The Roaming Nerd — Camden Yards

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The Baltimore OrioleThis past week the day job had me travel down to D.C. to meet with a client. Well, our team of 4 decided (after a long day of work that had started at 4am by waking up to catch a flight) to squeeze into a Honda Civic driven by someone’s cousin for the hour drive to Baltimore to catch the Orioles v. Tigers game. At the time I didn’t know if this was a very intelligent idea, but the only ballpark I had ever been to was Fenway and it’s high time I start exploring.

We arrived just in time to see former ESPN personality Roy Firestone sing the national anthem. At this point I started compiling the ways Camden is better an Fenway. So far: cheaper seats, cheap and available parking, fireworks during the national anthem (rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air) and space to walk around. We then decided on what to eat. Even though Boog’s was right there and recommended, we weren’t in the mood for BBQ. We went with spicy cheese dogs and beer — perfect baseball food.

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Broken Fantasy

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I love my fantasy baseball league. Even beyond the awesome players, and the excellent commissioner, the online system itself has proven to be flexible and versatile to satisfy the unusual quirks of our own league. I’m not going to plug the company unless I get some money out of it, but suffice to say that it isn’t through ESPN, who recently released this statement.

We are sorry to have to make such an aggressive change, and fully recognize the impact this will have. This action was our only option because of the nature of the issues and their potential to compound if not addressed on a fundamental level. Ensuring the integrity of the season ahead for ALL players is tremendously important to us and this solution ensures that all players will be treated equally.

I did some research – after all, I wondered what could have happened that required such drastic measures – and found the following user comments on one of the various online forums I frequent: Read More

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Pete Orr – Your Next American Canadian Idol

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Pete OrrOn Saturday I was able to catch the Mets v. Braves game on The Braves Station (from heretofore know as TBS). Well TBS decided to place a microphone on a certain Braves player: Peterson Thomas “Pete” Orr. Well, Pete decided to talk, sing, make sound effects and other wacky things that TBS could use in montage form. (We all know that a montage is the sincerest form of flattery.) And montage they did!

One thing Pete said in the montage was that “it’s so cold, even the players from the cold are cold.” He should know, seeing as he’s from the frozen North: Canada. A CanadianOrr was also singing along when the stadium sound system was playing My Girl, but using his own words: “I guess [Craig] Wilson says ‘I get weirder every day.'” What TBS didn’t show us was the whole song. Well, I called some of my connections, made some deals, and got the full transcript of the entire song. I hope you like it. Read More

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PRIDE Fighting – Like UFC But With More Hugs

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PRIDE (or, to use its Christian name, PRIDE Fighting Championships), was founded in Japan in 1996. It’s an international mixed-martial arts league, similar in format to UFC, where two large men hit each other as hard as they can when they’re not hugging. If you can follow UFC, you can follow PRIDE.

PRIDE differs from UFC, though, in a few key areas:

  • Fighters in a PRIDE match can kick downed opponents in the head, where UFC frowns on it. Oddly, PRIDE forbids elbow strikes to the head, where UFC allows them (so long as it’s not point first, i.e. fatal).
  • UFC bouts consist of three rounds of five minutes each. This is already pretty grueling – while football requires short bursts of adrenaline every 40 seconds, MMA demands a pretty consistent level of exertion. PRIDE, preferring to watch huge men stagger like wounded elephants, sets its first round at ten minutes and any subsequent rounds at five.
  • There are a lot more Japanese men in disturbing tights in a PRIDE fight than you’ll find, on average, in UFC.

If the above excites you half as much as it excites me, check out “PRIDE Fighting Championship” on FSN. Fox Sports rumormonger Jay Glazer and erstwhile MMA fighter Frank Trigg. In a couple of ill-fitting silk suits, they turn 30 minutes’ worth of archived footage into 48 minutes of show by adding their own redundant analysis. For extra fun, watch the fight recaps where Frank Trigg highlights the StrikeZoneTM – a CGI’ed box that inevitably appears around a fighter’s ass, crotch or face.”He really turned this fight around,” Trigg will say, “by planting his feet, picking his opponent up, and slamming him into the mat skull first” (said skull-slamming actually happening to Josh “The Baby-faced Assassin” Barnett, a match he went on to win). And then we StrikeZoneTM on Josh’s ass.

FSN’s PRIDE recaps are the kind of show DVR was made for, as it comes on at odd hours (7 PM on Sundays, and not always then) and has a pretty low signal-to-noise ratio. But if you want to watch Fedor Emilianenko legally rape a man, this is probably the show for you.

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[Business Day One] Eye On The Tiger

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Tiger WoodsMuch to my disappointment, Tiger Woods did not capture the victory at the Masters this past weekend. The green jacket went instead to Zach Johnson, a perfectly pleasant-sounding man from Iowa. While I do not begrudge the former Drake Bulldog for outplaying everyone (include Tiger) on the beefy Par 5s of Augusta, I am still upset that the best golfer in the world didn’t take the title.

I root for Tiger Woods, for reasons that are probably a bit selfish. I want to be able to say that I watched the most dominant athlete in the world during his prime. I want the premier sportsman of the decade to be a well-educated man with no criminal record instead of a hard-luck case from Newark, NJ that overcame a murder conviction to be the best strong safety in football. I want to be able to talk about a great golfer while playing golf with other golfers. Selfish justifications, perhaps, but not bad ones.

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38 Pitches in a Win

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First week of baseball is officially over. Schilling picked up his first win, which was a nice change over the terrible outing on opening day. I’m sure soon enough Curt will have his analysis over at his blog, 38 pitches. Not that I think Schilling’s ego needs to be stroked any, but I find the fact that he does painstaking analysis of his own games to be quite amazing.

Don’t have a lot of anything else to say at the moment. I could complain about my fantasy baseball team (starting the season in 15th, yay!), but truthfully, nobody actually cares about that sort of thing. Only other people in your league do, in a schadenfreude sort of way.

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Don’t Change That Channel.

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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

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Happy Soccer Day!

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Zidane HeadbutUsually 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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