Archive for December, 2008

They say that one cannot truly process a catastrophic event until they wake up the next day. It is now the morning of Monday, December 29, 2008, and I am sitting in a Cambridge Starbucks drinking a small hot chocolate. There are a couple odd things about this scenario. First, it’s a Monday and I’m not at work. I decided to take the next 3 days off so that I could have an 11-day vacation around the holidays. A jackhammer woke me up at 7:42 (3 minutes earlier than I get up when I have to work) and after a couple rounds of Sportscenter I realized that all my friends were at work and I had nothing to do. So needless to say I had to get out of my house but I wanted to write so it seems like this hippy Mecca is the only place where both are available. Another odd aspect of my situation is that I ordered a “small” hot chocolate (I don’t like coffee…my only caffeine consumption comes from Sparks), but they gave me a “tall” hot chocolate. Its only about 5 inches or so but apparently the world of presumptuous beverages does not recognize the same size scale as every other place I’ve ever been, since the guy behind me ordered a “grande” and got something that Scali’s Deli would call a “large.” Most of you are probably already aware of this phenomenon, but this is only my 3rd or 4th time ever in a Starbucks, and the first at which I have ever ordered. Typically I stand near the doorway and wait for my female companion to get her Grande Green Tea Latte or whatever and then we leave.

I am in a very different place now, physically and emotionally, than I was 24 hours ago. Yesterday at this time I was putting on my lucky Sox hat and Vrabel jersey and heading over to my buddy Mike’s for a day of football.

The Good

As the 1:00 games kicked off everything was in play. The Pats didn’t “control their own destiny” (I have come to hate those words), but what they needed to do was simple: beat the Bills and improve to 11-5, giving themselves a shot at the playoffs. We would then need to live and die with the 4:00 games and pray for a Dolphins or Ravens loss.

Aside from the cheering on the hometown team, Bardo and I put half our account on New England -5 and then spread the rest out on parlays around the league. I couldn’t for the life of me tell you who those teams were, but it was important at the time. I was also rooting against the Packers and Steelers, because those were the picks of the 2 undefeated guys in my Pick’Em league. I sat at 15-1 and took the Lions this week, knowing I would need Packers and Steelers losses for a chance at advancing to a tiebreaker. It was also the final week of the Rank’Em “priority pool” that I’m in, so I needed all the teams that I placed high to come through so I could win a tight race for 2nd place there.

And then there is fantasy football. I was in 2 leagues this year, one with the Needham guys and one with the Ithaca guys. I was in 5th place in the Needham league, but with a win and a little help I could finish in 3rd which is in the money. On the flip side, I had been dominating my Ithaca league all year but found myself in a dogfight championship game. Our Super Bowl was week 16 and 17 combined, and I had a 90-88 lead going into today.

Like I said, everything was in play. I felt like the asshole at the craps table whos playing the pass line 5, bets the field, puts $20 on 6 and 8 after the point and has odds on come bets at 4, 9 and 10.

Despite being overwhelmed with all that I was hoping would happen, I was able to focus on Wind Bowl. Besides the Eagles-Bears fog game back in the 80s I can’t think of a game that was changed because of a weather condition that wasn’t snow or rain, but I also can’t think of a team that doesn’t get affected by that sort of thing like this Pats team. The way they ran all over the Cardinals in Foxboro made it seem like Welker was wearing cleats and the defense was wearing Crisco. I can’t decide of my favorite moment of the game was Buffalo’s 13 yard punt or when their kicker aimed dead left and the ball sliced violently wide right like a bad golfer at the driving range. Fact is, the game was never in question, since Dick Jauron will never EVER out-coach Bill Belichick.

The 13-0 victory was satisfying, but ultimately set the table for 3 hours of nausea. I couldn’t help but think about 2002 when the Pats beat the Dolphins at 1:00 and needed Brett Favre to come through and beat the Jets at the Meadowlands so that they could go to the playoffs. I have hated Brett Favre since that day, and like I said in my “Top 10 Suckiest” column, it took everyone else in America way too long to agree with me.

The Bad

My dislike of Brett Favre has reached an unhealthy point. I hate the Jets, I hate Eric Mangini, I hate the Chargers and the fact that Rivers and LaDT went 8-8 and have a home playoff game this week…but I really really hate Brett Favre. Not the way I would hate an athlete like A-Rod, because, face it, everyone hates A-Rod. I hate Favre the way punk rockers hated disco: they didn’t think it sucked, they knew it sucked, but what was worse was that everyone else loved it. There is nothing more frustrating then the general public and popular media constantly praising something that you know it utterly flawed and drastically overrated.

Its not that I simply hate Favre because he’s a bad quarterback, or else I would be a miserable guy and go around hating Ken Dorsey and Rex Grossman too, which I don’t. I hate Favre because of John Madden, Chris Berman, and football fans that have Favre ranked somewhere in between Johnny Unitas and God. I hate how he screwed with Green Bay this offseason. I hate how he screwed with Aaron Rodgers’ career. I hate how he threw 22 interceptions to go with his 22 touchdowns but made the Pro Bowl anyway. But mostly, I hate his sense of entitlement. He reminds of me the girl in school that was never all that pretty but got boobs in 7th grade so everyone thought she was hot. By junior or senior year everyone had boobs, but this bitch still thought she was Elle MacFuckinPherson. Prom rolls around and she turns down a couple guys because she’s waiting to get asked by a cool football player, but then it turns out that they are taking younger girls. Guess what Brett? Next year is your senior prom and nobody is going to want to dance with you, let alone take you as their date. You can either cry about it publically and embarrass yourself further or just go home to Mississippi and wait for your Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Seriously though, it would make me feel much better if they kept running those Wrangler jeans commercials but had Favre getting intercepted by his 35-year-old buddies over and over. Somebody please make this change.

The Ugly

I won’t bore you with details about my fantasy football season because I know you don’t care. Listening to someone complain about fantasy football is like listening to someone complain about a bad beat in poker: “I had pocket kings and the flop was K-8-9 and I went all in and the guy called with 6-7 and caught a 10 on the fucking river! Do you believe that shit!?!” Everyone has their own stories and nobody cares about yours, so I’ll spare you mine. What I will say is that I am seriously considering not participating next season. My reasoning is that the happiness I feel when I win pales in comparison to the anguish that I feel when I lose. I ended up winning my Ithaca league, thanks to another huge day for my amazing WR trio of Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson and Steve Smith (this is also a team that has Brian Westbrook, Jason Witten, Donovan McNabb who had a solid season and 2 stud sleepers Matt Forte and Chris Johnson). I could go into more detail about how I much I dominated the league, but if there is anything worse than reading bad-beat stories its reading an asshole brag about his success in a nerdy role playing game, which is basically all that fantasy football is. Thing is, I didn’t care that I won. Sure, it felt good, but it was completely overshadowed by how pissed I got when the day ended and I finished in 6th place in my Needham league (even though I scored more points than the guy who lucked out on matchups and finished in 3rd…but again, I digress).

So why should I put myself through this shit anymore? There isn’t anything else that I do in life that has 50/50 odds of happiness but with so little payout. It’s like someone coming up to me and saying “Here, let’s flip a coin. If it comes up heads I’ll pat you on the back and congratulate you, but if it lands tails I’m going to hit you in the face with this here baseball bat 17 times. Sound like something you’d want to be a part of?”

That’s the thing. Fantasy football is all about luck, not about who knows more about sports. I come in 6th and have to listen to 5 people give me shit for an entire year. And for what? For the chance at winning and feeling good for like a day? Screw it, I’m done.*

* = I know for a fact that I will do fantasy football next year and every year after that. But let me vent.

The Fresh Start

I apologize for slacking on my posting duties lately. I could tell you that my lack of content is due to creative differences and tension between myself and the suits at SFP, but it would just be another desperate attempt to be like Bill Simmons. The fact is that I am the brass at SFP and I haven’t been putting nearly enough pressure on the talent to produce. Karaoke Craig recently quit his job at the paper and moved to Philadelphia so as to be in the proximity of coed laden drinking establishments, and his bar tabs and lack of salary must mean that he hasn’t granted himself the luxury of internet access (at least this is what I’m telling myself, because the alternative would be that he doesn’t give a shit about my dreams, and I know that’s not true). As for Bardo, it seems that his stint as Stat Boy’s replacement on PTI means that he is no longer contributing to this medium. Apparently once you are a television star it is seen as a step backwards to blog again, sort of how Vinny Chase refuses to do a television show even though he obviously sucks at acting. I was going to take the Entourage route and move back to Needham, sleep with my townie girlfriend, buy Union Street, rename it “Boston Mike’s” and wait for Martin Scorcese to call and commission me to write his next script, but at the last minute decided against it.

Instead I will make a bold New Year’s resolution and promise my readers (yes, all 14 of you) that 2009 will be the year of Sports Fan Paradise. We will have all the web design capabilities by March Madness, begin building a permanent site by Opening Day, and be ready to launch in time for my NFL Preview in August. Its in writing now, so feel free to hold me accountable to those goals.

In addition to debuting SFP minus the “blogspot,” here are some other resolutions to keep me busy in the new year:

9. Work out a bit, eat a little bit better, and get my weight under 180. As long as I never weigh more than Julio Lugo’s batting average I feel fine about myself.

8. Dedicate myself to following a college basketball team. I have always been a loose Kansas fan after falling in love with the 1998 LaFrentz-Pollard-Pierce-Vaughn squad, but it will never get better for Jayhawks fans than last year’s Championship game so I feel like it’s a good time to change things up (for the record I would never dream of doing anything like this with the Big Three, but I have never felt genetic loyalty to any collegiate team). I am currently taking suggestions and will be making my selection by mid-January. Some early nominees are Villanova (where my brother is a Sr), Davidson (I like Stephen, but I LOVE Mrs. Curry) and any ACC team that isn’t UNC (because I hate overdogs), Duke (because I hate preppy assholes), and BC (because everyone who lives in Boston and isn’t an Eagle alum knows that they suck). Feel free to comment and make a case for your favorite team.

7. Make it back to Spring Training. It isn’t the quaint vacation that it once was, but it is still one of the best draws in all of sports. If the trip includes a quick detour to Panama City Beach, so be it.

6. Make it back to a PGA event. I went to Sunday of the ’07 Deutsche Bank Championship at the TPC in Norton and it was an incredible experience.

5. See Bruce play in 3 different cities. When your favorite musical act goes on tour in his 60s you should take in as many shows as you can, you never know when it will be your last opportunity.

4. Make at least 10 new friends and include them in my Pigskin Pick’Em League next year. Lose no more than 5.

3. Break 90 on a course besides the Par-3 in Lexington.

2. Figure out how to do a podcast.

1. Watch the Patriots win their 14th regular season game with the same crew that I experienced 12/28/08 with.

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10 signs that you are addicted to the critically acclaimed HBO original series The Wire.

by Robert Sheftell

10. Every week your boss questions the progress report you submitted and you have to constantly reassure him that you didn’t juke the stats, the stats are clean.

9. You don’t own a cellphone, but you buy burners and dump them weekly.

8. You wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, screaming at your wife or girlfriend “Where’s Wallace? Yo, where Wallace at String?! WHERE THE FUCK IS WALLACE!?!

7. You designated one room of your house as “Hampsterdam” and sweep all your trash there, thus making the rest of the house look clean and presentable.

6. Every time you walk by a vacant you wonder if Chris and Snoop disappeared a body in there.

5. When making sales calls you zone out and replace your usual pitch with “W-M-D!! Get ya W-M-Deez here!!”

4. You scour the obituaries for Irish cops so you can attend the wake.

3. You can spot a dope fiend lean from 100 yards away

2. Your wife wants the kids to play soccer, but you haven’t completely ruled out letting them be corner boys.

1. You do things the Western Way.

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Running of the Santas bad for kids, group says

Boston Herald - by Jessica Heslam and James Hinton - 12/12/08

Here’s a message from SportsFanParadise to all the overprotective activist mothers out there: Give it a fucking rest.

First of all, if you don’t want 6-year-old Sally to see a bunch of drunk kids dressed as Santa Clause then you should tell her to get her ass out of dive bars at noon on a fucking Saturday (that was in no way meant to be disrespectful to An Tain…the quoted bartender knows its my favorite establishment). So what if these bars lie smack in between 4 major T stops, the Aquarium and the Children’s Museum? If you’re walking around the Financial District on the weekend you must really need a beer, so join the crawl.

As a veteran of the Running of the Santas, I can tell you that it is nothing but good, clean holiday fun. I could see groups taking issue with an Easter pub-crawl called The Resurrection: How Many Bars Can You Get To Before They Put You Back On The Cross? But this is Santa Claus. He’s a fucking cartoon. If you take your kids to McFadden’s on October 31st I can guarentee you’ll see at least one drunk Spongebob or slutty Barbie, but I don’t hear Telma Papalardo bitching about Halloween.

P.S. It took 2 people to write that article?

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Apparently HBO and NBC don’t pay him enough. Call 513-281-3400 and listen to him read the options menu for this Cincinnati-area company.

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Here are 10 people who will be getting coal from me come December 25th. You may not agree with my selections, but don’t be too vocal about it or you might end up on a similar list.

10. Peyton Manning
Peyton has fallen a few spots from last year’s list for 2 main reasons: He’s in less commercials this season (thank the effing Lord) and he is no longer a great quarterback. You heard me, Peyton is just very good now. Marvin Harrison lost a step, they lost a lineman or 2, and he came crashing back down to earth faster than Tom Hanks in Apollo 13. But this list wouldn’t be this list without at least one Manning. This video alone should give him a lifetime spot.

9. LaDainian Tomlinson
We have a little expression in my circle of brotherhood, its called “Get a hit and say ding.” It is derived from backyard wiffleball games when a good pitch would make a “ding” sound off the metal strike zone. For about a month in 2001 I had a filthy riser that was virtually if not completely unhittable. One of my frustrated opponents began saying “ding!” everytime I would strike out one of his teammates. I believe it was The Insneider. Either way, Jeff, who was like 0-12 on the day, said “ding!” to Bardo after a strikeout, which prompted Bard to furiously turn around and yell “Get a hit first Jeff! Get a fuckin hit and then say “ding”!!!

Memo to LdT: The Patriots own you. You have won maybe 2 playoff games in your career. Yet for some reason you think that because you used to be a good fantasy player (thats right, you’re done) that you deserve to win a Super Bowl. You don’t deserve shit. Shut your mouth. Get a hit and then you can say “ding” all you want.

8. Michael Phelps
UH-OH. Yeah I fucking said it. WHAT? You can take your American hero bullshit to somebody who cares about swimming. He won a bunch of medals doing the same thing in different positions and at different distances. If they had a 60 meter dash, 70 meter dash, 80 meter dash, 90 meter dash, 100 meter skipping, 200 meter backwards run and a relay for each event then I’m pretty sure Usain Bolt would have won a bunch of medals too. I can’t help but want to punch this kid in the face every time I see him. And he was the worst SNL host ever too, you can quote me on that.

7. Alex Rodriguez
I almost didn’t include him because its become comical how much he sucks. He has brought the Yankees down to the point where they aren’t even a playoff team anymore, he is as non-clutch as possible, and he left his hot wife for skelator. But any time you are having a discussion about suckiness then GayRod needs to be in the mix.

6. Barry Bonds
He didn’t do much this year, but keeping him off this list would be like keeping Clooney of the Sexiest Man Alive list. This is Bonds’ list, he invented the damn thing.

5. Brett Favre
I have thought Favre sucked for years and everyone said I was an jackass. Well who’s laughing now? Most of the public (besides John Madden, Peter King and Bristol, CT) realize that Favre sucks. Sure he can still sling the ball around, but I personally think he should be remembered for the number 288. Thats the amount of interceptions that Favre has thrown in his career, the all-time record. Its even more than George Blanda, and he played for 26 friggin seasons. I’m not going to get into the Green Bay soap opera, since Chris Berman and co. have already shoved it down our throats for 6 months, so lets just say that Favre sucks and move on.

4. Roger Clemens
Rocket is such a pathological liar that he has completely convinced himself that he did not do steroids. It sounds crazy, but I truly believe that he would pass a polygraph with flying colors. He doesn’t think that he did steroids, he completely blocked it out of his head. Its amazing, really. Of all the embarrassment of the hearings and the McNamee situation the Mitchell Report I think the best Clemens moment of ‘08 was then he threw his wife under the bus for taking steroids. That may not be topped.

3. Lance Armstrong
First Michael Phelps and NOW he’s ripping Lance Armstrong!?! Is he some pinko commie scum???
No, I just look at the facts:
1) His wife stayed with him through his battle with cancer, he made tons of money off a book her wrote in which 50% was dedicated to how much he loved her, then he got rich and divorced her so he could bang celebrities like Sheryl Crow and one of the Olsen twins.
2) I know he has raised a ton of money and awareness for cancer research, and for this I commend him, but I also think he greatly profited off of the disease.
3) He juiced. Everyone knows it and nobody wants to say it. Lance Armstrong used steroids.

2. Manny Ramirez
I can’t write about this without my blood pressure jacking up to unhealthy levels so I’m just putting him at #2 and leaving it at that. You know the reasons. It doesn’t need to be repeated. He quit on th- Mike, stop. You’re better than th- HE QUIT ON THE FUCKING TEAM WHEN THEY NEEDED HIM THE MOST. HE WAS SELFISH FOR YEARS AND PISSY BECAUSE WE CARE ABOUT SPORTS IN BOSTON AND HE DIDN’T GET ENOUGH PRIVACY. WELL EAT A DICK MANNY, YOU GOT PAID $25 MILLION A YEAR AND YOU STILL WEREN’T HAPPY. YOU SCREWED EVERYTHING UP. WE WOULD HAVE BEATEN TAMPA IN 5 GAMES WITH YOU. I MISS YOU. I HATE YOU SO MUCH MANNY. YOU PUSHED DOWN A 65-YEAR-OLD GUY AND FAKED INJURIES SO WE WOULD TRADE YOU. YOU BASICALLY ADMITTED TO TANKING WHEN YOU SAID THAT YOU WOULD “ACT RIGHT FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR” IF THEY TORE UP THE CLUB OPTION FOR 2009. WE NEED YOU HITTING BEHIND ORTIZ, HE LOOKS LIKE AN AMERICAN LEAGUE PITCHER HITTING IN THE ALL STAR GAME WITHOUT YOU. I CHEERED SO HARD FOR YOU AND ALWAYS DEFENDED YOU AND THEN YOU WENT TO L.A. AND RIPPED BOSTON AND EVERYONE LOVED YOU THERE LIKE WE USED TO LOVE YOU HERE. I HATE Y- …I blacked out, what happened?

1. Philip Rivers
I wish I could explain why I hate this man so much but I’m not sure I can put it in to words. He is brash and cocky without having accomplished a thing in his short NFL career. His story is perfect for the humble guy that everyone loves to root for, but he totally screws it up by being such an asshole. He taunts fans during home games, rips his players when they don’t deserve it and acts like an entitled piece of shit when dealing with the media. I hope to God that they win out and take the AFC West so Vince Wilfork can slaughter him in the Wild Card round.

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by Josh Bard

There were only 3 reasons you could have possibly held a ticket to the George Washington vs. Univ. of Tennessee hoops game tonight: 1) You didn’t see the word ‘Women’s’ across the top 2) You are a massive connoisseur of sport 3) You are a lesbian. There simply aren’t any other reasons you would have attended the game. However, all those who didn’t fit into those three categories (and for the record, I consider myself apart of group 2 but maintain fan-dom of group 3) missed a shockingly and thoroughly unexpected experience.

To start, let me explain that I am an alum of GW and still live relatively proximate to the campus. Furthermore, I live, work, and dream sports so getting a chance to see Pat Summitt (and by association the Lady Vols) was somewhere between a ‘must’ and a ‘Tuesday is a horrible television night.’ I wasn’t expecting much in terms of points, or excitement, or even fun, but as a sports fan it was my duty to observe a living legend. So I joined up with my GW hoops friends (we all own men’s seasons tickets together) and bundled up to brave the cold, mysterious frontier that is DC winter weather and women’s college basketball.

Getting to our seats was a challenge in itself. We had to wade through a sea of lesbians. There were enough lesbians (not that there is anything wrong with them) to spawn an softball team, nay, softball league. These lesbians were orange-clad, she-mullet (can we just call them mull-ettes?) coiffed, and boisterous; not the lesbian type privy to IMDB profiles littered with Skin-e-max cameos.

Speaking of Skinemax, Tennessee’s best player is a freshman with a body for basketball success and a name for porn stardom. Let me introduce you to 6′3″ Glory Johnson. She is a beast on the court and definitely the next big thing in women’s hoops (assuming Candace Parker was the last big thing or that there has ever been a big thing in women’s hoops). She rebounds over everyone, sets monstrous picks, and can score against guards or centers. The next time you’re at a dinner party and the conversation turns to ladies hoops, drop her name and wow your friends; it’s a cant miss.

Meanwhile a funny thing happened on the way to this game being a snoozer, GW showed up to play. Though down eight at halftime, the Colonials brought Pat Summitt and the crowd to their feet on many occasions in the second half. It may not be admirable but I can admit to standing, cheering, screaming (?!?!) for G-Dub to get a few more stops during a run where we brought the deficit to two points before missing a wide open lay up to tie the game. Go figure.

Pat Summitt has 989 career wins and for many reasons I was hoping to be able to say I hadn’t seen one of them. Alas I left the gym with a surprising sense of entertainment and re-evaluation of women’s sports on the whole. Will I go back to another women’s game this year? Its highly unlikely, but even if its one in a million, I’m saying there’s a chance.

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ESPN.com - Japanese pitcher Junichi Tazawa agreed to a three-year contract with the Boston Red Sox after rejecting offers from three other major league teams, The Boston Globe reported.

The newspaper, citing a source, reported that Tazawa will arrive in Boston this week to take a physical after agreeing to a three-year deal worth about $3 million.

The Globe reported that Tazawa’s deal is a major league contract, meaning he will be placed on the Red Sox’s 40-man roster. However, Tazawa is expected to start next season in the minor leagues.

The Sox took care of signing another arm, but now we need to come up with a good nickname for this kid. Dice-K has set the bar relatively high so lets see what we can do. Use the comment section to voice your opinion. “Taz” seems like the obvious choice but I think we can get a little bit more creative.

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