Nerds on Sports

Hey internets, remember me? I’m the webmaster for this site and I was writing on Wednesdays for a while. Well, I have been a bit busy. In my real life I switched jobs and that was stealing most of my free time. I am now a “web development engineer” as opposed to my previous job where I was a “software engineer.” For some of you I basically just said I went from being a “computer guy” to being a “computer guy,” but the truth is I went from being a “MS SQL guy” to an “ASP.NET guy.” Don’t worry, I’m not going to switch from WordPress to a C# software package, I still have to, at least, check out version 2.5 before making rash changes.

Enough of the computer/software talk, on to the sports. Since I’ve finally settled into my new routine, I was able to take in a full weekend (Saturday) of sports.

First event of the weekend was a Rolex Sports Car series race: GAINSCO Grand Prix of Miami at Homestead Miami Speedway (say that 3-times fast). Read more »

It’s been three weeks since the Patriots gagged away the Super Bowl on a house blitz. I’ve kept down food for six days now and the green/red contrast isn’t blurring anymore, so Doc. Eakin gave me the a-okay to get writing again. She was wonderful, thank you, Doctor! Whenever I clamp down on a wood bit, I’ll think of you. Here’s what you may have missed:

-The NBA has seen been blown around by trade winds in the past two weeks, but the end result is the same: the Western Conference is strong. The addition of Pau Gasol to the Lakers makes LA a playoff favorite; their late game lineup of Derek Fisher/Jordan Farmar, Kobe, Lamar Odom, Gasol, and the returning Andrew Bynum may be the strongest in the league. There are questions about depth, but in a thirty team league depth, like chemistry, only matters if you absolutely lack it. Speaking of chemistry, Shawn Marion, who freely admitted he’d prefer to be a top dog on a terrible team, can now spread his team play and joys on the charred, crippled remains of the Miami Heat. With Shaquille O’Neal now manning the post for Phoenix, the big beneficiary of this deal is Amare Stoudamire. Back at power forward he terrorized the Lakers for 37 points and 15 boards Wednesday night. Jason Kidd’s return to Dallas is a win-now move which will put more pressure on Josh Howard to boost his 20 PPG average. The Spurs (Kurt Thomas), Hornets (Bonzi Wells), and the Jazz (Kyle Korver a few weeks ago) also made deals, lifting the fortunes of the top six teams in the West. To be fair to the East, the Cavs got Ben Wallace’s corpse! Read more »

Wednesday, September 11th Brazil and Mexico were having a friendly soccer match in Foxboro, MA. I had a friend who had a ticket with my name on it. This should be a great event even if I’m in the very highest back row, I can still hope to see Kaka or Ronaldinho. Well Foxboro is 16 miles from my house. There will be traffic, so I figure 7:00 is a good time to leave to get to an 8:30 game. Added to this is that the people with tickets are leaving at 6:30 from slightly further away.

Of course, nothing goes to plan. My ride shows up a little later than expected, we don’t leave until 7:30. At 8:15 we’ve gone 3 miles (that’s an average speed of 4 MPH… about 1/15 of the speed limit) and give the ticket holders a call. “We’re running late. You can just put our tickets at the Will Call window. Oh, your still in traffic on route 1? Well, call me back when you park, we’ll tell you how close we are.” Yes, for an extra hour of driving, they were only 10 miles ahead of us, but at our speed that was an hour and a half away.

Using the powers of GPS navigation, we decided to forgo the interstate and travel lesser known back roads to our destination. With a little luck and a little magic, we were at foxboro at 9:30. One hour after the game was supposed to start. We call the holders of the tickets. “How the fuck did you get there before us!? We’ve only gone about a mile or two in the hour and 15 since we last spoke. I see that stadium, and should be parking in about 15 minutes or so. I’ll meet you at the gates.” Read more »

Have you ever heard of Soccer? Good, then you’ve probably also heard of David Beckham. If you haven’t, he is Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham’s husband. Well, he is set to join the L.A. Galaxy of the MLS in the good ol’ US of A in August. (See this people — West Coast sports stuff! I may even mention the Ducks if they win one more game, but I doubt it) Beckham has gobs and gobs of money. He may even have a large vault filled with gold that he swims in.

He spent his money on advisers and research and he discovered that a move to Los Angeles would make him and his wife even richer. So he made a deal that would pay him a salary of about $9 million a year for 4 years. (About $2 million more than his European team was paying him, and they were being a bunch of little bitches in contract negotiations.) Also, being a major sports figure probably means we’ll be seeing him all over the TV telling us what to drink and wear.

Now, I don’t really know what to think of his joining the MLS. Is this good for a league that was built around being cheep? Will this help other teams sign some big named players? Will Joe Sports Fan watch soccer in the US? I hope the MLS is able to improve somewhat, maybe not to a Premier League, La Liga, or Serie A level, but to something a little under that (like a French or German league). I want to still be able to afford to go to games every once in a while, which means that players salaries can’t reach crazy MLB type levels. Basically, what I’m getting as is that I hope Beckham leads MLS in a good direction, which brings me to the reason I wrote this post. Read more »

No, that’s not a baseball score — That’s the final score of the MLS Soccer game I attended this weekend. Actually since the Revs didn’t win I think the scoreboard should say: Wizards 4 — Revolt 3. Even though the home team didn’t come out victorious, it was a good event.

The Kansas City Wizards fired a magic missile at the darkness and that magic missile was Eddie Johnson. Eddie blew the Revolution away with his first career hat trick. The game winning goal was a pretty sad one from a Rev’s fan point of view — In a horrible back pass between defenders, Johnson comes out of what seems like nowhere going about 100 mph and steals the ball. Catching the defender off guard, Eddie speeds right by leaving him with a one-on-one with Reis. Reis is a pretty good keeper, but Eddie Johnson (who kind of sucked it up last season) was able to score easily.

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Usually this day happens without me noticing, and then late April I wonder when and if MLS started. Usually I discover the Revolution are already 0-1-3 at that point and the loss has come at the hands feet of the New York Red Bulls (yup, terrible name and terrible team). Well this year it’s different because there was actual MLS news during the off-season keeping my brain from completely losing it’s soccer focus.

Those stories were about big name Europeans coming to play in the United States while collecting Social Security. There is the Englishman David “Bend It Like” Beckham who is now on the LA Galaxy. Which also means that his wifey, Victoria Posh Spice, is now in Magical Celebrity Movie Land (LA) and probably soon to be all over gossip blogs. The other rumor was of monsieur headbutt, Zinedine Zidane, in contract talks with the Chicago Fire. That didn’t happen so the soft fragile chests of our American stars are safe for now.

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