61*. Bad News Bears. Field of Dreams. The Rookie. Bull Durham. Fever Pitch. Major League. Hardball. The Sandlot. Angels in the Outfield. Bang the Drum Slowly. Pride of the Yankees. There’s just something about baseball movies that gets to people. Maybe it all stems from pleasant experiences at a ballpark itself. The simple yet pleasant sound of a wooden bat cracking a ball for a base hit. The smell of the freshly primed grass ready for use. The unhurried, measured pace of the game, where no clock rushes any game to conclusion, no comeback running out on time. The roar of the crowd as a ball floats over the outfield stands. The taste of hot dogs, cracker jacks, and a cold beer to round out a sunny, summer afternoon. It all just seems so….American, doesn’t it?

Well, yeah. For now.

Read more »

Well, all the worry about the Penguins path to repeating may now be wicked away with your whiteout towel. In the NHL’s yearly Who’s-gonna-choke-first competition, the Devils and Capitals both decided they had enough hockey and called it a season after the first round. How convenient. The Penguins now have home-ice throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs and have been rid of the two teams they struggled against mightily this season without having to play them. Smooth skating right on back to Lord Stanley, no? Well, I dunno. They now take on the Montreal Canadiens and legions of Habs that live and die based on what Le Bleu-Blanc-et-Rouge do on the ice.

That worries me slightly. There are two very close friends of mine that follow hockey religiously. They both have season tickets and go to plenty of games. I texted them both immediately after former Penguin Dominic Moore popped the Habs’ second past Varlamov last night. The responses:

Friend 1: Chokers

Friend 2: We’re gonna sweep em’ I think. Malkin and Crosby [are] gonna twist Halak around, make him look foolish.

My response to the latter was: I hope but their ‘D’ did some serious work. Especially on Ovechkin. He was basically stuffed that entire first game.

I may be alone in this but there are a few things that concern me about this series: the Canadiens defense and Jaroslav Halak.

The Washington Capitals converted just over 25% of their power play chances during the regular season, the best in the league. Hal Gill, Andrei Markov, and the rest of La Sainte-Flanelle held the Capitals to just 3% on the PP over their seven-game series. The Capitals have one of the highest powered offenses…ever, and they were literally shut down in Games 1, 5, 6, and 7. Sure, Game 2, 3, and 4 the Caps put up some goals; six, five, and six, respectively. But the point is, the Habs knew when they had to shut shit down and did so when necessary. In fact, in the last three games of the series, Montreal gave up three goals total to a team that scored 318 goals in the regular season. Some will say that it wasn’t necessarily the Canadiens’ defense as much as it was the Capitals not being built for the playoffs. Maybe that’s true. But that argument is typically more concerned with defensive issues not an offense crumbling to dust…unless you’re Joe Thornton and the Sharks.

The Penguins converted 17% of their PP chances in the regular season. Through six eastern quarterfinals games against the Senators they were humming along at 25%.There seems to be a consensus that the Penguins are finally in playoff form and I would say I fall into that camp. But I am cautiously optimistic – not wild-eyed and cocksure. It just seems to me that there is a possibility of reverting to regular season form. That from wasn’t especially good.  Combine that with a team that looked like Japanese kamikazes when it came to protecting their net minder? I dunno. Speaking of…

Been beastin'

By all accounts, the Detroit Lions had a pretty good draft in 2010. Second overall pick Ndamukong Suh and Jahvid Best, especially, have people in the dirty D pretty excited about the future. Maybe a little too excited.

Said coach Jim Schwartz, about 30th overall pick Jahvid Best, the running back out of Cal: “Some people watch adult videos on their computer. I go to YouTube and watch Jahvid Best highlight clips. That’s what gets me going.”

Based on my expert knowledge on the city of Detroit as I’ve watched “8 Mile” six times, I’d say the next time Schwartz gets up to the mic to freestyle and starts with “Everybody from the 3-1-3, put yo muthafuckin’ hands up and follow me!” the response might be a bit muted.

Before 2007, Ryan Leaf was the posterboy for NFL draft busts. Drafted second overall in 1998, Leaf flamed out rather spectacularly over the course of the next four years, eventually landing at a coaching gig at West Texas A&M before being sentenced to ten years of probation in 2010 on seven counts of obtaining a controlled substance. The fact that 1998 first overall draft pick, Peyton Manning, had such a spectacular career made Leaf’s fall from grace all that more noticeable and stunning.

With JaMarcus Russell’s inevitable departure from the Oakland Raiders, let’s decide for once and for all: who’s worse - Ryan Leaf or JaMarcus Russell?

Read more »

There’s been a lot of buzz in the past day or so about Dez Bryant, former Oklahoma State Cowboy and current rookie wide receiver of the Dallas Cowboys, and his pre-draft interviews, particularly by Dolphins General Manager, Jeff Ireland (left in the picture).

Bryant, who was suspended for his senior year after violating a NCAA eligibility rule banning student athletes from talking to agents or their sponsors about marketing deals, came to the NFL draft amidst questions about his suspension, his relationship with agent Eugene Parker’s hit man Deoin Sanders, his lack of punctuality for practices and team meetings during his college career, and finally, his troubled childhood.

Read more »

Based on everything you know about JaMarcus Russell, after he personally witnessed the success (albeit minimal, but that’s how low the standards were) of Bruce Gradkowski in limited starts last year, the off-season acquisition of Kyle Boller, and the draft day trade for Jason Campbell, what did you really expect?

In the least shocking news I’ve heard in the past week, JaMarcus is reportedly tipping the scales at 300 pounds yet again this off-season. As a former first overall pick, JeMarcus has already pocketed a cool $36 million (seriously) for providing the Raiders with four years of service that includes 31 starts, a 52.1 completion percentage, 18 touchdowns versus 23 interceptions, and a 65.2 passer rating. Call me crazy, but I don’t think the Raiders are that far away from being a .500 ball club. With a capable defense, a decent running game, a generally weak AFC West, and fans that provide for one of the last true home field advantages in sports, the Raiders deserve better than Russell.

The Raiders would save $6.45 million by cutting Russell before the start of the season, and even though Tom “I’ll Punch Whoever I Want to” Cable insists that there will be a quarterback competition entering the 2010 season, there’s only one competition I’d give Russell a fighting chance in, and it involves guys named Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut.

I can’t explain it. The Pirates can’t explain it. Tim Neverett with his smooth, Bob Uecker-esque voice can’t explain it. The Milwaukee Brewers own the Pittsburgh Pirates and have for some time now. I’d imagine that if the Bucs bucked the odds and were 12-0 when Milwaukee came to town earlier this week, they still would have lost all three games. I don’t know if it’s the douchiness of Ryan Braun, the obesity of Prince Fielder, or the totally unwarranted and undeserved cockiness displayed by the Mediocres when they beat the Pirates, but it’s something, and the Mediocres certainly have it.

Who ate all the pies?

Here is the Pirates record against the Mediocres since 2007:

2007: 6-10

2008: 1-14

2009: 5-9

2010: 0-3 (thus far, Shooter)

And I’m sure you’re aware, the Bucs just dropped the first series by a combined score of 36-1, including a 20-0 ass-whoopin’ that rivaled the one-hitta-quitta delivered to Red’s face by Debo in Friday. I don’t know what we fans can do to reverse this shitbomb. Rocco Demaro, who hosts the Pirates postgame show on 104.7 (WPGB), has suggested boycotting all things Milwaukee. I say, why not? It can’t be that hard to do…not much good comes from Milwaukee. I mean, nobody really enjoys Beast Light anyway, right?

Yuck.

I would pay to see professional baseball players do this kind of thing. Can you imagine a Yankees-Red Sox dance-off during a rain delay? Giants-Dodgers? A bragging rights for the state Pirates-Phillies? An east coast vs. west coast Yankees-Angels? Yeah, I can get on board with that. In life, there’s a couple things I wish for:

1. That I was still in college.

2. That I could stop time while being in college.

3. That I could be in an epic dance-off.

4. That I could dance.

5. That I could play sports in college.

6. That I could play any sport, at any time in my life and not be cut from middle school junior varsity.

This video incorporates all six of those wishes. Now, if only they could get Jessica Alba involved somehow, my life wish list would be complete.

Self-explanatory.

A game worth vomiting for...

With such a long season, baseball is certainly a sport where emotion can be very painful for a fan.  You certainly do play to win the game, but it simply will not happen every time.  I mean, every team, from the Yankees down to the Royals, wins 60 games and loses 60 games every season, so why get all worked up in April about one baseball game…. Read more »

It’s not often we have multiple posts regarding the same story in one day, but this is just too good to pass-up. Unfortunately for Mr. Johnson, when you get pwned in real life in 2010, you get to relive said pwnage reapeatedly, at the hands of the Internet.

via The Sporting Blog

Since this is my first interaction with you, readers, I want to say this right off the bat: (pun intended)

I understand. I get it. I am in the same boat as you all. We each hold the distinct, yet unfortunate honor of being fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates have been bad for so long that I’ll bet no one noticed the silly use of the term ‘unfortunate honor’. I know what we’re dealing with. It’s been 17 frustrating years and in all likelihood we’re on our way to 18.

So, it is with this mutual respect for our timeless suffering that I ask that you take a step back, take a deep breath, and try, just once, to be logical about your complaints. I know we’ve been down the Trading-Major-League-Players-for-Prospects path before…but not in this capacity and not with an approach this well-thought out. There are a lot of great blogs out there that have dissected Neal Huntington’s trades, so I don’t plan on doing that here. My aim is to try to finally un-blur the  distinction between Neal Huntington/Bob Nutting’s  plan and the Dave Littlefield/Kevin McClatchy incompetency show,  because it seems that few people here in the great city of Pittsburgh can tell the difference when the  gap is wider than Michael Strahan’s teeth.

Read more »

James Johnson seems like an all right dude. But when you’re one on one with the King and you get no weak side help from your teammates, this can happen.

The plan was simple. While visiting a friend for the weekend in the city Pittsburghers call “The Mistake by the Lake” even though it’s just a smaller version of Pittsburgh which contains the same relatively high percentage of overweight whites with a false sense of entitlement and where the term “blue-collar” somehow got turned into a politically correct way to say “dumb,” I was going to chronicle my Cleveland experience during the Cavaliers first round playoff game against the Chicago Bulls.

Here’s what happened:

Read more »

I have a new favorite writer from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. His name is Eric Heyl and he has created a glossary of sorts to tidily summarize the curious case of Benjamin “I’mma undo her buttons” Roethlisberger.

An example:

• Chivalry (noun): A display of gallantry toward women. (e.g. “That bimbo was so wasted after doing all of those tequila shots that I thought she might fall and hit her head. So in an act of chivalry, I followed her into the bathroom to make sure she was OK.”)

I think Mr. Heyl would like our Roethlisbergian 2010 NFL Mock Draft. As a wise man once said, that’s gold.