I saw a commercial today that showed we’re only a few small steps away from ESPN 8: The Ocho (as seen in the movie Dodgeball). ESPN is changing the name of one of their sister networks, ESPN360, to ESPN 3. While they already have quite the stable of networks with various names , I thought it funny that ESPN would continue the upward count in their name. At the rate they’re going, we’re only a hop, skip and a jump from watching family table tennis tournaments.
Megan and I just got home from our first Minnesota Wild hockey game. It was really fun (especially since they won, 2-1). I can now confirm what I’ve always heard about the X; there are no bad seats in the building. We sat in the top row on the second level and it was great. The nice thing about the last row is you’re sitting on bar chairs at a small bar that runs around the length of the second level.
We saw everything that makes hockey great: goals scored, nice passing, good defense and fighting. We also heard one of my favorite sounds: the horn when the Wild scored.
I’ll get this out of the way at the top to avoid any backlash: the Twins did their best to lose the game on Friday night. They blew a two-run lead and an early base-running mistake cost them a run. However, that is not an excuse for the horrible call Phil Cuzzi made on what should have been a double for Joe Mauer in the 11th inning.
I can live with being mad at Joe Nathan for blowing the save and Carlos Gomez for making a stupid play, but the call Cuzzi made was inexcusable. He was exactly where he needed to be: mere feet from where the ball landed. Yet, he failed to see the ball hit the fielder’s glove and then land in fair territory. He had one job to do and he failed miserably on what should have been an easy call. I say fire Phil Cuzzi and bring on instant replay. This sort of “human element” that replay detractors seem to romanticize is moronic.
In a few short years, I’ve become a fantasy football addict. I’m not to the point of playing in 13 leagues at the same time, but I do invest a few hours every week doing research and making my team better (in addition to the nine hours of “research” I do every Sunday watching three games in a row). I just love football.
One of the many people I keep track of in the fantasy football world is Matthew Berry, aka the Talented Mr. Roto, who works for ESPN. I like him because he has good information, but also because he’s a bit strange. Here’s an excerpt from a recent article; it’s just one of the many random things that gets mixed into football talk.
When I first got to ESPN, I was told I could subscribe to three magazines the company would pay for. I chose US Weekly and People as two of them. They were like … uh, really? And I was like … yeah. Absolutely. And they said … most people order, like, sports magazines and stuff. And I said, “Yeah, here’s the deal. I know sports. But pop culture — that takes research, baby!” I had to justifty to my employer, in writing, why I wanted a bunch of chick mags. Today, I feel completly justified.
The rest of the article can be found here. Perhaps this is what you get from years of staring at and analyzing statistics.
Tonight was the debut of the 2008 version of the Hope II softball team, and what a night it was! I had a great night hitting, despite not swinging a bat prior to the first pitch. The entire team had a great night hitting. After adjusting to playing under the lights, the fielding was pretty good as well. We even came away with two wins (sadly, the same number of wins we had all last season). Despite the cold temps (low- to mid-30’s), much fun was had by one and all. Here’s to a great season.
The Burlingames 