The Nosebleeds

The sky turned as black as sackcloth, and the seven bowls of wrath are poured upon the earth-

2008-03-28T17:25:00.000-07:00

As shocking as it may seem, the NHL has actually produced an amazing promotional commercial.

Check it out:

Seriously.

A great NHL commercial promo.

That's a sign of the apocalypse, right?

I mean, right?

The Cowboys Season

2008-01-24T08:24:00.001-08:00

2007-11-28T07:27:00.000-08:00

So there's a big stink about tomorrow night's Dallas/Green Bay game being on the NFL network and therefore only available to those with AB negative blood types or something. Allow me to add to the stink, but not because I want to see this game (I have to work) but because it's indicative of what's going on elsewhere in sports.

Driving around the Midwest lo these many months for comedy (and watching lots of big ten football on my Saturday afternoons) I've been subject to an advertising blitz by the Big 10 Network exhorting me to call my cable provider to demand they pick up the Big 10 Network. Hey Big 10 Network, do your own damn demanding! Don't stick me in the middle of your little fight between the cable behemoths and your attempt at a network. I'm tired of trying to follow my teams through the labyrinth of basic cable.

My basic cable package in NYC is a mess of old sports networks, a new one seems to crop up every season. There's Fox Sports New York, the Madison Square Garden Network, YES, and maybe they'll pick up the NFL network. Soon there'll be a Giants Network, a Jets Network, and the SIYES (the Staten Island Yankees... what the hell do the E. S. stand for anyway?).

Soon basic cable will be a wasteland of discarded networks, like the forgotten blogs that people start and never commit to.

Hey, I got it, what about The Nosebleeds Network?

The Curse of the Chihuahua

2007-11-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

In 1998, Tony Bennett tried to bring his pet chihuahua, Bridget, with him into Yankees Stadium for Game 4 of the World Series, where he was booked to massacre the National Anthem in the normal way. In a startling manifestation of Nietzsche's doctrine of Eternal Recurrence - or ewige Wiederkunft - ushers at the game said the dog was too smelly and told Bennet that he had to leave. Nevertheless, Bennett went on to sing the Star-Spangled Banner before casting a curse on the Bronx Bombers by warbling to the crowd: "Dose Yankees, dey not gonna win anymore.” Hopelessly derivative, this curse is widely regarded as the weakest of the modern era, as the Yankees won the World Series for the following three years. Pathetic.

“The Curse of the Dragon Queen, Charlie Chan and”

2007-11-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

Not technically a curse, but a major motion picture starring Peter Ustinov and Angie Dickinson. Its capacity to determine the outcome of the World Series is debated by baseball scholars to this day.

These (affordable) shoes were made for walking (out)

2007-11-14T17:53:00.000-08:00

Thanks to recent events involving pitch-man Stephon Marbury, shoe company Steve & Barry's is going to need to retool their product line. New models soon to be announced:

Bizzarebury's

Farbury's

Start-the-carbury's

Wherever-the-hell-you-arebury's

Women-are-from-Venus-Stephon-is-from-Marbury's

A-few-strokes-shy-of-Parbury's

I-think-I-may-join-the-art-rock-band-Gwarbury's

...and so on

The Curse of Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI

2007-11-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

“Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd...
God, I pray him,
That none of you may live your natural age,
But by some unlook'd accident cut off!”*

Whoa! Strong words from a frustrated 15th-century Tampa Bay Devil Rays fan! Can it be coincidence that in the 500 years or more since these words were uttered the team has never even come close to the Fall Classic?

*Thought to be the only baseball curse to date to be delivered in blank verse

Curses again

2007-11-13T23:51:00.000-08:00

Trautwig is not the only one active in this area. The Curse of the Bambino may no longer be in operation, but William Sianis' celebrated spell of 1945 ("Cubs, they not gonna win anymore") following a regrettable incident with a malodorous goat is still proving extremely effective in Chicago. In fact, the whole malediction field is surprisingly crowded. How many people know, for example, of the Curse of the Ant?

The Curse of the Ant

This one has haunted the Pittsburgh Pirates for decades. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and a man on third in a meaningless late-September bottom-of-the-division clash against the Milwaukee Brewers, an ant controversially crawled across home plate as the Brewers pitcher was about to deliver. The Pirates’ switch-hitting second baseman Bill Nowizickiyzykzykzykczczczczialanek ('The Swamp Man') was fatally distracted and struck out swinging. Since then, switch-hitting second basemen for the Pirates have gone 0 for 13,464 in the ninth inning of meaningless late-September bottom-of-the-division clashes against the Milwaukee Brewers. Pirates fans can be seen gathering in the noonday sun with magnifying glasses for ritual executions in the hope of reversing the Curse of the Ant.

The Curse of Trautwig

2007-11-10T21:15:00.000-08:00

What's wrong with the Yankees? It's the only thing anyone's talking about these days: what's wrong with the Yankees? Only the other day, just as I was nipping out to Pathmark for a bottle of Algerian shiraz, the missus stopped me and said: oh, darling, before you go, what's wrong with the Yankees? What's wrong with the Yankees, I said, well I'll tell you what's wrong with the Yankees. What's wrong with the Yankees is Al Trautwig. Not Alex Rodriguez but Al bloody Trautwig. He's the problem. Not A-Rod, but Al Trautwig. A-Traut, in fact.

Everybody's got a theory about why the most expensive team in baseball hasn't won the World Series in seven years and hasn't even reached it in the last four. Personally, I can't help noticing that the Yankees stopped winning the championship around the time it moved its games from the cheap but cheerful MSG network to its own horrendous Yes channel. In doing so it abandoned the exotically named – and exotically tanned – Trautwig as the televisual face of Yankees baseball. Al was thus reduced to commentating on such dismal pseudo-sports as basketball, indoor lacrosse and minor league croquet. As a proud professional and baseball traditionalist, A-Traut had no choice but to place a curse on the Yankees – the Curse of Trautwig.

It is surely clear that the Yankees will return to their former glory only when they assuage the wrath of the exquisitely bronzed sports presenter by offering him a job. So, Hank, Tank or Wank or whatever your name is, forget about resigning the rapidly deteriorating 'Mo' Rivera and the chinless wonder 'Georgie' Posada. Don't worry about the allegedly massive hole left at third base. The only off-season action I want to see this winter is the relentless pursuit of the man they call The Wig.

Ceci N'est Pas Un 'Bear'

2007-10-31T17:07:00.000-07:00

The internet is a great way to organize and to find like-minded people, but it's not without its pitfalls. For example, last year when I was looking for a bar in Manhattan where Bears fans gathered to watch the game, it took me a while to filter out the, um, 'other' results.

See, my first search terms into the google were "bears" "bar" and "New York."

Yeah. Here's what I learned: outside of the sports world 'bear' is a term for fat, hairy gay men and people who admire the same.

I'm sure at least some of them are also Chicago Bears fans and wouldn't mind getting together and watching men run around in tight pants and chest bump each other, but that wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

So if your team mascot is equally double entenderable (Calgary Flames fans, I'm looking in your direction) I suggest trying meetup.com or urbantailgate.com to find fans of your own persuasion.

Are there really Rockies fans?

2007-10-24T16:23:00.000-07:00

Compared to the loud, braying, Dane Cook/Ben Affleck-led fans of Boston, the low profile of the Colorado Rockies fans might lead some to believe that they are purely imaginary. I've heard some sports writers even mention that Rockies fans are simply Broncos fans who are displeased with their team's 3-3 record.

But Rockies fans are out there. I met one in Laramie, Wyoming. I didn't have my video camera at the ready so I was unable to capture the grainy footage of her that would inevitably be debated for years to come, but there she was, on the campus of the University of Wyoming after my show in mid-September talking about how the Rockies were going to win out and pass the Padres, Diamondbacks and/or the Phillies or Mets for the wildcard.

There are reasons there aren't more Rockies fans sightings. First and foremost, consider the natural territory of the Colorado Rockies fan: it extends to the north from the uppermost reaches of the Arizona Diamondbacks fan base, west from mid-Kansas where there are still a few Royals fans, and all the way up through the norther tier and mountain states, hemmed in between the Black Hills of the Dakotas and the coastal mountains that form the geological barrier between the coffee-infused, rain-soaked Northwest and the home of the Seattle Mariners.

In this territory the Rockies fan is free to roam, away from the media corporations based in New York and L.A., and hundreds of miles away from a baseball fan's natural enemy: a decent football team.

So as you watch the series and root either for or against Boston, remember that somewhere, out in the mountains, buried under three feet of snow, or perhaps in a small cabin on break from typing out a manifesto, there are people actually rooting for the Rockies.

Enjoy, Fighting Irish Fans and Those Who Can't Stand Them...

2007-10-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yankees Off-Season Maneuvering

2007-10-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

At a miniature golf course in Texas, Andy Pettitte is on the fifth hole, a castle with a slight dogleg to the right, giving his son some pointers on how to play the break in the green. He hears a familiar voice behind him.

“Hey Andy.”

Pettitte turns around. It’s Roger Clemens.

“Roger? What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d come play some miniature golf with you.”

“Um, okay, I guess. The season’s over, shouldn’t you be catching up with your family?”

“Ahh, you know, I figured we could hang out.”

“Fine, grab a putter.”

Clemens reaches into his bag and pulls out his own putter and multi-colored golf ball.

“So Andy, you think you’re going to be back with the Yankees next year?”

“You have to stop doing this.”

“What?”

Clemens putts and gets a hole in one. He leans down to Pettitte’s son and points.

“In your face!”

“Roger, you have to quit following me.”

“I’m not, I mean I was just in the neighborhood and I thought...”

“You followed me to the Astros, then back to the Yankees, last off-season you ‘coincidentally’ showed up on that Disney cruise I was on with my family, and two nights ago I swear I saw you in the back of the movie theater.”

“What? I don’t even like Westerns, why would I see 3:10 to Yuma.”

“Aha! I didn’t say what movie! I knew it was you!”

“Come on, we’re teammates, we’re supposed to hang out.”

“I just need some time to myself, away from the team, and, you.”

“Oh. I see.”

Clemens puts his putter back into his duffel bag.

“I thought we had something special, I... I’m so embarrassed.”

“Roger, it’ll be o.k. When our teams play each other next year, we’ll have dinner or something.”

Clemens nods as he turns away, not wanting Pettitte to see the anguish in his face.

“That would be nice.”

Clemens walks toward the parking lot, through turning windmills, past a volcano, and around a coral reef with an octopus with moving arms that swing across the putting green. Pettitte’s son, who’s been taking in the whole awkward scene, looks up at his dad.

“What’s up with Mr. Clemens, Dad?”

“It’s the ‘roids son. It’s the 'roids.”

Holy Crap- Octogenarians Have A Place in the NFL!

2007-10-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

Vinny completes 20 passes for 206 yards and a TD- Panthers win 25-10!

Hey Cardinals, you were beat by an Octogenarian!

Why Vinny?

2007-10-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

This guy is old! He played in the friggin Doug Flutie “The Catch” game for Christsakes- I watched that as I entered High School! He played for the old Cleveland Browns! When this guy wins a game, they douse him with ENSURE!

Is there a shortage of free agent quarterbacks? This dude doesn’t worry about the Sports Illustrated Cover jinx, he worries about AARP Magazine jinx! (Everyone on that cover eventually dies!)

There are guys who this dude has thrown interceptions to who have died of old age!

The Bambino Will Bite You In The Tuckas!

2007-10-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

MLB teams and fans. Unless you are a Yankees fan, stop having anything to do with the Boston Red Sox and the Curse of the Bambino. I’m not saying this to exclude you. I’m doing it to keep the curse from getting you!

The curse will get you MLB teams! The curse will get you!

What am I talking about?

2003 ALDS. Oakland fans shooting their mouths off. The As had taken the first two of the best of five series. The Oakland fans had Bambino galore in the stands including the “1918” chant. You’re not Yankees fans Oakland! It’s not your curse!

Over the next three games the Bambino got mad and bit them in their collective tuckas. The A’s committed a ridiculous amount of errors in the field and base running. Coming home to tie the game outfielder Eric Byrnes gets blocked by Sox catcher Jason Varitek and all he has to do is touch home plate because J drops the ball. It’s all he has to do! So what does he do? He shoves Jason Varitek and walks away. Varitek picks up the ball and tags him out.

This base running error rivals Jason Giambi’s not sliding in the ALDS in 2001 against who? The Yankees. The A’s lose 3 in a row and the curse focuses back on Boston and Bambino bites them in NYC.

The 2007 Cubs. Lou Pinella managing. Alfonso Soriano slugging. NL Central champs. What could go wrong? The 2007 season was filled with Cubs fans bringing signs to the games written in RED SOX FONT! Don’t do that Cubs Fans! Do Not Do That! Find your own font!

So, what happens? The Cubs get swept out of the first round by the Dbacks. That wasn’t the goat biting your tuckas Cubbies, it was the Bambino.

Finally, the 2007 Mets. What? The Mets? What did they do that has anything to do with the Yankees/Red Sox?

As you’ve read I went to a Mets game a few weeks ago. Two things sent a chill down my spine. On the big screen they show a highlight of a homerun scenario that looks almost identical to Carlton Fisk’s famous 1975 World Series homerun against the Reds. You know, the one where he waves it fair.

Then! Shea Stadium played “Sweet Caroline!” Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, the song made famous at Fenway Park! Why are you ripping off the Red Sox, Mets? Why! Haven’t you done enough already? Don’t rip off the Red Sox. Show the Buckner error over and over and over again, but don’t play Sweet Caroline. It awakens the Bambino, he gets confused and he bites you in the tuckas.

So what happens? The Mets lose a NL East lead that is reminiscent of the 1978 choking Red Sox. See what you’ve done Mets? See what you’ve done!

So people please. Even though the Sox broke the curse in 2004, you must be careful. That Bambino is always ready to awaken, he is always hungry and your tuckas always looks juicy.

Hey! I got to see a Met Fan Meltdown! In Person! Part 2

2007-10-05T06:40:00.000-07:00

By the time Billy Wagner was not closing the game and Shea Stadium was telling us to “Make Some Noise” he was questioning every decision he made in life. Maybe he should have studied when he attended that semester at University of Miami. Maybe he should have said ok to that internship at GE. Maybe he should have asked Sheila from Flushing to marry him. It was all there as he slumped slowly into his section 45 upper reserved seat not having the energy to try and throw a Nathans mustard pack at Mr. Met.

I watched him. In all his defeated glory. Like a dying orange swan. It was not fun to watch. Not like watching a soul tortured Yankees fan watching his $210 million dollar payroll choke. That’s fantastic. I can’t get enough of that. I still try to bribe cameramen from the Fox network for crowd shot footage from the 2004 Game 7 Red Sox/Yankees ALCS. I love that.

No. This was different. This was sad yet beautiful. It was watching a man whose boyhood dreams of his team no way relinquishing the NL East lead, relinquishing the NL East lead. It was a moment that almost completely destroyed the memory of the 1986 magic or as I like to call it “the series that made my Uncle throw up for a month.”

Yet, all this time, I don’t know why, during the entire duration of this meltdown I thought,

“It could be worse pal. Your coach could be Norv Turner.”

Hey! I got to see a Met Fan Meltdown! In Person! Part 1

2007-10-04T12:55:00.000-07:00

I went to the final Mets/Nationals game the last week and yes, I sat in the nosebleeds. The Mets fans must have seen the writing on the wall because attendance was pathetic. Shea Stadium, in a pennant race. Half full. Half full! Both Yankee and Red Sox fans were disgusted.

The nosebleed seats rocked. The 6-2 lead the Mets relief staff gave up was
deliciously uncomfortable. The complete lack of offense the Mets had against a bunch of Nationals relievers I’ve never heard of was delightfully agonizing. Plus, who knew Wily Mo Pena was an RBI machine.

But, the best part of this completely awful evening for Mets fans was watching one of them have a meltdown that I have not witnessed since my famous 2003 meltdown during game 7 of the Yankees/Red Sox ALCS. I cried like a little lost girl scout that night.

It truly started at the top of the 7th inning. The Mets relief staff was handing over hits and runs like a fine caviar to the crappy Washington Nationals. I heard a slightly angry yet still supportive “Come On Mets!” to my right. There he was, in the nosebleeds down the right field line in all his orange and blue glory.

The night grew on. The Mets generously gave up a 4 run lead and were now at a 3 run deficit. His angry encouragement turned into screams “COME ON METS! COME ON METS!” The desperation exuded from his eyes. The innings waned and I saw him slump a little. He was like a deer shot with many arrows trying to carry on to a safe place to die. Now he was crying a little, “come on mets. come on mets.” I saw his childhood flash before his eyes. His parents not letting him have Lucky Charms for breakfast. His goldfish flushed down the toilet. His Nana not showing up for Christmas. I saw it all.

Part 2 Tomorrow!

To All Baseball Fans!

2007-10-04T07:19:00.000-07:00

Baseball Fans!

Despite what TBS tells you Dane Cook is not the representative of All Red Sox Fans!

Despite what ESPN tells you Ben Affleck is not the representative of All Red Sox Fans!

People! The official Representative of all Boston Red Sox fans is…

Chick Corea!

2007-10-03T22:25:00.000-07:00

My post is a little late today because I spent the whole afternoon wondering what kind of crazy bad omen/curse/grim reaper moment awaited the Cubs for this evening's NLDS series opener. Knowing the Cubs history intimately, having grown up with it, I had a terrible feeling that something bad was on the horizon.

Seriously, I dreaded tonight's opener more than I dreaded the Millenium Bug.

But tonight, after accepting the Cubs 1-3 loss, I was somewhat relieved it was just a two-run loss in a game in which they were up against the NL Cy Young award-winner. It was just a baseball game. Some hits, some runs (not enough for my team) but nothing cataclysmic.

Whew.

Now I can come out of my bunker, put the MREs away, take the duct tape and plastic off the windows and root my team on properly.

This Guy is Insane!

2007-10-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

He apparently does "that" to be closer to God.

Basketball season is coming. Knick fans, misery awaits.

Joe Torre, intellectual snob

2007-10-02T00:37:00.000-07:00

The New York Times report on the Yankees' meaningless final game of the season - it disturbs me slightly that I bothered to read it - contains the following paragraph:

Torre said he did not sit near Posada in the dugout, instead finding a spot near pitcher Chien-Ming Wang. "I sat with Wang, which is really boring," Torre said. "That’s one thing I found out: There’s not a whole lot going on."

This seems a little gratuitous. It strikes me as a strange managerial tactic, to publicly insult your best pitcher just before the play-offs begin.

In any case, are we to suppose that the non-Wang-occupied areas are so much more scintillating? Does the rest of the dugout ring with pithy aphorisms and bracing intellectual apercus? Why, it must be like the Cafe Royal down there, reverberating to the kind of intellectual shafts and sallies that haven't been heard since the days of Wilde, Whistler and the other fin-de-siecle wits. Look, there's A-Rod curling up by the water cooler with a volume of Saki. Oh, is that Ron Villone discoursing elegantly on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason? Melky Cabrera will be holding an informal seminar between innings on the early Cocteau, just by the dugout steps.

If Joe thinks Wang is a dullard, maybe he should remember that his native language isn't English. That's the language which Joe mangles daily in his soporific press conferences. Or maybe he should forget altogether judging his players for their ability to amuse him and concentrate instead on not screwing up in the play-offs again. That is, if he has time to spare from hawking every product under the sun.

Get Your Met's Choke Wallpaper!

2007-10-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

You think Met fans are sick today? Mr. Met is on full-fledged suicide watch. Thanks to the sick mind of gifted artist Doug Fallon, you can now make any Mets fan in your office miserable, with Mets Choke Wallpaper! (click on the above image)

Check out the link for more about Doug, his site is douglasfallon.com. And Met fans, just in case, this is for you.

Baseball's “All Jason” Team

2007-10-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

3B Jason Kendall (Cubs)
SS Jason Bartlett (Twins)
RF Jason Bay (Pirates)
1B Jason Giambi (Yankees)
C Jason Varitek (Red Sox)
DH Jason Lane (Astros)
CF Jason Michaels (Indians)
LF Jay (Jayson) Payton (Orioles)
2B Jason Wood (Marlins)

SP Jason Schmidt
RP Jason Isringhausen

A little bit of power, Jason Kendall has to learn to play 3rd base and they could really use JJ Hardy to have a Jason in one of those “J’s” (he doesn’t) but nonetheless, here’s MLB’s “All Jason” team. Still, I think they can take the Royals best out of five.

The bad news is for Jasons LaRue, Tyner and Phillips- get it together- you didn’t even make the “All-Jason” team!

The Rex Grossman Steakhouse

2007-09-26T17:24:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Green Bay, Wisconsin (lucky me) and my hotel is right across the street from the Brett Favre Steakhouse. Now, I've long been jealous of Green Bay and the fact that they've had one of the best quarterbacks in the league for over a decade, but now that I realize that they have a better QB-related steakhouse than Chicago, I'm just livid.

If you've been to the Rex Grossman Steakhouse you know what I'm talking about. First problem, I ordered a steak and they sent it to the wrong table. This apparently happens 2-3 times a night.

Then when the chef handed off the French onion soup to the server, the server bumped into the maitre d' and dropped it. Not the chef's fault but it sure didn't help.

And the ambiance of the place was a mess, instead of lite music all I could hear was the sound of a bell being rung.

Oh, and the joint got robbed. The people they hired to do security couldn't protect for crap.

So I guess we're going to have to give up the steakhouse idea in Chicago. We can always just settle for a good, reliable Griese spoon.