The complex legacy of George Steinbrenner

By Sam Smith | Published: July 13, 2010

George Steinbrenner is dead.

Let me begin by saying that I’m a Red Sox fan and a lifelong Yankee-hater who loathed Steinbrenner from shortly after I first heard his name. Let me further note that for the better part of the last three decades I have argued, passionately and to anyone who’d listen, that there were precisely three things wrong with Major League Baseball: domes, turf and George Steinbrenner. Read More »

Posted in Baseball | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

LeBron James: welcome to the Punk Hall of Fame

By Sam Smith | Published: July 9, 2010

Let’s say you’re a guy and you’ve been involved with a woman. Long-term, committed, exclusive relationship. Several years together. You loved her dearly through the years and she’s simply gaga over you, for reasons none of your friends fully understand. But now, now you’ve realized that it isn’t going to work any longer. Maybe you have different priorities. Maybe you want kids and she doesn’t. Maybe the fire has died in the bedroom. Maybe you’ve grown apart and your life together just doesn’t satisfy you anymore.

Whatever the reason, you realize that the relationship has to end. Read More »

Posted in Basketball | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

La Mano del Diablo, The Crossbar of God, The Fallibility of Man

By Raf Noboa y Rivera | Published: July 3, 2010

I’m still struggling with putting this game into words. It wasn’t the greatest game I’ve ever seen, from a technical perspective. There have been prettier goals scored, just in this World Cup alone.

People ask me why I love soccer, and I tell them: because it’s the closest any sport gets to reflecting the agony and glory of life on this small orb. Now, I can point them to the last seven minutes of this game to drive the point home.
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Posted in World Cup, soccer | 1 Comment

Why LeBron is going to the Nets

By Adam Lambert | Published: July 1, 2010

I’m not big on making predictions because I am usually proven wrong, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and make the case for LeBron James signing with the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets. And no, it has nothing to do with the lack of faith I have in “my” Knicks, although I do think they will crap out anyway. There are a few reasons why I think the Nets make the most sense, and I’ll get into them below. Feel free to knock me or my reasoning as well:

Reason 1: The Money

Quite frankly, if it was only about the NBA contract, LeBron would have resigned with Cleveland and taken the extra tens of millions of dollars. But it isn’t nearly about the tens of millions for playing in the NBA – it is the additional hundreds of millions (or more) in endorsements, other marketing and other deals. So to that end, what can make LeBron the most money overall? Endorsements, business deals and “branching out” to set himself up as a global icon. Much of this revolves around the money and some revolves around the fame – which I’ll get into in a minute.

New York would make the most sense just looking at the opportunity to make money outside of endorsements, even though a name as big as LeBron’s would make tons of money either way – especially if he were to sign with Chicago. But the “Russian Mark Cuban”, as the Nets new owner has been called is a multi multi billionaire and can make LeBron a billionaire with the various business deals he is involved in. Jay-Z (who LeBron loves) can do the same.

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Posted in Basketball | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Something’s gotta be done.

By Adam Lambert | Published: June 28, 2010

“Poor poor Chris Henry”, they used to say. “He’s misunderstood. He’s really not like that usually. He was serious about turning his life around.”

But after his death, the doubts were back.

“Maybe you can’t change” replaced all of the hope that he would get things straight and finally show the consistent talent that fans caught glimpses of once he died last year. But maybe it wasn’t that simple. No, actually, it really wasn’t that simple.

An alarming article that was released today indicated that Henry had a form of degenerative brain damage at the time of his death – something that has been coming up far more frequently than it should, given the state of sports and technology today.

Chris Henry, the Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver who died in a traffic accident last year, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a form of degenerative brain damage caused by multiple hits to the head — at the time of his death, according to scientists at the Brain Injury Research Institute, a research center affiliated with West Virginia University.

—snip—

Researchers have now discovered CTE in the brains of more than 50 deceased former athletes, including more than a dozen NFL and college players, pro wrestler Chris Benoit and NHL player Reggie Fleming.

Repeated blows to the head are the only known cause of CTE, researchers say. Concussive hits can trigger a buildup of toxic tau protein within the brain, which in turn can create damaging tangles and threads in the neural fibers that connect brain tissue. Victims can lose control of their impulses, suffer depression and memory loss, and ultimately develop dementia.

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Posted in Uncategorized, football | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Fedor Taps Out

By Matt Browner Hamlin | Published: June 28, 2010
Fedor Taps Out

Photo by Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com

Fedor Emelianenko, the Russian heavyweight mixed martial artist, has been arguably the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world over the last decade (though in the last three years, I would vote for Anderson Silva or George St. Pierre over Fedor). Now, I’d have to guess that if you’re reading this post, you probably don’t know who Fedor is and there’s a good reason for that. He doesn’t fight in UFC, he’s only fought marginal opponents for the last few years, and he’s only fought sporadically, generally basking on his 10 year unbeaten streak. Without regular pay-per-views promoted by a major, American-based organization, Fedor’s fights were generally limited to the MMA intelligentsia and purchasers of after-the-fact fight DVDs. I’ll be honest: I’ve never seen Fedor fight live and I did not see the fight this past Saturday night.

Part of the reason Fedor never fought in the UFC was a clash of massive egos – his own and Dana White of the UFC’s. Fedor chose to fight in Strikeforce and his presence there made it have a heavyweight division that was arguably better stocked with talent than the UFC. This being the fight business, promotion and hype are key to growth and fan attention. As such, Dana White has waged a war on Fedor, his opponents, and Strikeforce for a long time. Being a heavyweight champion, Fedor and his camp were always offended by the lack of deference by White to him. I had hoped that with the solidification of the UFC’s heavyweight division following the upcoming Brock Lesnar / Shane Carwin fight, White would begin to look for ways to bring one of the most dominant mixed martial artists in the world to the UFC to test his mettle.

I simply cannot see that happening now, after Fedor Emilianenko lost his first fight in ten years on Saturday night, taping out to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master Fabricio Werdum in the first round. Read More »

Posted in Mixed Martial Arts | 1 Comment

GHANA 2, U.S. 1: A chance goes begging…

By Raf Noboa y Rivera | Published: June 27, 2010

First off, all praise to Ghana’s Black Stars. Bearing the hopes of an entire continent as the last African side in the World Cup, they showed themselves more than equal to the task. This was a truly well-deserved win by Ghana – they’ve now equaled 1990 Cameroon and 2002 Senegal as the third African team to make it to the quarterfinals of a World Cup.

What’s more, I expect them to defeat Uruguay and make it to the semifinals.  Uruguay, while they’re very good, didn’t particularly impress in beating South Korea 2-1. For much of the second half, they seemed on the verge of conceding a game-winning goal to the Koreans – but they didn’t, and Suarez’s wonder goal late in the day saved them. If Ghana plays against Uruguay like they did against the U.S., they will beat them.

Which brings me to the Americans.

[shakes head]

[shakes head even more emphatically]

Read More »

Posted in World Cup, soccer | 7 Comments

U.S.A. vs GHANA: An epic preview for an epic match

By Raf Noboa y Rivera | Published: June 26, 2010

Oh, Africa. The hopes were so very high that this would be the World Cup where African teams – who’ve blessed the game with players like Roger Milla, Michael Essien, and Didier Drogba – would finally break through en masse to the knockout rounds.

Instead of a dream, African fans got a nightmare in the round robin Nigeria? Gone. Cameroon? The Indomitable Lions remake got cancelled. Les Elefants of Cote D’Ivoire won’t be dancing, and the vuvuzelas won’t be blowing for South Africa’s Bafana Bafana, the first host team to be denied a golden ticket for the Sweet Sixteen in World Cup history.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Mama Said Knock You Out: Previewing the World Cup’s Sweet 16

By Raf Noboa y Rivera | Published: June 25, 2010

It all begins again tomorrow, when Uruguay tees off against South Korea to start the knockout round at the World Cup. From here on out, the stakes get higher, of course: win or go home, as the cliche goes.

For those of you (paging Rick Reilly) who hate on soccer because of all the damned draws, you can rest your objections. If teams are tied after regular time, two 15 minute periods of extra time are played; if it’s still tied after that, then we go to penalty shootout. Needless to say, this makes for some truly exciting soccer.

So, quick take: This is a remarkably diverse Sweet Sixteen. It’s a sign of the increasing parity in world soccer that traditional soccer heavyweights like Italy and France (the finalists from 2006) didn’t even survive the round-robin. You want parity? Try this on: Japan and Korea made it out of group play, and could credibly advance to the semifinals. That’s like Butler playing Duke for the NCAA title.

Without further ado, onward. Previews on the flip.

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Posted in World Cup, soccer | 2 Comments

I Despise Interleague Play

By Richard Allen Smith | Published: June 24, 2010

For many years, my seasons half been on a different timeline than most of the rest of the world. While others break the year up with firm divisions based on planting seasons, school schedules or celestial positioning, my schedule coincides with America’s pastime. The first day of Spring is the day pitchers and catchers report. Summer begins on opening day and lasts until the end of the last regular season game, at which point we inter fall. After the last out of the last game of the World Series, it is officially winter.

Clearly, I take baseball quite seriously, which is why I hate interleague play.

By the time interleague play entered the lexicon of American baseball fans, I was into my teen years and had been playing Little League longer than the average Major League career. I wasn’t sure about the concept in the beginning, but I’ve come to despise the weeks of summer when my home team plays the other league.

I grew up in the Deep South, a place where there is only one baseball team: the Atlanta Braves. Consequently, I have no desire to which “regional rivalries” like Kansas City vs. St. Louis, the Angels and the Dodgers or the Subway Series in New York. I don’t particularly care about the only two other teams below the Mason-Dixon, which didn’t exist until after I had been a Braves fan for over a decade. Neither do I have any desire to watch other National League teams wasting their time against the American League. I have no interest in that league till the tail end of fail. Right now, I’m more concerned with my team’s route to the Fall Classic.

But the the biggest reason I despise interleague play is that fact, yes fact, that American League Baseball is not real baseball. That’s bound to start some fights here.

I’m what many refer to as a baseball purist, but one doesn’t have to be a purist to understand that the American League doesn’t play by the rules. All you must do is refer to Rule 1.01, the very first rule of baseball:

Baseball is a game between two teams of nine players each, under direction of a manager, played on an enclosed field in accordance with these rules, under jurisdiction of one or more umpires.

An American League line-up, with the exception of games in which those teams are lucky enough to set foot on National League grass, consists of 10 players.

The designated hitter rule is an abomination. It’s poker with a fifth ace. It’s subbing a linebacker for the punter after the punt. It’s replacing Jake Gyllenhaal’s acting skills with Marlon Brando’s, but keeping the pretty face.

As long as interleague play exists, I will grudgingly watch my home team each game. I’ll watch as a bench warmer goes in at first or in left so the every day guy can DH. I’ll watch it, but I won’t be happy about it.
What am I talking about? No matter how much I hate the DH or despise interleague play, I’ll be ecstatic just to watch the greatest game on the planet– even if it’s the silly fake American League version.

Posted in Baseball | Tagged , | 20 Comments