Feel Good Hit of the Summer

Baseball season over, sort of. Woot.

For the first time in years, I'm legitimately satisfied with the teams that ended up making the playoffs. The only team I'll be rooting against this year is the Red Sox, for obvious reasons. If the White Sox make it, I might prefer they lose. I could do analysis of the playoffs but no one gives a shit. What a poop sport. Anyway, here's the ideal matchups in the World Series for me:

1. Chicago Cubs vs. Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays

Why: You root for both of these teams unless you're a douchebag. Win-win for baseball fans.

2. Philadelphia Phillies vs. Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays

Why: Best offensive World Series ever? Maybe, but at least it wouldn't be boring.

3. Milwaukee Brewers vs. Minnesota Twins

Why: No one not bordering Canada would watch this series. Baseball would look like a joke sport and have a forgettable "Classic". Bud Selig gets killed by a foul ball. Also, this would be a huge FUCK YOU to the big market teams.

4. Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

Why: Besides being a good matchup, it would have lots of promotional power and happen late at night so I'd never have to watch it.

5. Chicago Cubs vs. Chicago White Sox

Why: I needed filler. Might be fun, but we'd be bored of Chicago references in seconds.

Honorable Mention: Red Sox vs. Anyone who beats them in 7 games

Why: Red Sox go up 3-0, pull biggest choke job ever. Tell me that wouldn't be fantastic.

In other news, Ravens will win the AFC North. You heard it here first. I'd rant about the retarded 4th and inches the Steelers took a FG on (ended up almost winning the game for the Ravens), but Blood Sugar Sex Magik came out on Rock Band and is fucking sweet. I'm out.

- Matt

Favre = Joke. Bolts Win!

Late recap, whatever. I'm glad I didn't have to listen to any of it, I was at water polo practice and watching the game when I could.

Got to the pool at 9 PM. Score is 0-0. ESPN should not be allowed to advertise a game starting at 8:30 if I arrive half an hour late and there's still 12:00 minutes left in the first quarter.

Barf City. Rivers gets pick-sixed by your mother. 7-0 Jets.

I come back at 7-3 with the Bolts at the goal line. Rivers makes the D look like a woman with an easy TD pass to the side.

Switch sides. Favre aka Football Jesus decides Cromartie is on his team now and gifts a pick six to the Bolts. Apparently he misses receivers who can actually hold onto a thrown football. 17-7 Bolts.

I miss a monster kick return and Favre throwing a touchdown. John Madden touches himself. 17-14 Bolts.

The Jets think they're playing the Patriots still. Chambers burns everyone and catches an easy pass for the touchdown and slam dunks it over the goal post while still running. Metal. 24-14 Chargers.

I miss another Favre pick and Rivers throwing a TD on the Chad Pennington Play (TM). 31-14 Bolts.

Halftime. If I could hear, I'm sure I'd have some choice dumbass quotes from the ESPN jokes. Actually, I like it better this way.

3rd quarter, LT causes fantasy owners to breathe a sigh of relief. How gay did that sentence sound? 38-14 Chargers and the game is now a date rape:

Mangini is spotted making drunk calls to Belichick, begging to come back to a team with actual talent.

Favre gets lucky, throws a TD. He also misses the 2 point conversion by getting sacked. 38-20 Bolts.

For some reason, the Jets kick a field goal. Congrats, you're still very far behind. Morons. 38-23 Bolts.

Rivers unloads a ridiculous pass that ends up almost being a career-best 4th TD. LT acts like the Jets are the Broncos of 2 years ago and plows into the end zone. 45-23 Bolts.

I stop caring for a while, then check back with a few minutes left. Score is 48-29 Chargers, and that's the way it stays. Game, Bolts. Season, Jets.

Post-game notes: ESPN needs better announcers. Or at least ones who don't forget they're douchebags.

What a surprise. The Jets still suck. Brady getting injured doesn't make you a better team. How did they beat the Dolphins again?

The Chargers are still the AFC West favorites. They have a home game vs the Broncos and two of the "first place" teams on the sked (New England, Indy) look awful this year. KC is a butt, and OAK came down to earth against the Bills. Hell, make the Chargers the AFC faves now the Steelers have been exposed.

I went 12-4 ATS this week. Woot.

Oh, and big HAH to the Yankees for missing the playoffs. Welcome to the club, bitches.

- Matt

Intoxicated With Madness

So yeah. You'd expect me to be pretty mad about sports right now. Chargers got reamed by a call the ref himself said was terrible, Orioles clinched losing season #11, and the Penguins STILL aren't playing yet. But frankly, life rocks too much right now to really care. So I guess it's down to some minor observations about the two major sports going on right now:

1. The Ravens should be considered a legitimate dark horse for the AFC North. Did anyone see how terrible both the Steelers and Browns looked last night? I know there was wind, but neither offense seemed to click, and the defenses looked stupid (see: Polamalu knocking a tipped pass into a Browns player's hands).  I know the Ravens played only the horrible war crime known as the Bengals, and they have 15 straight weeks of football ahead, but they could win the division at 10-6 easy, and 9-7 maybe. Not out of the question.

2. The Chargers' loss is a lot less disheartening this week. Don't feel like going into detail, but this is the best I've ever felt about an 0-2 team. They play the Jets, Raiders, then Dolphins. If they aren't 3-2 by the end of that stretch, I'll be surprised.

3. The Penguins' prospects have been destroying other teams. This bodes well for the regular season, as injuries (see: Ryan Whitney) happen all the time. I have high expectations, since the East is less than competitive.

4. The Pensblog is making posts again! Also, they disabled comments so a lot of the douchebags can't be stupid anymore. Hooray!

5. Speaking of the Pensblog, they have a video of the 82-0 thrashing by the Slovakian "women" against Bulgaria. It's actually painful to watch, everyone is just awful in it. If you told me the oldest player was 5, it would make more sense.

6. No one still cares about baseball. And I found out yesterday that the MLS season has in fact been going on for a long time. I'm sure Will can make a post soon, I don't actually feel like looking any news up on it.

7. Also, in soccer in the Congo, a riot erupted because the goalie started using witchcraft. Wow.

Next week the Chargers play on national television. If I'm not at water polo I can do a real recap of it.

- Matt

Twilight Zone of Sports

Last night, not a single sports team I care about played. I think the point in September between Sundays is honestly the most devastatingly boring time to be a sports fan, even if you like baseball. College football is decent, but there's a glaring lack of the interesting storylines that dominated last season. Maryland upsetting Cal was pretty cool though. Brilliant play at the end by the MD guy, who knocked the onside kick out of bounds rather than letting Cal get to it.

Pens tickets on sale in one week from today. I'm thinking home game vs. the Sharks is one I want, possibly a Flyers, Rangers, and Capitals game.

Guys at home (OK, just Will): I strongly recommend you all come up to Pittsburgh during however much vacation time you're giving yourselves during Xmas season. I'm taking just about 2 weeks, so I'll be home for it. I'd love to grab tickets against some losers like the Panthers (who no one will buy tickets to) and have you experience a game in the Igloo.

Lastly, I'm not feeling good at all about this Chargers game on Sunday. It's akin to the slow gut punching I expected to receive when the Pens played Detroit in game 1 of the SCF. Hopefully they can pull it off, that would be huge now that Merriman's out.

Go Pens/O's/Bolts (in that order)

- Matt

Aquatics

I'll be honest, I don't really feel like talking about the Orioles or Chargers right now. Both situations are depressing at the moment, and I'm hoping the Chargers can beat the Broncos in Denver. The Penguins don't have much happening right now, so on to other stuff.

Anyway, I made my collegiate coaching debut last night. While the result was less than desirable and only half our starters showed up for the scrimmage, I think it went pretty well. At any rate, I learned a lot from the experience and-

Fuck it, here's a random video.

- Matt

Two Quick Rants

First, football analysts are retarded. If I hear one more person say "[player name] is [same player name]", such as Brett Favre is Brett Favre, I'm going to snap. No way, a player is himself? I could have asked a dog for such insight. Also, the dog would be less offensive to my senses. And please, limit the amount of pregame announcers. Wait, does anyone still watch pregame shows anymore?

Second, I have shifted from indifferent to unfavorable about the Steelers. My favorite radio station, which used to play a lot of good classic rock and that one Metallica song, is now basically Steelers Talk radio. If I wanted to know the third-string linebacker's opinion of how the defensive line did ("good", apparently), I'd... actually, I'd never want to know that. Please, Pittsburgh. There's a fine line between loving the Steelers and stalking them, and you crossed it long ago.

At least the X will begin playing Penguins news (in moderation, gasp) in a week. It'll keep them from playing Longview by Green Day 4 times a day at any rate.

Finally, that new Windows commercial with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates is, without hyperbole, the worst commercial I've ever seen. It's advertising the operating system, and focuses on wearing leather shoes. And it's not even funny enough to justify irrelevance.

Sports, right. Um, go Pens.

- Matt

VOMIT

Wow... that was a sucker punch and a half. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you obviously don't follow football. Full recap of the game tomorrow if I don't kill myself.

However, congrats to Ryan and Flacco to winning their NFL debuts. With actual supporting casts, they could be in the top 10 of QBs in the league. Granted, seeing the competition is enough to say anyone deserves such an honor.

- Barf

Foosball Blog

Well, I was going to write something about big schools scheduling cupcake opponents, but Thomas Neumann at ESPN wrote this surprisingly good article doing a much better job than I could have done. Therefore, mini previews for the NFL games are in order.

Detroit at Atlanta: I think, and Will disagrees, that Atlanta has a very good shot at pulling off the upset. I believe not in Atlanta, but against Detroit. Atlanta seems ready to pretend last year never happened, but Detroit is hoping they can duplicate their fast start. Too much written about this, ugh.

Seattle at Buffalo: If it were November or later, I'd say Buffalo would win. And Seattle is usually better than it's given credit for.

Jets at Miami: Sure, everyone will be paying attention to this game. I'd love to see Miami pull off the upset, but realistically...

Kansas "City" at New England: Tempt me with a 16 point spread will you? Let's see, a team unchanged from last year (mostly) versus a terrible team mostly unchanged from last year... yeah, moving on.

Tampa Bay at New Orleans: I'm too classy to make a hurricane joke. I think the Bucs blow and the Saints have a gale force offense, powered by Drew Brees. With suspect defenses, there will be a storm of passing and a flood of running, breaking the levees of the defensive line. Did I forget to include a "not" in the first sentence?

St. Louis at Philthadelphia: Yawn. Eagles fans are annoying.

Houston at Pittsburgh: Consider this: Houston is 1-0 all time at Heinz Field. Might actually be an entertaining game, but just in case it sucks, wait until halftime to watch.

Jax at Tenn: Too lazy to type out two of the longest team location names. While it looks like a Jags blowout in the making, the TITans did surprise them last year. I'm already bored though.

Cincy at Baltimore: Joe "Af" Flacco (say it aloud) could be good. Or he could be bad. Those are pretty much the two options, but hearing someone say something along those lines in the commentary is pretty much a given. I still think the Ravens have a good chance of winning, and since I'm not a Ravens fan I don't fear jinxing them. Ravens 24-20.

Carolina at San Diego: As a Chargers fan, I refuse to jinx them.

AZ at SF: Too bad Leinart isn't playing. They could have made this season Real World: NFL Quarterback and interviewed him between downs talking shit about the other players, and also beer.

Dallas at Cleveland: At least one of these overrated teams will look stupid after this game.

Chicago at Indianapolis: When you think the Bears might win, you remember that despite an injury, Manning still plays like Manning, and the Bears will always suck when they have the ball.

Minnesota at Green Bay: Almost unfair to Aaron Rodgers. But I've had enough arrogance from fat fucks from Cheeseland to want to see the Packers get pummeled.

Denver at Oakland: Either a really bad football game or a really good KISS concert.

I am seriously Jonesing for some hockey. I might do something crazy soon.

- Matt

Palin Watch 1

Tonight Palin tried to pitch against some team, I don't know, the Pittsburgh Pirates let's say. Here is her stat line:

2 IP, 0 ER, 9 R, 14 H, 0 K, 4 BB, 104 pitches, 5 oddly named children

Notice that she had 0 earned runs. This is because Palin hasn't earned anything, much less the right to run as VP. What a crap.

Will and I are doing NFL picks. It's a party. You could be invited if you brought beers and girls.

- Matt

Brief Post

Yay, something to write about that's hockey-related.

Apparently according to The Hockey News, Meszaros got dealt to the Lightning. Now this wouldn't be unusual, except for a few things. First, Meszaros kind of sucks. And the Lightning paid a shit-ton for signing him. Rather, they tried to, which brings us to point two: he's an RFA. For those of you unfamiliar with that, it means that his team (Senators) have the right to sign him first, and anyone else trying needs to compensate them with draft picks. In this case, the first three rounds.

But (lastly), oops. Tampa traded its third round pick (among others) to the Penguins for exclusive signing rights to players the Pens were losing anyway. So now they have to ask the Penguins permission to get one back. Not surprisingly, Shero said no.

When you are a certain level of joke, or you're playing an NHL video game, you only sign forwards and then have to ask another team to overpay a shitty defenseman. In real life, this is called the Tampa Bay (South Pittsburgh) Lightning.