Category: Sports 
For the past several weeks, ESPN has been holding a “contest” to find the greatest sports highlight of all time. It concluded last night with Mike Eruzione’s “Miracle on Ice” goal winning the prize. The problem, in my opinion, is that it shouldn’t have been in the running in the first place.
My problem is in the definition of a highlight, or more specifically, a sports highlight. Typically, each game or sporting event will have one or two moments that define the game. In this year’s Super Bowl, that moment was clearly the play where Eli Manning escaped a sack and threw the ball to David Tyree, who somehow managed to catch the ball with his helmet. What makes that play a great highlight is that if you take that play out of the Super Bowl, and put it into any game, even a pre-season game, it’s still a great play and a great highlight. A great highlight should be able to stand on it’s own without the urgency or need of the back story of the game it occurs in.
Eruzione’s goal was a nice play, but had it happened in any other game, it would be have been forgotten as just another goal. Take away the socio-political plot lines of a USA vs. Soviet hockey game, and that goal is just a goal.
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Just a quick note to say that everyone at JMDC headquarters couldn’t be happier.
One of the fish in the tank seems to be a New England fan. The other fish are leaving him alone right now. He might die of disappointment.
Looks like the cafeteria at work made Super Bowl cookies with the logos of the Giants and Patriots. Is it a big surprise that most of the Giants cookies were bought, while a lot of the Patriots weren’t?
I find it interesting because, due to the sizes of the logos, the Patriots cookies are a better value since you get more cookie goodness for the same price.
There are about 32 college football bowl games, and they are all sponsored by corporations. I’ve always felt that the corporate sponsorship missed the boat on them by not tying in more closely with the name and themes of the game. Below are a list of bowl games I’d like to see:
- The Home Depot Toilet Bowl
- The Kellogg’s Cereal Bowl (how is this not a real bowl already?)
- The Apple iBowl
- The Hershey’s Squirt Bowl
- The Starbucks Soy Latte bowl (only Starbucks drinks served at the game = the most wired, and poor, audience ever)
- The FedEx Overnight Bowl (it’s guaranteed to end by 10:30am)
- The Pfizer Viagra Bowl (it automatically ends if the game lasts more than 4 hours)
- The Google Beta Bowl (the game works perfectly, but it never comes out of beta)
- The Poland Springs Water Bowl
- The Domino’s 30-Minutes-or-Less Bowl (6-minute quarters + 6-minute halftime = shortest bowl game)
- The Microsoft Windows Blue Screen Bowl (game play has to stop at least once a quarter while they reboot the computers)
- The KFC Famous Bowl
- The IKEA Ünferter Bowl (no one knows what it means, but it takes 30 minutes to set up and everyone in attendance gets an Allen wrench)
- The eBay Bowl (if there’s a disputed call, it takes 30 days to get it resolved)
- The MTV Music Bowl (at least there’d be one thing musically related to MTV)
- The Kleenex Snot Bowl
- The Motorola RAZR BWL
- The Morton Salt Bowl
- The Grey Poupon Mustard Bowl
- The Cuisinart Mixing Bowl
- The Jell-O Shots Bowl
- The Playboy Party Bowl (everyone wears pajamas...and the cheerleaders...whoa!)
- The Coca-Cola Flavored-Sugar Bowl
- The Zagat Review Bowl (the recap of the game is, at most, five sentences, and pithy)
- The Play-Doh! Rose Bowl (everyone in attendance gets enough Play-Doh! and instructions to make roses which are thrown on to the field after every touchdown—the grounds crew has five minutes to clean them all up otherwise they will get hard and be useless to make anything else)
- The Body Shop Cocoa-Butter Bowl
- The Olive Garden Never-Ending Bowl (the teams keep playing till they ask for the check)
- The Las Vegas What-Happens-In-Vegas-Stays-In-Vegas Bowl (there are no recaps or clips about the game—it’s like it never happened)
- The Toyota Supra Bowl
- The ESPN SportsCenter Bowl (the two teams don’t play, they just watch clips from all the other bowls)
- The Greenpeace Mr-Splashy-Pants Bowl (can’t be played because it’s not dolphin safe and has a negative carbon footprint)
- The Sony PlayStation 3 Madden Bowl (the two teams just play Madden Football on a PS3)
- The Trojan Rubber Bowl
- The Heineken Keg Bowl (biggest kegger ever—second only to The Playboy Party Bowl as the most “fun” bowl to go to)
I love ESPN, especially SportsCenter, and I love most of the commercials in the “This Is SportsCenter” campaign. They are often funny, irreverent, and do a good job of incorporating, and poking fun at, sports stars.
One of my favorites from the last few years is The Manning Family Tour in which the entire Manning family (mother, father, three brothers) are given a tour of, what is probably, a small section of ESPN’s production offices. During the tour, Peyton and Eli, each wearing their respective team’s t-shirts, are “getting on each other’s nerves” by flicking ears, giving wet willies, and even a behind the back kick. While your focus is on the brothers and their antics, the tour guide talks about the various areas. The best part of the commercial is when Archie Manning looks back at the brothers and Peyton points to Eli like it’s all his fault. You can see the commercial on YouTube.
So, for the public’s benefit, I present the transcript of the tour. I love how the hallway plays a prominent roll.
Anyway, that’s the control room. Lotta chaos there, but it all looks good when it comes out on the show, actually thanks to those people. Then over here in the digital center is our highlight screening area. So that’s where we get all the games that are played that night down into ninety-second or two-minute clips or whatever you see on SportsCenter. This hallway, it runs between, you know, between both rooms, you know. If you want to get from the control room to the screening, then this is the hallway you take. Questions or anything? I can answer whatever you want about the place. No? Nothing?
How come neither of the two professional sports teams from Buffalo, NY are named the “Wings”?
Today’s been an apartment straighten-out day. I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought a new Dust Buster and then used it until the battery ran out. I also started reorganizing my kitchen.
During this whole time, I had the Daytona 500 on the TV, partly because it’s “The Great American Race”, and partly because there’s nothing else on. I’ve never really watched a NASCAR race from start to finish before, but so far I have to say that I don’t get it.
First off, they have to install these things called “restrictor plates” in each car which, I think, restricts the flow of fuel to the engine, which limits the speed of the car. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the point of racing was to go as fast as possible. If everyone is running at the same speed, what’s the point of building the cars and tweaking them to get the most performance out of them?
Toyota made one of the car types racing today. The ironic thing is that the Toyota is the only one made in the U.S.A. The Fords, Chevys, and Pontiacs are all made in either Canada or Mexico. You gotta’ love NAFTA!
Everyone has a southern accent. If they don’t, they sort of talk like they do.
A car can be “loose” and it can be “tight”, but I can’t tell if it can be both at the same time.
They clean up the accidents pretty quickly.
Anytime anyone speaks about a car, the always seems to mention the big sponsor as if it’s the name of the car. I.E. “The Office Depot number 99 just got four tires.”, or “The Domino’s Pizza double zero had a good pit stop.”
I’m fine watching the race from the wide and semi-wide angle cameras, but every once in a while they have this camera that seems to be right on the wall of the track, and it snaps around as a car races by at 170mph. That shot gets me dizzy. They also have a crane camera in the front area that travels against the traffic...weird.
There is a lake in the middle of the racetrack, and there’s a boat in there. What’s the deal with that?
I’m not sure if Ricky Bobby qualified for this race or not, but I haven’t heard them mention his name.
Update: Some pit crew member just had a car run over his ankle. How does that not happen more often?
Update: OK, I’ll admit it...that was a great finish! The problem is that there was 198 other laps before it. It’s sort of like a basketball game...the last two minutes are great, it’s the other 46 that suck.
Went bowling after work today. Had a good time, but bowled well under my average. Usually my first game is around 90, but I pick it up after the warm up and generally finish somewhere between 110 and 130. Tonight, my first game was in the 60’s, and my second was 94. I didn’t even break 100! Ugh.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I didn’t drink a lot. Perhaps the alcohol allows me to relax and “be one with the ball”.
My fantasy football year ended last week, and for the second year in a row, I won the championship. Like last year, I went 11-3, and had no trouble in the playoffs. If I didn’t know better, I might say I’m sort of OK at this thing.
So the Yankees are out of the playoffs much sooner than expected. A-Rod sucked, as he normally does in October, but so did the pitching, and you can’t win games without good pitching. The Daily News reports that Joe Torre will be fired and replaced by Lou Pinella. I guess just getting to the playoffs isn’t good enough when you have the highest payroll in sports.
Then there’s the Mets. They swept the Dodgers, and made it look easy, which it really wasn’t. The Mets have a weakness, and it’s almost the same as the Yankees...pitching. Two of the Mets big starters are out for the playoffs (and part of next season for Pedro), and that could spell doom for the Amazin’s. They need their starters to step up big and get at least to the 6th for the Mets to really have a shot at a World Series title.
Let’s go Mets!
The Mets clinched the National League Eastern Division Championship a short time ago. All I can say is, “it’s about time!”
Both this week and last week, watching the Giants game, caused me stress.
The problem is that two key players on my Fantasy Football team are playing against the Giants. Last week, it was Colts quarterback Peyton Manning (who still has the best player commercials on TV), and this week it’s Eagles running back Brian Westbrook. I want them both to have good games for my fantasy team, but I want them to have bad games so the Giants can win.
It’s a very weird sensation when Westbrook carries the ball, because I’m yelling at the TV, “Give him five more yards, then tackle him, and whatever you do, don’t injure him!”.
I may have to stop this fantasy football thing, because it’s killing me.
With the end of Monday Night Football on ABC also comes the end of my Yahoo! Fantasy Football league for the season.
My team (The Wombats) went 11-3-0 for the regular season, and while that was a tie with one other team, I went into the playoffs seeded number one due to the fact that I had scored 34 more fantasy points than they did. It seems a bit odd that they would leave it to points as the first tie breaker, but I’m glad they did since the second place team beat me twice during the season.
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The Giants defense gave me the same number of fantasy points as Carson Palmer did. 22 points each. Woohoo!
I’m currently in 2nd place and have clinched the playoffs. I need the first place team to lose today because I would be in first place on points.
Whew!
Have to give thanks to the Giants defense today. They won this game.
The 3rd quarter went about how I thought it would. I knew Dallas would come out and put a few points on the board because, well, it’s Parcells, and I’m sure he fired them up in the locker room.
I’m glad to see the Giants took my advice and threw long the play after Glen seemed to hurt his ankle. Too bad Carter couldn’t come up with it.
The thing that I don’t like, is that the Giants did not really do anything on offense in the third. If they don’t pick it up in the 4th, they will likely lose the game. I don’t think the defense can hold Dallas to just one touchdown or two field goals this quarter, especially the way that Dallas’s offense has started to play.
Halftime and the Giants lead 10-0. It was actually not a bad first half, but I’m a little worried. While the Giants offense has played well, and the defense has played very well, Dallas is one score away from being in this game. The Giants could have definitely used that touchdown that was intercepted.
The defense needs to continue to play well, and I’d like to see a little more chances taken on offense. Maybe when the Giants have the ball on Dallas’s 40, they could go for the long 30+ yard pass.
I’m not sure why, but I really like that Mastercard commercial where Peyton Manning is cheering and asking for autographs of people doing their regular jobs. I like the part where he stands outside a restaurant and cheers the employees going home, and then is so happy when one of them throws him their apron.
However, my favorite part of the commercial, and they don’t show it every time, is after the Mastercard logo, at the very end of the commercial, Peyton hands a loaf of bread to a supermarket employee and says, “Could you sign this for my little brother”. Priceless.
Good call, bad execution. I’m glad the Giants called that throw to Burress in the end zone, but wish it wasn’t under thrown. If they keep taking chances like that, they will win this game.
