| Here come the Braves |
[Jul. 18th, 2006|04:27 pm] |
Here come the Braves! Ahh! Seriously. The Braves hitters were having nice seasons. Andurw Jones was on pace for MORE RBI than his league leading amount last year. Renteria is batting .320 and on pace for 120 runs. Franceour is having a nice 30 HR/100 RBI season. McCann is still batting around .350 but they just couldn't bring it altogether. Then suddenly Chipper starts hitting and BOOM they start crushing the ball. In June the Braves scored a Major League low 96 runs in 27 games. . So far in July they've only played 12 games and they have already scored 113 runs. And now Marcus Giles is injured and the put Betemit in his place and he's doing way better, to the point where I wouldn't give Giles his job back (but they probably will). This is obviously good news for my fantasy team who raked in 11 runs and 12 RBI today, but it worries me a little bit in the real world. I still don't think they'll catch the Mets unless the Mets just have a monumental breakdown, but they can certainly win the Wild Card if they keep this up and the last thing we want is to play the Braves in the playoffs, because even though we're 11.5 game better than them, they still tend to play well against us, especially now that Chipper is hitting. I really hope their pitching does them in, and it certainly wouldn't be surprising. John Smoltz has been on fire with a 1.60 ERA over his past four starts, and in those games he's striking out 7 per game and walking just one. But after that they still got nothing. |
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| Yankees aren't going anywhere |
[Jul. 17th, 2006|04:24 pm] |
I dislike the Yankees more than anyone, but the current talk of them is just stupid. All I heard over the All Star break was that the only one team from the AL East were going to be the team. The thing is they weren't just predicting it, they were acting like it was a foregone conclusion, like it was in the bag. People especially dissed the Yankees starting pitching, as they have done all year. So let me get this straight. The Red Sox played pretty much perfect baseball on a 10 game winning streak they had towards the end of the first half. The Yankees have 3 starting players injured and only one really good starter, and not much middle relief. All that together and the Red Sox have a 3 game lead?? That's it? The Yankees can't make up a three game lead? Cano and Matsui can't make up a three game lead when they come back? The Yankees can't go and get pretty much anyone they want off the market? The Yankees can't miraculously beat the Red Sox yet AGAIN? I think we're hearing more wishful thinking than actual projection. As for the pitching staffs, apparently nobody actually looks at the stats when talking about the Yankees because their "only has one good starter" pitching staff has a LOWER ERA than the two All Star Chicago White Sox pitching staff and a LOWER ERA than the should've been two All Star Red Sox pitching staff. Not just their overall ERAs but also just the starters ERAs. So if the Yankees pitching is as bad as they say (it's third best in the entire AL by the way, even better than the LIriano/Johan Twins) then the White Sox and Red Sox pitching really sucks! And now, we're only four games into the second half the Yankees have already moved within 0.5 games of the Red Sox and in the process beat the White Sox thrice, and they did it against Contreras, who hadn't lost in 17 decisions, and Mark Buehrle. Now the Wild Card lead is just 2.5 games too. In fact the White Sox look like they could be in trouble. They are on a five game winning streak while the four teams behind them in the Wild Card race (Yankees, Blue Jays, Twins, and Angels) are all on winning streaks of 3 games or more. |
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| Mets vs Cubs |
[Jul. 16th, 2006|04:18 pm] |
I was watching the Mets-Cubs game on ESPN. The Mets were coming up to bat in the sixth losing 2 - 5. I went downstairs to do a few things, I was gone a good 45 minutes, but when I came back the Mets were still batting in the sixth inning, but the Mets were now winning 13 - 5. Chris Woodward flied out to center, then Beltran reached on an error. Delgado singled, Beltran went to second. David Wright singled to load the bases. Cliff Floyd hit a grand slam to make it 6 - 5. Xavier Nady walked, Castro reached on an error. Endy Chavez singled to score Nady, Castro to third. Endy Chavez stole second. Jose Valentin singled to load the bases. Woodward grounds to third and Aramis goes home for the force out for the second out. Then Beltran hits a grand slam to make it 11 - 5. Delgado doubles, then Wright hits a two run homerun to make it 13 - 5. Floyd walked, Nady walked, then finally Castro flied out to center to end the inning. The 11 runs they scored is the most in one inning in Mets history and it's the first time since 1999 that a team has hit two grand slams in one inning. Endy Chavez was the only batter that didn't hit TWICE in the inning. In the time that it took me to type that the Cubs were already retired in the bottom of the sixth. Totals for the inning. Mets: 70 pitches, 11 runs, 9 hits in 41 minutes. Cubs: 8 pitches, 0 runs, 1 hit, in 3 minutes. |
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| Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! |
[Jul. 11th, 2006|04:30 pm] |
In one of my favorite movies, the Princess Bride, the hero Westley challenges Fizzini to a battles of wits. Westley puts a deadly poison, iocane powder in one of two glasses and Fizzini has to choose which one to drink. Eventually Fizzini chooses and drinks his wine and then keels over dead. It turns out that Westley had tricked him, he had put the iocane in both glasses, but Westley had build up a tolerance of iocane powder so that it wouldn't kill him. So this raises the question: Is it really possible to build a tolerance for poison? Or is this just a crazy action movie plot point?
Well I don't know about iocane power specifically, but I have found out that you can build up a tolerance for another kind of poison, arsenic. Arsenic is a toxin that binds to and inactivates proteins that are essential to metabolism. However it can be inactivated in the body by enzymes called metallothionines, and the presence of arsenic can induce liver cells to produce more of these. If small quantities of arsenic are consumed over a period of time, then enzyme production will be induced more often and background levels will increase, thus allowing you to survive a dose of arsenic that would normally be lethal.
I'm not sure what difference there is between iocane power and arsenic but atleast we know that it is possible to build up a tolerance to some poisons. I'm still not sure if I buy this part of the plot though. Do ALL the Dread Pirate Roberts sit around sipping iocane powder to build an immunity or is this just a hobby of Westley's? Because it seems farfetched to be sitting in your boat and thinking, "hmm, if I build up this immunity to iocane powerd then later I can trick someone into a battle of wits where I put it in both cups and get them to drink it". Most pirates would spend their time practicing their sword fighting and cool accents.
NOTE: In no way do I encourage others to try and build up a tolerance to poison. I advise you do not drink arsenic, eat rat poison, drink snake venom or drink orange juice with pulp. (The last one is not poisonous, just really really gross.) |
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| All Star teams are final |
[Jul. 9th, 2006|04:13 pm] |
Well the All Star teams are now finals and my main themes for the game are: I hate Ozzie Guillen and Thank Goodness for Phil Garner.
American League Starters voted by the fans:
C Ivan Rodriguez - When somebody is halfway through the year and almost batting .400 and you choose someone other than him to start, you're dumb. Joe Mauer should start
1B David Ortiz - I don't think someone who doesn't play first base should be the starter first basemen. All DH should be the starter at DH or regulated to the bench if there isn't a DH in the game.
2B Mark Loretta - Apparently nobody noticed that the last place Mariners from last year are only a game out of first, and it's largely due to 2B Jose Lopez
3B Alex Rodriguez - A-Rod is having the worst first half in his career....and he's STILL the best 3B in the league.
SS Derek Jeter - Jeter is having a better than normal year so I don't mind, but Tejada definitely has an argument.
OF Vladimir Guerrero
OF Manny Ramirez
OF Ichiro - I guess you can't complain about the outfielders too much, but I think I would've put Vernon Wells in there over Ichiro or Vlad.
American League Pitchers chosen by Ozzie Guillen (oh boy here we go).
Mark Redman - Yeah he shouldn't be here but he's the Royals only rep
Barry Zito, Scott Kazmir - both defintely deserve to be there and are the only reps from their team
Johann Santana, Roy Hallday, Mariano Rivera, BJ Ryan, Jonathan Papelbon - Obvious choices
Kenny Rogers - I would choosen Verlander but Rogers is good too
Mark Buerhle, Bobby Jenks, Jose Contreras - Ah, here we go, of course Ozzie Guillen has to do the time honored tradition of loading his team with his own player. Don't get me wrong Buehrle i(3.86, 9 - 5, 51 K's) is good but he's not Curt Schilling (3.54, 10 - 2, 102 K's, TWICE AS MANY AS BUEHRLE) and he's not Josh Beckett (4.64, 10 - 3, 82 K's), how can you leave BOTH of them off? He's also not as good as Verlander (3.13 10 - 4, 65 K's), he's no Mike Mussina (3.17, 9 - 3, 104 K's), and he's not even Francisco Liriano (2.21, 8 - 1, 82 K's. Liriano has 8 wins and 82 strikeouts and has started EIGHT games, Buehrle has 9 wins and just 51 strikeouts in SIXTEEN starts. Also Jenks is nowhere near the level of the other three closers. i would've left him off and added another one of these deserving starters, if you HAVE to have a fourth closer it should be Joe Nathan.
American League Reserves
C - Joe Mauer
1B - Paul Konerko and Jim Thome - Come on! Ok ok, the White Sox are good, but how are going to choose two players from your own team at the SAME position! Especially when it's a loaded position and by not choosing anybody other than your own 1B you're excluding a ton of people
2B - Robinson Canu, but it took a injured Cano to be pulled out of the game for Ozzie to realize Jose Lopez should be there.
3B - Troy Glaus
SS - Miguel Tejada and Michael Young
OF - Jermaine Dye, Alex Rios, Gary Matthews Jr., Grady Sizemore, Vernon Wells. - Raul Ibanez has 65 RBI and is the other half of the Mariners team with Lopez. He should be in over Jermaine Dye.
The number one biggest snubbing of all is without a doubt (your boy?) Travis Hafner. If the season ended today who do you think would win the AL MVP? Who is having the best offensive season of anybody in the AL? I think almost everyone would say David Ortiz. BUT,
David Ortiz 60 runs 15 2B 27 HR 76 RBI 53 BB 64 K .274 AVG .968 OPS
Travis Hafner 67 runs 17 2B 24 HR 70 RBI 69 BB 46 K .319 AVG 1.116 OPS
Hafner is having a BETTER year than than Ortiz, he's having the best season of anyone in the AL. Ortiz has a few more homeruns and RBI, but Hafner is right there with him, but scores more runs, walks more, strikeouts less and hits for a better average and his OPS, supposedly the stat to go by now, is 150 points higher.
To top it all off, the Manager gets to choose the coaching staff for the All Star game, usually the obvious choice to join your coaching staff is the manager of the team leading their League. But Ozzie Guillen is NOT inviting Jim Leyland. What! He's the hands down, absolutely, 100% postiively the Manager of the Year, regardless of if the White Sox catch up to them or not. The game is also in PITTSBURGH! Jim Leyland would get a bigger ovation than EVERYBODY even Jason Bay. So let's see, who got screwed. Beckett and Schilling. Jim Leyland, Justin Verlander, Mike Mussina, Francisco Liriano, Travis Hafner. I don't believe for a second that it's a coincidence that the people who got screwed were either on a team that is a threat to the White Sox's AL Championship (Red Sox and Yankees) or a team in the White Sox division (Tigers, Twins, Indians)
And the NL team:
Starters
C Paul Lo Duca - I still think McCann batting .365 at the catcher position should be the starter, but Lo Duca has solid numbers
1B Albert Pujols - Duh.
2B Chase Utley - sure
3B David Wright - Definitely
SS Jose Reyes - Yup
OF Jason Bay, Carlos Beltran, Soriano
Unbelievable, other than maybe McCann over Lo Duca, this is EXACTLY who I would've picked.
National League Pitchers chosen by Phil Garner
Tom Glavine and Pedro Martinez - Wow, even with all the starting Mets they still found room for two starters, making it 6 players in all.
Carlos Zambrano, Bronson Arroyo, Brad Penny, Chris Carpenter, Jason Schmidt- I'm speechless, I can not figure out a single person who should be in over any of these guys.
Brian Fuentes, Derrick Turnbow, Tom Gordon, Trevor Hoffman - THe relievers aren't as good as the AL team but they are the best choices in the NL. You could maybe argue Wagner, but he and Fuentes are about even in stats so I've got no problem with going with the guy on the team with fewer reps.
National League Reserves picked by Phil Garner
C Brian McCann There you go Phil
1B Lance Berkman and Ryan Howard - too bad NOMAH isn't here but you can't disagree with Howard and the Stros have to have a rep and it has to be Berkman
2B Dan Uggla
3B Miguel Cabrera, Scott Rolen and Freddy Sanchez (Sanchez can also play second or short)
SS Edgar Renteria - Hard to believe the Braves deserve three All Stars, but I can't see anybody better at the SS position
OF Andruw Jones, Matt Holliday, Carlos Lee - Absolutely the next three best outfielders.
I love these choices. A) Phil Garner didn't load his team with Astros. Granted the Astros don't have as many player doing well like the White Sox, but he could've stuck Biggio in there over Uggla, I don't think a lot of people would've complained for Ensberg over Freddy Sanchez and you can even make an argument for Oswalt who has a good ERA, Houston just isn't scoring enough for his record to look nice.. B) Picking Freddy Sanchez is the kind of pick I like. Here's a guy who is having a career year and this might be his only shot, not only that but he's playing in front of his home team and he's a UTILITY PLAYER! How man utility players ever get any credit? There should be more utility players. C) It has been 10 years since the NL has won, obviously the current crop of player wasn't getting it done, scrap the old guys, no more Bonds, no more Piazza, no more Maddux, no more Bagwell, no more Girffey, give the young guns a shot, guys that are so young that they don't know any better. They don't know that the AL team is supposed to crush them. Some of the are going to be so psyched to play they might have the game of their life. You got Utley, Wright, Reyes, and Bay all playing for the first time on the starting team. Beltran and Pujols are still young too. Zambrano is there for just the second time, Arroyo and Penny are in their first game, Carpenter and Schmidt in their second. Brian Fuentes and Derrick Turnbow are new to the All Star game, and so are Ryan Howard, Dan Uggla, Freddy Sanchez and Matt Holliday. Carlos Lee is only in his second, and Miguel Cabrera is a young gun too. As far as which teams are more deserving Phil Garner and the voters both did way better for the NL team. That doesn't necessarily mean the NL will win though.
There is one spot left on both teams that the fans get to vote on. For the American League the choices are Travis Hafner, Ramon Hernandez, Francisco Liriano, AJ Pierzynski and Justin Verlander. AT first it was Nick Swisher instead of AJ but they booted Swisher for AJ. PLEASE, AJ is NOT an All Star because Ozzie wanted him on the team. . If you're going on who has the best season it's hands down Hafner, not sure how they'll work him into the lineup though since I expect Thome and Konerko to play most of the game. For the National League there is Bobby Abreu, Chris Capuano, NOMAH, Billy Wagner and Chris Young. It should definitely be Nomar but again don't know he'll get to play when they already have 3 first basemen, that's the reason he didn't make the team in the first place.
Also, Ozzie has said regardless of who gets the last spot, regardless of who it is or what position they play, if anyone drops out he will add Joe Crede to the team. Please! Either Hafner, or Liriano isn't going to make the team and Crede deserves to be there? I don't think so. He also shouldn't be there over Beckett, Schilling, Mussina, Verlander, Carl Crawford, Giambi, Justin Morneau, Raul Ibanez, Johnny Damon, and Nick Swisher, |
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| Two tennis posts in a row |
[Jul. 7th, 2006|04:38 pm] |
Should I be worried that this is my second straight post about tennis? Anyway, I was watching the match today between Amelie Mauresmo and Maria Sharapova and I wondered how they came up with the scoring in tennis. It's actually quite simple. The scoring in tennis, instead of going from 0 - 5, goes Love (zero), 15, 30, 40, and then the next score wins the match. The origin of scoring comes from the stations on a clock. The four stations of course are 0, 15, 30, and 45. But somewhere along the way they decided to change 45 to 40, just because it was shorter. As for 0 being "love", it comes from the French word "l'eouf" which means egg, as in having a goose egg. |
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| Maria Sharapova |
[Jul. 6th, 2006|04:39 pm] |
I'm not going to pretned to be a tennis expert but I tune in to watch it occassionally and tend to atleast watch Wimbledon every year. This year is no different. I tuned in to watch Wimbledon and of course the first couple of days the big story was Andre Agassi playing in Wimbledon for the last time. However, Agassi was quickly eliminated but #2 ranked Rafael Nadal and they needed something different to talk about. So what was the new story after Agassi got eliminated? Was it Federer's continuing dominance? Was it that someone other than Williams sister was going to win this year? Was it the fact that all the Americans were eliminated early? Nope. After Agassi was eliminated the biggest story was, "Maria Sharapova grunts too much".
This has to be the biggest non-story in sports in quite sometime. Everyone on the Wimbledon coverage is talking about it and joking about how they have to wear ear plugs, Sharapova's opponent even complained about it after the match. Now like I said, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a first. I've seen tennis before and I've heard other people grunt before. Sure, people have joked about the fact that they grunt or whatever but it's never been the top story at Wimbledon, there are literally newspapers writing stories about Sharapova's grunting. Is it necessary? Or is it just a way to get in the opponent's head? In my opinion, who cares? What if it is just strategy on her part? There's no rules against it, if it bothers you that much, if it really does work to get in your head, then why doesn't more people do it? You're free to do it just like she does. I've heard a lot of people say that it ruins tennis players concerntration when Sharapova grunts. Well too bad, what a bunch of sissys tennis players are. Baseball, football, hockey, soccer, and basketball players have to play with thousands of people not just making noise, but having negative things said directly to them. But precious tennis players have to have complete silence in order to play their sport. It's bad enough that the fans aren't allowed to cheer while the people are playing but now people don't want the players to make noises either. This is just ridiculous, get over it people. |
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| Gilmore Girls for Emmy! |
[Jul. 3rd, 2006|04:15 pm] |
Apparently even the Emmy committee realizes that the Gilmore Girls has been robbed for not winning any Emmys, particularly Lauren Graham because this year they have changed the voting process and are even calling it "the Lauren Graham Gilmore Girls rule". The first thing they changed is that in the past people simply vote on what they've seen that they liked. Well if these voters never watch Gilmore Girls how can Gilmore Girls get nominated? Well now they have put together some panels. And the panels will be required to watch samples of the top 15 actors and actresses and the top 10 tv shows in each category. Also, directors and casting directors will help determine the acting nominations, previously only actors were part of the process. The reason for the change is because of the belief by many that the Emmys are boring compared to the Oscars. In the Oscars for best actor you might have Johnny Depp one year, then George Clooney another or Tom Hanks another, you might even have five completely different nominees from the previous year, but the Emmys for the most part are the same people winning over and over again. The Emmy committee hopes that the new process will make sure there is more variety of nominees year in and year out and that shows that deserve credit, like the Gilmore Girls, gets it. Unfortunately this past season of Gilmore Girls was not good other than the April/Luke stuff and I don't have high hopes for next year. So they may have missed the boat on Gilmore Girls. |
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| Espys 2006 |
[Jun. 26th, 2006|04:40 pm] |
Well it's that time again. On July 16th ESPN holds their annual ESPY awards, THE awards show for sports. Sure these awards aren't taken as seriously as the Oscars or anything, but they are a fun award show if you're a sports fans. But warning to those who plan on watching this, if you're tired of ESPN beating us over the head with Lance Armstrong, this might not be the show for you because he is your 2006 host. I'm sure afterwards ESPN will give him a medal for beating cancer and still being able to host the show. Anyway, here are my thoughts on winners and losers and snubs.
Best Performance:
- AJ Hawk wins 2005 Fiesta Bowl MVP and most Outstanding Linebacker
- Matt Leinhart...well plays football, they don't really say what was so impressive that he made the list.
- Kobe Bryant scores 81 points in a game.
- Ryan Howard fills in for injured Jim Thome and wins NL Rookie of the year.
ESPN treats Michael Jordan like God and Kobe scored more points than Jordan ever has so Kobe should win it.
Best NHL Player
- Jaromir Jagr
- Joe Thornton
- Alexander Oveckiin
- Cam Ward
Joe Thornton should win it but Jagr probably will. It's fan vote and 90% of the people voting won't know anybody other than Jagr.
Best International Player
- Roger Federer
- Rafael Nadal
- Fernando Alfonso
- Ronaldinho
- Albert Pujols
- Dirk Nowitzki
I don't think there is any doubt Pujols will win. Who should win? No offense to Pujols and Nowitzki who are both great and I like them both, but I have not seen any male in any sport dominate the way Roger Federer does, he would be my pick.
Best Female Track and Field
- Alyson Felix
- Michelle Perry
- Sanya Richards
Don't know anything about this category.
Best Male Track and Field
- Justin Gatlin
- Bershawn Jackson
- Asafa Powell
Don't know anything about this category either.
Best Female Tennis Player
- Venus Williams
- Kim Clijsters
- Amelie Mauresmo
- Justine Henin-Hardenne
I'll go with Mauresmo
Best Male Tennis Player
- Roger Federer
- Rafael Nadal
- James Blake
- David Nalbandian
Roger Federer
Best Boxer
- Floyd Mayweather
- Jermain Taylor
- Bernard Hopkins
- Oscar De La Hoya
No clue.
Best Footballer
- Ronaldinho
- Thierry Henry
- Frank Lampard
- Andriy Shevchenko
Umm...Frank Lampard
Best MLS Player
- Landon Donvoan
- Taylor Twellman
- Jaime Moreno
- Dwayne De Rosario
What does MLS stand for again?
Best Jockey
- Garrett Gomez
- John Velaquez
- Edgar Prado
Shouldn't we vote for the horses instead? That would be to see a trophy awarded to a horse too.
Best Golfer
- Tiger Woods
- Annika Sorestam
- Phil Mickelson
Mickelson.
Best NFL Player
- Shaun Alexander
- Peyton Manning
- Ladanian Tomlinson
- Steve Smith
- Brian Urlacher
I'm not sure why NFL gets five choices while golfers get three because I don't think these five are close enough to include them all. To me there is a big drop off from the first three to the last two and I'd have to go with Alexander over Peyton and LT.
Best Bowler
- Chris Barnes
- Norm Duke
- Tommy Jones
- Walter Ray Williams Jr
I don't know.
Best NBA Player
- Tamika Catchings
- Diana Taurasi
- Lisa Leslie
- Lauren Jackson
- Sheryl Swoopes
Aww, no Sue Bird. I'll have to go with Lauren Jackson, Taurasi is having a great season this year though, maybe next year for her.
Best NBA Player
- Kobe Bryant
- Steve Nash
- Lebron James
- Dirk Nowitzki
- Dwayne Wade
Ouch, this is a tough one. Nash still shouldn't be in this class. The other four are neck and neck but I'll go with Wade edging out Kobe.
Best Baseball Player
- Albert Pujols
- Chris Carpenter
- Alex Rodriguez
- David Ortiz
It has to be Pujols.
Best Female with a Disability
- Rachel Scdoris
- Laurie Stephens
- Sarah Rienertsen
They'are all impressive but an amputee doing the Iron Man triathlon? That's crazy.
Best Male with a Disability
- Anthony Robles
- Bobby Martin
- Steve Cook
Anthony Robles is the high school National Champion in wrestling, he did it with one leg.
Best Female College Athlete
- Seimone Augustus
- Courtney Thompson
- Virginia Powell
- Christine Sinclair
- Cat Osterman
If anybody other than Cat wins it's a joke.
Best Male College Athlete
- Vince Young
- Reggie Bush
- Matt Leinhart
- J. J. Reddick
- Adam Morrison
Vince Young hands down.
Best Female Action Sport Athlete
- Dallas Friday
- Hannah Teter
- Cara-Beth Burnside
- Gretchen Bleiler
- Janna Meyen
Dallas Friday. What do I base that on? Her name. Seriously, can you think of a name cooler than Dallas Friday?? An Action sport athlete has to have a cool name!
Best Male Action Sport Athlete
- Jamie Bestwick
- Jeremy Stenberg
- Shaun White
- Ricky Carmichael
- Kelly Slatter
Bummer, NONE of these guys have cool names.
Best US Olympian
- Ted Ligety
- Julia Macuso
- Hannah Teter
- Shaun White
Wait, the Olympics were two years ago....OOOHHH the WINTER Olympics. Those still exist?
Best Sports Movie
- Dreamer
- The Greatest Game Ever Played
- Glory Road
- Four Minutes
Wow, I didn't see any of these, not a good year for sports movies.
Best Record Breaking Performance
- Ben Roethlisberger is the youngest QB to win the Super Bowl then be stupid enough to ride his motorcyle without a helmet or a license. Ok, so I added the second part.
- Shaun Alexander scores most touchdowns in a season.
- Mike Metzger does backflip over the fountain at Cesar's, whatever that means.
- Kalen Pimentel breaks Little League World Series record.
Espy number 2 for Mr. Alexander, breaking the TD record has to be the quietest breaking of a major record ever.
Best Breakthrough Athlete
- Kimmie Meissner
- Shaun White
- Chris Paul
- Alexander Oveckin
What? No Joakim Noah? David Wright? Ryan Howard? Out of the nominees I'll say Chris Paul, but awful choices.
Best Comeback
- Tedy Bruschi
- Ronny Turiaf
- James Blake
Great that all of them have recovered from their different injuries, but Blake didn't just come back but had an amazing year.
Best Play
- Nathan Vasher kick return for 108 yards.
- Tyrone Prothro makes unbelievable catch
- David Wright one handed catch
- Aaron Rowand running catch
- Reggie Bush punt return
Gotta be Wright. I like the Prothro catch too though.
Best Moment
- Kobe Bryant scores 81 points
- Dakoda Dowd: PLGA attempt
- Jason McElwain: Manager, Shooter
- George Mason makes it to the Final Four
I'll go with George Mason, too bad they ran into the my Gators.
Best Championship performance
- Vince Young
- Venus Williams
- Sam Hornish Jr
- Dwayne Wade
Come on ! The Gators win the National Champinoship and they still can't get any love. At the beginning of the NCAA Tournamnet nobody outside of Gators fans and some SEC fans knew who Joakim Noah was. After the tournament was over everyone agreed he'd be the #1 pick overall if entered the draft, even over J. J. Reddick and Adam Morrison who earlier in this ballot were noinees for male collegiate athlete of the year. I'm not saying Joakim should win, it's definitely between Young and Wade and I think Young should win, but Joakim should be a nominee.
Best Game
- Astros vs Braves, Game 4 of the ALDS
- USC Trojans vs Texas Longhorns National Championship game
- Andre Aggasi and James Blake U.S. Open
Ahh, tough choice. I really want to say Agassi vs Blake because it was absolutely amazing, but since USC/Texas was for the championship I say it edges it out.
Best Coach
- Ozzie Guillen, Chicago White Sox
- Pat Riley, Miami Heat
- Billy Donovan, FLorida Gators
- Bill Cower, Pittsburgh Steelers
- Jim Larranaga, Geore Mason
I can't stand Ozzie. Sorry Cower, but try and win your division before being the best coach. Billy D's team beat Larranaga's team. It should be Riles or Billy D. My pick is Billy D obviously, but I doubt he does win it.
Best Team
- Maryland Terrapins Women's College Basketball
- Texas Longhorns College Football
- Miami Heat
- Pittsburgh Steelers
- Chicago White Sox
Once again, come on people. The Maryland Terrapins Women's Basketball Team over the Florida Gators men's team? I mean no offense, i'm not sexist or anything, but the Gators didn't just win their championship, they did it in more dominating fashion than any other team in any sport. They won their 6 games in the NCAA Tournament by an average of 16 points. In the finals they beat the school that has the most championships and history and whooped them badly. I like Maryland's baskeball team, but I wouldn't even put them ahead of the Arizona Wildcats' softball team. Miami wasn't a great team, they were Dwayne Wade and some other guys. The Steelers didnt' even win their division. I'd have to go with either Texas or Chicago, and I'd probably lean towards Texas.
Best Female Athlete
- Annika Sorestam
- Hannah Teter
- Sheryl Swoopes
- Melanie Trexel
I refuse to even choose in this category since Cat Osterman not being in the category is the biggest omission in the whole thing. Nobody, male or female, was as dominant in her sport as she was this season.
Best Male Athlete
- Lance Armstrong
- Vince Young
- Shawn Alexander
- Lebron James
- Albert Pujols
This is a pretty tight one, very tough choie between Vince Young, Shawn Alexander, Lebron and Pujols, so of course that means Lance Armstrong will win for the 53rd consecutive year. I'll take Pujols myself. And Roger Federer is missing from this list. |
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| Blame Video Games |
[Jun. 22nd, 2006|04:49 pm] |
The past couple of days I've been going over to SermonAudio.com to get sermons to listen to for my daily quiet times. Twice this week I have heard sermons about video games, and it's really annoying me. One of the sermons wasn't TOO bad. He gave some good reasons on why video games can be hurtful, and they can be but I didn't like that he listed the bad things about video games and talked about them for 40 minutes, then listed the good things about video games and spent about 2 minutes on them. He admitted to not being a video game player himself, which was pretty evident because a lot of his facts were incorrect too. The second sermon though was ridiculous. The guy on the second sermon said that every murder committed by someone younger than 21 years old over the past 15 years killed that person because of video games. What was his proof? He says, every one of those murderers has played a video game before. Yeah so? Just about every PERSON under 21 years old has played a video game so of course every murderer under 21 has played one. Everyone under 21 years old has also breathed. No breathing kids! But that's not all he went even further and said that a lot of board games are evil too. The two they mentioned were Monopoly because they said it teaches you be greedy, and Risk because anyone who plays Risk learns to WANT TO RULE THE WORLD! I'm not making this stuff up. I guess Battleship is a no no too because you'll start blowing up ships, don't play Clue either or you'll hit people with candlesticks in the conservatory, and definitely don't let your kids play Operation or they'll go around pulling out people's funny bones.
Now the second sermon was just absurd so I ignored them, the first one though is the one I want to talk about. Really his two main points were that A) people spend too much time playing video games and B) some games are not appropiate for the people playing them. I completely agree with both points being a bad thing. But this isn't a "video games are evil" thing, this is a bad parenting thing. Let's face it kids or teenagers are not responsible, that's why they live with their parents. If you let a kid play whatever they want for however long they want then they will. If a kid shouldn't play a game for six hours straight, then their parent should tell them not to. If a game is inappropiate for a kid or teenager, then their parents shouldn't let them have the game. That's why there is a rating on every game. But the truth is most parents don't want to deal with their kids they just sit them in front of the tv to entertain them. Then when that same kid DOES get in trouble, probably because they get no attention from their parents, their parents blame the video games, when they were the ones that let them play it! If you have a kid that plays video games you should monitor them to make sure they don't play too long, if the parent isn't home to monitor them, then here's an idea, don't get them a video games system. If they are going to a friend's house and playing inappropiate games then don't let them go to that friend's house.
It especially peeved me when people blamed Columbine on video games. The students who shot up the school played first person shooters so that must be why they did it! Wrong. The truth is the kids who shot students at Columbine played first person shooters because they already liked guns, they didn't like guns because they played first person shooters. These kids were already troubled to begin with. And again this goes back to bad parenting. As a parent your kid should know that video games aren't real, you should teach them that shooting people is bad. I admit that some games are bad, Grand Theft Auto should not be played by anyone under 21 and even then you might be better off staying away from it, but anyone who sees a character on a video game shoot someone else and then thinks, "oh that's pretty cool" either hasn't been taught very well or is messed up in the head, it has nothing to do with video games.
I also object to the second sermon saying that the worst type of video game is the roleplaying game because roleplaying games are evil. What a load a crap. Other than puzzle games, like Tertris, and sports games, roleplaying games are the LEAST evil for several reasons:
1. Nobody imitates roleplaying games - You hear some cases where idiots shoot someone because of a first person shooter, or run their car into something because of a racing game, or suplex their buddy because of a wrestling game. I think there was even one case where someone injured another person by jumping on their head like Mario! But I have NEVER heard of a case where someone was injured imitating a roleplaying game. Have any kids gotten injured trying to kill the local dragon? Have any kids every gotten lost because they went to the Forbidden Forest? Has a kid ever made an elixir called Phenix Down that brings people back to life? No, because roleplaying games are so fantastical that nobody, even the really really stupid people ever mistake them for reality.
2. Less violence - In a roleplaying game you get a screen where on one side you have pictures of your heroes and on the other side are your villians, you choose to attack and there is some graphic or sound effect to suggest you attacked them, but you don't see it happen. Your player doesn't rip off someone's arms like in God of War. Your player doesn't pull out someone's spine like in Mortal Kombat, you don't see the villians blow up like in Grand Theft Auto and you never ever see any blood.
3. It's the most educational - I know what you're thinking, a game is educational, yeah right! It's true. In roleplaying games you have very long and complicated stories and character development, it's more like an interactive movie than like the action adventure games. Which means there is lots and lots of reading. I started playing roleplaying games when I was probably 7 or 8 and I honestly learned more vocabulary words from playing roleplaying games than I did from going to school.
4. Language - In about 98% of the roleplaying games I've played there was no swearing at all, not even words like "crap" and "damn" that are pretty much acceptable in society today.
5. Puzzles - Often in video games there are several puzzles that you have to face which actually challenge the mind, rather than just having you shoot the same evil creature 23,341,534 times in a row like first person shooters or just punch over and over again in fighting games.
So yeah, video games aren't that bad if the parents would take some responsibility. Now I must go roll up in a ball and then pounce on top of things. What can I say, I played too much Sonic the Hedgehog as a child. |
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