Nervous as hell...and loving it

It is now the eve of the Texans regular season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I couldn't be more petrified. I fully recognize that it is a little unreasonable to be nervous about a team's first game when you are not a member of the team or that team's coaching staff/ front office (ie when you are not a person that has played any significant role in how the team will perform tomorrow) but I can't help it. Before big games, I simply get nervous. When the Astros have big games, I spend totally ludicrous amounts of time worrying about the game. Same with the Rockets. This has always been the case with those two particular franchises. However, tonight is the first time I have ever been nervous about the Texans, and I think it sort of marks a watershed moment for the franchise because I think it's indicative of something larger, and more important. I think the fact that I am nervous is a sign that the Texans are actually relevant and important for the first time in franchise history.
It's not just about me. I am not dumb enough to think that the fact that I am nervous about tomorrows game is "the sign" that the Texans are for real. But I do think that the fact that I (a well informed and serious fan) am nervous about tomorrows game probably means that many of you feel the same way for the first time. And this really is significant because even the most unreasonable fan doesn't get worried about things that he has no expectations for. Nerves are a product of hopes, and more importantly, expectations. I have always hoped that the Texans would be good, but I have never expected anything but mediocrity from them, and as a result, I never worried about games. I just watched and hoped that they would win. Don't get me wrong, I wanted them to win, badly, and I regularly flipped when they failed. But in my heart of hearts, I never expected them to be good. I never got nervous because I always expected them to fail.
That I'm nervous means something significant. It means that in my heart of hearts, I don't just hope the Texans will succeed. It means that on some level, I expect them to. My nerves are a sign that I am afraid they will disappoint me. I am afraid that tomorrow, and this season, that the Texans will break my heart. In a twisted sort of way, this is a wonderful thing because it really does mean that for the first time, the Texans are relevant and real. Cheering for a team that you don't expect anything from isn't really cheering at all because it doesn't involve full emotional attachment. What separates that bandwagon jumpers to the real fans is that real fans are fully invested...if their team wins, they get the glory, but if their team loses, they feel the pain. Until now, cheering for the Texans has been like cheering for the underdog of a game you have no interest in. When that team wins, you are happy for like half an hour, and when they lose you simply shrug it off since you never really cared about them in the first place. For the first time, the Texans can hurt me. And I love it.

Communism on the Little League Field

We are raging a generation of what I am sure will be absolute and total wimps. I was calmly going through the mornings stories this morning before heading off to partake in roughly nine hours of mind numbing leadership training when I came across a story about how a Little League in New Haven, Conn. had decided to disband one of it's teams because it has a 9 year old boy named Jericho Scott. Apparently Jericho isn't just any nine year old....he is a nine year old pitching phenom. He throws the ball a whopping 40 mph (are we really gunning the fastballs of 9 year olds these days??? Has it really come to that?) which is apparently too fast for the parents of the little boys on the teams he pitches against. You see, Jericho strikes out their children and as a result, their children don't feel wonderful about themselves.
I've given you some background, but I realized that the more I recap from the story, the more ticked off I get and frankly, it's too damn early for me to be pissed off so I'm going to give you the quick version. Some nine year old throws hard and strikes everyone out, so the Little League of New Haven made the executive decision to ban his team from allowing him to pitch. The Coach (probably some random Dad) thankfully had the good sense to blow this edict off and sent the fireball throwing toddler out to the mound for a game last week. When the opposing team took the field and saw who was pitching, they actually forfeited the game before it even started.
There are so many things racing through my head and so many curse words that I would like to scream at the parents and Coaches of the Youth Baseball League of New Haven, and I almost don't even know where to begin. I guess the first thing I should do is clarify for those that might think that I misread the story (or are hoping that I misread the story) that these parents and coaches do not claim that the lad is too old (ala Danny Almonte) or that he can't control his heat (ie they don't think he's going to hurt one of their kids), they just think he is too good. And so they made a rule saying he can't pitch. This rule is actually frightening. We are actually going to punish a kid for being too good? This is like communism on the Little League Field. He's too good, the other kids need to catch up, maybe if we sit him for a couple of years things will be fair again. Has it really come to this? What sort of message are you sending this young man...."don't be too good, or we will publicly humiliate you and shut down the entire league because you want to pitch. All of your friends will hate you because they won't be able to play as long as you play. We are going to shut down the Little League and it's going to be all your fault." If this kid quits baseball tomorrow, I wouldn't blame him.
But as bad as this rule is by itself, I am almost more horrified by the coaches and parents who forfeited their game last week when they saw the kid was pitching. I wasn't there, but a conversation had to take place where the coaches of the team explained to their players that they wouldn't be playing. I wasn't there, but I can imagine the conversation now. "Alright boys, we are going to pack up our shit and storm off the field. You see, they are pitching that little dude over there, and he is waaaay better than any of you. In fact, he is so much better than you that none of you even have a chance. He is going to get all of you out and as a result, we aren't even going to try. We are going to cut our losses." When the going get tough, the pussies get going (into their cars and back home). I'm only 20 years old and it seems to be a bit early to be petrified about the next generation, but with morons like these parents bringing up the kids...I think it might be time to worry....

Metaphorically Getting Screwed with our Pants On

Going to a sports game is a rip-off. It just is. The unfortunate reality of modern professional sport is that across the board, Joe Six Pack is being priced out of the market and this sucks for a number of reasons, almost all of which are obvious to anyone with a brain. But this isn’t changing. For better or for worse (fine, for worse), professional sports is big business and more and more owners see their teams as a way to make money instead of a fun way to spend their money. It sucks, but it is. Beer isn’t going to get any cheaper (which really, really sucks) and Drayton McClain is not going to stop trying to cut costs by firing scouts and opting not to sign a year’s worth of draft picks (if I could punch the cheap son of a bitch…). I have accepted these things to be the difficult to swallow but unchangeable “way it is.” But I’ve got to ask, if owners are going to so blatantly screw us 99% of the time, could they kindly be a bit less blatant about metaphorically screwing us with our pants on.

It’s hard to imagine anything more ridiculous and insulting than requiring fans to pay a fee just so that they can have the opportunity to purchase season tickets every year. To a certain degree, Houston’s decision to require ticket holders to purchase a PSL is understandable. As an expansion franchise, the team had no previous season ticket holders, and market demand for the tickets was so great that people were falling all over one another to get onto the season ticket waiting list. By charging a rather ridiculous sum for the rights to the season tickets, the Texans effectively weeded out any fans not committed to retaining their tickets long term (the PSL is non-refundable. So if you pay the PSL and after two years, you decide not to re-up your tickets, you lose that PSL money). But the people in Dallas and New York should be ashamed of themselves.

The Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants are both set to move into new stadiums next season, and both are forcing any and all season ticket holders to buy the PSL. This is outlandish for any number of reasons. First of all, the price of the PSLs in both cities is pretty insulting. If you want to reserve a seat in the new Giants stadium, it will cost you in the neighborhood of $100,000. But here’s what is even more deplorable, this fee also applies to current season ticket holders. There are fans in both cities that have been spending their hard earned dollars on Season tickets for years. Some families have passed these tickets on from generation to generation but suddenly; they are going to be forced to give the tickets up because they can’t afford to pay for the damn PSL. So Joe in Dallas has been a Cowboys fan his whole life, and his family has had four season tickets on the 30 for the past 20 years. Despite the fact that the price of his tickets goes up every year, Joe has scrounged to find the money because he loves the Cowboys. After this season, Joe is going to get a letter in the mail from the Cowboys and it is going to thank him for all of the years he has been a loyal supporter and season ticket holder, and then remind him that if he wants to be able to keep buying his seats (which he’s had for twenty years), he will need to make out a check for $400,000.

I don’t know how Joe feels about this, but I want to say something for him and for all NFL fans everywhere: Go f--- yourself, (insert name of owner here).

Why watch the Olympics?

Want to know why I'm looking forward to the Olympics? Because China desperately wants things to go well sooo badly, but they will inevitably turn into the biggest fiasco of the last 30 years. Lets go through the list of things that have already gone wrong before the games have even started.

• After spending an unfathomable sum to produce the most extravagant and showy Opening Ceremonies ever, some South Korean news station managed to tape an entire dress rehearsal of the event and leaked it onto the Internet. This is pretty funny because China manages to keep it's entire population cut off from any information that paints the government in a negative light. They are the masters of deception and censorship, yet they couldn't ensure that their opening ceremonies didn't get taped by a local news cameraman.
• After promising everyone involved that the Chinese government would not interfere with the international press or their coverage of the event, reporters who arrived in Beijing found that they couldn't access most of the Internet. Oh, and the Chinese also informed NBC, which payed an ungodly sum for the right to cover the games, that they would be limiting the amount of hours NBC will be able to show live. Oh, and they wouldn't release the menus, and getting visas proved to be pretty tough....So reporters are definitely going to write nice things about the Chinese government
• The Chinese government tried to mask the visually unappealing parts of Beijing (ie those communities ravaged by poverty) by putting giant billboards in front of them...the press noticed...
  
• The torch relay was interrupted by massive protests in Tibet...which turned into riots. Needless to say, the torch relay ceased to be the story after people started looting.
• The athletes apparently were not joking about the masks. Athletes showed up in Beijing yesterday wearing black surgeons masks so they wouldn't have to breathe the "toxic" air. I'm sure the Chinese are going to be pumped about athletes running races in those bad boys so that the only thing anyone watching thinks about is how "toxic" China is
• On a more positive note: China's going to allow protests, except not really since you have to have a permit and you can only protest in a ten yard box located six hundred miles from any press

If these sorts of stories are any indication of things to come, you should tune in. You see, old habits die hard. That's why even though the Chinese are playing nice and allowing protest (sort of) and are resisting their desire to censor media coverage of the Games (sort of), I predict that we are going to see the Chinese government as it truly is at some point. I imagine the scenario playing out something like this: NBC will be doing one of it's live news broadcasts from Beijing and during the broadcast, some protester will get past security and run behind news anchor Brian Williams and hold up a sign that says something like "Free Tibet." The Chinese security officials at the scene will panic and their training will take over. The guards will tackle the protester and beat him senseless with Brian Williams and the entire NBC audience watching in horror. Then, those of us viewing at home will see the screen go black. Five minutes later, an NBC executive will come on air and announce that the Chinese government has confiscated all of NBC's video cameras and equipment, and that the government has arrested Brian Williams.
While it might not play out exactly this way, something entertaining is going to happen. This is why I will sit through all of the boring hours of coverage of obscure sports. Eventually, this thing is going to turn into a circus, baby! So come on China, we all know you don't give a damn about human rights or the West's perception of your government, so let your true colors shine. Let the games begin!

Ron Ron comes to H-Town

During his rookie season in Chicago, Ron Artest applied for a job at Circuit City so that he could get the employee discount. He once went to Pacers practice wearing a bathrobe. At the beginning of the 2004-05 season, Artest was suspended for three games for asking Rick Carlisle for 30 days off because he was "tired from promoting his R&B album." In 2003, he got three games for destroying a tv camera during a game at Madison Garden. The same year, he got four more games for getting into it with Pat Riley during a game against the Heat. In November of 2004, Artest pretty much started the "Malice at the Palace." The Comish suspended Artest for 73 games for that little hiccup. Last year, the League suspended Artest for the first 7 games of the season for his "legal problems" (a California judge sentenced him to 20 days in jail for domestic violence). And Artest has also been known to commit a flagrant foul from time to time.

Ok so he's had a few off the court problems....But before you judge Artest, you should know that after the 2005-2006 NBA season offered Artest offered to forge a salary in 06-07 if the Kings would use the money to renew then King's coach Rick Adelman contract with the team. Artest also made the same offer that same season to try and convince the Kings to resign his friend Bonzi Wells (I know what your thinking now. "wait, he and Bonzi are boys? Your talking about the same Bonzi that is a notorious underachiever/partyer/ waste of talent....ummm..." I had the exact same thought). So we know that he's generous. And he also....ok fine so the only thing that makes you feel positive about his character was offer to donate his salary for a year to two different people.

But in spite of all of this, Rockets fans should be extremely happy with this trade. In return for a marquee talent, the Rockets essentially gave up an old guy (Bobby Jackson), the 28th pick in this past draft (Daunte Greene), next years first round pick (which will be in the 20's assuming that the team will be at least as good as last year's squad), and around one million dollars cash. I like Daunte Greene, and he might turn out to be a good player in the league somewhere down the road. That said, even if Greene does end up as a solid player that sticks in the league, he is at least two or three years away from being ready to contribute. While there are certainly examples of players selected outside of the top 20 in the draft that became good players (see Manu, Tony Parker, Sam Cassell, Michael Finley), more often than not these players don't contribute in any substantive way. If you look at it from purely a basketball perspective, the bottom line on this trade is that the Rockets gave up very little to get an elite NBA player like Artest.
And make no mistake about it, when he isn't suspended or serving 20 days for domestic violence Ron Artest is an elite player. No matter what you think of Ron Artest the person, Ron Artest can play him some basketball. To say that Artest is a defensive stopper is to dramatically understate just how good he is: by the end of the game, whoever Ron Artest is guarding wants to cry. The 2004 NBA defensive player of the year suffocates whoever has the misfortune of drawing him as a matchup. If you don't believe me, go ask Kobe Bryant. At 6'7'', 248 lbs, Artest is big enough to shut down the best power forwards in the league, and he guards 2's and 3's at least as well, if not better. Artest also has the ability to score the ball and rebound. Last year he averaged more than 20 ppg for the Kings and he has averaged more than 15 points a game for his career.
Sure, this could blow up. Artest might commit a violent crime or start a brawl. And even if he doesn't do that, I can virtually guarantee you that he will say something stupid about one of his teammates or coaches after a loss or a bad game on several occasions this season. But ultimately, this is a deal you had to make. Ron Artest makes the Rockets a bona-fide title contender. While there is legitimate concern that there won't be enough shots for Yao, Tracy, and Ron, the Rockets now have three dynamic scorers. This means that if Yao or Tracy goes down, the Rockets don't immediatly become one dimensional. If he needs to, Artest can take over a game and he's as tough as nails. Despite what the 22 game winning streak suggests, Yao's injury reduced the Rocket's margin for error to virtually nothing. If everyone wasn't firing on all cylinders, the team was screwed. Now, if Yao or Tracy goes down again (and one of them will), the team will have two scorers that can create their own points. What all of this basically means is that on nights when the jumpshots are not falling, the Rocket's will still be able to score points because of the ability of Yao, Tracy, and Artest to create points on their own.
On the defensive end, the addition of Artest makes the already potent Rockets defense that much better. If the Rockets need a stop late in a game, Adelman will send out Mcgrady, Artest, Battier, Chuck Hayes, and Joey Dorsey. If you score on this lineup, you will have earned it. Before the summer league squad headed to Vegas, I talked to Joey Dorsey for a while and during our conversation he told me that "ain't nobody going to be messing with the Yao man this year." With Artest, you get another guy who isn't afraid to go toe to toe with anyone (fan or player) who crosses him. with the likes of Artest and Dorsey around, the Rockets will quickly cease to be the soft, unphysical team that we have grown so accustomed to seeing over the past few seasons.
Worst case scenario is that Artest beats up a fan, and from my perspective that isn't so bad. The last time a Rocket player beat up a fan, it was Vernon Maxwell and the Rockets won a title. Whatever happens, it sure is going to be interesting.

Yet Another Reason to Dislike Women's Athletics

I hate women's sports with an unbridled passion that is hard for me to describe in words. Maybe it is sexism, however I think it's more likely that this hatred derives from a strong averson to things that are extremely boring.
However, as with all things, there are exceptions to my "I hate women's athletics" rule. For example, I enjoy watching Maria Sharipova because she happens to be really attractive (for those of you who are foaming at the mouth because my last comment was "sexually degrading to women" I would ask that you get a sense of humor and then think about whether or not Maria wants me to react just in the way I described above....see SI swimsuit edition with her in it/ look at what she's wearing the next time she plays a match). But seriously, I find many female Olympic sports to be legitimately entertaining (both summer and winter) and I have always enjoyed watching women's tennis (with the volume off so that their shrieks don't send me over the edge) and in particular, women's golf. The woman on the tennis and golf tours have serious game and it's fun as hell to watch them play. I will still watch Annika Sorenstam play when I come across her on television, and while I find Serena Williams to be unbelievably annoying, I will watch any match between the Williams sisters. Before last week, I would have also said that I found Michelle Wie's game to be pretty intriguing.
I'm a golf person so you don't have to explain to me that Michelle hasn't done jack sh-- to deserve any of our attention on a regular basis, but the girl's potential is quite astounding. She literally bombs it like any one of the guys, and that greatly adds to her appeal. And while I thought it was a bit ridiculous for Michelle Wie to try to play PGA Tour events when she hadn't yet dominated (or even won) on the LPGA Tour and I had a bit of a problem with these tour events giving her sponsors exemptions, I was willing to wave off my reservations because Annika's trip to Colonial had gone so well a couple of years back and Wie seemed like she might turn into the real deal down the line. So until last week I didn't hate Michell Wie.
But now I do. Before last weeks little scorecard mishap, Wie had been terrible for two years. Riddled by a number of wrist injuries, Wie quite simply has been very bad for quite a while. And all the more irritating is that today when I looked at her oh so crappy record I realized that all of the crappy results that she has been posting have been in events which she didn't qualify for, but instead received sponsors exemptions into. Wie has done nothing to earn sponsors exemptions and by continually seeking them out and accepting them, she robs a deserving player of a spot in the tournament. But whatever, I can deal with that. And then of course last week Wie somehow forgot to sign her scorecard while in the scoring area (as a competitive golfer, I just want to emphasize the word somehow because it is truly an astoundingly amateurish error) after a very solid second round and she was disqualified after her third round (the error, made on day two, was discovered mid-round and officials decided to let her finish her round so she could possibly explain herself). Wie was playing her best golf in a while before making this humiliating error.
But we all make mistakes, and Wie sort of got her game together....maybe she would use this as a lesson and respond by resolving to grow up and act like the professional that Nike pays her like she is. But then, four days after her disqualification, Wie and her people announced that she would be accept a sponsors exemption to the b-list PGA tour event of the week, the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open. Are you freaking kidding? How can her parents, or her advisers, or whoever is responsible for advising this dumbass not pull her aside and scream at her "Michelle you've been shooting in the 80's semi-regularly on the LPGA tour for almost a year and a half, and last week you finally showed signs of getting your act together only to make a mistake that is rarely made in the 9-11 year old age bracket of a junior golf tournament. You cannot go play this event. you will look like a fool....you will miss the cut (she has all 8 times she's tried to PGA Tour) or worse yet, you could pass out from heat exhaustion and have to be carried off the course on a stretcher like you had to be when you tried this nonsense in 2006. I will not allow you to go play this tournament." How does someone not tell her this? Doesn't anyone care about this girl?
Watching Michelle Wie for the past three years has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I will watch this weekend (actually, just Thursday and Friday since she won't make it to the weekend) but for all of the wrong reasons: I will be watching to see her fall flat on her face, and she will. Annika Sorenstam made a sexist like me think it was pretty badass that the girls could play with the boys and hold their own. Michelle Wie is single handedly undoing all of the good that Annika did. If Michelle was smart, she would ask one of the girls on the LPGA tour that is for real (and there are a number of them) to go play in her place, for the good of women's sports. It would save her a lot of humiliation, and seeing a girl with some game out there (as I said, there are like six that could hold their own at this event...Wie just ain't one of them) would remind a schmuck like me that the girls can play ball too.

Cheering for Ted Thompson

When the hell did the text message become a legitimate form of communication? I'm not saying that I don't text all the time, it's a very useful tool to avoid actual conversations, however I was still under the impression that text messaging was still firmly entrenched (along with instant messaging) in the catagory of illegitimate ways to communicate certain "important" or "serious" things. What I mean is that on the off chance that I was in a position to ask a girl on a date, it would be pathetic for me to do so via text message. Similarly, if I had a girlfriend (I know, a laughably impossible hypothetical but play along) I would not break up with her over a text message. If my friend died, I would not send his Mother a "Andrew's dead, sorry for your loss" text. Even as a member of a generation that will do anything to avoid actually having to speak to a person on the phone or even worse, in person, I know that there are certain things you just have to do either over the phone or in person.

The reports of Brett Favre's "comeback" are completely destroying my assumptions about the text message. What the hell am I talking about? If you have kept up with the story (and if you watch Sportscenter these days, it would be hard not to keep up with it since it seems to be their lead every other bloody night) you know that almost all of the stories are based on a text message in some substantive way.

When the story first broke, every member of the Favre family (ok, I don't know that for a fact. He's from Mississippi so he could have like twelve brothers and sisters, but alot of members of the family) went on every talk show that would have them on (so basically all of them) to talk about whether they thought their brother (or cousin, or nephew, grandson, friend from preschool, guy they once met at the deli in Wichita, etc) would come back to play again or not. Seriously, it seemed like everyone Brett Favre has any connection to ("One time I parked next to him at Wal-Mart, and he said hello...and from that experience I feel confident in saying that I am confident that he will be wearing a Packer uniform come September") commented about whether Favre would play. The only person that we did not hear from seemed to be Favre himself. But after giving his family a chance to be famous for about nine hours and feel wanted, Favre finally broke the silence...well sort of. He sent a text message to some newspaper in Wisconsin that apparently simply called all of the "comeback" speculation "rumors."

That he sent a text message to a newspaper outlet as a means of "commenting" on a story is strange enough, but what's even stranger is that the paper reported Favre's "comment" (a short text message that called the speculation a "rumor") and every media outlet in the country immediately picked the story up. Sportscenter led with the story. Maybe it's just me being resistant to new technology, but I don't think that's likely since I communicate via text message as much as possible. Regardless, I am of the opinion that newspapers should not be reporting five word text messages as news. How does the paper in fact know that Brett's brother or Mother isn't sending the message? And even if he did send it, why the hell won't he just comment for real. It's an outrage. Ok, it's not an outrage, but there isn't a lot to write about this week. But this story gets better.

Thompson apparently responded to But this interminable story took one more fun turn a few days later when the media caught wind of a "conversation" that Ted Thompson and Brett Favre had via text. The report goes that Favre contacted Thompson claiming that the two needed to talk. Here's where the story getsFavre's request with a text that simply said the two would have to talk later because Thompson was "on vacation." This story almost makes me want to reverse my previous position and instead encourage the reporting of texts in the news. Try and wrap your mind around this: rather than call his general manager to tell him that he was kidding all of last season and in the press conference when he tearfully announced his retirement, Favre shoots his general manager a text simply stating that we need to talk. If that doesn't boggle your mind, Thompson's response will. Fully understanding that "we need to talk" really means "we need to talk because I pretty much changed my mind and I am about to give you the impossible decision of telling me, Brett Favre....the Brett Favre, that I cannot come back and play for my team and in doing so making yourself enemy number one of everyone who loves me (and trust me when I tell you that everyone loves me) or taking me back and by doing so forcing you to totally retool the roster you built assuming you could spend the $16 million that you now owe me on other players.

So, Ted gets this message, and as I said, he's no idiot so he knows what it means...and how does he respond? Thompson texts #4 back, informing the legend that he is "on vacation" and that the two will have to "talk later." I would pay all of the money in my wallet right now (six one dollar bills) if I could see a video of Favre's reaction upon receiving this text message. I think it's safe to assume that Brett has probably enjoyed pretty much whatever luxuries that the franchise could possibly afford him, one of them probably being that when he talks the execs drop everything they are doing and listen. But Ted, it appears, finally had enough of Favre's bs and so he just basically told the franchise to take a number and wait in line. I don't know how this is going to turn out, but I am cheering for Ted Thompson because he just told the needy, whiny girlfriend to shove it, andI am of the opinion that men should always cheer for other men who have the courage to do such things. I don't know what happens next, but since all professionalism has apparently been thrown out the window by both parties and now anything can be done by text, I hope that the next Favre story we get is that Thompson sent Favre a polite text informing the veteran that after deliberating, the Packers are "going 2 move on." Go Ted Thompson.