2/4/08: Reaction to Super Bowl

Eli Manning outplayed Tom Brady and Tom Coughlin out coached Bill Belicheck in the Super Bowl. This is the stunning reality of what happened last night in the Super Bowl. I don’t know that I could ever possibly express how absolutely dumbfounded at the reality of this statement. I wrote my last column about this and I feel the need to re-express the absolute fact that the Giants were quite simply not a very good football team before they played the Patriots during week seventeen at which point they transformed into one hell of a good football team despite the fact that they had the same players in the game. I find this to be quite confusing, but I won’t dwell on it since my entire last post did exactly that. I have to do a lot of reading about the various religions of the world but a couple of things stood out to me from last night’s game.
1. The completion from Manning to David Tyree on the Giants last drive will be an iconic, signature play for years to come. I don’t hesitate one bit making the assertion that it belongs in the same conversation as Dwight Clarks catch or the immaculate reception. It was, quite simply, a breathtaking play to watch. I still have no idea how on earth Eli Manning got away from the entire Patriots defensive line but he did. The throw he made was actually ludicrous, and how David Tyree made that catch will boggle my mind for years to come. Rodney Harrison was literally on top of him. I don’t even know how to describe the magnitude of that play except to say that it gave me the chills when I saw it live and I didn’t really care who won the game. That being said, the play never should have happened because on that same drive Eli Manning made an awful through that Assante Samuel should have intercepted easily. I don’t know if people have dwelled enough on the magnitude of Samuel not converting that interception. It cost New England the game. If he converts that extremely routine interception, the Patriots win. But of course he didn’t and then Tyree made his miracle catch, and then finally Plexico caught his pass, and that was all she wrote for New England.
2. Now we have to listen to the Dolphins say “I told you so.” Great.
3. This is all I have for now, but did anyone see that Jeremy Shockey had like five beers in front of him when they showed him in the Press Box. I loved that. On one hand you had the repeated zooming in on Peyton Manning, who was standing in a corner of the press box by himself looking like a crazed lunatic watching the game, and then they pan to Shockey, who is wearing a white t-shirt and is drinking a beer. I cannot describe to you how funny I find this.4. Contextually, I think this game very well may have been the biggest upset of all time. Think about it, the Patriots were poised to become they greatest team of all time. Tom Brady just had the greatest individual season by a quarterback ever. The Pats were a double digit favorite and the Giants beat them in the Super Bowl. I recognize that there may have been more unlikely upsets, but given the historical implications that the game had for the Patriots, I can’t imagine an upset that was more significant.

1/21/08: I was Wrong About Eli Manning

In the days leading up to the New England-New York game played in week 17, I openly criticized the game as meaningless and called the Giants fools for playing their boys in a game that had no playoff implications. I recognize that there were days when teams played for pride and the love of winning, but in today’s NFL, there are no moral victories. I still believe this. But I was clearly wrong when I criticized Tom Coughlin and the Giants for approaching the week 17 match-up like a playoff game. I still think that the decision was insane, but something happened to Eli Manning and the Giants that game because that night they played like a Super Bowl caliber football team and they haven’t stopped since and frankly I can’t quite adjust quickly enough to analyze the team with any sense of how good or not good they are. This will probably offend a few sensitive types, but the Giants are the girl in high school who was average looking for the first three years but suddenly one day it dawns on you that she looks pretty damn good at school one day. This observation puts you on alert and you start paying closer attention to the way she looks to see if it is a fluke or not and during this period you inevitably try to convince yourself that she really isn’t that attractive and that she isn’t worth your romantic interest (past friendship, of course). If you were moderately cool in high school, it was these buy low sell high type women that could boost you to the next level socially (whatever that means….but don’t lie you thought their were “cool kids” in high school too) because if you were smart enough to court the young lady while she was still humble and hadn’t yet acquired a grossly inflated self image you just might land one hell of an attractive girl. But if you were like me, rather than trusting what you see after a couple of days, you waffled and by the time you actually realized that you were right and hadn’t been hallucinating when you first noticed her random hotness, some stud was dating her and she had become too cool to speak to you. For me, the Giants are that girl. I should have trusted what I saw week seventeen when Eli and the Giants played phenomenally against the best team to play in the NFL in one hell of a long time. That game Eli Manning threw four touchdown passes and threw for 251 yards, and he did it without looking like the wheels might come flying off any second. In the past, Eli Manning put up what appeared to be good passing yardage and touchdown numbers but the numbers never told the whole tale because he would accumulate his touchdowns and yards in bunches. Every 3 weeks Eli would play an unreal game where he might throw for four touchdowns, but the next week he would throw five interceptions and even when he was playing well, watching him didn’t inspire confidence. Eli Manning transformed into a completely different player in that Patriots game. It isn’t that his numbers were spectacular, Eli has played statistically awing games in the past, it was how he looked. I can’t really describe it to you, but if you have watched Eli in the past and you see him now, you know exactly what I am talking about. Eli was always an interception waiting to happen and whenever something good happened all it meant was that he was due to make a catastrophic decision. Now, for whatever reason, when I see him drop back to pass I wonder which receiver he will find. He seems methodical, in touch with his surroundings. A lot of you will probably respond something along the lines of “Eli was always this way you just didn’t notice and now that he wins a few games you are jumping on the bandwagon.” But that kind of statement is simply wrong. This is not the case of an unsung, underrated player that was a star but nobody noticed until he got a chance on the national stage. When the Miami Heat won the title a few years back, Dwayne Wade fit the criteria of a guy that was really really good but people didn’t recognize it until he was in the big time. Eli Manning was not a good quarterback. He simply was not, and if you ever watched him you knew that after about three games. But now, he is and frankly I’ve never seen a team, or a player change so rapidly from just barely decent to really really good like the Giants and Eli Manning have since they played the Patriots during the final game of the regular season. And no one saw this coming. The Giants were not a really talented team waiting to explode, the Giants were an average football team and they played like one. And now something is different and they are quite good. And for me the most troubling thing is that the only reason I can think that the Giants have improved so much is that they gained confidence when they just barely lost to the Patriots and that means that in the modern world of sports, there are moral victories and they DO MATTER and this reality could make things very complicated.

1/8/08 in favor of a BCS title game

A lifelong diehard college football fan, I rarely complain about the sport. I’ve put up with cheating scandals, bad referees and a pitiful system without so much as a peep for quite a while. I’ve even defended the bowl system before. But I’ve had enough. I just endured 32 mostly thoroughly crappy bowl games. And you read that last sentence correctly. I said endured…not enjoyed. The most entertaining bowl game I watched, and God knows I watched a lot of them, took place on New Years day between Florida and Michigan with Michigan knocking off the Gators in a high scoring affair. The thing is, even during that game, I found myself changing the channel early and often to the NHL’s winter classic, which, if you missed it, was unbelievable. This isn’t a criticism of the teams per say and it really isn’t even a criticism of the bowls themselves. If you want to have the bowl games, if schools make money of them, if you think it’s good for smaller teams to get to play…whatever the reason, I really don’t care. It’s fine.
Here is what I do care about though. I care that college football deprives the sport of any sort of true closure at the end of most years by simply refusing to allow championship caliber contenders to play it out on the field. It infuriates me that I have to sit here and make a cast that LSU may or may not have been the best team in the country this past season, it is absolutely insane. The beauty of sport lies in the absolutes. In a world of gray outcomes, sport provides people with black and white results. Teams go out and they play games and when the game ends, one team wins and one team loses.. Sport represents the purest meritocracy we have in America because in sports you are not supposed to be able to hide. The best teams show they are the best teams by winning. Will someone please make an absolutely convincing argument that LSU could beat USC right now on a neutral field? The fact of the matter is, I can make legitimate argument that LSU, USC, and Georgia respectively is the best team in the country. I have one question. The season ended yesterday, so how the hell can that be?
I recognize that I’m preaching to the choir here, but I’m literally getting to the point where college football is so backward, so absolutely wrong that I’m considering just blowing it off. Now there is no chance that this is going to happen, because I love the game, but if I was smart I, I would because at the end of the day what do I get out in return for all of the hours I spend watching all the pre-game shows and all the games and spending all the money on all the gear. I don’t even get a national champion. I get nothing. I get speculation, I get confusion. I get BS. The Pac 10 and the Big 10 need to get their you know what together and recognize for the good of the bloody sport and for the sake of my sanity that a playoff needs to happen. The Pac 10 screwed one of its own teams out of a possible national title this year by opposing any sort of a playoff vehemently. And the Big 10 might not have looked so crappy (3-5 in their bowl games) had they lobbied for an expansive playoff because Michigan might have made some noise with the kind of ball they were playing at the end of the year. There is no reasonable argument for not having a playoff. I challenge the NCAA to tell the athletic directors to shove it and give the fans (who are the lifeblood of the sport) what they want, what they demand, and what they deserve….a clear national champion.

ESPN NOW

ESPN is the most shameless self promoting piece of garbage network ever to be made available on a cable package. I realized this last year, when the World Wide Leader tried to launch a mobile telephone company. If you were living in a third world country or Central New York and didn't have access to cable last year, ESPN decided not to sell commercials to other companies for a little while and instead they simply showed the same god damn advertisement over, and over, and over, and over. It consisted of some jerk-off watching Albert Pujols hit Brad Lidge's fastball to the moon....wait for it....on his ESPN cell phone! Now, having to watch this clip over and over would have been sufficient to make me despise ESPN Mobile on a level that was totally irrational and unwarranted. But ESPN went for all of our souls when they turned my television screen into the screen of an ESPN Mobile cell phone screen for thirty minutes each weeknight. I shit you not, on Baseball Tonight, my favorite source for baseball information, every single update became an "ESPN Mobile Update" with the highlight being shown on a fake ESPN phone.
Thank God, ESPN mobile lost so much money that even the big boys in Bristol decided it wasn't worth it to keep trotting out those stupid commercials. And I rested easier knowing that ESPN could never do worse. And then came those ridiculous "My Wish" segments. Yes, that's right, I absolutely deplored those ridiculous pre-taped, fake, BS stories. You are probably thinking right now, wow this guy is such a jackass. How can you possibly not be totally touched by Michelle Kwan taking some little girl with Leukemia out to skate is the sweetest, best thing ever and God I love ESPN soo much. If you just had that thought, you are an idiot. My wish is ESPN using little kids with cancer and horrible diseases to draw viewers and drum up positive energy towards the network in a time when they have no highlights to show. And God I hate the way that jackass country singer belches "Myyyyyyyyyy WIIIIIIIISHHHH."
I could keep going about how much I hate some of the things ESPN does. I could write 1200 words on how much I hate Stephen A. Smith, but quite frankly (said in Stephen A. voice) I don't have the energy.
All of this animosity all came out early this morning when I turned on Sportscenter expecting to get some in depth analysis on the Mark Texiera, Eric Gange, or Ty Wiggington blockbuster trades....ok....just the Texiera and Gagne deals. But instead, guess what Sportscenter led wish. ESPN NOW. While trying not to throw up my cereal, I sat down and contemplated how I would feel if I worked at ESPN and they approached me to be on that panel of idiots that discussed the match ups. I mean, say your Mike Greenberg (or Greenie on Mike and Mike). You went to Northwestern, then worked as an award winning writer before becoming the cohost of one of the best radio shows currently on radio (or television, I guess). And then imagine some schmuck from ESPN calling you and saying, hey Mike, I know your supposed to be a serious journalist and all, but we have this thing we want you to do. We want you to discuss who is more "Now," Maria Sharapova or Vince Young. And then, imagine that you are really drunk so you say you will do the show, and the next morning you find yourself in a conversation with Stewart Scott and some hot girl ESPN hired to wear short skirts and read off a teleprompter.
This is all happening, and all the while, your probably wondering, what the hell am I doing. And while your wondering this, Stu Scott is screaming at you. "Yo, Greenie. I'll admit, Sharapova's pretty fine, but VY!!!.... I mean VY!!!!....He's got that new school attitude but also that old school attitude!!!! He's got new and old school. He's the whole package!!....He's a winner. Boy got swagger!...VY! How can you not put VY through!! Greenie, you don't want VY??!!! Thats insane!! You gotta go with VY! Sports Nation wants Vince, I want Vince. Greenie, you have got to chose VY!!!
How, at this point, Greenie doesn't start crying on camera, will forever be beyond my comprehension.
I will write an actual sports piece later this week. But I needed to talk about this.

Trivial trauma and its very real consequences

If I had even the smallest amount of pride, I would not do this. But clearly, I do not. And so now I venture into the blogosphere, a land where 45 year old lunatics with no jobs are able to publish their thoughts despite the fact that no one really gives a....can I say shit on this thing....I mean I know it's a blog and its the Internet so there are no standards, but are there really no standards? Yea, for the sake of any future employer, or date (although now that I have a blog, I can be fairly certain that this probably won't ever be a problem again) that may choose to Google my name, there will be standards on this website. But they will likely be very, very low, and I would appreciate your not asking me to raise them.
For those of you who are regular listeners of my radio Show, which basically means Grotta, Pete, and from time to time a couple of my other college buddies. There are also six Hamilton area listeners that always show up on our listener data, but because they are residents of Hamilton, New York, I feel I can safely assume that they will never, ever see this because in all likelihood they are far too poor to own a computer, much less have Internet access. Hell, I don't even know if the public library in Hamilton has web access. Actually, come to think of it, I'm not even that sure that Hamilton has a public library. If by chance I am wrong, and you are one of the six Hamiltonians and you somehow found access to the internet and are reading this right now....please keep listening to the show.
Anyway, the content of this blog will generally be rather ranty. I don't know if ranty is a word, but I really don't care because this is a blog and there are no editors. Most of these "posts" will be a long diatribe about how much I hate any of the following: The Houston Astros, The Houston Rockets, The Houston Texans, Andrew Grotta, ESPN Motion, the fact that they televise womens basketball, the existence of a drinking age, and the media. Over time, you can safely assume that this list of regular complaints will likely expand.
The major league trade deadline is obviously today, so you can expect some kind of post in the next couple of days regarding the Astros' inability/ unwillingness to finally wave the white flag and replenish what can only be described as an atrocious farm system, but before I get into that, I figured I'd fill you in on the excruciating decision making process that led me to flush any chance of getting laid ever again down the toilet just so I can spend time not getting paid to write. Basically, I maid a list of pros and cons.

Cons
1.Start a Blog= Give up sex forever- Not that I was getting a tremendous amount before, but starting a blog basically ended any hope that I have for an attractive girl to ever think I was cool. As I write these very words, I quite simply am committing sexual suicide. This one is going to take a while to get over, no way around it.

2. Start a Blog=Never get a job as a journalist, ever- With me, it's only a matter of time before I say something so ridiculously offensive that it will follow me for the rest of my days.

Pros
1. Start a Blog=Less Anger?- For those of you who are true fans of the three major Houston Sports franchises, you will understand me when I tell you that my teams have inflicted an unbelievable amount of trauma on me emotionally. To most, my life as a rich white kid with all of the advantages and opportunities that God could possibly be expected to provide, would seem pretty cushy. You might be thinking, I cannot believe he is bitching about his life, there are kids out there with abusive parents who don't feed them. Yea, sure, that situation is tough. But problems like these can possibly be resolved in time with a good shrink. I, on the other hand, will forever be haunted by Walt Weiss ruining middle school by leaping twelve feet into the air to stab Tony Eusabio's rocket in the NL Division series, and losing to a crappy Padres team in the NLDS in 98' after we traded away our entire farm system to rent Randy Johnson for a quarter of a season. I will forever be haunted by Eddie Griffin, the "troubled" young man who the Rockets traded the draft rights to Richard Jefferson to acquire. Albert Pujols ruined my senior year of high school, and Brad Lidge's career when he took Lidge deep in game five of the NLCS with the Astros only an out away from the World Series. And every time I see Reggie Bush or Vince Young on Sports Center, which will be a lot, I will feel like crying. So, while my problems might seem rather trivial when compared to the battered children, I feel like you should feel sorry for me.
Anyway, I hope this works out well, because for all intents and purposes, my life ends when I hit the "publish post" button.

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