Is The World Cup Over Yet?

Its over now right, the soccer thing? There hasn't been a whole lot going on in DC lately. The Caps drafted more Russians. (What is funny is that this too increases OV's status as MVP of the league. McPhee said they draft so many Russians that are gambles for other teams to sign because of the Great 8. They look at his successes here and his ability to retain his "Russian-ness" back home and sign with the Caps. Kuznetsov was talented enough to be picked 10 to 15 slots higher and the Caps were looking to move up to pick him then, but instead fell to the DC Red anyways. The Caps have no such issues with OV on the team. Even when he isn't on the ice he is still better than the rest.) But I digress.


There isn't too much to say about the Redskins right now; The Jammal Brown trade was great, and I would put him at left tackle and wait a year to put Williams there. The LT will be facing guys who went to at least two Pro Bowls in 10 games this year. I heard a rumor Vince Jackson may be headed here; I wouldn't give more than a third or fourth round draft pick, but it would be nice to have a deep threat like that. And the Nats look terrible. Riggleman has made a slew of mistakes recently, and his fixation with Nyjer Morgan needs to be resolved. Either the guy need to start getting on base and look as bright as when we got him last year, or he needs to sit for a while. I don't think the guy will be ruined by some time on the pine, and someone needs to get on base so Zim, Dunn, and the Hammer have someone to drive home. Ian Desmond might as well change his name to Ean right now, but he is a rookie and will be a cornerstone here for at least half a decade. I can't say the same about Morgan while he works things out.



And then there was all this soccer. I don't get it. I've honestly tried, but all it really does is make me sympathize with the rare person you come along who says they don't like sports. Its dumbfounding to hear someone say that, but if all sports look like soccer to this anomaly of a person I understand. I would root for a guy in a belching contest if the guy had on a USA t-shirt, but ow that the US is knocked out, at least we won't have to hear about it again for four years. I am not going to critique soccer, but if I were I'd of course go after the refs, which mirror the totalitarianism rampant in some of the countries in the tournament, the flopping, which looks like Crosby on grass, and the love of ties and breaking even. I did not even go after the low scoring, because that isn't why America hates it. A hypothetical 2-1 Nolan Ryan-Sandy Koufax matchup would give ESPN some of its highest ratings ever. Tickets to a 1985 Bears versus 2000 Ravens game would fetch thousands of dollars. There is nothing more intense than a 1-1 playoff game in the NHL (because there is an overtime and no ties if it stays that way for a little bit.)


Americans did with sports what they do to everything else; make it better. Baseball is our Declaration of Independence. We looked at cricket and we did not like it. There were probably high taxes involved, so we went out and invented a game that has not needed to be fixed in 150 years. No matter how big and fast athletes become, the bases are always 90 feet apart, the pitching mound a tad over 60, and the sun always sets behind home plate. Football brings together our conflicting ideals of togetherness and individuality together. We as Americans do things together, but we also celebrate great individual achievements as well. Football encapsulates the politically incorrect notion of Manifest Destiny, where the whole concept of the game is to make gains to bring the promised land to all. And failure is never tolerated. (In the CFL, you get a point for punting and a missed field goal. Its called a rouge, look it up. We don't put up with that kind of stuff here.)



And hockey is the perfect example of our adaptation in making things better. Ice skating is tolerable in grade school when you do it because its a good way to meet girls and try to steal a kiss. But what if we hit each other every once in a while, put goals in so there is some purpose to the whole thing, and if someone is acting a little out of line, they have to fight? Skill takes over and it is almost too fast to watch on television, and the toughest guys in the world all flock to play it. When the NHL Americanized it even more to appeal to non-traditional hockey markets in Nashville, Florida, and Phoenix at the turn of the millennium, they took out the ties. A challenge that is embraced head-on involving exceptional individuals who work as a unit to promote a noble cause is as American as it gets in my world. soccer fans will say that those who don't like it are uncultured and don't understand the "great gentleman's game." My head can take the game in fine, but my soul falls asleep every time.


It is not that soccer is bad, it just does not have any of these aspects. While there is clearly a higher degree of talent, the game does not change that much from when the players are ten to when they are pros. You can not say the same for baseball, football, and hockey. I don't understand why it is a "gentleman's game" when people get killed around these matches. I don't understand why you would continue to play soccer as a kid other than to prevent getting hurt and not have to face a pressure situation like a three-point shot, full count, or perfect pass spiraling toward your hands. I don't understand vu-vu-zillas. I don't understand why 14 million Americans watching the US-Ghana game was a big deal. 34 million watched the US-Canada match in February with a whole lot more going on, and hockey is still a fourth-tier sport here, but hockey fans don't go nuts about it.


I was going to go on and on, but Matt Taibbi said it so much better than I can in his article that I will post at the end. I hope soccer fans will continue to enjoy their game, just leave us alone about it. With a plate full of American sports that satisfy the soul from youth until death, soccer is just the elevator music that Americans push through on the way to the rock concert. Someone must appreciate it, but it gets pretty annoying when someone turns it up.




http://www.mensjournal.com/taibbi-world-cup

Stay Classy Philly

Congrats to OV for winning the Ted Lindsay, as voted by the players. That is the most prestigious and coveted award, so naturally OV won. I hate some of the opposing players sometimes, but when they play by the code and are honest it shows what hockey is all about. It must take a lot to get knocked around by the OV all year and still stand up to say he he is clearly the best for the third year in a row. Three in a row is the third time ever that that has ever happened, and the first since Gretzky. One thing Gretzky never did was make the all-pro team for the first five years of his career but that's okay, no one has but OV. Congrats to the class of the league OV, and congrats to the players for showing some class in voting for him.


It would be great if the media showed some class and gave him the Hart as well, but Sedin had a great year so good for him. OV lost by a weighted point system of 894 to 834. Mysteriously, OV was not voted MVP by the writers by a difference of six first place votes. (20 votes were hype votes wasted on Crosby.) It does not make sense unless OV was left off of those lone 6 ballots completely, losing the first place vote count 46-40. This isn't a dimpled chad situation; there is a clear explanation for this. It is our fine Pennsylvania neighbors again, only this time it was not Pittsburgh, but Philly, where fans intentionally vomit on children, let four year olds swill beer on camera, boo Santa, and never win anything.


Mike Vogel reported on dumpnchase.com live at the awards in Vegas that he witnessed the Philly writers saying that none of them had Mike Green in their top five for the Norris, which he placed second for again. (Despite the fact that since 1994 the only defenders that have been passed over for the Norris as point leaders are Green and ex-Cap Gonchar.) They clearly were in collusion to keep Green out; do you think they may have had something to do with OV not winning the Hart despite showing again that he is clearly the best in the league? That answer is obvious. I have said for a while that there is already bias against OV and the rest of the Caps by anyone with a touch of power in the NHL. He clearly did not need the perpetually classless in Philly to tip the balance even more. Furthermore, Boudreau's team finished 10th in the Jack Adams voting, which also took place before the playoffs even started. Who were the other guys voted ahead of the coach with the best record in the league? There was the chicanery of the Pitt series last year, the OV suspensions out of nowhere during the regular season, the rock salt sabotage in Montreal during the playoffs, and now the skewed voting by the biased media. Its been a frustrating year for the Caps. At least Neuvrith and Hershey won the Calder again; that was something the NHL, cheaters and the media could not take away.


Theodore won the Masterson, which even the heartless had to vote for after the year he had on and off the ice. He will be missed and we will be left to wonder if the Caps could have overcome their sabotaged skates if he was put back in net during the Montreal series. I think it is smart bringing Neuvirth up. Nabokov was released by the Sharks, but there is not any point in wasting cap space on a goalie when the Caps need a free agent defenseman like Michalek from Phoenix to really get to where they want to be. I have no doubt the Caps cruise to the playoffs again with Varlamov and Neuvrith splitting the net; the rest of the team is too talented. A guy like Michalek is a stay at home d-man who always finds a way in front of shots, and a big name goalie is becoming less and less of a commodity in the playoffs. Guys like Miller and Brodeur got nowhere this year; guys like Halak and Niemi seem to come out of nowhere to be the hot goalie.


Niemi was the second rookie in six years to win the Cup. In order, the last six goalies with the Cup were Niemi, Fleury, Osgood, Giguere, Ward (the other rookie,) and Khabibulin. The one thing they all had in common is that none played over 62 games during those seasons. (In contrast to Brodeur, 77 games, Nabokov, 71, Bryzgalov, 69, Miller, 69 for the top four goalies this year without even counting the Olympics.) The lesser-played were rested and got hot at the right time. Neuvrith has gotten hot at the right time two years in a row at the highest level the Caps have let him play. Having a stay at home defenseman coupled with the best defenseman in the league should certainly help him make it three. So will the three time reigning MVP if all his playoff goals count next year.

Celebrate a Legit Cup

Big wins again for the Nattos, sweeping the Pittsburgh just like the Caps this year. Clearly the better teamed prevailed in both instances. I also wanted to congratulate the Blackhawks for winning the Cup, it was nice to see a team earn it this year instead of having it given to them like the year previous. Philly fans did not disappoint, booing the Cup as it was hoisted by the Hawks and repeatedly giving the finger, but that is par for the course there. Toews was a gentleman, celebrating with his teammates and then leading them over to shake hands with the Flyers quickly, instead of classlessly leaving them out on the ice awkwardly like last year's "winning" captain did. I was jealous as a Caps fan, of course all year I expected that to be us with the trophy. Unfortunately, we were cheated for the second year in a row. First with the take back of Ovechkin's game 7 goal, we all knew about that. But one other story was swept under the rug by the NHL that not a lot of people have heard of. The Canadiens were cheating. Essentially they were putting down rock salt on the ramp leading up to the bench, warping the opposing team's skates. I don't believe for a minute that they were not doing this all along to beat even more talented and fleeter of foot teams than the Flyers like the Caps and yes even the Pens. Here is one of the links that Gary Bettman and his cronies did not want you to see from nhlsnipers.com. I still think the Canadiens put forth a great effort and the Caps let them hang around for too long, but we were not cheated as badly as we were in the '09 playoffs.

Look I know I pick on Crosby a lot, and quite frankly it is because I hate him. He is a whiner, the antithesis of a great player like Gretzky, Howe, Orr, Ovechkin and Lemieux. He has not won anything, but acts like he is one of the best because the Cup was handed to him last year as a PR stunt. Last night's coverage only solidified my view of the hockey media trumpeting their over-hyped Canadian. No, surprisingly, Crosby's name was never brought up, but Toews was over and over again. There was not a whole lot of mention of Patrick Kane, who scored the game winner. (Strasburg was on the Top Ten on Letterman tonight, and one of the "little known things about Strasburg was that he scored the game winner for the Blackhawks last night.) It was literally a joke. Kane, a fine American like all Buffalonians, was largely ignored in favor of the Canadian Toews, who to his credit played fantastically in the playoffs. He also was the MVP of the Canadian team in the Olympics, but largely went ignored the Canadian hierarchy in favor of Crosby, who while dormant most of the tournament, was lucky enough to chip in the final goal. Why? Because that is what the Canadian-controlled hype machine wants you to believe unless you actually follow hockey and know the details.

So for the last time on this blog, I will spell out how the Caps, while obviously cheated in the 2010 playoffs, were absolutely robbed in the 2009 playoffs. Then I will promise to put this to rest until the next Penguin fan tells me that they have won three Cups. The fact that Crosby's name is on there with Lemieux's, essentially besmirching it should be enough for them to be quite. I will also put it to rest as long as "pundits" stop putting Crosby anywhere in the same breath as Ovechkin who is the clearly the better player anywhere outside of the hype vacuum that Bettman and folks have created for him. Just because Wilbon saw a Pacquiao fight does not mean he is a boxing expert. So for the last time, to sum it up, here we go.............

First off, the Penguin's television productions were witholding camera angles from replay officials that did not favor the Pens for a long time. They were only caught red-handed once, and yes people were fired, but if you did not believe it was used several times before that instance then you probably believe the Patriots only filmed the Jets that one time during Spygate. Secondly, you have to understand the TV contract that the NHL has with NBC. For all other major sports television in America, networks bid X amount of dollars to broadcast games and then get all of the commercial revenue from said broadcasts, as well as an opportunity to plug their own programming. For example, ESPN paid a billion dollars to broadcast Monday Night Football and a Super Bowl every four years, and they make all the money off of the ads within those games for the duration of the contract. With the NHL, NBC has paid nothing for the right to broadcast those games. The NHL gets half of the advertising revenue after NBC has recouped their production costs.

While the Caps-Pens '09 series was going on, the NHL and NBC were negotiating this contract. The Caps had the best young team and player in the league and were and are a great TV draw. The NHL has pitted Crosby versus Ovechkin since they both entered the league, and to this day they still draw the highest ratings in the league when they play each other. Unfortunately for the league in the midst of these negotiations, the Caps were leading the series 2-0 and were on the cusp of making the series unwatchable to the average fan and pundit, and negating any such hyped "rivalry" between the two players. No other major network would negotiate with the NHL at the time, and the NHL had to find a way to show that hockey could still be sold on TV. And that is why the already shoddy officiating turned downright atrocious in Game 3 and continued for the rest of the series. It was the only way the hapless Pens could keep up. In fact one of Montreals' papers The Globe and Mail wrote an article on the attempted extension between the NHL and NBC during the playoffs, and was not even acknowledged until a month after the playoffs ended. Why would the NHL sweep that story under the rug for so long?

Maybe because they did not want people to form a connection between the Caps getting whistled for looking at a Pen, and the Pens not being whistled for things like this. Plays like this occurred all series but this was the most damning. That is the Pittsburgh broadcast; the very people who were caught cheating for the Pens could not bite their tongues when it came to the interference on Boyd Gordon. So instead of the Caps killing off a power play, essentially demoralizing the Pens and going on one of their own deadly power plays to win, the game was given to the Pens. The cheating Penguins announcers pointed it out, the equivalent of Bellichek instructing the refs to ignore the tuck rule, Brady really fumbled. However, all four refs on the ice missed it. Maybe they were tired; it was the second of back to back games on May 8th and 9th, which was only done to accommodate the Penguin's schedule per league orders. Back to back playoff games almost never happens in the NHL otherwise.

We all know the end result. The Caps lost the series in a game 7 that never should have been played while most of the team suffered from illness. As a footnote, the Pens beat the Hurricanes in four, dominating them much the way the Caps have and would have if given their rightful opportunity. The Pen went down 2-0 in the series to the Red Wings as well, and would have been crushed if rule 47.22, otherwise known as the instigator penalty, was enforced instead allowing the Pen's best player Malkin to play in Game 3 of the Cup Finals. Logic goes to show that the Pens were beat by the Caps, and if they were better than them they would have beat Detroit as well after handling a Carolina team that hasn't been a problem in DC in a long time.

Bettman and Crosby got what they wanted. The NHL was not relegated to Versus only, they got their contract with NBC as viewership across the country went up 42% in '09. All the Caps ever wanted was a fair shake. So I will put this to rest finally, a year after the stolen Cup that never was. Now that it has been wrested from Pittsburgh hopefully someone will sandblast Crosby and his cronies' names right off of the great trophy. Consider the issue closed until someone tries to say Crosby won a Cup or is in the same ballpark as Ovechkin or even Toews in both skill and honor. Then you can have a chuckle to yourself about their hockey ineptitude or even point them to this post if you want to show them how wrong they are. I've been blogging about it for a year, and if they insist it is another raving, biased blog, tell them to pick up The Fix is In by Brian Tuohy that came out this year. Its a book listed on Amazon, you can hold it in your hands, and it has the '09 Penguins as the biggest fix in NHL history just behind the Gretzky trade from Edmonton to LA. Its not another blog conspiracy. As a hockey fan, not a hype fan, I am just glad a legitimate team won the Cup to start off the 2010s. It is a shame that 2 years went by in the decade of '00, the Lost Decade, without a deserving team to claim it.

Strasmas in DC

You know when you were a kid watching cartoons and the heat would get turned up, inevitably sending the mercury through the top of the thermometer and shattering it? Stephen Strasburg can do that with the K count. The guy literally broke the K count at Nationals Park tonight; there wasn't enough oversized scoreboard in right for all the Ks, so they just put a 12+ on and added two more. For a game that would have been really hard to disappoint, this so far exceeded already huge expectations that there really aren't words for it.

It was like watching a cartoon, or playing Madden on beginner level. I was there for the opener in 2005 and that was surreal; like Angelos and Selig were going to run over and pinch you to wake you up and not have baseball again. The rest of the pennant-contending year was great as well, but nothing matched this. It has been a long time since I have walked in and out of a sporting event in DC and seen everyone so genuinely happy. The Caps had a great year, but as soon as the playoffs started people walked in Verizon on pins and needles, praying to not be disappointed. Last time I saw people like that at a Skins game was when we beat the Cowboys in the season finale to clinch the playoffs a few years ago, but a lot of smiles vanished once fans saw the parking lot.

Everyone walking both in and out of the gates tonight was beaming. There will not be as much excitement for the rest of Strasburg's starts but there should be. There should be at least 35,000 at every start for this guy. When Strasburg is healthy, as he obviously was tonight, you would have to really hate baseball not to check him out a few times; Schilling was right, he is one of the best in the game right now. The hoopla leading up to the event was that DC is an event-driven town, like we are a bunch of Salahis looking to crash whatever event is dubbed the "big thing." But you could tell the crowd tonight was dying to show this is our sports town from the get-go, booing the ump for daring to call the first pitch a ball. (The ump by the way said that the first pitch even confused him, imagine what the batters are thinking.)

Strasburg's one bad pitch wasn't a bad pitch, it was a perfectly thrown, away changeup that Delwyn Young guessed right on. It happens. People were more nervous about Strasburg pulling a hamstring trying to get to first on his first at bat. The homer didn't even phase the crowd who were right back on there feet from the fifth inning on. And like the proverbial mercury in the thermometer, the heat of the atmosphere and the fastballs kept rising until it finally burst through with a seventh consecutive strikeout to end the seventh inning and Strasburg's debut. It wasn't the playoffs, it was better. That time will come, but what we have right now is amazing on its own. And once we do get to the playoffs, there may not be as many seats for people to witness this stuff. They might have to take out some seats to be able to tack up the Ks.

Bad Calls

The call that went against ex-Natto farmhand Galarraga was pretty horrendous last night. One of the guys traded to the Rangers for Soriano got hosed and everyone knew it. But that was not even the worst call this week. The Nationals bore that, even if a perfect game was not on the line. A playoff spot down the road may be, but there are 162 games to even that out, and hopefully the umps do.

The glut of perfect games is interesting. You might be able to call it "the year of the pitcher" with the warm-up hype for Chapman's debut in Cincinnati, Jimenez's brilliance, the even bigger hype for Strasburg's call-up, and the three perfect games in three weeks when there had never been two in the same season before. However, the umps are making it the year of the ump instead. Maybe Rob Dibble homerisms on MASN are getting to me, but there have been way too many bad calls in the games I have seen this year. Blubbering Joe West needs to keep his mouth shut and just ump. When Ozzie Guillen comes out of an argument looking like the sane one you need to reassess the way you are doing things. Last night's game has put bad calls under a microscope, but it certainly did not effect the game as much as Denkinger's call that stole the '85 Fall Classic from the Cardinals or the games in the '09 Eastern Conference semi-finals in the NHL that the refs gave away. It did not even effect the game as much as Tuesday nights Nats game.

Everyone can call Galarraga's performance perfect because unlike the ump Joyce's, it was. The easy way to solve that problem is to have Selig reverse it. Even if Selig goes by his own precedent of being gutless and doesn't reverse, it will go down in history as a perfect game. There is no such thing as the history book anymore, there is the history new media, and that is what the next generation will look at. They will look at the perfect game with an asterisk next to it, click on the link, and decide for themselves. When they see the asterisk next to Bonds name for home run king, they will click on the picture of Bonds as a rookie and compare it to post-steroids, and come to the conclusion that the home run record rests at 755.

What is tougher to asterisk is division standings. The Nats have been hosed on bad on balls and strikes all year long. You don't get those calls when you are a team that has lost over 200 games in two years. The check-swing on Berkman Tuesday night was atrocious; that was strike 3 with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th, game over. Instead we had a gutless call by umpire Hohn, who the previous day engaged Roy Oswalt and tossed him. That was a questionable call that was meant to protect his fragile machismo when Questech can easily do his job for him behind the plate. To rule twice against the Astros would have made getting out of Houston difficult for him, but having a clear line of sight down the third base line on Berkman's swing and calling the play right is his job, not looking like a tough guy. Instead, he made the wrong call twice, the game went on, Berkman singled home the tying and winning runs, and it went into the books as a Nats loss with little fanfare. If the Nats miss the wild card by a game, that is the biggest blown call of the year. Riggleman is also to blame for not getting in his Hohn's smug face immediately, or at the very least the next game for anything. Instead, the Nats laid down a stinker last night when a wild-card contending team should be beating up on the Astros right now.

After Joyce's call last night, everyone handled the situation as well as they could. Leyland and the entire Tiger's organization got in Joyce's "Tombstone"-extra-mustachioed face and let him have it. He stuck by his call until he saw the replay, then went to Galarraga in tears apologizing. And every Tiger including Galarraga forgave him, calling him a class act and human. Nothing was perfect last night except Galarraga. And the new media record book will attest to it. We will see if the other bad calls made by the umps this year will sort themselves out as we get into September.