- 01:56 PM
- 12/21/24
| Member since: | November 08, 2007 |
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| Last visit: | August 03, 2008 |
Monkeyhawk has posted 0 links and 22 comments to SportsFilter and 0 links and 0 comments to the Locker Room.
I always kinda liked Sal. But when he was with the Kansas City Roylz he was never more than the chubby back-up catcher who seemed to handle pitchers well and played gutsy baseball on the few times he got on base. He shoulda eaten less in Kansas City (but it's hard to avoid Gorozo's Italian food and all that lovely barbecue). He was, and is, a marginal professional ballplayer. Did others' steroid use hurt him? Yeah, probably. But if Sal had trimmed down to maybe 20% less body fat, he might have impressed more GMs. This is the kind of bathos the Reader's Digest wallows in. As Henry David Thoreau noted, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Coulda, woulda, shoulda. I suspect Sal Fasanco might have a solid career in baseball as a coach or even a manager. He obviously loves the game. He knows pitchers and is a positive force in the clubhouse. And I suspect the Reader's Digest writer chose to write a "sad, likable, failure" piece and made it come off that Sal obsesses over the juiced-up guys who got to the Bigs better than he did. I hope this isn't Sal Fasano's legacy. He deserves better.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 09:21 AM on July 25, 2008
The NBA is expanding into cities Greyhound buses don't go. At least they're making sense by not taking the SuperSonics nickname. I mean, what better name for a team from the coastal desert of California than "Lakers?" And we all like to go to those old smoky bistros to hear good ol' authentic Utah jazz, don't we? I wonder what this portends for Okies vis a vis the other, dominant big-time professional franchise in town, the Sooners. Maybe they sense the glory days of OU football are behind them. But unless the OKC nee SuperSonics get a lot better, they'll likely continue to be a lottery team each season around the time the Sooners lose another Bluebonnet Bowl. In a few years, this NBA franchise will return to the league's roots and move to Rochester.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 05:14 AM on July 05, 2008
A long time ago I decided to go to Arrowhead for the tail-gating then go home and watch the game on TV. Seems like I was always sitting behind the WOOO! people. You know, the guy with too much beer whose only purpose in life is to scream WOOO! after every play and high-five all around him. Standing at a sports event always struck me as odd herd behavior anyway. If everyone stayed seated, everyone would see exactly the same thing that you see when everyone stands up. Except for short people, kids, the less mobile... Like most silly ideas, this Code of Conduct probably has (or, at some point) some good intentions, but it's not going to significantly change the fan experience at Arrowhead.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 08:55 AM on July 02, 2008
Maybe, "hawkguy" -- But going for sushi in Johnson County Kansas sounds a lot like going to San Diego for barbecue.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 02:20 PM on April 24, 2008
"steelergirl" -- Where do ya suppose a southern Califonia kid goes for sushi in Kansas City?
posted by Monkeyhawk at 02:09 PM on April 24, 2008
I don't have much of a clue about Nashville, but I've always wondered what it's like for pro football players who are forced to live in Green Bay or Charlotte or Jacksonville or other marginally-backwater towns. Yeah, you're a big fish in a small town, but just where was Pac Man supposed to find entertainment in Nashville? An Amy Grant concert? Dallas is big enough to offer diversified entertainment. Oakland always was a rough town, from longshoremen to Hell's Angels to the 70s-era Raiders. "Felonies start after the third death," an' all that... Would the Bengals have as many discipline problems if they weren't, ya know, located in uber-Kentucky? Part of what put Joe Namath in the Hall of Fame was this Pennsylvania kid, by way of Alabama, was perfectly suited for NYC in the 60s. San Francisco was a perfect (albeit ironic) match for 39-year-old virgin Steve Young, since the a large portion of the fan base could share his never-been-naked-with-a-girl persona. Carl Peterson decided Jared Allen just "wasn't a good fit for Kansas City." Not for the Chiefs. Not for making sacks or winning football games... but for the "city." Maybe he's right. Three high-profile DUIs might do that. As for Dallas? Remember the "North Dallas Forty" Cowboys? The "Semi-Tough" Cowboys? Pac-Man will fit right in.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 01:30 PM on April 24, 2008
I didn't know Australian Rules Football had any rules.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 11:48 AM on April 17, 2008
Cut me and I bleed Crimson and Blue. The game came down to poise and I give that credit to Bill Self. Calipari lost control of the game and lost control of his team. Forget sitting on two times-out with ten seconds to go. Forget not getting the foul on Sharron Collins. Memphis was whupped at the end of regulation. You could see it in their eyes. Both teams had five minutes to win it in OT. Calipari lost it before the overtime tip-off.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 01:14 PM on April 08, 2008
A hundred thousand people don't go to the Daytona 500 to watch "an engineering competition." That's Liz Clarke's argument. Instead of personalities -- Dale, Rusty, Jimmy Johnson... NASCAR has turned into a bunch of antronaut-vanilla technicians programmed to recite all their car's sponsors. The only reason we watch NASCAR is because it's a dangerous sport. I'll never be able to dunk a basketball. I'm not only small, but I'm slow so most stadium sports aren't my ticket to superstardom. But hell, I can DRIVE a car! The only-est reason we go to car races is because it's a dangerous enterprise. It's a tried and true meme about how motor racing helped create better automotive technolgies -- from the rear-view mirror at Indy to the disk brake from Le Mans, the seat belt, the roll cage..... But a hundred thousand people show up in the coliseum every weekend to watch gladiators literally put their lives on the line. It's a blood sport. Like boxing. The COT rules are the latest version of the Marquise of Queensbury's rules; another subparagraph about what can stuff the boxing glove. Maybe we as a species need this s#it. I dunno. And without rehashing all the cliches about how football is a metaphor for war; "...the playing fields of Eton;" and all that. Something we seek in sports is ultimately rooted in our need to dominate an opponent. And you can't get more dominated than dead.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 11:20 AM on April 06, 2008
Part of it us how the sport is reported. How many more times does TV show wrecks than a moment of skilled driving in the Number Four corner? Remember that NASCAR is a santiziized version of an original American blood sport: moonshinin'in'. The basis of this game is "How much would it take to get you into this motor vehicle and risk your neck?" There's an incredible, albeit limited, skill-set required to drive a state-of-the-art funny car down an NHRA track. But the only reason it's a spectator sport is that the funny car might blow up some day. No. Nobody goes to the horse races just to see an entry break down. But what are the days at the track when people tell their stories? "I *SAW* that wreck!!!" is a badge of being an authentic NASCAR fan. Not "I saw that pit stop!" or "I *SAW* that drafting!" We go there for the wrecks.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 11:55 PM on April 05, 2008
I really don't want to sound preachy... And I'm totally agnostic on the "social implications" or that crap... But can we admit we go to NASCAR or the Indy 500 or the local dirt track... we're always there with the knowledge there might be an horrific crash. And we're okay with that. I got drunk in a motel bar in Dodge City a few years ago with a few professional bull riders. I don't think there's a harder way on the planet to be a professional athlete than to be a professional bull rider. For one thing. Half the crowd is rooting for the bull. Here's a link to Joe Poznanski's blog with an interview with Liz Clarke about her new NASCAR book. http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/
posted by Monkeyhawk at 11:39 PM on April 05, 2008
One of the aspects of baseball I dearly love is how ballparks shape teams and the game. I love that they're gonna play some games in the Coliseum. I was a kid when Charlie O. Finley tried to build his "Pennant Porch" in Kansas City's old Municipal Stadium; to match the right field porch in old Yankee Stadium. I don't remember where Bobby Thompson's home run landed, but it was in the Polo Grounds and might have been a long fly ball in, say, Cleveland. I love how people can still debate how the numbers might have changed if Ted Williams had played his home games in Yankee Stadium and DiMagio had hit in Fenway. The new pseudo-old parks appeal to me by creating flukes in the outfield walls, but nothing's quite as charming as the old coot in Washington who refused to sell his house so Griffith Stadium had that notch in center field. Houston's pseudo-old ballpark has that rise in center field that echoes Crosley Field's earth ramp caused by a sewer pipe or something. Willy Mays' *catch* wouldn't be the same if it hadn't been at the Polo Grounds with its 500-foot dead-center fence. Bucky (F*ckin') Dent would have hit a pop fly in any other ballpark. When I was in high school, we played football against a team that had a 95-yard field... and there were trees growing in one of the end zones. I sometimes wish the NFL had a tree or two on some team's field. A field with personality.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 05:09 PM on March 26, 2008
Instead of Gatoraid... Perhaps the kids should've tried to throw a bucket of chicken on Mangino. Just to see if any pieces hit the ground. ;-)
posted by Monkeyhawk at 09:10 PM on January 04, 2008
See, here's the problem I have -- sitting here in the middle of the United States of America -- with soccer. Just what influence does the *coach* have on any game. He can substitute, or not. He can tell his team to "go Go GO!" But when it gets on the pitch, ... WHAT?! A baseball manager can call for a squeeze play. An NFL coach can decide on a double-reverse. Just what is the in-game basis for any soccer team's coach? I admit. I don't understand a lot of the nuances of the game, but I've seen a bunch of 'em and it still seems to me that it's up to the players on the field that respond to the situations in front of them. For the life of me I can't figure out how a soccer coach has anymore credibility in any soccer game than, say, a referee in professional wrestling.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 08:58 PM on November 24, 2007
NBA Trademarks 6 Possible names for Oklahoma's team...
How about the Oklahoma Flattened Armadillos in the Middle of the Highway? (After the Oklahoma state animal)