I love it when athletic humans work together and risk their health for my entertainment.
Yet, sports isn't atom splitting. Let a heart surgeon be serious, entertainment is fun.
So enjoy the discussions that keep you from your mundane existence that went horribly awry at some point.
It seems that many moves this NBA off-season aren't actually being made for the upcoming season, but for the leitmotif of the 2010 free-agent extravaganza when players like LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowtizki, and Dwyane Wade are set to become free-agents in some way or another.
Bryant isn't leaving L.A. and Dirk said publicly that he'd like to remain in Dallas. That means the spotlight is even brighter on James and Wade. We all know the deal with James, the New York Knicks have basically arranged to have what looks like the entire current roster to become free-agents next year so that the organization can make a run at LeBron James (and that will give New York playground ballers plenty of chances to dunk on him.) The Cavs countered by trading for Shaq in an attempt to prove to LeBron that he can win if he stays put.
Meanwhile, down in Miami, Dwyane Wade has announced that he'd better see a contender forming in Miami if he is to stay down in Florida. The Heat have taken him at his word and are now attempting to sign free-agent Lamar Odom and there are rumors that the Heat are attempting to trade for Utah inside scorer, Carlos Boozer. (Wow. Imagine Boozer going from Utah to South Beach. Do you think his head will explode from the change in culture?)
It remains to be seen if the Heat are successful in forming a good enough teamto suit Wade though the organization is trying. But a couple of events have happened recently that should make Heat fans just a tad skittish.
First of all, the Heat have quickly offered Wade a big extention (three years at over $20 million per year) which Wade says he's in no hurry to sign. That's a clear power play for Wade has he lets the organization twist in the cool ocean breeze while he goes about his business. That's not something a player does when he's happy to be somewhere.
Secondly, Wade just dumped Converse as his shoe representative despite having a three year contract left with the company. Wade went with shoe behemoth Nike on the Air-Jordan line. I know this has nothing to do with the Miami Heat, but it does show that:
A.) Wade isn't overly loyal to organizations and will leave if something better comes along and B.) Wade is already making big changes to his sports persona.
Could a location change be far away? The Heat seem to doing whatever they can to prevent that, but Wade is showing that he will do whatever he feels is best from him no matter what else is happening be it contracts or personell moves.
Now that training camps are approaching, the NFL has kicked it's speculative coverage into high gear. If you turn on the NFL Network in July, you will find a different countdown list seemingly every day where the show experts rank everything from current players, to past coaches, to stadium food.
Of course, I'm pretty sure the NFL Network had the same thing last year. Seriously, how could a list of the best stadiums have changed that much in a year? But people love rankings, so the NFL gets a different expert (see: former player) to grace us with their opinions.
One of the latest rankings is the best NFL fans. The esteemed fat-ass, Jamie Dukes (former journeyman offensive lineman), weighs in, literally, on what he thinks are the top five fan bases in the NFL. According to Dukes, he took into account jersey sales, home game sell outs, and support in visiting stadiums.
Before I give you this list, let me just say there is no quicker way to escalate an argument than to talk about who has the best fans since it is fans arguing about themselves. Seriously, ask a Yankees fan and a Red Sox fan to argue Joe DiMaggio vs Ted Williams and you'll get an argument. Ask the same guys which team has better fans and you might end up with a brawl.
Dukes lists the best fan bases in the NFL as follows:
5. New England Patriots 4. New York Giants 3. Dallas Cowboys 2. Green Bay Packers 1. Pittsburgh Steelers
I understand that no one is ever going to make a list of best fans that is dulcet to everyone, but I definitely have issues with Mr. Dukes list because he picked successful teams. How hard is it to have a rabid fan base for a good team? The Patriots had zero fans in visiting stadiums until eight years ago. What a coincidence!
Dukes mentions how many sellouts the Giants have as to why they are a top team. No kidding! And how many people either live in or are originally from New York? Giants fans are loyal, but several teams have sold out their stadium for years.
I don't even know where to start with Dallas being ranked number three. I grew up there; Dallas fans love their football, but they aren't a great group of fans. Back in 1989 when the Cowboys were terrible, you could play a giant game laser tag in the giant empty sections of that stadium. High schools were drawing more crowds to the games. Troy Aikman said it best when he declared "Dallas isn't a football town, it's a winners town." That just about sums it up. I know Dallas fans travel well, but that's because of the giant legion of fans that grew up watching the team win in the 1970's. Any city that didn't have a franchise back then (Carolina, Phoenix, Jacksonville, etc.) generally has a group of people that grew up rooting for the Cowboys. Because they were good.
The same with Pittsburgh. I know Steelers fans will want you to think that they've been waving those terrible towles forever, but I don't recall hearing or reading much of anything about the greatness of being a Steelers fan before 1972 or so. Don't get me wrong, Pittsburgh fans travel well, they show up early and stay late for ball games. It's just not that hard to support what is probably the best organization in the NFL.
With that in mind, I have two teams from the heartland ranked as the top two fan bases in the NFL, one from the NFC and one from the AFC.
One is the Green Bay Packer fans. Mr. Dukes got that one right. I've been told multiple times that I need to see a game at Lambeau Field before I die. Well, if I sign up for season tickets today, I MIGHT get there before I die. Like the Giants, the Packers have an unbelievable waiting period to get tickets and I'm pretty sure the New York subway has more people in it than Green Bay.
You might be tired of the cheeseheads, the nasal Wisconsin accents, and the constant chorus of "Frozen Tundra" references, but Packers fans take it all the way. They have nothing else.
The other top fans live in Kansas City. I have heard nothing but superlatives about the atmosphere at Arrowhead Stadium. You can't play the "only support a winner" card because the Chiefs have basically been terrible since the early 1970's. True, Marty Schottenheimer built a solid squad and the Chiefs were a high flying offense under Dick Vermeil, but those seasons always ended in heartache. Yet you never hear Chiefs fans taking the "we've been cursed" approach offered up by Cleveland Browns fans.
There are the Chiefs fans tailgating before every game, going bonkers for their team and offering unwavering support during the lean periods that seem to last eight years at a time. If this team ever builds a dynasty, watch out.
Those are my two picks as top fan bases in the NFL. They may lack the creative insults of the northeast fans, the national following that the Steelers and Cowboys have, or the moneybags owner like the Redskins. These fans just leave and breath for their football teams no matter how fair the weather is.
Did you ever see the movie Desperado? It's a movie about Antonio Banderas wondering around Mexico with long hair and a guitar/gun case, talking in a sexy voice to all the ladies.
During one opening scene, Steve Buscemi walks into a Mexican bar full of thugs and unfortunate humans. He launches into a detailed story about this mysterious man who walked into a similar bar a few towns away and killed every single miscreant in there. By the end of the story, every patron in the bar is hanging on Buscemi's words about this larger than life destroyer of bad men. The man is just Antonio Banderas, but the story that proceeded him had every man shaking in their boots at this mysterious man's abilities.
That is the direction this story about Jordan Crawford dunking over LeBron James is headed. The play was probably just a simple instance of LeBron getting a slow jump at Crawford. This was a camp after all, it's not like this was an NBA playoff game. It wasn't even a regular season game. I bet if I saw the footage of Crawford's dunk, my reaction would be: "huh".
But now that Nike and James have confiscated the tape, they have played right into the jaws that is the 24 hour sports news channel. With a constant need to fill time, the unknown is actually more coveted than the known by the ESPN's of the world. Thanks to the mysterious aspect now attached to it, this alleged dunk has taken on a life of it's own.
Maybe if the attention keeps getting bestowed onto him, Crawford might actually jump several spots up on the NBA draft charts. All because of a pickup dunk that no one can see.
Even Kobe Bryant is getting some face time thanks to his NBA rival:
And it's all because of the great LeBron cover up. My God Nike, you people should know this stuff. In the media world, when a fire starts, you let it burn itself out quickly. Instead you've just given the thing an entire off-season worth of speculation which happens to be it's favorite food.
Have you or one of your friends ever lost a job or been passed over for a promotion? Usually we assume the person who gets chosen is either young and cheap or they have some sort of relationship with the boss.
Nepotism has long been one of the most prominent and often louche parts of business operations. Sports is full of it; franchise owners often bring in family members to help run the business while long time executives are left on the outside looking in.
Chalk up the Chicago Blackhawks as another franchise that has dabbled with the n-word.
The hockey team has "re-assigned" (see: fired) general manager Dale Tallon less than two months after the team he built made it to the Western Conference finals, the first time the Blackhawks have seen that kind of playoff success since Vanilla Ice was popular.
In Tallon's place goes assistant general manager, 36-year-old Stan Bowman--who just happens to be the son of legendary coach and current Blackhawks senior advisor of hockey operations, Scotty Bowman. To sum up: long time general manager ousted after a successful season and replaced by the senior advisor's young son.
Let the "life's not fair" lessons begin.
Before idealists like myself fly off the handle though, there are a few details that might make Tallon's dismissal more understandable.
First, though he did build last year's successful team, Tallon has had his share of huge blunders in the free-agent market. He overpaid for several veterans that gave little in return, and just this past season he handed MarianHossa a 12 year contract worth $62 million. That move looks great on the surface: steal talented player from arch-rival Red Wings and make your team better in the process. The problem is that Hossa is 30 years old. General sports logic says he will start declining within five years and then the Blackhawks will be stuck with a fossil who has an untradable contract.
Meanwhile, the Hossa deal forced Chicago to let Martin Havlat, last year's leading scorer, go and now young studs like Duncan Kieth, Jonathan Toews, and Patrick Kane will be much more difficult to sign. Tallon says the Hossa deal won't jeopardize the re-signing of any young Blackhawks players, but now the team may have to overpay all the you studs since it overpaid for Hossa. Owners generally don't like that kind of news.
Tallon also takes the blame for a paperwork snafu that nearly cost the Blackhawks several restricted free-agent players. (Conspiracy theorists will say he was set up, but either way, he was the general manager when this happened.) It was a stupid mistake that should never happen in professional sports. Not a real good way to keep the confidence of your boss.
Still, Blackhawks executive Rick Dudley left the team to take up a similar position with the Atlanta Thrashers a few weeks earlier. Why would an executive leave a franchise that was just one series away from the Stanly Cup finals with a young core of players in order to take up the same position with a team that has sucked forever? Maybe he saw the writing on the wall and got out while he could.
Stan Bowman could end up being a great general manager who helps put the Blackhawks over the top and bring a long awaited championship to the long suffering fans. Or maybe he just has the right D.N.A.
Something could be rotten in the state of Blackhawk.
By now you may have heard that Chris "Mad Dog" Russo of "Mike and the Mad Dog" fame had a bit of a meltdown on his Sirius radio show "Unleashed" which is not doing so well in the ratings.
Russo spends nearly ten minutes railing against seemingly every co-worker he has saying that he needs a mulligan because he has "put together a staff that is incompetent" and that they have no talent. He refers to his staff as the Washington Generals and then basically fires people on the air saying they've been "eliminated." He then goes into some pledge to his listeners about how he'll search far and wide for hosts who know sports and can talk logically about the 1941 All-Star game...because I've been absolutely jonesing for talk about 1941 baseball.
Listen to as much as you can (I only made it to five minutes before I wanted to punch myself in the face.)
Now that you've listened/turned him off, tell me if Mad Dog's pacing doesn't sound likeJohnny Depp's portrayal of Hunter S. Thompson in the movie Fear and Loathing is Las Vegas. Now all Mad Dog has to do is create a sartorial style that includes Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses. I bet Hunter S. Thompson could speak logically about the 1941 All-Star game....well, his logic.
It's July which means it's time for the NFL over-analyzing to kick into high gear. Fox Sports just came out with it's pre-season top receiving combos for 2009. I know it means very little, but there are always a few surprises when publications rank things.
The top teams and bottom team make sense. On top of the list are the Arizona Cardinals with the other worldly Larry Fitzgerald and ornery AnquanBoldin. The New England Patriots are next with the Moss, Welker combo. With Tom Brady coming back, that team is definitely up the ladder.
On the other end of the spectrum sit the Raiders with their gauche owner who drafts like it's 1975. The team spent a top ten pick on a receiver who hasn't even made it through a mini camp yet and frankly, no one gives the Raiders the benefit of the doubt when it comes to personnel moves.
One of the interesting teams on this list sits just in front of the Raiders at number 31 out of 32 teams: the St. Louis Rams. I agree the Rams have very little receiving help this year and that is the first time in a loooong time I could say this. Even when the team sucked in the 1990's, they had a young Isaac Bruce turning heads. Then the Greatest Show on Turf exploded onto the scene. Now it's a wasteland of a passing game. It's hard for me to wrap my head around that. The Chicago Bears currently sit at 27 in the receiver rankings. Will new QB stud Jay Cutler change that up? Or will the lack of receivers move Cutler way down on the QB list? It's like the chicken vs the egg theory. What affects what?
Mediocre has never been used to describe the Colts passing game since Peyton Manning arrived, but Fox has the Colts ranked at 15...right in the middle and below teams such as the Buccaneers and Steelers. Really? I know Marvin Harrison is gone, but Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, Anthony Gonzalez are only middle of the pack? Hmm. The Eagles receivers sit in the top ten this year after the team grabbed DeSean Jackson and Jeremy McClain through the draft. Apparently there will be no more bitching about the lack of good receivers for Donavon McNabb to throw to in Philly. Yeah, right.
Speaking of top ten receiving corps....the FALCONS?! Has this team ever had a top ten receiving corps? I guess that's the difference between Michael Vick and Matt Ryan at quarterback: suddenly your high receiver draft picks look good. Add Tony Gonzalez at tight end and the revamping of the Falcons offense is complete. My what a difference a few years make.
Finally, the Broncos are ranked number seven. For now. This has everything to do with Brandon Marshall and Kyle Orton. If Marshall disappears into a funk this season or Orton can't get the passing game going, this receiving corps could free fall into the 20's.
It's time to start talking a little football because before you know it, the greatness that is the NFL will once again be on our televisions. What a magnificent day it will be.
If you haven't noticed, it's summer time which means baseball, inferno-like car interiors, and multiple news stories (delivered with full bravura) about pets, babies, and old people getting heat stroke due to negligence.
It's also time to watch your electric bill skyrocket like Bronson Arroyo's ERA. This makes sense. It's hot, you turn your air on more often, the bill inflates.
But have you looked at the itemized charges on your bill? Do you understand them? I don't. I currently live in Phoenix...in July....so it's going to be high, but what exactly am I paying for?
The Bill:
Basic service charge $1.62 - Okay, a service charge. Just something you deal with Delivery service charge $30.32- Delivery? Is this a pizza? What's the difference between a basic service and a delivery service?
Environmental benefits surcharge $3.73- Well I'm glad this benefits the environment
Federal environmental improvement surcharge $0.15- Is there a Federal environment too? I figured the environment was the environment.
Competition rules compliance charge $0.31 - We get charged for you to comply with competition rules? That just sounds silly.
System benefits charge $1.71- Exactly which system is this? And what are the benefits? Is this like health insurance for the system or is it more like friends with benefits?
Power supply adjustment* $4.92- First of all, beware the asterisk. Secondly, did you undercharge me last time? Is that the adjustment? Do I get credited when you overcharge me?
Metering* $2.32- Tell you what. Call it "yarding" and charge me less.
Meter reading* $1.60- Wait, what's the metering charge? I'll be happy to go down and read my own meter, thank you.
Billing* $1.80- HA! You're charging me for the right to get billed? Where do I sign up?
Generation of electricity* $63.77- Well this makes sense. You're generating electricity. That's what I should be paying for.
Transmission and ancillary services* $4.79- Now you're just making stuff up. Transmission = delivery. You already charged me for that, you jackasses.
Transmission cost adjustment* $1.12- You already adjusted the power supply!
Interim rate surcharge $2.08- Is the rate higher just right now until you find a better rate? Where are you looking for it?
Taxes and fees- Ah yes, we haven't even reached the taxes yet. Regulatory assessment $0.22 State sales tax $6.88 County sales tax $0.86 City sales tax $0.00 Franchise fee $2.41
Total bill: $130.61
I understand the charge for generating electricity, the delivery charge of the electricity, the environment standards charge, and I suppose I'll take the taxes since those and death are the only constants.
That brings my electric bill to a total of $108.46. I just saved $22! And I didn't even switch to Geico!
Anyone have any bill complaints besides the generic "it's too much" statement? Let me know! And have a happy summer.
on James, Chris Bosh, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowtizki, and Dwyane Wade are set to become free-agents in some way or another.
g for Shaq in an attempt to prove to LeBron that he can win if he stays put.
ld make Heat fans just a tad skittish.
dly, Wade just dumped Converse as his shoe representative despite having a three year contract left with the company. Wade went with shoe behemoth Nike on the Air-Jordan line. I know this has nothing to do with the Miami Heat, but it does show that:
