBJ. A check-down pass would’ve gotten an easy first down. Instead, the Ravens got the ball and ultimately scored.  This is the thing with wide receivers. They are supremely confident in their abilities. It's an isolated position. They excel by getting the offensive coordinator to tell the quarterback to throw them the bal

The Transcendent Shohei Ohtani

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When Shohei Ohtani chose the Los Angeles Angels, it was like the baseball gods finally gave the ball club's fans a break. Not since the Angels lost out on Mark Teixeira and got the rights to draft Mike Trout as fortune shone on Angel Stadium.  Drafting Trout was a fluke of the rules. Shohei Ohtani choosing the Angels was a miracle. He did it because the club told him he could pitch and be a position player. That ruled out National League teams. Ohtani wanted to be a Dodger. But they weren’t prepared to let him do it.  In his first season, Shohei Ohtani became the first Major League Baseball player to make 10 starts as a pitcher and hit 20 home runs as a position player since Babe Ruth accomplished the feat in 1919. The Babe was not a two-way baseball player after that. His diet didn’t allow it. Shohei Ohtani was just getting started.  He has always been a meticulous conditioning zealot. As a youth in his native Japan, Ohtani became relentless and worked out hard. When drafted

NFL: The Arizona Cardinals Are For Real

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For the first time since 1947, the NFL Cardinals franchise has an actual chance to win the league championship. To say it has been a long time is an understatement. Jackie Robinson was a rookie for the Brooklyn Dodgers the last time the Cardinals won a title. It was so long ago, the team was in Chicago. They were the Chicago Cardinals! That comes as a shock to most Chicago Bears . Joe Louis was heavyweight champion of the world. A horse named Jet Pilot won the Kentucky Derby. That sounds like a fast horse. Israel wasn't a country yet. The Cardinals made a Super Bowl in 2009. The club was lead by Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald. They almost won, but were beat by the Pittsburgh Steelers on a last minute impossible pass by Ben Roethlisberger to Santonio Holmes for an equally impossible catch. Warner had one last chance but his luck finally ran out. Being out of luck is a normal state of being for the Cardinals. The team is actually the first professional American football team. T

MLB Playoffs: The Legend of Eddie Rosario

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They’re the surprise team of the 2021 MLB Playoffs.  The Atlanta Braves are not supposed to be where they are. They only had a two percent chance to represent the National League in the 2021 World Series. They didn’t have a winning record until August 6th.  If it wasn’t for a spike in early season revenues, the Braves wouldn’t have made the MLB Playoffs .  Atlanta Braves fans purchased tickets in a frenzy that overrode expectations. Because of that, Braves ownership gave their general manager the green light to spend the extra revenue . Like a man that got an unexpected bonus check, he set out to do just that.  After the knee injury to All-Star outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr., Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos sprang into action.  In four hours before the July 30th trade deadline, Anthopoulos remade his outfield and added depth to his bench.  One player they gained was Eddie Rosario. Rosario had an abdominal strain, but might return in September. He is an outfielder by trade. He hits

Major League Baseball to Provide for Minor League Players

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For the first time in Major League Baseball history, teams must provide housing for minor league players.  A majority of baseball players signed to contracts do not get bonuses. They’re players that have just enough talent to be recognized. Teams sign many right out of high school.  Those players have had to subsist on roughly $15,000 a year that Major League Baseball pays them. They’ve had to hustle and grind for day-to-day living expenses.  Many have to work side gigs outside of the game. In the offseason, they have to pay more attention to staying financially afloat. Players have to stay in shape and find proper nutrition. Minor league baseball players usually have to scrape by on junk food and sleep on an air mattress.  If the players are nursing injuries, it’s up to them to rehabilitate the damage. Most players have no access to healthcare when they can barely pay rent. Speaking of rent, players have to share living accommodations. A recent ESPN article told the stories of playe

MLB Playoffs Wildcard Games Have Been Nirvana

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The crisp October air can represent a lot of things, but it’s the best time of year for a baseball fan. The MLB Playoffs have started. This week has been Nirvana. The fans are rapturous. Ballparks are full. Every pitch, every at bat has consequences. It all began with the MLB Playoffs Wildcard games. The defending World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers were favorites to win the NL West Division. They lost to the upstart San Francisco Giants who were not supposed to be contenders. The Dodgers were playing against the St. Louis Cardinals . The Cardinals were an afterthought until they went on a seventeen game winning streak. They overtook the Cincinnati Reds for the 2nd wildcard spot to close the season. Dodger bats went quiet during the first half of the game as the Cardinals clung to a one run lead. Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner tied the contest with a home run in the fourth inning. Then it was up to the bullpens. The game stayed tied until the bottom of the 9th. St. Louis r

Tom Brady Wins Again

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He’s as predictable as the tides. Tom Brady is like the sun coming up in the east. He is the football equivalent of death and taxes. Father Time has nothing on him. Brady is like Wyatt Earp in a gunfight. He always wins. Sometimes Tom Brady momentarily falters. Like a car that needs a tune-up. You’ll be sitting at a traffic light and it idles rough. It's not enough to trade the car in, but it makes you realize some adjustments need to be made.  After routine maintenance is done, it’s back to high performance and ruling the road again. In that respect, Brady is like a machine. He had a couple of hiccups. There were two times that the human Eli Manning of the New York Giants somehow made Brady miscalculate. Something about the New York Giants’ defense disrupted Brady’s internal operating code. It didn’t compute. Brady was like a droid in a Sci-Fi movie that suddenly realized it had fallibility. He short-circuited. Then Brady's club got a tune-up. His team, the New Englan