Archive for September, 2009

Uh, Hi…Is This Thing On?

By | September 23, 2009 | Fantasy Sports | 8 Comments

Hi there.   Thought before I jump into any tough trash talk, I should introduce myself a little.

My name is Colleen and I’m a Fantasy Sports Addict.  My husband used to be part of a fantasy football league with some co-workers and I thought it was stupid.  Especially considering how much money he kept losing each season.  He offered to have me join and being the frugal freak that I am, I backed away like he was holding a dead skunk.  No WAY was I going to lose TWICE the money we already were.

Then came last season where some gals I knew through Twitter and Plurk were talking about a Twitter/Plurk league, but no one wanted to be the commissioner.  After I made the disclaimer about my cheapness, we agreed on a flat $10 to go to the winner, and I agreed to head up the league.  We even had one token guy join the league, and in the end, DDS’ own ClumberKim won.  I had fun the entire season (except when I saw that GoonSquad Sarah “stole” my Bears for her team’s defense) and soon found myself joining a bunch of strangers on a fantasy hockey league.  And even though I loathe baseball and know nothing about it except that the Cubs suck, I joined a fantasy baseball league.

And presently?  I’m in three football leagues.  And I’m starting a DDS hockey league.  Please join.  Please be my enabler.  Be my supplier.  Plus, as I see it, it’s an easy way for me to satisfy that competitive craving while still feeding the statistical dork in me.  Oh, and it helps give me stuff to write about here since most of my sports trash talk consists of me laughing at the Redskins.

Draft Day Suit Fantasy Hockey

Link: http://games.espn.go.com/fhl/tools/join?leagueId=21087
Password: crosbyisatool    (you agree, don’t deny it)

Type: Live Draft
Date: Mon., Sep. 28, 2009
Time: 9:30 PM ET

Winning team gets a Stanley Cup and bragging rights.

City of Champions, and the Pirates

By | September 23, 2009 | Baseball | 1 Comment

the entranceFor the next couple of days, thanks to a little thing known as the G-20, Pittsburgh is the center of the universe. I am lucky enough to live right here, in the City of Champions. I moved here for a job 12 years ago and ended up meeting my husband. While there are other places I love, my family is here for the long haul, raising a couple of little Yinzers along the way. I hope the protesters let the world see this great city in all its glory but I have a feeling the media would rather show you Greenpeace folks dangling from a bridge and the massive police presence.

One of my kids is a baseball fan. It’s in half of his genes. He enjoys all sports, both to watch and to play, but baseball is in his blood. This is lucky for us, since Penguins tickets are insanely expensive and Steeler tickets are just impossible unless you know someone (and as of very recently I do, a very cool guy with a really, really big ring…I’m so working on it).

Pirate tickets, on the other hand, are given away freely. At one game I spun a little wheel and they handed me two tickets for the game of my choice. I subscribed to the Symphony and they sent me four tickets. It helps that the ballpark is spectacular. Fenway is a cathedral, no doubt about it, but I will put PNC Park up against any of the newer parks. It’s fantastic and incredibly fan friendly. In a way, the whole experience is a little like AAA ball. (And some would argue, the team is AAA caliber too.) They go out of their way to get butts in the seats (not working) and be entertaining. The mascots launch hot dogs between innings (catch yourself some meat!). There’s the famous Pierogi Races. Every Sunday is Kid’s Day so kids get something like a glove or batting helmet when they come in the gate and they have the opportunity to run the bases after the game. What kid wouldn’t eat that up with a spoon?

So baseball is cheap AND easy, my little yinzer loves it and he’s learning some valuable life lessons. He doesn’t cry when they lose, which is often. He also doesn’t cry when his favorite player is traded, which is also often. I have stopped buying him t-shirts with any names or numbers on the back since the players come and go. And go. And go. And go.

After a record 17 consecutive losing seasons, I am starting to doubt that my kid will ever see a winning season for the Pirates, let alone a World Series contender. It’s a very good thing we also have our Red Sox.

But He Was Always So Quiet…

By | September 22, 2009 | Football, Unsportmanlike Conduct | 2 Comments

So there has been something nagging me for a while – WHERE IS MARVIN HARRISON? I mean, he’s a phenom. I realize the Colts wanted to free up some money and he’s not a cheap date but the idea that nobody else picked up him just never really made sense to me.

And then while watching football and rubbing my belly,the subject came up between my husband and I. And he shared THIS bit of crazy with me.

Ummmmm. WHAT? I didn’t remember the initial “shooting” claim from a year or two ago, but then it sort of twinkled in the back of my brain as something I had thought was no big deal. A lot of NFL players have guns and sometimes people accidentally shoot other people – so I figured he might get into some trouble.

But…….this kind of adds a wrinkle doesn’t it? And it might sort of explain why suddenly Marvin Harrison went from being a king to persona non-grata. Polian isn’t even willing to discuss it – and this guy is an asset.

No team in the NFL has even given a peep of interest. Team’s quick moves to issue statements making sure everyone know’s they are NOT interested has a Michael Vick-ian quality to it.  I just made up that term – you can use it.

So obviously there is an issue. And that’s pretty sad. Because I used to be a pretty big fan of Harrison as the quiet loner who was the team’s not so secret weapon.

It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it?

 

 

Top 10 Reasons The Yankees Won’t Win The World Series

By | September 22, 2009 | Baseball, Talking Trash | 2 Comments

1. Karmic Debt
The advent of George Steinbrenner’s ownership of the Yankees roughly coincided with the advent of free agency, Watergate, disco and the birth of many Draft Day Suit writers. As an era, it was a karmic black hole. Steinbrenner’s persistence and depthless evil helped to drive the franchise to great success in the 70s and again in the 90s… but the current NYY championship drought testifies to the scientific certainty that all the birds are coming home to roost. This should persist for at least another 15 years, following which point balance will be restored and the Yankees will once again be operating on a karmically level playing field. See you in ’24, Yankees fans!

2. Vengeful Economic Gods
Is it a coincidence that the global economic meltdown coincides with the opening of the new Yankee Stadium and its $200,000/game premium seats? (I’m guesstimating on the actual seat cost, but feel that I’m in the ballpark, at the very least. So to speak.) Answer: Noooooo. Greed may have been good in the go-go Gordon Gecko 80s, but these here are different times — and the price exacted by the economic gods for the vanity of buiding billion-dollar temples to one’s own magnificence are bad press, public mockery, and postseason failure. (See also: Dallas Cowboys)

3. Pitching
CC Sabathia is a monster. But once you get past him… um… AJ Burnett? I think I read somewhere that his second-half ERA this season is hovering in the 14.50 range. And Andy Pettitte? That’s terrific. If, you know, we wake up tomorrow and it’s 1998 again. And then… um… I’m not really sure. Ian Kennedy? Hideki Irabu? Ed Whitson? These are all scintillating options. Good luck!

4. Johnny Damon as Power Hitter
Look, I’m not irrational. I realize that when Damon defected from the Red Sox to the Yankees, a lot of Boston fans completely lost their minds and saw the signing as an act of ultimate betrayal. Which is an understandable reaction to the degree that you grasp the great emotional connection Damon forged with Boston fans during the ’04 season, when his happy-go-lucky attitude and long hair and beard had thousands in the greater Boston area wearing t-shirts bearing his image and the WWJDD (What Would Johnny Damon Do?) message… and which is also completely absurd, when you understand that his signing with the Yankees was very much a product of the Sox underestimating the market for him and the Yankees playing their cards very, very intelligently.

That said, Johnny Damon is not and has never been a power hitter. He’s a slap hitter: a contact guy good for maybe 15 homers a year, solid average and once-great speed that’s diminished with age. Which is fine. The fact that he’s on his way to suddenly establishing a career high in homers and slugging percentage at the age of 35 may suggest that the new Yankee Stadium has an insanely inflationary effect on power numbers… but it also brings to mind Barry Bonds’ sudden, late-career leaps to 49 and then 70 HRs. I’m not saying Damon is on the juice, but in this day and age – when everyone is under suspicion – it’s the kind of phenomenon you can’t help but raise an eyebrow at.

5. The Curse of Joe Torre
He’s Italian. They’re good with curses. ‘Nuff said.

6. The Appalling Overexposure of Derek Jeter’s Hit Count
Don’t get me wrong: Jeter is a legitimately exceptional and important player, and a certain Hall of Fame candidate. And his ongoing march toward the 3000 hit mark is very impressive. But the amount of media coverage that accompanied his recent eclipsing of Lou Gehrig’s record for most career hits by a member of the Yankees was just obscene. Does ANYONE outside of the tri-state area who doesn’t own a Yankees hat care? At all? It’s an accomplishment, and I hope he takes some pride in it, but Jeter becoming the Yankees all-time hit leader is an accomplishment on a par with Tim Wakefield’s slow march toward becoming the Red Sox all-time wins leader. If you’re a fan, it’s a point of some interest. If not, you’re indifferent at best.

Subsequently: daily, nationwide coverage of Jeter’s march toward Yankee immortality? Overkill. Overexposure. And, perhaps, an overriding reason for the Yankees’ late-season swoon. (Note the timing, people…)

7. Kris Whatsisname – The Middle-of-the-Road-Boring-Guy – Will Be The Surprise Winner
Oh, wait. That was American Idol. Never mind.

8. Clemens Backlash
Remember when Roger Clemens was being hailed as the greastest pitcher of his generation, and perhaps one of the greatest of all time? It seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it? Now, of course, he’s a pariah on a scale comparable only with Barry Bonds and Pete Rose — a man now seen as a symbol of all that is wrong with sports, and a powerful testimony to how a great athlete once seen as worthy of praise and worship can be, in fact, a truly rotten human being. I’m not sure how this ties into the fact that the Yankees won’t win the World Series this year, so we’ll just file this under “intangibles.”

9. The Kinder, Gentler Joe Girardi
Yeah… um… I’m not buying it. The guy made his name as a hardass. It worked for him in Florida, where it helped him to take a no-budget Marlins team far beyond anyplace anyone expected them to go, and where he won Manager of the Year as a consequence — but which also cost him his job there that same season, as his refusal to compromise or rein in his opinion that the Marlins’ ownership was doing the franchise and the fans a disservice by running them as a deep-discount operation ultimately led Jeffrey Loria and his partners to fire him.

Fast-forward to last year, where Girardi’s hardass ways not only contrasted vividly with those of his predecessor Torre but actively clashed with his star-studded, veteran-heavy team — and subsequently led them nowhere.

Given all this as backstory, we’re supposed to believe that this past off-season he suddenly grew a heart – you know, like The Grinch! – and that’s why the Yankees are the best team in baseball this season? I’m thinking… no. I’m thinking… Girardi is putting up a front, but this late-season swoon is going to combine with troubles in the first round of the playoffs to lead Girardi to blow his stack once and for all in true Dante’s Peak style – resulting in the immolation of several players (e.g. Posada, Cano, Chamberlain) who will be reduced to cinders and, therefore, ineligible for roster inclusion. Which is why the Yankees won’t win it all.

10. Because It Would Depress The Hell Out Of Everyone
We’re still teetering on the precipice of a true global depression. A Yankees World Series victory could be the tipping point that sends us screaming over the edge. I realize that’s a different kind of depression than what I suggested in the item headline, but let’s not get lost in the infinite subtleties of the English language : the point is that Yankees win! Yankees win! could have apocalyptic psychosocioeconomic implications.

For the good of all mankind… the Yankees must lose.

Playing it Forward

By | September 19, 2009 | Golf | 2 Comments

red_teesLadies and gentlemen, allow me to acquaint you with the forward tees. Those would be the ones in front. Usually there are two sets, and often—but not always—they are colored gold and red. (On shorter courses, there might only be one set of forward tees.) You may know these tees by the outdated and at best inaccurate (at worst insulting) terms “Seniors’ tees” and “Ladies’ tees”.

Actually, I think I have that backwards. Though I am insulted to be pointed to “the Ladies’ tees,” it’s probably worse that by giving the red tees a girly label, it guarantees that no man will ever want to hit from them. (And likewise, that no one under 65 will hit from the golds.) This is a problem, because many men (and boys) who have not yet developed the strength or skill to make it to the green within four or five shots are nevertheless hitting from the middle—or worse, the back—tees.

The different tee boxes are a way of handicapping the game and making it more fun for everyone. I hit from the reds, or front forward tees, when I play with my husband because when I do and he plays from the middle/white tees, our balls usually end up side by side on the fairway. Depending on the advantage afforded the forward tees, sometimes I outdrive him, and sometimes he outdrives me, but it evens up the game a bit. We can play *together*, and we have an equal chance of scoring well.

When I played a shorter course with my mother-in-law recently, I played from the middle tees and she played from the forward; I probably could have moved back to the blues, given that I consistently outdrove the other couple playing from the whites, but I didn’t feel my skill level was quite up to the back tees.

Where you play from depends on your handicap (or skill level, if you don’t have a handicap; generally, the higher the handicap or the more shots it takes you to reach the green, the further forward you should go), the length and difficulty of the course, and the companions with whom you’re playing. If you’re playing with colleagues from work or otherwise doing business on the course, play from the same set of tees if you can manage it. How well you play is less important than the conversation. (You can always pick up your ball and drop it on the green to putt out with everyone else if you can’t keep up.) If you’re paired up with strangers and are just working on your own game irrespective of whatever they do, play from your regular tees—forward, middle, or back.

Whatever you do, don’t be like the three high school boys I overtook on the course a couple weeks ago, who insisted on hitting from the middle tees when they couldn’t get to the green in under 7 shots; I consistently outdrove them by double the distance between the middle and forward tees (from which I was playing), and I outscored them on all but my worst holes. You could argue that I should have moved back to make the game more even, but I’ll argue more strongly that they should have moved forward. They had neither the distance nor the skill to warrant their choice of tee box.

And while I’m encouraging the men to move forward (and the lower-handicap women to move back), can I just give a shout-out to the starter at Cool Creek Golf Club in Wrightsville, PA and say sir, there is no need to accompany two women golfers to the forward tees, explain how to play each hole, and then emphasize the VERY STRICT TIME LIMIT. First of all, WE’VE DONE THIS BEFORE, and second of all, women golfers are no slower than men. I’d go further and say that it’s the men who insist on waggling and bobbing and taking four practice swings and then stepping back and throwing grass up in the air to check whether the wind has changed before starting the whole procedure again from the beginning that are your problem. Those of us who have been known to finish 9 holes in under an hour are not.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin
← Older Entries
Newer Entries →