Nerds on Sports

As will happen on the internet from time to time (see, e.g., Rule 34), things have a way of just… being out there, simply waiting to be found. Seems our title match has in fact been posted on YouTube!

Now, I know what you’re thinking: we obviously rigged the tournament just to show you this “stellar” piece of “film-making” that was “crafted” by “talented” people. But you would be wrong! Everything’s on the up-and-up here at NoS. This simply serves to prove three important points.

1. We are made of awesome magic, especially Perich.
2. All this has happened before, and will happen again.
3. And, of course, everybody knows that Batman totally rules, and Luke’s a sissy.

At least one of the Nerds here is a martial artist of considerable renown and skill. But I don’t think even he could handle the flamingo style of a proper KOREAN BASEBALL FIGHT!

Thanks to ArmchairGM & DNL- brilliant.

Sorry, I was wrong. The final score was not 24-21.

The perfect season has been foiled at the last minute before.

From The Washington Post’s The Redskins Book:

The 1942 Redskins went 10-1. Their only loss was 14-7 to the Giants in the second game of the season, a score they reversed against the Giants amid a nine-game winning streak. The Redskins allowed only 13 points in their last four games. Once more, their title-game foe would be the Bears. The Bears, who had won 18 straight games, were favored.

The defending champion Bears’ 11 wins in 1942 were rough, physical victories staked on hard-hitting defense. The Redskins had gotten back into contending shape after a mediocre 1941 on the legendary arm, back, and quick-kicking leg of Sammy Baugh. The favored Chicago team quickly went up 6-0. But the final score was 14-6, with the last 1 yard scoring play a handoff to Andy Farkas. By all accounts, it was smash-mouth football, the kind of game that you can’t watch without wincing every minute of the way– despite the fact that “NFL commissioner Elmer Layden ordered ‘a clean game.’” (Goodell shouldn’t have to worry about a ‘clean game’ on the field- just keep Tom Petty from flashing some tit and everyone’s happy. Also, check the Giants’ Gatorade jugs for audio transmitting devices.)

The Bears had won 18 straight. The Redskins stopped them. All it took was a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And George Halas off coaching duty due to naval service. And… ok, fine, so let’s just stick with the “18 and out” part.

Then, there’s at least one recent example of a perfect season bid gone unrealized with a connection to this weekend’s contest:

That video is never going to get old.The connection, of course, is the coach of the then-victorious Eagles: Tom Coughlin. Sure, it’s a stretch, and there’s pretty much no comparison of even the biggest NCAA game to any pro game, but the man did coach an underdog to ‘glory’ once before. Hell, they even got to play in the Carquest bowl or some shit. And that loss sent the ND program into a slow spiral which… well, you saw what happened this year.

I’ve been a Giants fan my whole life. Baseball’s my first love, of course, but I can remember watching Simms, Bavaro, Mowatt, and LT lead the charge in Pasadena, mere months after Mookie poked a dribbler through some guy’s legs. It was a glorious time to be a six-year-old sports nut in Queens. And I am grateful to this day that my family were not Jets fans. That would suck. A lot.

Given the reigning baseball champions, I can’t shake the feeling like there’s some guileless little kid in Quincy or Watertown or wherever, MA, who doesn’t yet know that he’s supposed to be a smug asshole about cheering for his teams, just that he likes Varitek and it was fun to see the Sox win, and his dad yells about the Patriots a lot and it’s fun to see them win. For that kid, sure, it’d be nice if the Patriots won.

For the rest of you, eat a dick. 24-21, smash-mouth Giants victory.

This is the end of today’s PICKSTRAVAGANZA by the Nerds on Sports staff. Read the previous five posts for more “insight” from the nerds.

Real Men of Genius

That’s right. Better Christians. L-O-J-F-C-L. (Also, 93% Athlete Graduation Rate.)

(Thanks to… well, I got this from 15 different people so far. And of course, the maker of this, who can be forgiven for joining Asinine.)

I can’t help but feel like Col. Kurtz, having journeyed these final 17 games into the dreadful jungle, the gnarled heart of darkness, only to find the inescapable truth that there is no prize, no joy, indeed nothing but horror in the end. Here, horror that a team filled with promise should implode so thoroughly; horror that a cadre of players in a superstitious sport would…not…shut…up; horror that the season is truly, completely, and chillingly over on October 1.

I don’t think I have anything particularly clever or meaningful to add to the conversation surrounding the 2007 Mets’ unseemly demise, but neither did the local tabloids. Nobody could, really, because this kind of collective numbed silence invites only further silence. Pictures of dejected fans, splashy oh-cruel-world headlines, and calls for the head of Willie Randolph are just so much noise in the ether. The silence is blistering.

The horror is all that remains.

Read more »

Since Jonathan Lee Riches decided to give me a day off by suing Martha Stewart for the benefit of Rachael Ray, I had to come up with a new subject. So, in a first for NerdsOnSports, I’m going to write running commentary on what I’m watching on TV. At 11 AM. I don’t have a job to go to until Monday. So I watch things like “Firsttake” (f/k/a “Cold Pizza”) on TV. It really is this bad.

All times EDT.

11:00: OK, They’re talking about Steve Spurrier’s history vis-a-vis LSU. Interesting, perhaps, but I tuned in right in the middle, so I’m really not sure what the operative thesis is here. I think it’s something about how Spurrier’s had a great coaching career and has performed well against LSU, or hasn’t, either way he’s a football coach. Read more »

He’s back at it again. To be sure, he never stopped. Jonathan Lee Riches, the “Litigator Crusader,” f/k/a “the White Suge Knight,” d/b/a “Secured Party” will not be denied:

Plaintiff compels this court to issue an injunction against Jeff Gordon and stop him from: Sticking my head in his exhaust pipe, wife swapping with Jimmie Johnson, picking on kids with big wheels and go carts, driving off without paying at Sunoco stations.

I’m pretty sure this is just becoming how he reacts to something he’s not happy about in the Williamsburg Federal Correctional Institution. Somebody’s watching TV and the volume’s too high? Sue the TV set. Awoken by a tire screech? Sue Jeff Gordon. Riches is (perhaps I’m overreaching here) fairly smart about it, however; he keeps changing venue, thus potentially avoiding some sanctions, not pissing off the same clerk twice, and diversifying the pool of courtroom beat reporters who might pick him up for the mainstream press.

It seems to me that this suit was, measured from filing, the fastest to hit a major media outlet. When I want press, I’ll talk about NASCAR. But I’m gonna try to avoid being “baseless, fantastic and delusional.”