best tackles ever
omg, someone emailed me this youtube video this morning. i thought y'all would get a kick out of it!!



best rugby tackles

this put me in the mood to take some people DOWNNNNNNNNN!

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What are your predictions for the first round of NHL Playoffs?
What are your predictions for the first round of NHL Playoffs?

Ok its a few days late but here are my predictions:

Boston over Montreal
San Jose over Anaheim
Washington over New York Rangers
Detroit over Columbus
New Jersey over Carolina
Vancouver over St. Louis
Pittsburgh over Philadelphia
Chicago over Calgary

Best Regards
Michael Grant

Current Mood: content

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Research on soccer players in TV commercials
Hello everybody, I'm doing a research on soccer players in TV commercials. The focus is on rather old spots (before 1985), but any of your memories will be helpful to me. Please post anything you can remember, from Peter Schmeichel for Reebok to the Nike spot with the Brazilian national team playing football in an airport. - The funnier, the better!

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Much style, little substance.
Jim Rome might be the biggest kiss-up I've ever heard. I was listening to his interview with Michael Vick yesterday, and every question took ten minutes because he kept going on about how great Vick was. Yeah, anyone who has seen him play knows that. Get to the question already. Then, after the interview, he read a dozen e-mails from people gushing about what a great interview that was.

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On being a fan...
Before the seventh game, I'd like to congratulate the Giants and their fans. No matter how it plays out, both teams had great seasons. As cliche as it sounds, it's a shame someone has to lose. I find myself almost wishing that they'd call it a tie, make 'em both co-champions, and end the season.

And you know, I look at that last sentence, and can't believe I wrote that. I've been a sports fan all my life and am, in general, a pretty competitive person. I play in fantasy leagues for baseball, football, basketball, and hockey, and, I daresay, I win more than my fair share of titles. (I consider a .500 season a failure, by way of example)

Not just fantasy sports, but REAL sports, has dominated my life. It makes me self conscious to think how a win or loss by one of my favorite teams can set my emotional tone for DAYS. The intellectual part of me realizes how stupid this is, I know. (How does one athletic event measure in comparison to world hunger and strife?)

But I'm not going to change. I don't WANT to change. It may be silly, anti-intellectual even, to care about sports as passionately as I do. My response would be: "So be it, then."

People speak denigratingly of "bandwagon" fans. Many seem to take offense at these "johnny come latelies", as if their own loyalties are being somewhat impugned. I don't share those feelings, and yet I think I understand why they exist. "Bandwagon fans" will quickly get over their team's losing and hop on the next bandwagon. They won't suffer a loss as a "true fan" will suffer.

I don't share such scorn because, to me, being a fan is, I daresay, a little like being in love: You get out of it what you put in. Should the Angels win tonight, my joy will FAR eclipse that of ANY bandwagon fan--so would the joy of my Giant fan counterparts should they get the victory. I do not, therefore, begrudge the bandwagon fan their relative lack of emotional pain, because they won't feel the joy a long time fan would.

So why, right before the last, most important game of the season, do I find myself with these "milquetoast" feelings, being melancholy that one team has to lose? Sports is, after all, ABOUT winning and losing.

Perhaps because I know how it feels. I remember 1986. I can imagine how a long suffering Giants fan feels about his team trying to win the championship for the first time since 1954 (and that's assuming s/he was a fan when the team was still in New York). I can imagine this, after all, because the Angels have NEVER won it.

And moreover, should the Angels win, my joy would be tempered by reflecting on how disappointed my Giant fan friends (deathbytamarind, to name one) would be.

All this, too, is "just" what it's like being a fan. Imagine what it's like being a participant. For someone like Bonds, Dunston or Appier (older players who've never won a championship), this may be their ONLY chance at the brass ring.

Bill James once wrote:

"We might remember that while it is, to us, the climax of the show, it is, to the participants, like witnessing a death in the family, the death of a dream which they have nurtured for months or years, have fought hard and worked hard to bring to the eadge of reality. We've never been through anything like it, most of us, but we must imagine that situation as a firestorm of hope, fear, dismay, pressure, hope against hope and hope against the stark terror of the scoreboard."

Then there was Gus Triandos, a catcher for the 1964 Philies, who blew a big lead to miss the World Series. He spoke of the celebration which never happened:

"Some men wanted to pour the champagne. Some wanted to guzzle it. Some wanted to spray it.

I just wanted to taste it."

Some people's dreams will come true tonight, at the expense of others, whose dreams will die. As ultra competitive as I am, I've always tried to remember that. However happy I am in my team's victories, I'll feel compassion for the losing team, and their fans.

Should the Giants win tonight, I extend to them, and their fans, heartiest congratulations. Should my Angels get the victory, I'll take a moment to honor those same individuals, in whose shoes I myself have walked. Many, many times.

And now, as Shakespeare wrote: "Once more, into the breach, dear friends".

Medea's Child

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Looks like I called it, yet sorta not.

I called him having a great season, but I thought it'd be as a reliever and not a starter. Whoops.

Aye

Also, later in the comments, I called Jake Peavy and Kirk Saarloos' seasons almost perfectly. Missed a bit on Tankersley, missed a ton on Trujillo, but oh well.

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Go here. Now. This I command.

sports_sonnets

Cross posted with a vengeance, btw.

Current Mood: good

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Absoultely unbelievable.
Read this, then vomit.

http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=hockey&itemid=380976&view=1479728#t1479728

Current Mood: irate

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Wow, not a lot of activity around here
I'm startin' somethin':

Should the Giants:

A)Re-sign Baker
B)Re-sign Kent
C)Re-sign Baker and Kent
D)Do neither and try to lure a big-name free agent and a high-profile guy to manage the team

Second, what do you think will actually happen?

Current Mood: lunch

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( Hmm, I find this highly ironic/moronicCollapse )

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A solution to OPS
I hate the stat of "OPS" for baseball Hate it. What is it? I mean, besides On Base Percentage plus Slugging. What does it signify? But some baseball writers treat it like it is the single most important stat in determining a player's offensive ability. Why? That has never been explained to me.

( Why I hate OPSCollapse )

( So what's a better number?Collapse )

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There are a few letters to the editor in the most recent Sports Illustrated criticizing their World Cup coverage. Some writers say it's too little (the mag only writes about soccer during the Cup and then ignores it for three years) and others say it's too much. One guy in particular said (and this is a paraphrase) "Socialism, the metric system and soccer are three things the rest of the world likes that the U.S. can do without." If I may, I'd like to dedicate today's win over Mexico to that guy and everyone like him. I hope the Americans go all the way, just to generate a ton of press and annoy the soccerphobes.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a rabid fan or anything. But I do appreciate the game for what it is, and I think the concept of the World Cup is awesome.

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Check out these numbers!
2W, 5 QS, 36K, 0.68 ERA, 0.86 WHIP

What is that, you ask? That's Ruben Quevedo over the last month. Wow.

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Stupid hockey thought
The Red Wings should change their name to something else. That's just not a good name for a Detroit team. That way, the Buffalo team can start calling themselves the Wings. The Buffalo Wings! Imagine how much merchandise they could sell!

Current Mood: silly

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Some interesting stats
*Elmer Dessens: 8 QS, 3W. Considering he plays for a first-place team that has a decent offense, that's just weird. Ben Sheets has the same stats, incidentally.

*Over the last month, three closers (Jason Isringhausen, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Ugueth Urbina) have ERAs of 0.00. Sasaki hasn't given up an earned run all year.

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I felt like posting
Twins lefthander Johan Santana leads the Pacific Coast League in strikeouts with 66 but he hasn't been recalled yet because he's not pitching deep into games. In 10 appearances, eight of them starts, he has pitched just 42 2/3 innings and is still working on extending himself after pitching out of the bullpen at times in the past.

This guy is good despite his ugly stats over the past 2 years, trust me.... but I don't know why the Twins want to make him a starter. If you look at his 2001 splits as an RP, and take out his worst outing (5 ER in 1 IP @ KC), you come up with this :

IP : 23.0
H : 21
ER : 3
BB : 10
K : 14
ERA : 1.17

Not AMAZING stats, and it's only in 23 IP, but over his career in 9 starts he has an 8.42 ERA. Relief he has a 4.70 ERA in 36 appearances. The latter isn't that bad for a 22 year old Rule 5 draftee that jumped right from low Class A to the majors in 2000 (20 at the time).

I saw this guy pitch at Auburn in the Houston system...and he had 4 plus pitches. I guess maybe that's why they're trying to make him a starter, but I still think he'd be a dominant reliever.

Another thing, is under the situational stats on Yahoo, from pitches #61-105, he's allowed a whopping .427 Opp BA in 82 AB...so obviously he has trouble going late into games.

Either way, he's a favorite prospect of mine. Was the #2 starter on the same Auburn short season A team that Oswalt was #1...I loved watching those two pitch.

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Hmm
We've heard of 40-40....but.....50-50?

I don't think we'll see it for awhile, but if Vlad keeps up his pace, we might see it. 10 steals in 42 games translates roughly to his last year totals of 37, but after the Allstar break last year when Montreal was out of it, he ran alot more and had 25 SB in 73 games. Either way, I'll take a stab at it and say he gets 40-40 this year, but it's interesting to wonder if he's capable of 50/50.

Thoughts?

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Something is Fish-y
Most of us know the Reds are having a debate about who will sit on the bench when Junior comes back. What happens to the Marlins when Kevin Millar gets off the DL? You aren't going to bench Wilson or Floyd, right? So it will have to be Eric Owens, which is a major shame. The guy has a .301 average and 10 steals already. Why not bench Derrek Lee (.241, 6, 24)? It's not like he's the second coming of Mark McGwire or anything. Millar can play first. I have no clue how he is defensively, but I'd hate to see a solid outfield like that broken up.

Then again, why not just bench Millar? But either way, keep Owens in the lineup!

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Down with Julian!
Oh, and the Marlins need to get Julian Tavarez the hell out of the rotation and insert my man Hansel Iz ASAP. 10 ER in 4 IP? That's worse than Miguel Asencio! (refer back to previous post).

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My man Miguel Asencio has gotten his ERA down to 11.17.

I'm going to stick with him though (not fantasy-wise, but just baseball-wise), cause he reminds me of Ramon Ortiz/Juan Cruz. Everyone remember who was talking about Miguel Asencio back when his ERA was higher than Cypress Hill, cause he'll be good in 2-3 years.

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