Nerds on Sports

This being Easter, well, call me the Easter Bunny ’cause I’ve got a little present for you: a bit of wisdom!

Don’t change that channel.

If you already missed most of the game, just let it slide. Odds are, you’re not going to be pleased with the outcome– either you missed the good stuff, or the implosion happens as soon as you tune in. Anytime you flip to the game in the late stages, you’re: better off on the one hand waiting for “Sportscenter;” or on the other just plain not bothering. When you start watching late, you’re bound to be pissed. You missed the rally, or you tuned in for the loss.

Invariably, when I tune in for the late stages of any contest, I’m inviting disappointment. Case in point: tonight, BC vs. Michigan State for the NCAA Hockey championship. My father calls me and asks, innocently enough, “Are you watching? This is a great game!” Read more »

There is no I in team… or in the last syllable of Virginia apparently. The good people at “the other college basketball tournament” or N.I.T. as they like to be called made a little mistake on some championship t-shirts. Looks like the mountaineers have a new West Virgina shirt to bring home. Hey, it could have been worse, they could have been wearing some new West Vagina shirts.

I know, I’m not really one to talk about spelling, because I can’t spell my way out of last place in a Scrabble game. But come on people, they invent tools for this. Hell, Firefox has it built in so that, no matter what website I’m on, I can comment like I went to College, unlike the folks at the Not Invited Tournament who make the No I T-shirts. And that’s not the only thing the NIT does stupidly: scheduling game to happen at the same time as the NCAA games. You have to realize that you’re the second fiddle and that you’ll get much more SportsCenter air time if you have games on different nights.

Of course, you have to wonder (or you don’t, but I will): what about those lovely championship shirts that would have gone to second place Clemson if they had won? We all know that they immediately ship these shirts out to impoverished African nations, so we’ll never know if there is some child wearing a beautiful Clemson Tiggers shirt.

I’m a terrible gambler sports prognosticator. As mentioned previously, we do this little fantasy baseball league, and I’m solid middle of the road year-in, year-out. So it should hardly be surprising that my lack of picking prowess translates into other, equally venerable sports betting guessing arenas.

I entered an NCAA pool this year, giving in to that yearly sisyphean impulse. Imagine my dismay when I saw that Georgetown (and the combo of Patrick Ewing Jr. and John Thompson XV/V) and BC would meet in the second round! (If it helps the imagination, the most dismay I could experience was about five bucks’ worth.) What to do? Logically, I couldn’t pick BC over a bigger, more consistent Hoyas team with a fierce basketball pedigree… but if a team were to eliminate our Eagles, clearly I should pick them to win out. Read more »